“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” – Jimi Hendrix

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One must in a sense wipe the slate clean, attempt to see things without the benefit or burden of a pre-conceived outlook. Of course such a pristine, malleable state of mind can only be striven for, never achieved. Yet to aspire to that ideal is perhaps the single most important prerequisite for an enterprise such as this.

Unless we are able to perceive and articulate, on their own terms and without condescension, certain powerful beliefs and assumptions that we no longer consider valid or defensible—for example, the once universal conviction that the Earth is the stationary center of the cosmos, or the even more enduring tendency among Western thinkers to conceive of and personify the human species in predominantly masculine terms-then we will fail to understand the intellectual and cultural foundations of our own thought.

Our constant challenge is to remain faithful to the historical material, allowing our present perspective to enrich, but not distort, the various ideas and world views we examine. While that challenge should not be underestimated, l believe that today, for reasons that will become clear in the later chapters of the book, we are in a better position to engage this task with the necessary intellectual and imaginative flexibility than at perhaps any time in the past.

Excerpt from: The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View. Purchase from Better World Books!

The sciences are the windows through which philosophy views the world. – Will Durant

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All of the great spiritual traditions of the world offer a vision of spiritual awakening that it is possible to live with a heart that is open to the preciousness and vividness of each moment of our lives. Bringing together people who approach awakening from many different perspectives—dancers, musicians, yogis, poets, energy healers, neuroscientists, and of course, spiritual teachers—the Wake Up Festival is a celebration of the heart’s unfolding.

• Heal the schism between science and spirituality while defining a new understanding of what it means to be human, inspired by the mystics and grounded in modern Science.

• Create a container characterized by authenticity, safety and respect for members of the community to communicate, explore and experience the interconnectedness of life

• Develop and share resources that facilitate the integration of this new understanding into daily life

• Celebrate the mystery of life!

SAND is inspired about creating and growing a community/movement of likeminded individuals believing that the time has come for the fragmentation of knowledge we have seen over the last four hundred years to give way to a newparadigm in which science and spirituality reenter into a meaningful dialogue with one another. Spirituality need not be at odds with scientific inquiry — a new kind of integration is possible. What is required for this reintegration is an empirically-responsible spirituality, one that is not beholden to dogma or authority, and a more humanistic science, one that is willing to consider the big questions of life.

• Heal the schism between science and spirituality while defining a new understanding of what it means to be human, inspired by the mystics and grounded in modern Science.

• Create a container characterized by authenticity, safety and respect for members of the community to communicate, explore and experience the interconnectedness of life

• Develop and share resources that facilitate the integration of this new understanding into daily life

• Celebrate the mystery of life!

SAND is inspired about creating and growing a community/movement of likeminded individuals believing that the time has come for the fragmentation of knowledge we have seen over the last four hundred years to give way to a newparadigm in which science and spirituality reenter into a meaningful dialogue with one another. Spirituality need not be at odds with scientific inquiry — a new kind of integration is possible. What is required for this reintegration is an empirically-responsible spirituality, one that is not beholden to dogma or authority, and a more humanistic science, one that is willing to consider the big questions of life.

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What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

- Pema Chodron

You are juggling tasks with a speed worthy of Ringling Bros. Congratulations, multitasker.

In this age of instant technology, we are bombarded with an overload of information and demands of our time. This is part of the reason GTD is so popular in the information world — it’s a system designed for quick decisions and for keeping all the demands of your life in order. But even if we are using GTD, sometimes we are so overwhelmed with things to do that our system begins to fall apart.

Life Hack recently posted How to Multi-task, and it’s a good article on the nature of multi-tasking and how to do it while still focusing on one task at a time.

This post is How NOT to Multi-task — a guide to working as simply as possible for your mental health.

First, a few quick reasons not to multi-task:

1. Multi-tasking is less efficient, due to the need to switch gears for each new task, and the switch back again.
2. Multi-tasking is more complicated, and thus more prone to stress and errors.
3. Multi-tasking can be crazy, and in this already chaotic world, we need to reign in the terror and find a little oasis of sanity and calm.

