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Aging and Spirituality

Posted on by Dr. Toni

AGING AND SPIRITUALITY: After four years of research, these 12 keys were identified as the foundational principles of aging and spirituality letting us open-up to the special grace of our mature years, and taste life in abundance.
Transform your attitudes about aging,
Seek love everywhere,
Delight in connectedness,
Live in the “Now”
Accept your true self,
Forgive others and self,
Let go of anger and inner turmoil,
Give yourself to others,
Celebrate your faith,
Discover personal meaning in life,
Make your feelings work for you, and
Achieve balance in your life

Shadow Work

Posted on by Dr. Toni

Is Your Shadow Showing? Face It, Embrace It, Integrate It!
The Quantum Living Training weaves together the latest research emerging from neurobiology, developmental psychology, and quantum science with the wisdom of the world’s mystical traditions to offer a powerful path to personal evolution. Quantum Living “aware-apy” exercises and techniques are designed to reduce anxiety, foster a raised degree of self-awareness, and emotional resiliency, as well as embodying positive change. Liberated from life-constricting patterns and ineffective reactions, we are free to express our whole and sacred divine presence, live from our most noble self, and serve as we are called.

The primary aim of The Quantum Living Process™ Training is to equip participants to use the self-directed 21-day Quantum Living Process, to explore triggering or challenging moments to awaken to unconscious cultural/social programming set in motion in early childhood, often still operating by default. By uncovering and transforming the unconscious, limiting patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior, the way opens for heart-centered evolutionary transformation

Shadow Work as a Path to Deep Healing

Have you ever wondered why it is that despite all you know about how to get along in the world, despite the efforts you make in your home and work life, and in your spiritual practices, you may still not be seeing lasting transformational results? Recent research into the workings of the human brain shed some light on why we may still find ourselves stuck in old patterns of thought, feeling and action regardless of our best efforts.

Growing Up Human

Despite our best efforts, no human environment can fully and unceasingly reflect the Divine truth of our children back to them. It is widely accepted that childhood’s earliest years are the most impressionable, but the emerging fields of neurobiology suggest that it may be even more important than once thought.

Difficult early life experiences may continue to haunt us, in spire of our efforts through therapy and the spiritual journey, because the unconscious limiting beliefs about ourselves and the world we take on actually create neural networks that, when triggered in the present day, undermine the ability to make conscious choices that arise from our deepest desires and our personal faith and spiritual principles. We often react, rather than respond to life’s circumstances.

The transformational 21-day practice called The Q Process™ helps participants understand and reflect on how the brain and perception works and how they create meaning from earlier situations. Exploration and reflection leads to uncovering unconscious, limiting patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior set in motion by childhood events which may be still “running the game” by default. Through Quantum Living techniques we embrace and transform the shadow within and release our most divine self into full expression.

Transcending The Past

As individuals, teams, and communities become aware of these hidden beliefs and ingrained neural firing patterns they can be transformed and released. We can become free from old hurts, untrue assumptions and erroneous beliefs; we can be freed to manifest a greatest good in our life and in the world.

Becoming aware of these physiological and psychological pattens and applying mindfulness practices effectively fast-tracks our evolution to greater freedom that may develop an internal witnessing observer; lessen our reactivity and engage our sense of inner self-curiosity; settle negative energy and restore focused, intentional mental capacity; calm the voice of the inner critic and self-judgment; create loving kindness and compassion for self and others.

Create a New Future

The Quantum Living Process™ is a 21-day guided reflection tool to reframe triggering experiences. We explore three (3) seven-day phases. Phase One focuses on critical thoughts about external experiences. Phase Two focuses on critical thoughts directed inwardly. Phase Three follows both internal and external triggers into the past to find a memory associated with the pattern and release and reframe the moment, creating a mental and emotional shift in the present that supports a vibrant, enlivened future.

