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​
​The Awakened Brain
by Lisa Miller (2021)


We reviewed the book, The Awakened Brain, where Lisa Miller describes that your perceptual field can be seen as Top-down  attention vs.   Bottom-up  perception. Top-down attention focuses you on the task at hand that you want to achieve but limits your perceptual field. Bottom-up perception opens you to the most salient or emotionally relevant perceptions in your field.
She writes in a chapter called "THE TWO MODES OF AWARENESS",
"As a result of this awakened awareness, our eyes move to meaningful events. In achieving awareness, the stranger who starts talking to us on the bus might be annoying or intrusive, or just invisible. In awakened awareness, we might hear what he says—and even see how it’s relevant to our own lives" (L. W. E. S. Miller, 2021, p. 165).

Then, she writes in a chapter called "INTEGRATION IS KEY",
"Quest orientation is characterized by a tendency to journey in life: to search for answers to meaningful personal decisions and big existential questions; to perceive doubt as positive; and to be open to change, or more accurately, open to perceiving with fresh eyes, and then using new experience to fuel change. In quest, we open ourselves to the messages from life, take seriously this discovery, and then actively use learning to shape our decisions and actions—our personal operating manual" (Miller, 2021, p. 169).
​
"In depression, parts of the brain are dysregulated and disconnected. They aren’t functioning optimally or working together. But in quest, the brain is coherent and connected, its regions and networks in harmony. Essentially, the questing brain integrates our achieving and awakened awareness" (Miller, 2021, p. 172).


Read More
Wake Up Call #4 ... The Test of Awakening

[Following is a excerpted transcription from the video]
 
Ready? Take a color in your environment, right now. Maybe it's a piece of your clothing. Maybe it's something on the desk or the wall - a color you like. Just, look around to find which one you're going to look at. And for a very short period of time - it does not have to be long - just look at it.
-pause-
 
And now ask, "Does that color look better, the same, or worse than the last time you stopped to look at that color - not the object - the color?" It's a very good question, it turns out.
 
If you can now take this one step further, try to make your experience of the color become better - more beautiful. (Another favorite version of this exercise is to do it with faces.) If you can change it, then you are the master of your destiny. You are actually commanding your presence. You are waking up right now. You're moving toward more wakefulness, not less. And this is always in your power. And I dare say, there is no situation where less wakefulness is better than more. No matter what's happening around you, you can always bring more presence to it and that always makes things get better.
​...
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Be the Observer
Intuitive Teachers are great observers...
They go first to receiving mode to observe and listen - then they go second, to thinking and analyzing. They do this with problems great and small. By practicing getting the ego out of the way on small problems, they become able to 'hear' their intuition on big problems.
Practice Observing ...
​by Making an 'O/A'
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How to Make an O/A
(Observation / Analysis)
It goes like this. Say, you light a candle. You now observe it and try not to think about it. Try not to analyze - just observe. All right? Now, you go to your mind and replay it. You replay inside what you saw, smelled, heard - anything you took in through your senses. So, you are still observing. You are not thinking about it. Next, you draw it. So, you are still observing for the third time. Then, for the fourth time you write down a few of your observations. And now, after having given four turns to your observations, you finally give one turn to let yourself think about it. You now analyze - what is this called, how could it be used - why did it happen - how did it happen? Basically, give a turn to all of the things your mind wants to think and conclude. But, notice that you did not jump to conclusions, you stayed - four to one - in observations. This little practice keeps you as a receiver of possible intuitions. You can now become an intuitive teacher. You can transform yourself by this.
 
But it gets better. The real use of this is not for little cute things like looking at a candle, although that can be as important as anything else. It's for when a real problem hits you in life. What do you generally do when a big problem hits? What do most people do? Once we have a problem, what do we do in response to real difficulty? Don't we start thinking of lots of solutions? Sometimes we think of how to get away from it. Sometimes we think of how to handle it. But, this method of observation might kick in if you have been practicing it on simple things. You now have a chance to respond to a serious problem, where you don't touch it with your mind. You don't go first to analyzing and brainstorming. You stop. Then you picture it, without touching it. You are an observer waiting for higher guidance.
 
Where is that higher guidance coming from? Well, it's from you. You are connected to the highest inside of yourself if you go to your higher self. So, you can get great ideas, but you have got to give them room. You have to get your lower self, or your ego, out of the way. And so, what you are really doing with this simple, little exercise is practicing for the big ones. You are learning how to not touch - how to receive intuitions. Over the course of your life you can better and better at this receiving. When a situation comes to you, you go into quiet mode - still mode - receiving mode. You go into your observations.
​
- See   20 Short Transforming Stories ...    Story #3  Intuitive Teaching
- See Intuitive Education ... How to Make an Observation / Analysis ('O/A')
​​
​“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment .”
- Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
Have you assumed that
all atoms are the same?
Why?
How do you know?
​Is matter a physical material, only?

Workshop: Recovering Your Childhood
in Adulthood 
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A series of practical exercises to move from depression to growth through spiritual knowing.
​​Finding oneself requires a reintegration of childhood in adulthood. We must be careful here not to fill students with theory and intellectual jargon. Rather, we need to practice real-life, simple exercises every day in order to recover our world by recovering our self. Recent studies show that this integration is a physiological / psychological act of brain integration that is vertical: body, brainstem, limbic areas, and cortex (Hart, 2001, 2010, 2014a, 2014b; L. Miller, 2015; L. W. E. S. Miller, 2021; Siegel, 2010, 2018), and horizontal: intuitive, right brain and analytical left brain (McGilchrist, 2009; Siegel, 2010). But studies aside, the actual reintegration of childhood in adulthood is a recovery that is spiritual and down to earth. One way to ward off depression or destructive behavior and move toward growth is to spiritually know oneself more fully. Spiritual knowing involves:
  • Reawakening the child in the adult. Exercise: recover the ability to see work and play as one.
  • Heart Thought - using the "quest orientation" (L. W. E. S. Miller, 2021, p. 169). Exercise: catch yourself several times a day with "doubts and downers" and look for life's deeper messages.
  • Teach yourself to create practical exercises from ancient wisdom teaching. Exercise: Seeing humankind as a child in the Tao Te Ching (Laozi, 2005/circa 500 BC).
Read  More

Test the Power of Your Incredible Intuitive Mind

Plasee raed tihs aluod and ntoe the seepd at wihch you    poreced.
A hamun bnieg lokos mroe for cnotxet and wolhe wrdos tahn for ecaxt sllpneig. Yuor inceiblre mnid mstoly lkoos for the fsirt and lsat ltretes of a wrod. Yuong cilhrden wtcah for eevn brodaer ctenoxutal cleus. Trefheore, mkae srue taht you aenttd to btoh the wlohe and its prats.
- from  Intuitive Education Workshop and also   Heart Thought Exercises
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Heart Thought
​
For the children and the flowers are my sisters and my brothers,
their laughter and their loveliness would clear a cloudy day.
And the song that I am singing is a prayer to non-believers,
come and stand beside us we can find a better way."
- John Denver (Rhymes And Reasons)
- see  Favorite Quotes

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  • Home
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      • The Physical Nature of Science
        • Heat
        • Electricity & Magnetism
        • Mechanics
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  • Medium Things
    • 20 Opportunities to Transform Yourself While Teaching
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    • 20 Short Transforming Stories
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  • Shorts!
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      • Science Lesson #20
      • Science Lesson #19
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    • Cavemen Conversations
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      • Estimation
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    • Poems, Prayers & Promises
    • Short & Fun
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      • Who Am I?
      • Simple Science Projects
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