Surprising FACTS About Your Heart-Brain

Yale New Haven Hospital, Connecticut, May 1988. The hospital has just performed its first successful heart-lung transplant on Claire Sylvia, a 47-year-old drama teacher from Boston. This being America, five days after the operation, journalists are in her ICU unit, interviewing her as she sits on an exercise bicycle wearing yellow silk pyjamas and a pink dressing gown. During this bizarre press conference, a reporter asks: "Now that you've had this operation, what do you want right now more than anything?" "To tell you the truth," she replies, "right now I'd die for a beer." 

She is momentarily stunned by what she has said, not so much by its flippancy as by the fact that she does not like beer, indeed has never liked it. This is her first clue that she got more than a new blood pump.

In the weeks that follow, Claire finds she has many transformed tastes. She craves Kentucky Fried chicken, ogles women, likes blue and green instead of her usual hot pink, red and gold. But when she has a vivid dream about a young biker,  "Tim L," it leads her via obituaries and other clues, to finding the family of her donor, Tim Lamarande, and confirms where these tastes came from.

OK, Claire is a "spiritual person" who consults psychics. And some cardiologists and neurologists are sceptical about heart memory. But Claire is not alone in her post-transplant experiences. So many other patients report otherwise unexplained memories, changes of taste and personality, that it has led to considerable research being done in the 25 years since her surgery. The research, including that of Canadian neurologist, Dr. Andrew Amour, confirms the heart as a neuron-rich "thinking centre" connected into our comprehensive neural systems.

Read this article, view the embedded video, and then get back to me with your thoughts. My mind is racing with numerous implications, what about yours? You can enter a comment below or email me at waverockcoaching@gmail.com

Lorne

Intuition and Your Three Brains

I feel quite inadequate to write about intuition, but I am going to start because, at my core I am a learner. So I am writing today to invite your feedback and input.

For most of my life, I have been unaware of the Three Brains. Though I could feel things in my chest (heart) and my gut, I never recognized anything but the brain in my skull as a thinking, remembering, processing brain. I have lived, quite consciously, with the understanding that thinking and arriving at valid conclusions happens only in the logical cerebral brain. Even though I now know better, I still struggle with trusting this knowledge.

Every religious and philosophical tradition has some kind of understanding of intuition, as does psychology.  Humans daily operate largely by intuition or rapid subconscious processing by whatever name.

When I was in my 30's, I was yearning for spiritual reality. My first step in getting there, after acknowledging that was what I was seeking, was to admit to myself that it is possible to "know truth" other than by rational, cerebral, "head knowledge." Once I had admitted the possibility of non-linear, revelatory, faith-based truth, change came quickly.

But old habits and paradigms die hard - especially in what we trust as true. So it is with me and intuition. I have progressed somewhat in that I have learned to trust my wife's intuition. But that is because my own cerebral brain has repeatedly processed the fact that, when the two are in conflict, her intuition is usually more accurate than my logical, pro and con, weighed-out conclusions.

Next step - trust my own intuition. I do have "gut feelings", and it is true that I ignore them at my peril. So as I am writing this, I am actually planning to pursue the development and testing of my own intuition. You can help me by giving me the benefit of your academic and experiential knowledge of intuition.

Please help me by entering a Comment below or sending me an email at waverockcoaching@gmail.com.  I will respond.

Lorne

My Transitions - Part 1

Transitions coach - what do I know about that?

Well,  I am (a young) 70 years old and have been through many transitions. Today I will share about one. I plan to write about other transitions, but will start with this one, because its origin  goes back the furthest.

My parents married in 1942, during what became known as World War II. As a young wartime Canadian man, my father was subject to being conscripted into the armed forces. Rather than wait for that, and in order to have some choice, he enlisted voluntarily in the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals. While he was in basic training, I was conceived. Less than a month before my birth, he left on a troop ship for a dangerous North Atlantic crossing to England. My mother stayed where she was, several days train ride from family and friends in the West until I was born and old enough for the train trip.

Of course, I don't consciously remember that. In fact, my earliest memory is at age 2 when I recall being very frightened by being scooped up by a stranger - probably my own father.

When I was in my 30s I began to wonder about my relative emotional flatness and what seemed like some kind of hindrance in my spiritual development. Reading about the discoveries of Dr. Thomas R. Verny (The Secret Life of the Unborn Child) and others about the effects of prenatal and early influences on personality, I had reason to think that being born of a young first time mother, whose husband might never return alive, and being fatherless for the 2 first crucial years of life, likely affected me.

