The latest 12 blogs.

Previous 20 blogs.

                                      I can't be hypnotised. 

                                  She couldn't 'wake up'.

My experience of Reflective Repatterning and Theta healing.

                      5 things you didn't know about stress.

How does hypnotherapy work?

                                      DalaiLama  >Art Giser >M'reen

Are miracles inconsistent with science and logic?

                                        

                                          A brief history of health.

Will Smith Verses Tony Robbins.

        7 reasons money is important for awakening souls.

Does my bum look big in this?

                                                                    Depressed smiles.

Why are we afraid of spiders?

Why Are We Afraid Of Spiders?

photo credit: Coming for me next? Pierre J, CC BY-NC-SA

I have personal interest in arachnophobia – the fear of spiders – because I am a spider expert, 

but also because my daughter has it. She is not alone. According to the American Psychiatric Association, phobias affect more than one in ten people in the US, and of those individuals, 

up to 40% of phobias are related to bugs (including spiders), mice, snake and bats.

There are clearly a lot of arachnophobes. But do they know why they fear spiders? 

Can they do something to control those fears?  Chris Buddle

Once bitten twice shy?

Psychologists believe that one reason why people fear spiders 

is because of some direct experience with the arachnids instilled that fear in them. 

This is known as the “conditioning” view of arachnophobia.

​

In 1991, Graham Davey at City University London ran a study to understand more about this view. 

He interviewed 118 undergraduate students about their fears of spiders. 

About 75% of the people sampled were either mildly or severely afraid of spiders. Of those most were female. (This gender bias in arachnophobia has been supported subsequent research.)

There was also an effect from family. Those people fearful of spiders reported having 

a family member with similar fears, but the study was unable to separate genetic factors 

from environmental ones. 

What is surprising is that Davey found that archanophobia wasn’t the result of specific “spider trauma”, which means there was no support for the conditioning view.

So what makes spiders so terrifying? Surely it must be the threat of being bitten? 

Davey looked at that issue too. It turns out that it is not so much a fear of being bitten, 

but rather the seemingly erratic movements of spiders, and their “legginess”. 

Davey said: Animal fears may represent a functionally distinct set of adaptive responses 

which have been selected for during the evolutionary history of the human species.

Graham Davey/Anxiety Research

A criticism of Davey’s work is that perhaps “conditioning” cannot be so easily dismissed, 

because the spider-trauma event may have occurred during childhood, and a specific spider event may be buried deep within memories. 

In 1997, Peter Muris and his colleagues at the University of Maastricht tried to looked into this.

Not surprisingly, if you give kids a list of things that might be scary for them, the vast majority check off things like not breathing, getting hit by a car, bombs, fire or burglars as quite important. Interestingly, if you give them a free option to tell researchers what sorts of things they fear the most, both boys and girls report “spiders” as their top fear (the second fear is being kidnapped, 

third is predators and fourth is the dark).

This is surprising. Of all the things kids might report, they list spiders as the number one fear. 

So in contrast to Davey’s work, Muris finds that the kids that were most fearful of spiders could relate that fear to specific events. Perhaps conditioning is the pathway to arachnophobia.

 Muris et al/Behaviour Research and Therapy

Genes or environment?

But before we can be sure that conditioning is the main reason, we need to ensure that genetic factors are not involved too. In 2003, John Hettema at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioural Genetics and his colleagues conducted twin studies to tease apart genetic factors.

Identical twins have identical DNA but tend to live in different environments in adult life, which allows researchers to find out how genes affect behaviour. When Hettema recorded the responses of twins to “fear-relevant” images (spiders, snakes) compared to “fear-irrelevant” images (circles, triangles). Statistical analysis of the results revealed that genetic influences were “substantial”, which means that arachnophobia is inheritable. You need not necessarily experience spiders to be fearful of them.

 Peacock spider Jurgen Otto, CC BY-NC-ND

Scare tactics

So, to my dissatisfaction, arachnophobia is here to stay. But there may be a simple technique 

to reduce the fear these bugs cause. In 2013, Paul Siegel at the State University of New York 

and his colleague published a study that helped volunteers lessen their arachnophobia.

They first split the volunteers into phobic and non-phobic groups, based on simple spider-fear tests. After a week of doing these tests, both the groups were then given exposed to images of flowers 

or spiders, but the exposure was for such a very short time.

The idea was that people can’t recognise the images consciously, but it has an effect 

on their subconscious. When the spider-fear tests were carried out on both these groups again, those who feared spiders had become less afraid.

While other general conclusions are hard to draw from the literature on arachnophobia, arachnologists like me should rejoice at the results of Hettema’s study. 

If nothing else, at least sharing images of spiders may help reduce arahnophobia.