Turning Back the Clock

Posted on by Dr. Toni

As Bette Davis famously said, “Getting old ain’t no place for sissies.” And while I’m not quite a senior citizen myself just yet, I’m becoming ever more aware of my own aging journey and have recently faced some of my own age-related challenges.

So I can appreciate Bette’s keen observation about aging. And I can also see why the global anti-aging market is valued at over 65 billion dollars and is expected to almost double by 2030.

From creams, injections, and cosmetics that promise fewer wrinkles and unsightly skin blemishes, to nutraceuticals and supplements that claim to slow down aging on a cellular level, to hormone optimization, laser body sculpting, blood plasma transfusions, plastic surgery; an almost infinite list of options are available today, all aimed directly at fighting off that ancient nemesis:

Aging.
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Is Aging Bad?

Now, some say these treatments are feeding into an unhealthy fear, and that aging is getting a bit of a bad rap. They say that our culture doesn’t understand or value the aging process and instead has consistently overvalued youth and become addicted to vanity.

“Aging is a natural process,” they point out, “and nothing to fear!”

I think this is an encouraging take, albeit one that’s often expressed by much younger people who aren’t quite speaking from personal experience.

Me? I guess I’m somewhere in the middle. I’m not especially eager to turn into an “old man.” But I’m also averse to wasting my remaining years worrying over some wrinkles or thinning hair. So I have to wonder if it’s possible to accept this “natural process” of aging while still working to retain as much of my youth as I can, while I can.

But I’m not really into creams, pills, and surgeries unless absolutely necessary. So what I really wondered was how much of aging is natural entropy at work and how much was mindset?

Is it possible to actually think yourself younger?

Age Is Just a… Thought?

I believe in positive thinking. Yet the notion that something like aging could be mitigated by simply altering your thoughts seems like nothing more than wishful thinking. Sure, our thoughts are powerful, but it’s asking a bit much to believe that how we think and act could somehow slow down or even reverse aging.

Or so I thought.

Let me introduce you to Dr Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychologist who not only wondered the same thing I did about whether mindset could affect aging, she actually conducted a remarkable experiment to find out.

For over 40 years, Dr Langer has studied the power of mindfulness. If her name sounds familiar to you, it may be because she’s often referred to as the “Mother of Mindfulness,” and for good reason. Her work has established a powerful and undeniable connection between the power of one’s mindset and their physical health.

Now, it’s worth noting that Dr. Langer’s version of mindfulness is not specifically attached to meditation but is rather a simple way of applying one’s attention and focus. It’s “a flexible state of mind in which we are actively engaged in the present, noticing new things, and sensitive to context,” she says.

Back in 1981, Dr Langer wondered whether aging was really purely mechanistic, or whether one’s environment and mindset played a role. To find out, she recruited eight men, all in their 70s, most with standard-issue problems of average men in their 70s: some joint stiffness, back pain, arthritis, and mobility issues. Some walked with a cane or were slightly hunched over. Others had eyesight or hearing trouble.

A Time Travel Experiment

On a crisp New Hampshire autumn day in 1981, these men were driven to a converted monastery which had been renovated to be a communal living space for the eight subjects. But this was no ordinary renovation. As the men entered their new temporary home for the next five days, they felt like they’d just stepped through a time portal.

In the living room, The Ed Sullivan Show was playing on an old black and white TV. Somewhere in another room, Doris Day was singing from a vintage radio. The books, newspapers, and magazines were all from the late 1950s, as was the furniture and decor. They were given clothes they might have worn in 1959. Even the food was 1950s cuisine. Nothing of the present-day world was evident.

It was as if these men had time traveled back some 20-plus years into the past.

But the subjects quickly learned that this was no nursing home or hotel. Nobody was going to haul their luggage up to their rooms for them. They were to do everything for themselves, from the cooking to the cleaning.

The men were not just there to reminisce about “the old days,” however. For the duration of the week, they were instructed to adjust their mindset, to effectively turn back their clocks by twenty-two years, and to live, speak, and act as if they were over twenty years younger.