In my late 30s, I was visiting with a former pastor of mine and talking about the various effects of  unforgiveness. He encouraged me, on the spot, to begin to pray and ask God to reveal areas in which I may need to forgive. I had no preconception as to what might come up and I certainly did not expect what happened next.

As I began to pray and ask for revelation, all of a sudden the floodgates of my emotions burst open. I began to weep strongly and to proclaim my forgiveness of my father for "abandoning" me, of my mother for modelling emotional flatness, and of the Canadian government and military for taking my Dad from me. 

I was shocked. My logical, cerebral brain told me that my Dad did not intend to abandon me, he wrote home, sent money, was always very dutiful and loved his family; that my mother was a "strong woman" who did the best she could quite amazingly; that war is hell even for governments - but my heart and gut were not buying it. See http://goo.gl/bB5E6

That day was a large step of transition for me, a mental, emotional and spiritual transition that is still continuing.

If you think you could relate to me and that I could help you with some transition in your life, email me at waverockcoaching@gmail.com for a free introductory session.

Lorne

Life Coach For Me?

It seems Life Coaching is all the rage. Just google that term and see all the hits - pages of them. Harvard Business Review reports that coaching is a $1 billion a year industry. So just what is a personal coach, professional coach, or life coach and why are so many executives and individuals using them to accelerate their careers, get unstuck from some place, and to experience better, more fulfilling, richer lives?

First, what is a professional coach? A leading global professional association for coaches defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” Whaaa...??? Plain English, please.

Second, who uses coaches? A 2009 study of the professional coaching industry found that coaching was used by 90% of organizations surveyed and that even in the economic downturn, 70% report that they are increasing or maintaining their commitment to coaching. Not only businesses but thousands of individuals have discovered the benefits of working with a life coach.

How about a sports analogy to illustrate. Tiger Woods is possibly the best golfer in the world and he uses coaches. Why would anyone pay to be coached by someone less skilled than himself? Two main reasons immediately come to mind.

First, we are notoriously bad at seeing ourselves as we really are. Even if we try very hard to be objective about ourselves, we are not. Furthermore, the observer has a different vantage point and perspective than the doer. A great benefit of the coach is that he tells the "player" what he honestly sees. That alone, even before any advice, is huge. 

Second, Tiger Woods uses specialist coaches for different aspects of his game. He may be the best overall golfer, but others are individually better drivers, chippers and putters.

These are two of the same advantages of life coaches. Your parents, siblings, friends, your boss - they all have valuable things to contribute to your success. But none of them is an unbiased source of feedback and encouragement. Your life coach is. He or she has no preconceived ideas of who you are or your limitations. She did not change your diapers, know you in your rebellious stage, or have his business profits riding on your performance.

You pay your life coach to be honest with you, to help you decide for yourself where you want to go, to refine what strategies will get you there, and to be an accountability person who also applauds your progress.

Sports coaching is affordable and worth it. If not, that profession would not exist. Likewise for life coaching.

Contact us at waverockcoaching@gmail.com for a free exploratory session to see how our life coaching can help you.

Lorne

Bend to Thrive

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

That is true not only for surviving but for thriving.
Few people really relish change. Even change for the better involves stress. According to the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, the stress of a marital separation rates 65 of a maximum 100, while marital reconciliation rates 45. see http://goo.gl/zubVy 

Simply put, stress has one cause— our perceptions of and reactions to the changing situations that occur in our lives, chosen or not.  Stress is not necessarily bad. Stress can initiate change, help us focus on the task at hand, and in some cases even save our lives - if we manage it rather than letting it call the shots.

The beautiful truth is that humans can make choices. We have the capacity to choose what to think about and how to think about it. We can choose attitudes and actions. We can learn techniques for managing and directing stressors.

Change will happen. Will you choose to direct it for a transition to a preferred outcome? Please don't be a passive victim of change. Choose to use change. Direct it's energy as if you were a Judo expert who has learned to use the force of an attacker against the attacker:.. to bend with that force, rather than being broken by it.

We are life coaches who can help you bend the events of your life to get where you want to be, Contact us at waverockcoaching@gmail.com for a free introductory session.

Lorne

She's Just a Mother - Not Mother Teresa

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, author of "Hiroshima in the Morning" and "Why She Left Us"  says she has been reviled for living apart from her kids after her marriage ended.

Although she lived down the street, seeing her boys often, going to PTA, games, helping with homework, she received death threats and was called "garbage" and "worse than Hitler." It seems that for many people, it is not OK for a mother not to be the full-time custodian of her children - not for any reason including self-preservation or just for having the maturity and honesty to recognize it is the children's best interest.