Chris Buddle does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

by Taboola

Sponsored Content

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/why-are-we-afraid-spiders

Actually, I've found spider phobia to be easy to work with whereas other phobias 

have posed quite a challenge. The peacock spider is a magnificent specimen. M'reen

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:

http://www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com this takes advantage of the experience and expertise of others. 

www.turbochargedreading.blogspot.com      describes the steps to reading in the way your mind prefers.

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com         just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

Depressed smiles

Fun at Eli UK. Photo taken by M'reen

Factor in some FUN

It is really good to have 2-5 minutes a number of times a day for R&R,

and I don’t mean a cup of tea or a magazine, those these are to be valued.

Pray, Meditate, Self-hypnosis, Exercise – all the care-for-you stuff

you don’t care enough to do for yourself.

Close the curtains and Dance, Karaoke, Act out a Fantasy.

Have a lot of silly, fun, vibrant 5 minutes joy ideas in a box

and pick one out and enjoy.

Other examples are:

If you close your eyes and look up into your head and part your teeth a little 

and let your tongue float freely to the top of your mouth.

Then your body thinks, ‘oh, I’m supposed to be asleep’,

maintain this and in no time at all you probably will be relaxed.

It’s impossible to be depressed and whistle – or so they say.

So, it you feel silly walking along whistling, just whistle in your mind

and if you are like me you’ll end up laughing in your mind.

Depressed people tend to look down at all the yuk on the pavement,

try looking up, keep checking the tree tops, the ridge tiles on the roof

and you’ll find some amazing chimney pots and garret bedrooms,

imagine a story where you  bring light to someone’s life –

maybe a child who looks just like you.

Physically, as you look at the skyline you allow a little sunlight into your body. 

The sunlight on a grey day is really quite valuable.

Imagine that you are singing in the rain; find someone passing by

or in your imagination to send that fun to someone and let it ricochet back to you.

How many fun things are you going to allow yourself to have today?

Divide the inside of a cupboard door into seven columns or clouds and name one for each day. 

Each time you have an enjoyable experience then add a star. 

And if one day is falling behind, then next week you can plan on having a stellar day.

Remember you can choose to be miserable for 24 hours, 

or you can let a ray of sunshine break through, just a little tiny one, find a real happy memory 

that does not bring on a wave of misery and draw a smiley face and then a little distance away 

draw sad face that represents now, and with coloured pens all held together in your fist or with colour in your imagination, keep linking the two together with a rainbow until the sad face is all covered over.

People seem to find it easy to love everyone and their uncle, 

but when it comes to themselves they seem a little short of the milk of human kindness.

For a time period, and it may become a pleasant habit, give yourself a gift.

A gift of noticing the sunshine, a cloud formation, a flower in someone’s garden; 

now, either move your hand to your heart and incorporate the gift into yourself

or imagine this happening and smile inside yourself and say ‘thank-you.’

Now that you can allow nice things for yourself, I wonder of you can imagine that 

during a trip you are going to give yourself such 10 gifts, and find them!

Appreciating how lovely if feels to receive a spontaneous gift, why not give to others; 

some understand this as ‘shooting prayers’ or love or happiness.

As you walk pass someone think, ‘enjoy your shopping, your children etc.’, 

‘experience a little less pain’. One lady sent love to a harassed bar maid,

who turned to the giver and beamed her a beautiful smile before turning back to her stress. 

At a conference people were asked to send me love and the love of 300 people felt 

like champagne bubbles in my body and I giggled.

I read that if you catch someone’s eye and they smile at you,

that that someone is an angel just touching base. So, smile at strangers.

But the person who drops litter, who spits or is downright nasty?

It actually works if you just say to yourself, ‘peace be with you’.

For the lunatic on the road, try, ‘well, if you really have to hurt someone,

let it just be yourself.’

And speaking of angels, some call this the Cosmic Ordering Service; 

ask for the roundabout ahead to be clear, for a parking space to become available.

This always worked in the middle of Marbella, until someone pointed out

that some poor guy would have to leave his tapas just to vacate a parking place 

at precisely the right moment for me.

My 99% success rate became zero and stayed that way !!!!!

Finally, if you are feeling downright miserable then just have an exaggerated belly laugh, 

put your fist on you tummy and hahaha in as you pant out

And if you are like me you’ll feel so silly that you’ll end up laughing out loud.

You can TCR specialist and language dictionaries that are spontaneously accessed.

I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube 

How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

www.facebook.com/mreenhunt

www.pinterest.com/mreenhunt

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:

www.turbochargedreading.blogspot.com  

All aspects of regular, each-word reading and education.

Turbo Charged Reading uses these skills significantly faster

www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com             take advantage of business experience and expertise.

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com       just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

Does my bum look big in this?

The subconscious ‘but’ has been mentioned. I thought the following might be helpful.

M’reen: You may have noticed that I have used ‘but’ twice (in the article).

