Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Why do we practice The Practice?

One of the byproducts of our advanced Western lifestyle is the dramatic increase of information and the sheer volume of stimuli we are exposed to throughout the course of a day. Our nervous systems are bombarded by input that is expressed as fear, anxiety, obesity, stress and disease. Most of us have forgotten how to draw on our natural mechanism for self healing the body.

When we are able to elicit alpha brain waves, supported by certain postures and breathing techniques, we trigger the parasympathetic nervous system to release endorphins, a natural hormone that gives a sense of well being, openness and ease. Once this mechanism is engaged, a feedback loop is created that will continue to support the body’s natural inclination to rest and heal itself.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Invitation to -- practiceThePractice

The open conference call on August 16th, is approaching. Please feel free to share this with others. All are welcome and encouraged to attend this call to find out more about the Practice!

Here's what to expect:

First, join us in the conference call on August 16th, 6PM, PST and listen as we describe The Practice and the additional benefits of applying neurofeedback techniques with your personal experience.

Next, you must decide to commit to participate in The Practice for 8 weeks. During this time, you will learn about the naturally occurring bio-chemicals within your body, how these bio-chemicals both stimulate and regulate your system to reduce stress and create a healthier more balanced daily experience in life.

Your personal 'potential for transformation' is based on your body’s natural ability to balance and transform itself. Within you is everything you need to be successful in this course. We will help you to understand the natural processes of your body so you can realize a profound state of well being.

After considering your commitment carefully, if the Practice is right for you, please register for the 8 week course starting on August, 18, 2010. We look forward to beginning this journey of personal discovery with you!

Monday, July 5, 2010

Why is being in an Alpha brain wave state healthy for me?

Brainwave patterns are typically grouped into four different categories: Alpha, Beta, Theta and Delta. Each of these brainwave patterns is associated with various states of (feelings) mind. In the Consciousness Experiment, within the 8 week 'practiceThePractice' course, we are practicing eliciting Alpha brain waves.

Alpha Waves It is believed that many creative people are in Alpha state more of the time than others. Alpha waves are between 9 and 14 Hz and occur when the body is awake at rest, not asleep, and the eyes are closed. You may feel intellectual relaxation, deep relaxation or meditation when in Alpha. Alpha brainwave rhythms produce: warm hands and feet, peaceful feelings, a sense of well-being, improved academic performance, improved sleep, increased productivity in the workplace, reduced anxiety and improved immune functioning which counters the negative affects of Cortisol.

Alpha brain waves 'feel' a certain way in our experience. With the help of neurofeedback, you will learn how to find the 'feeling' of the Alpha brain waves. This feeling, may best be described as a feeling of transformational bliss. The ancients called this 'bliss' the Peace beyond understanding.

Beta Waves are fast, low amplitude waves of 15 to 30 times per second (Hz). Beta brainwave patterns are generated naturally when in an awake, focused and alert state of consciousness. In Beta we experience the stresses of our day-to-day activities. (e.g. Driving cars, shopping, paying bills, meeting deadlines.)

Theta Waves are between 4 and 8 Hz and are commonly referred to as the dream or "twilight" state. Memory development is enhanced in this state. In the Theta brainwave state, memory is improved, and access to unconscious material, sudden insight, free association and creative ideas is increased. Theta is associated with REM and dreaming states.

Delta Waves are observed when in a sleeping state. Delta waves are the slowest of brainwaves spanning from 1 to 3 Hz in frequency. As we fall asleep the dominant brainwave becomes Delta.

You will notice on the MindSet neurofeedback display, while somebody is an aroused state and exhibiting a beta brainwave pattern, there also exists in that person's brain a component of alpha, theta and delta, even though these may be present only at trace levels.