Rhana says, "They were not interested in learning that there might be any middle ground between "good mother" and "human garbage" or a positive outcome. They would rather claim that I didn't love my children, that I was a narcissist or that I had simply decided parenting was no longer fun."

See more  of her story at http://goo.gl/tGwvA

In our many years of working with birth mothers considering and/or choosing adoption for their children, we have seen this dynamic at work again and again. It takes a particularly mature and clear-headed mother to stand up to the expectations and often uninformed beliefs of her peers or family and conclude that someone else can better parent her child at a particular time. But does that make her either "garbage" or  "Mother Theresa?"

My wife and co-coach, Ann, is both a birthmother and, with me, an adoptive parent. On both counts she has been called courageous and "special."  "I could never do that," has come with both positive and negative connotations. Translations: "What kind of horrible mother could 'give away' her own child?"  "I could not face the pain of loss and criticism, even if it thought it was a better choice."  "How could you adopt someone else's child and love her like your 'own' child you already have?"

It is our observation that adoptive parents often have a harder than average time dealing with these visceral conflicting societal beliefs. Though they have taken the adoptive parents training courses and truly try to understand the birth mother perspective, for the most part they just can't. Their strong desire to be parents, maybe after years of infertility, medical interventions, thousands of dollars spent and discouraging prospects for adopting, create a mental and emotional atmosphere in which they many times literally say, "I could never do that." Even in an open adoption, where they have met the birth mother, love her and are so grateful for her choice, they still can't put themselves in her shoes. Understandable. Even as a "sensitive male" there is no way I can really understand what it is to give birth

So this Mothers Day, even if we can't really understand all mothers, can we suspend our judgments and honour the "unmothers" who have made extremely difficult and unselfish decisions, and still live with daily pain and ambivalence as a result? Isn't it OK that they are somewhere far from either extreme of "garbage" or "Mother Teresa?"

If you or someone you know might benefit from life coaching conversations around these or other adoption issues, we can help no matter where in the world you live. Email us at waverockcoaching@gmail.com and we will respond.

Lorne

Three Brains?

I am so excited about what I am learning these days about changing your life by changing your thinking! And the first thing - before you can change it - is to recognize what and where you are thinking. Did Lorne just say "where?"

Yes I did. Neuroscientists now know a lot about at least three thinking centres (or brains) in our bodies. Each has neurons, neurotransmitters, neural plasticity and can think, remember and communicate.

Head (cephalic brain)
      100 - 150 billion neurons
Prime Functions

• cognitive perception
• thinking
• making meaning

Heart (cardiac brain)
      30 - 120 thousand neurons 
Prime Functions

• emoting
• values
• relational affect

Gut (enteric brain)
       200 - 500 million neurons 
Prime Functions

• identity
• self-preservation
• mobilization

These relatively recently verified scientific findings confirm the Ancient Wisdom of all major religions and traditions - that we are multi-faceted beings.

And they confirm what we all "know" and reflect with such expressions  as:

• We had a heart-to-heart talk,
• She is so warm-hearted.
• I believe it with all my heart.
• "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he."
• I have a gut feeling.
• He didn't have the guts to do it.

And when the three "brains" don't line up, we have internal conflict, get stalled, feel stressed. We say things like, "Logic tells me to do it, but my gut says "no."  "I know I should fire him, but I just don't have the heart to do it."

When we are in that condition, we need to change our thinking. But if we only change the cerebral thinking and ignore the visceral, it really won't work.

We need internal alignment in order to be authentic and live from the core of our being. When I say "core" you instinctively know it exists, don't you?  

It is science, but it is not rocket science There are techniques and strategies for recognizing what is going on in your three brains and getting them in alignment with your values and goals...so you can rock your world!

If any of our posts interest you, disturb you, or you'd like to know more of something, please comment in the space below or send us an email at waverockcoaching@gmail.com

Lorne

Wisdom On Facebook?

Seen on Facebook - "This morning my sweety said 'Ohh don't YOU look nice'... to which I commented I wasn't sure if this top went with that skirt. He said' You're too fashion conscious. You should be a little more UNconscious.' Methinks the man is very wise. =)"

Lots of clues to the operation of human conscious and unconscious thinking in that little post. They say that 90-95% of our thinking is unconscious and only 5-10% conscious. How "they" can measure that, I have no clue, but "they" make a valid point.