Before each ‘but’ there was a positive point and the ‘but’ killed that point dead.

So, as one client observed, “yes that dress looks nice but your bum looks big” is guaranteed to get him

into trouble. BUT, if he said, “that dress looks nice even though your bum is big” he can live to see another day. So, avoid ‘but’ like the plague and try changing the sequence of the comment:  

‘Even though your bum is big you look nice in that dress.’

“I’ll respect that you don’t want to but I won’t respect that you can’t.”

“I won’t respect that you can’t but I’ll respect that you don’t want to.”

Which feels best to you if it was a comment on your statement?

Having seen a post mentioning the subconscious 'but' I thought I'd post this - it's nothing very clever but 

if you've not seen it before it can make a huge difference to your life.

It's good for clients, too.      Look at this:
"I need to earn more BUT I'm not sure how I could ever do that..."
and compare it with this:
"I'm not sure how I'm going to do it BUT I'm going to earn more..."               

BUT is the mind's eraser. It erases everything that went before it...
so you might as well put the negative part before the BUT

and make sure that the last thing your mind accesses in the statement is what you WILL do, 

rather than why you can't.              

Think of it as 'but reversal' and it helps it stay in your mind.                         

On a similar subject, if you link "should" or "shouldn't" with 'and' instead of 'but',

you can easily make positive changes in your life.                                 

"I know I should get more exercise BUT I really don't have time..." lets you completely off the hook 

(been there, done that!)   

Whereas: "I know I should get more exercise AND..." doesn't easily allow you to negate 

the intent of what you've just stated.                            

'BUT' is a very powerful word it can help or hinder your progress in life

and do either just as effectively.            

Apologies if you're now thinking "Well, why on Earth did he post that? I already knew that!" - 

it's just that I know a lot of people forget it and it REALLY helped me to achieve the success 

that I have managed over the last few years. Terence               

I've used the 'yes...but' and the 'yes ...and'  as part of training that I run with teachers. 

I use it to show how the BUT simply closes the door to communication and the AND can open it. 

Its quite fun to see a room of people going through the YES ..AND after a YES >>BUT 

and hearing the laughter and excitement that can be generated.               

I have been getting clients to reframe in this way for some time now as a piece of homework, 

it's quite surprising how much habit resistance there is at the outset but at the end of a week 

they really can make changes without tears.

I tend to avoid shoulds and musts like the plague as they tend to be guilt trips imposed by others. 

Ask yourself, ‘what will happen if I don’t?’

Unfortunately I don’t have the author of the above so if you recognise this piece

please give me their name so that this piece can be appropriately credited.

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:

http://www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com     this takes advantage of the experience and expertise of others. 

www.turbochargedreading.blogspot.com    describes the steps to reading in the way your mind prefers.

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com       just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.                             The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

7 Reasons Money Is Important For Awakening Souls

In the article 21 Traits of an Awakening Soul, many commentators of the original article mentioned that they had difficulty with money. One of the main reasons they mentioned

is that Awakening Souls tend to see money as dirty, corrupt and useless.

Yet, this poor relationship with money brings a lot of suffering. 

Let’s explore 7 reasons why money is important for awakening souls. 

If you don’t value money in itself, you must at least value the outcome it brings into your life.

1. Money is power, and you cannot do good without power

Let’s face it. Money gives you access to resources and access to people. It allows you to get, 

have or achieve anything you want or anything you need, especially since you can always hire others to do what you can’t do on your own. If you want to help orphan children,

for example, perhaps you can help 2, 5 or even 10 children on your own,

but you will need money to give support on any significant scale.

Money is power, and is neither good nor bad. It’s what you do with it that makes it either good 

or bad, and you need it to have a significant positive impact in your community

or in the world. Also, here’s the reason charitable organizations fail to improve

the state of the world. They provide value out of donations, and can only do so much

until they run out of money. It is not scalable. If, however, they could solve specific problems 

while generating a profit at the same time, then it can be scaled and duplicated, 

potentially in every city around the world.

The only way a charitable organization can scale up to truly change the world is

by generating profit on the service it provides.

It would then become a consciousness-driven business.

2. Lack of money brings suffering

A poor relationship with money leads to accumulating debts and playing small, 

or perhaps even living with your parents. How does that feel to not be able to pay your bills?

How does it feel to not have autonomy and to depend on others?

How does it feel to play much smaller than what your soul is capable of?

How does it feel to not be able to invest in what you want to invest?

The lack of money brings stress, drains your energy and even isolate you because you can’t participate in many social activities. You want God to be in control of your life, but really, 

money is in control of your life, as every decision you make is based on the lack of money. 

And when money goes before God when it comes to making decisions 

(whether lack or greed), bad things happen.

God didn’t wait for water to be on sale before building the Grand Canyon.

The source consciousness doesn’t make decisions based on money.