The Consciousness Experiment

Recent advances in neurofeedback technology has opened up exciting new possibilities. We can practice being in alpha brain waves for extended periods of time. Alpha brain wave states begin activating a neurochemical trigger. In the Practice we learn to 'park' the SNS (sympathetic nervous system) and activate the PSNS (parasympathetic nervous system) to release endorphins. Endorphins are the natural anti-dote to the stress hormone Cortisol.

This enables the practitioner to 'naturally' neurochemically rewire themselves entering into 'transformational bliss' - resulting in lower stress levels.

Prerequisites to Joining the Consciousness Community Experiment
(Commitment to daily Practice -- MindSet required)

Introductory -- 8 Week Practice The Practice Course (small group experiment)
Course begins, August 18th.

Advanced Course -- PracticeThePractice Invitation to participate in the Global Consciousness Experiment (large Global experiment) Enrollment date to be determined.

What are the STRESSORS that cause elevated Cortisol levels in my body?

These are a few of the daily modern 'normal' lifestyle stressors which cause stress hormones 'cortisol' to be chronically elevated.

Mortgage payments
Credit card bills
Project deadlines
Traffic jams
Past thoughts of stress events
Future thoughts of stress events

Family commitments... business commitments and many more.

...Which leads to Cortisol toxicity which causes dis-ease:

Alzheimer's, Lupus, Chronic fatigue, Fibromyalgia, Irritable bowel syndrome, Yeast infections, Autoimmune diseases, Chronic back pain, Obesity, Diabetes, Impotence, Dementia, Heart disease, Cancer, Aging, Depression....

The Cortisol Connection

What if I do nothing to lower the amount of Cortisol in my body?

“Cortisol can actually act as a signal to many immune-system cells to simply shut off and stop working. Immune cells shut off and die.”

The Cortisol Connection


“Chronic exposure to Cortisol causes the immune system to break down, thus reducing our ability to ward off infections and increasing our risk of many diseases.”

The Cortisol Connection

Sunday, July 4, 2010

What is Cortisol?

“Cortisol is a corticosteroid hormone or glucocorticoid produced by the adrenal cortex, that is part of the adrenal gland. It is usually referred to as the "stress hormone" as it is involved in response to stress and anxiety. It increases blood pressure and blood sugar, and reduces immune responses.”

Wikipedia

We have created a world in which we are chronically stressed!

“Human beings were simply not meant to carry around constant disturbances in our stress response (chronic stress); we were built to respond to stress quickly and then to have the stress hormones dissipate immediately (acute stress). When our bodies are exposed to wave after wave of stress (from our modern life styles), they begin to break down.”

The Cortisol Connection

What's the problem?

“In the U.S. 90 million cases of diseases with no known causes are reported each year.”

“5% to 20% of Americans will experience depression severe enough to warrant medication or therapy.”

“Just by thinking about stressful events, even if that event is highly unlikely to actually occur, our endocrine system is all in an uproar!”

“We create stress where none exists.”

The Cortisol Connection

Saturday, July 3, 2010

When I Practice, what is actually being transformed?

What is actually being transformed are the old stress memories that have been stored in neurochemical memory. The neurochemical state for transformation of consciousness is known by an ancient word called -- forgiveness.

Forgive -- to go back to that memory before it happened -- to give to yourself as before. Neuroscientists have discovered that there is a neurochemical basis for this act of Will we call 'forgiveness'.

This is what I discovered when I was alone in my cabin in 2007. I accidentally went into a deep alpha brain wave state and then released endorphins. Next, followed somatic release, tears, emotions. This is a natural healing mechanism in our bodies. It's not a mystery, nor should it be understood as mystical.

I was not afraid, many people shut down when they start feeling their pain. Over the 8 week Practice course we create a container of safety, of trust. Remember, this ability to release tension stored in neurochemical memory is a natural process.

Emotional pain, fear, is all that has not been 'forgiven' or 'released' neurochemically. When we revisit images, conversation and body sensations while in alpha brain wave states, we release the emotional charges stored in neurochemical memory. When we allow our bodies to do this, healing begins.