They played 1950s games, watched 1950s TV, and read their 1950s magazines. They were not to talk about the politics of 1981, but could talk all about events of the 1950s, and to treat such topics as if they were present day events. They decided when to eat, when to go to bed, and when to get up. Oh and one more thing: no mirrors.

For all intents and purposes, these men spent a week living in their own past, as if twenty years younger. This would become known as the “counter-clockwise experiment” and it would challenge much of what we’ve come to believe about aging.
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The results?

Almost “too good to be true,” said Dr. Langer.

At the end of the week, the participants showed better posture, stronger grip strength, more mobility, less pain, more energy, better mood, and greater manual dexterity. Some even showed improvements in both their vision and hearing.

Two-thirds of the men scored higher on intelligence tests. Independent volunteers who were asked to judge the ages of the men both before and after the experiment consistently assessed the “after” photos to be at least two years younger than the “before” pics.

Maybe most importantly, the improvements did not immediately fade away. Follow up assessments showed that the subjects continued to feel healthier, stronger, and more rejuvenated even months after the experiment ended.

And if that’s not enough, on the day Langer arrived to end the experiment and pick up the subjects, she was surprised to find these same men “who had seemed so frail only days before, were playing an impromptu touch football game on the front lawn.”

Somehow, these men had effectively grown younger in five days, leading Dr. Langer to conclude that, “many of the consequences of old age may be environmentally determined and thereby potentially reversed through manipulations of the environment.”

Rethinking Aging

While it seems that we still have much to learn about aging, Langer’s work certainly suggests that we seriously rethink not only how we age, but how we treat and care for our elderly.

Mindset matters. Environment matters. What we think and how we act matters (regardless of age!).

So is aging all in the mind? Well, probably not.

But Dr Langer’s counter-clockwise experiment presents us with a fascinating twist in the story of how and why we age. She demonstrated the undeniable power of “as if” thinking and the pivotal roles played by mindset and environment in the way we age.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to listen to some 1980s music and then watch Cheers!

Check it Out!
Beautiful Brain

Did you know that most people have a brain that has a “Brain Age” that’s OLDER than their body?

But now we’ve made it easy to turn back the clock with our newest Holosync collection:

Beautiful Brain

By harnessing the power of brain balance, clarity, and resilience, Beautiful Brain will help you:
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  • Cultivate feelings of peace and centeredness
  • Make your brain younger & healthier
  • Strengthen your mental resilience
  • Reverse rapid brain aging
  • Balance neurochemicals
  • Reduce memory lapse
  • Blow away brain fog

And much more!

You see, “anti-aging” isn’t just for your skin.

Now you can create the kind of healing and rejuvenation your brain needs to reclaim its vitality, its wit, its energy, its inspiration and its power.

And the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll see results.

Wise Words
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Facing 70 – Ageing Consciously

Posted on by Dr. Toni

Sixty-nine hit me like a tornado, fast-moving and whipping up emotional debris.

Small things. Cataracts and recommended surgery. “What if I can’t read, can’t drive and can’t work?” I catastrophized the possibilities in my mind as I reflected on my four decades as a public radio and print journalist. No Pulitzer or New York Times bestseller list, just small stories about people whose voices are not often heard, poor people, old people, refugees, hungry children. Enough to keep me thinking I might bring a bit of comfort, in my own small way, to at least a few deserving people.

“One adage about growing older is that you care less about what people think,” says Corley.

Another small medical issue arose. A crown needs to replaced at the edge of bone loss in my jaw.

Then a fever and a short, rare spell of not feeling well. Suddenly, I began to feel fragile, vulnerable to the ravages of age.

“It’s the beginning of falling apart,” I said fearfully to myself.

A Desire to Rise Above My Age

Thankfully, these are small issues easily managed. But they forced me to admit I’m heading decisively into my “later years” and at some point, I will simply no longer exist. I had avoided thinking about that reality for a long time.