3. You need money live the way you truly want

You have goals, dreams and desires, whether it’s to travel the world, have a luxurious home or help those in need. You cannot make those dreams a living breathing physical reality without money. Money allows you to free up your time. Money allows you to free up

your mind (if you are detached from it). Money allows you to free up your creativity.

If you had all the money in the world, and money wasn’t an issue, how would you want

to live your life? What would your days look like? How would you spend your vacations?

What would you eat? Where would you eat? Which car would you drive?

If you are connected to your higher spirit, you would get bored not contributing anything 

with your skills and talents, so what would you want to achieve with your life?

4. You need money to play a bigger game

With little money, there is only so much you can achieve or contribute into this world.

God didn’t create the Universe based on lack. Any lack or limitation is man-made.

Living an opulent life means opening up the flow of money flowing in and out of you,

to earn more, live more and spend more. As you spend more, you allow others to live

a higher quality of life, and you empower them to achieve more with their lives.

You are meant to enjoy a lifestyle that is not constrained by money.

You are also meant to achieve a greater purpose that is not constrained by money.

Yet, for both the lifestyle and purpose, you need access to resources and access to people

in a flexible and scalable way, and this is what money allows.

5. Society cannot thrive without money

There is an idea that has been flourishing in the minds of many Awakening Souls to create a moneyless society. Although the idea seems great, it really is coming from a dysfunctional place, cannot be implemented and leads to various problems. Here’s why.

The only alternatives are bartering, or giving freely. If you give freely, then you don’t have what you had anymore, and there is no way to scale that in any way. It would be like giving each other eggs without having any chicken; we would all starve sooner or later.

If you barter, what happens if the person owning the food doesn’t need what you have?

You starve.

From a more modern perspective, the main problem with bartering is that you are mostly limited to what you can produce with your own hands. What if you want a computer

that has highly-advanced components coming from 12 different countries, and each of these components required teams of thousands of people and years of research to produce? 

Nobody is going to produce that with their own hands, and it would be impossible

to have an iPhone through bartering. Someone has to produce it, and it requires

a very organized flow of resources between a wide range of individuals to accomplish. 

That’s what money allows.

From a more philosophical perspective, the desire for a moneyless society really is 

coming from a desire to not deal with money, and from a place of lack and scarcity.

Perhaps in the future it would be possible to live like in Star Trek without money, 

and for this to happen all the people involved first have to live from an abundance consciousness. Such a society cannot be created from the scarcity consciousness we currently live in.

6. Awakening Souls must create a new paradigm of life

The current paradigm of life and business has destroyed our planet, and perhaps you have

a bad relationship with power and money because of this. As Awakening Souls, it is our responsibility to create a new paradigm of life that is aligned with the spiritual laws of life. 

A system that is rooted in harmony with nature, harmony with each other, and abundance, 

where each individual can live at their full potential. Change happens in the consciousness first, 

and must then be applied into the physical world through action.

7. The Power of Money Has to Come Into Clean Hands

There are people who are hungry for power. There are others in power who are careless about 

the impact they have in the world. There are others who have a negative impact

on the environment because they are restrained by the laws of the system in which

they function. They are operating from human laws, not from spiritual laws.

The power of money has to flow into the hands of those who hold the power of source consciousness and who can bring the spiritual laws of life into the physical world, 

altering the way business is done and reshaping our system.

We’re at a transition point between an old paradigm and a new paradigm, and one of the major problems is that 95% of the money flows into the old paradigm, and the ecosystem

of the new consciousness paradigm has very little money flowing in it.

In order to truly change the world, money has to flow into the new paradigm,

and into your hands, so that you can do something different with it.

Finally, I would like to add this on a more structural side of things. You have to make

the distinction between the source consciousness money energy, and the paper bill

that represents it. The reason the world is so much in debt (to who?) is because money

is printed out of thin air by the central bank, who then charges interest. 

This means the money owed is increasingly greater than the amount of money in circulation.

This means it is impossible to ever pay it back, and this means the debts become

an increasing burden up to the point where it cannot be sustained anymore, and we’re getting to that point. This was done by design. The only solution is a regime change, followed by a change 

to the structure of the central banking system. There are also more millionaires than ever before, who learnt how to live from an abundance consciousness,

but this cannot solve the economic problems of the country.

The transfer of power happens in the mind and in the consciousness.

By owning the power of money in your own consciousness, instead of being a slave to it,

you will contribute to transfer the power into a new paradigm of reality.

Etienne Charland, Soul Foundation Architect

https://www.spiritualselftransformation.com/blog/conscious-business/wealth-energy/7-reasons-money-is-important-for-awakening-souls/

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:

www.ourmindminds.blogspot.com               this takes advantage of the experience and expertise of others. 

www.turbochargedreading.blogspot.com      describes the steps to reading in the way your mind prefers.

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com         just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”