 

Most of what causes our actions, reactions and choices happens "below the surface," where we are unmindful of it. The unconscious processes go on 24/7, whether we are awake or asleep, paying attention or not - and that is a good thing. If it were not so, we could never keep up with and respond to all the incoming data and we'd soon be dead. Think about it... That's right, tell your cerebral cortex what to think about. 

The fact that we can do that - that we can tell our brain what to think - is the whole foundation for any kind of training or coaching. If that were not true, intentional change or improvement in any way would be impossible.

Back to the story...Think of all the unspoken nuanced messages that were sent and received. Looks like they might have included, "I love you and think you look great no matter how you dress," "I think you are letting your self-image depend too much on how you think others see you."  Whatever he intended to convey, she took it as wisdom.  I can only guess at the traffic on her embedded neural pathways that allowed her to respond to his "should" statement positively instead of react negatively at "being told how to think." (as I am instantly inclined to do.)

Hmmm...maybe I need some coaching help with my thinking.

Lorne

Some Mothers Not So Happy?

Mother's Day coming up! For some individuals, seeing a Happy Mothers Day greeting card could feel like Happy Grief Day. I think Mothers should be celebrated! It is just that my heart goes out to those would be moms who have babies in heaven or have not ever been able to conceive. Or moms who have said 'good-bye' whether through miscarriage, still birth or adoption (& other), I also think of the moms who because of life circumstances are mothers from a distance but always in their hearts. How do you say 'Happy Mother's Day' to a woman is a mother but whose motherhood is not openly acknowledged? And then there are children who do not have their mothers with them for a variety of reasons. See one woman's thoughts at http://goo.gl/f3ncu

What are your thoughts? If you don't want to post them in our Comments, I would love to hear from you at waverockcoaching@gmail.com

Ann

Chris Soldiers On - Uninvited Transitions

Cpl. Chris Klodt doesn't remember much about the moment he became paralyzed.

In July, 2006, as he and his fellow soldiers moved through fields and farmhouses in Afghanistan, they suddenly came under attack from Taliban rebels. Amid an exchange of gunfire, one of the bullets hit Chris, piercing his throat and shattering two vertebrae in his spine.

He awoke from sedation 8 days later, back in Canada, to find he was paralyzed from the chest down. Asked about how he reacted to that news, soft-spoken Chris, now 29, insists he didn't have much time to spend mourning, because he had other pressing matters: his wife was just weeks away from giving birth. "I wasn't thinking about me. I was more focused on Deena being pregnant."

Chris quickly embraced fatherhood. But these days, he also has a new role: he's become a top-ranked wheelchair rugby player. He says if there's one thing military life taught him, it's to persevere.

Chris heard about Soldier On and accessed their services. Soldier On fills a funding gap. But more than that, it ensures that wounded soldiers can return to physical fitness and reap both the physical and mental benefits of exercise. And, at the same time, it allows injured soldiers the chance to interact with others with similar injuries and illnesses – something that can be invaluable, Chris says.

Read more of this story at  http://goo.gl/HvaFG 

Chris Klodt’s story illustrates some elements of thriving through uninvited transitions:

• Focus on caring for others
• Recognize you still have a great life to live
• Maintain determination and perseverance
• Boldly access available services
• Give and receive peer support
• Experience physical and mental benefits of exercise

In coming posts we will explore these and other strategies for great transitions.

Lorne

TRANSITIONS

Inevitable, inexorable
Chosen or not
Planned or not
Animate or inanimate
We all experience them
And are changed in the process.

Every breath you take
And every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
You’re transitioning (with apologies to Sting)

Change, flux, metamorphosis, transition - it is constant, continuous, universal; an unavoidable feature of existence.

Our very concepts of time and our observations and measurements of it are concepts, observations and measurements of transitions. Days, and their subdivisions of hours and seconds, their aggregations of weeks, months, years and centuries - these are our common human descriptions of the ongoing transition of the position of the earth’s surface relative to the sun. 

“Season” is a word we use to describe the observable, recurring cycle of transitions of daylight and darkness, patterns of temperature, weather and climate, and the effects upon living things which results from these cycles of the earth’s position relative to the sun.

Season is also a word we use metaphorically to describe common stages of human life. “I am in the autumn of my life,” or “she is experiencing a season of grief” are the sorts of statements we have likely heard. And they have instant meaning for us without a lot more description, as referring to a stage of some significant duration with somewhat predictable conditions, out of which the person will typically transition to another “season.”

In a series of articles I intend to post to this blog, I will explore the topic of transitions and how we may, through mindfulness and choice, manage and respond to them.

Lorne