The Positive Mind

Our last shows with Dr. Jennifer Wolkin and Dr. Lisa Miller focused on finding our "awakened brains" and mindfulness, while connecting to our spiritual selves and the world around us in new ways.

Charley Wininger, LP, LMHC takes the science of MDMA and applies it to the same fundamentals of exploring and accepting ourselves with love. Commonly known as Ecstasy or Molly, controlled MDMA studies report improved self‐knowledge, sleep regulation, accuracy in perceiving mental states of others, coping strategies, emotion regulation, and cognitive insights as well as aiding Autism and PTSD.

We look forward to having Charley back with a new interview celebrating the release of Listening to Ecstasy:The Transformative Power of MDMA on audio books. As an introduction to him, his work and philosophy we invite you to listen to an encore presentation of Part 1 of our insightful conversation with Charley.

In Part I of our interview with Dr. Lisa Miller, PhD, we discussed her new book "The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life," and discovered how depression can be an opportunity for what we call in Positive Psychology, Post-Traumatic Growth. Dr. Miller discussed two types of awareness, "awakened awareness" and "achievement awareness." In part I of our discussion, Dr. Miller talked about the downsides of our "achievement awareness" society.

In Part 2, we discuss the empirical data available from fMRI studies on the "awakened brain." Dr. Miller leads us through two visualization exercises that help us experience our awakened brain that provides us an opportunity for spiritual growth.

Does depression hold the key to spiritual awakening?

Our guest, Dr. Lisa Miller, PhD, thinks that it does and she tells us why in her new book, "The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life." The experience of depression is marked by a loss of connection to self and others. Dr. Miller says that it is also the loss of a sense of being held by a benevolent force or presence greater than yourself.

How often have you felt that you, "had to get the job", "had to get into the university," or "pass the test"? Dr. Miller explains that these thoughts come from our "Achievement Awareness," and are most often the cause for our depressions. She shows us through fMRI scans that when telling a depressing story blood flow throughout the brain is constricted. Conversely, when a person talks about a spiritual experience or a feeling of connection, fMRI scans show an increase in blood flow and the brain takes on a reddish color. Dr. Miller explains that the reddish brain reflects the other kind of awareness called "Awakened Awareness."

Did you know that many executives do their interviews while walking with a potential employee outside? Research has shown that walking is good for your mental and physical health, but that walking outside, in nature has the added benefit of increasing the mind's ability to think creatively. If you have a problem that you need to solve, going for a walk will help you solve it in many more ways than if you didn't go for a walk.

Tune into this week's show as Kevin and Niseema talk about the salubrious benefits of going for a walk. A perfect way to end the summer months is with an evening walk.

We follow up on our recent show on "Home" with this week's show on "magical thinking," which is a way to create home/safety in spite of incredible odds. Magical thinking is a psychological error that attempts to create an effect with an improper cause. You do not win the lottery just because you believe you have the winning lottery ticket.

Magical thinking becomes problematic and pathological when you become blind to the consequences before thoroughly examining the causes. The measurement in psychology practice is "significant distress in professional, social, inter-relational, financial, and other areas of one's life." Often magical thinking is behind compulsive gambling, all addictions, and many other syndromes like Borderline Personality Disorder and self-mutilation. Kevin and Niseema talk about better ways of finding home.

This week we visit the idea of connection as important to our sense of well being and mental health.

Take a moment, and ask yourself: Where do I feel connected in my life? Am I connected? Do I feel disconnected?

We recap the key concepts of three authors we have had on, and all who have a unique take on "connection." We revisit Charley Wininger's, "Listening to Ecstasy: The Transformative Power of MDMA", Dr. Warren Farrell's, "The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It,” and Bethany Saltman's, "Strange Situation: A Mother's Journey Through the Science of Attachment."

We think you'll appreciate the idea of connection so much more after you listen to the show.

The feeling of home is as universal as it is personal. Home can be a place of safety and refuge, or chaos and instability. No matter which, home is the place you identify with in some way, it carries meaning, memories and shapes your identity.

Homesickness is a powerful feeling that something just isn't right, coupled with a longing for things to be stable, predictable, familiar and safe. But, it is a fact of life that everybody has to leave home; how a person manages that stress can say a lot about their relationship with themself and their ability to take a sense of "home" with them wherever they go.

"It's the mysterious and universal feeling of home that seems to root us in our very being, providing a shelter for those days and times when all seems lost." Kevin and Niseema talk about how homesickness can lead to depression, a sense of being lost, rootless and adrift.

This week we welcome our guest for the hour Dr. Jen Wolkin PhD., Neuropsychologist, and author of the book “Quick Calm: Easy Meditations to Short-Circuit Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroscience.” We start the show with the sound of ocean waves that helps illustrate how quickly we can achieve a sense of calm when we just focus our attention on a particular sound.

Dr. Jen shows us how to start a mindfulness practice by teaching diaphragmatic breathing that can have the same effect as the sound of the ocean. We talk about other mindfulness exercises, even how to bring mindfulness to something as mundane as washing the dishes.

There are 25, five-minute mindfulness exercises in this book, and we feel that learning mindfulness can enhance your life and enhance your experience of these summer months.

We follow up last week's annual show on Freedom and Independence, by talking about the importance of saying the word "NO" in maintaining your mental and emotional health.

Last week we talked about five ways to help you discover your true self and so true freedom. One of the tools was to ask, "What am I doing every day in my life that is not me?" This week we ask, "What are you saying "YES" to that you want to say "NO" to but don't?"

Saying "NO" is an important tool in setting boundaries for yourself, and establishing your own identity. Was there a period of your life when you were saying "NO" to many things in order to live out what was important to you? We invite you to look at where you can say "NO" in your life that might help increase your feeling of being free.

For our annual July 4th show, we ask 5 critical questions to help you discover your true self and so true freedom.

As children, we learned how to get our needs met by believing what our parents said about us and then giving them what THEY needed. In this show, we separate out the negative messages our parents would have us believe about ourselves from what really could be our true strengths and our true liberation. Tune in this week as we explore more ways to live a free and independent life.