I'm now using the NeuroSky MindSet (neurofeedback) to teach people how to enter into alpha brain wave states and release endorphins. The emotional state of forgiveness is the neurochemical state for personal transformation.

Practicing, using neurofeedback, we learn how to elicit this emotional state, to BE with and in forgiveness. Within the act of forgiving, neuropathways are opened up and softened. We are freed from our attachment to pain. The ancients and wisdom teachers figured this out thousands of years ago.

In the Practice course you will learn to get out of the way allowing this natural process to work. Your commitment is to Practice getting out of the way 20 minutes every day.    

Friday, July 2, 2010

Why must I commit to practice The Practice for 8 weeks?

You must commit to practice The Practice for 8 weeks to allow your body time to, begin and then, progress into neurochemical transformation. This is a natural process, a natural ability of your body. In the Practice you will learn to enter into the emotional states that are represented by the neurochemicals that must arise for transformation to occur. Cells in your mouth replicate every 4-6 hours. Cells in your bones replicate every 6-8 weeks. This is an 8 week course.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Why is Practicing important?

Practicing is important because our nervous systems become hardened, less flexible, fixated on itself.

The Practice opens the door from within your fixed awareness, it pierces the illusion of self, it enables you to realize a higher state of consciousness,

The result of Practicing -- is a new awareness, an awakened consciousness that you have forgotten. In the 8 week 'practiceThePractice' course we teach a method for triggering a natural mechanism in the autonomic nervous system which, when triggered, neurochemically changes the practitioners perspective from fear to joy.

We emphasize, this is a natural process fully understood by neurobiologists and the ancient wisdom teachers.

Join us on July 15th at 6PM, PST for an open call to learn about this natural mechanism for consciousness transformation. Sign up at www.practicethepractice.com I look forward to speaking with you in person -- live.

Has love an object?

Sukhi Lochan & Eric Knouse

Sukhi -- Has love an object? Or is love divine or profane? When you love, you are neither giving nor receiving. -jk

Eric --In my experience LOVE is a state of being in the flow. In flow between the source and others in the physical world. When we are in flow we have direct knowing.

Sukhi -- Surely, "love is a state of being". But somehow, our love is based on your image of me and my image of you. If we look at it very carefully, at the relationship between these two isolated images which say to each other, `We love'.

Eric -- As I have experimented with my own consciousness while journeying within the interior or the formless (no drugs) I have found a profound connectedness -- beyond image, beyond language, beyond body sensations. The ancients spoke of this place - the Peace beyond understanding.

Hello Eric, certainly, ...in this awareness the problem unrolls itself, and thus it is fully and completely understood. The 'me' is created by thought and the 'me' says: "I am independent of thought”. Is that causes fear?

Sukhi wrote: "The 'me' is created by thought and the 'me'
says: "I am independent of thought”. Is that causes fear?"

Eric -- Exactly -- fear stops me discovering the True 'me'. In the Practice course you will learn to navigate your interior without fear.

Sukhi -- Awareness is not the outcome of practice. The passive alertness which reveals its total process.

Eric - Beautiful -- Agreed, the practice of awareness is only the path. The True Nature is revealed beyond -- all process.

Sukhi - Consciousness is contemplated observation. Can the observer observe himself ? If he can, the separation, division, is dissolved. The painter and the painting has become one. This unique observing quality, is felt, when paintings are painted...

Eric -- Beautiful -- in the Practice we teach the practitioner how to become the observer. As above -- 'contemplated observation'. Oneness.

Sukhi -- All our training from childhood leads us to condemn or to approve. And in the process of condemnation and approval there is frustration, there is fear, there is a gnawing pain, anxiety, which is the very process of the 'me', the self.

Eric --Yes, research shows that Cortisol (stress hormone) can be measured at age of 10 months of age when the child realizes it is separate from the mother -- the illusion begins.

Thank you, Sukhi