Even with all my best intentions and routines of healthy food, walking, tai chi and swimming, the body eventually wears down.

Before 69 and the looming wall that was 70, I could make believe I was always going to be able to rise above my age, keep working as a journalist, travel to see my three grown daughters across the U.S., have mobility and enjoy the simple pleasures of life, like kayaking on a quiet lake, walking in the park and taking guitar lessons.

The Wisdom of The Velveteen Rabbit

One of my strategies for keeping my mind and body alert has been a determination to keep learning new things, especially technology. I started my second master’s degree program, this one called Library Informatics and Technology, an attempt to connect my lifelong love of libraries with embracing a few new bits of technology.

In the course on children’s literature, a favorite book surfaced to help my peace of mind. It’s one of my beloved books of wisdom, a classic, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.

Reading this book as an older adult, I found hope from the Skin Horse, the wise toy that had outlasted the boy’s mechanical gadgets. The Skin Horse comforted the Velveteen Rabbit with the wisdom about becoming “Real” when a child loves you.

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Connect With People Who Understand ‘Being Real’

Another healing coincidence arrived during a recent conference of the Gerontological Society of America in Austin, Texas. As a journalism fellow, I had access to wise mental health professionals of my generation who are personally embracing ‘the age of being Real.’

One of those is Connie Corley, a 65-year-old professor at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, Calif., who has worked in the field of gerontology since the 1970s.

One of her guiding pieces of wisdom is from the late inspirational speaker and writer Wayne Dyer who said, “Don’t die with your music still in you.”

“One adage about growing older is that you care less about what other people think,” says Corley. “I don’t know if that’s been proven, but I can say from my own personal experience and observation that people become less inhibited in the sense of following their interests. If they have never done painting, they might decide to paint. People love taking writing classes as they get older. Many people are joining choirs. There’s so much interesting research now about music and the value of stimulating the brain and making social connections.”

She is taking part in a brain health study, learning more about the complexity of the brain and cognitive activity, especially because her mother had Alzheimer’s, which was confirmed by an autopsy.

Corley is participating in a project researching how music, movement and meditation can encourage residents in nursing homes to be actively engaged in group activity with the goal of becoming more “enlivened.”

As a person who has long included creativity as essential in her research and personal life, Corley looks at herself and colleagues who are making lifestyle choices as they leave their professional lives.

“Part of my yearning is I want to spend more time outside,” says Corley. “I live in California. My daughters live far away. I have to kind of reinvent myself. Instead of dreading worrying about money if I leave my job, what it would be like if I simplified my life, maybe downsizing, renting a camper and staying at the beach?”

What ‘Being Real’ Means

I remind myself that it will be comforting if I approach 70 as the age when I have to find peace in “being Real.” That means being thankful my sharp edges have been worn down by life. It means being grateful that even though my heart has been broken by the loss of important relationships and the death of loved ones, it still pumps strongly, fueled by compassion.

I’m bending and stretching to loosen up those stiffer joints. I greet my honestly earned wrinkles with a sense of gentleness about my overall “shabbiness” brought on by the winds and rains of life.

I remind myself that I, and the millions of others who have reached our years as “older adults” cannot be ugly, except to those who don’t understand what it means to be “Real.”

 By Rhonda J. MillerRhonda J. Miller is a reporter and audio producer for WKU Public Radio in Bowling Green, Kentucky. She was awarded a 2018 journalism fellowship from the Gerontological Society of America to produce a series of public radio stories on elder refugees in Kentucky. She was GSA Continuing Fellow in 2019 and produced stories on the difficulty of finding Kentucky businesses to hire older workers retrained through a federal program. Rhonda was Gulf Coast reporter for Mississippi Public Broadcasting, where she won Edward R. Murrow and Associated Press awards for stories about dying sea turtles, illnesses of cleanup workers in the BP oil spill and homeless veterans. She has been an education reporter for Rhode Island Public Radio, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.