Here are some tips on how NOT to multi-task:

1. First set up to-do lists for different contexts (i.e. calls, computer, errands, home, waiting-for, etc.) depending on your situation.
2. Have a capture tool (such as a notebook) for instant notes on what needs to be done.
3. Have a physical and email inbox (as few inboxes as possible) so that all incoming stuff is gathered together in one place (one for paper stuff, one for digital).
4. Plan your day in blocks, with open blocks in between for urgent stuff that comes up. You might try one-hour blocks, or half-hour blocks, depending on what works for you. Or try this: 40 minute blocks, with 20 minutes in between them for miscellaneous tasks.
5. First thing in the morning, work on your Most Important Task. Don’t do anything else until this is done. Give yourself a short break, and then start on your next Most Important Task. If you can get 2-3 of these done in the morning, the rest of the day is gravy.
6. When you are working on a task in a time block, turn off all other distractions. Shut off email, and the Internet if possible. Shut off your cell phone. Try not to answer your phone if possible. Focus on that one task, and try to get it done without worrying about other stuff.
7. If you feel the urge to check your email or switch to another task, stop yourself. Breathe deeply. Re-focus yourself. Get back to the task at hand.
8. If other things come in while you’re working, put them in the inbox, or take a note of them in your capture system. Get back to the task at hand.
9. Every now and then, when you’ve completed the task at hand, process your notes and inbox, adding the tasks to your to-do lists and re-figuring your schedule if necessary. Process your email and other inboxes at regular and pre-determined intervals.
10. There are times when an interruption is so urgent that you cannot put it off until you’re done with the task at hand. In that case, try to make a note of where you are (writing down notes if you have time) with the task at hand, and put all the documents or notes for that task together and aside (perhaps in an “action” folder or project folder). Then, when you come back to that task, you can pull out your folder and look at your notes to see where you left off.
11. Take deep breaths, stretch, and take breaks now and then. Enjoy life. Go outside, and appreciate nature. Keep yourself sane.

The word “visualization” sometimes conjures up images of new age gurus teaching esoteric techniques for personal enlightenment and “attracting” what you want into your life. This causes many evidence-based types to scoff. However, piles of research has shown that mental imagery (aka “visualization”) can improve performance. The latest study suggests that a certain type of mental imagery can also increase your strength

Olympic champions and professional athletes have used visualization and mental rehearsal techniques for decades. Not only is visualization one of the most widely accepted techniques in sports psychology, it’s supported by scientific research.

Nevertheless, many people remain skeptical.

Some people agree that mental rehearsal might enhance specific skills, like a golf swing or a basketball throw, but they question whether it could make you stronger, increase muscle growth or help you lose weight.

A new study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research suggests that indeed, mental imagery can make you stronger. This study also begins to explain how mental imagery works on a neurological level…

Twenty two sports students, with a mean age of about 20, participated in the 6-week long experiment. Prior to the study, none had done mental imagery before. The students were divided into a control group and a mental rehearsal group.

The goal was to see if mental imagery could increase bench press and leg press strength.

Each participant was given very specific instructions on how to perform the mental imagery. During the rest period between sets, they were to vividly imagine the exercise movement and the muscle contractions generated from each rep.

After 12 workout sessions, the mental imagery group had significantly increased their strength more than the control group, especially in the lower body (leg press).

The researchers concluded:

“The results provided evidence that mental imagery did contribute to improve strength of the leg muscles without any macroscopic structural change”

What they were saying is that the duration of the study wasn’t long enough that there was any major muscle size increase, so they credited the strength increase to non morphological adaptations.

It’s well known in exercise science that gains in strength occur from changes not just in the muscle fibers and surrounding tissues, but in the nervous system.

That gives us clues about how mental imagery works.

Put simply, mental training techniques, (since they’re working with your brain/nervous system – as the name implies), can trigger some of the same neurological adaptations that occur from physical training.

Apparently, mental imagery can increase synchronization of motor units in muscles, having large corresponding cortical areas in the primary mortor cortex.

There are also psychological benefits, such as increased motivation, improved focus during the set, technique improvements, more confidence and less apprehension or anxiety. But clearly, there’s more to this than just “psyching up.”

Here’s something else interesting. The researchers even suggested that mental imagery could decrease strength loss when athletes are inactive due to injury.

This recent study is a practical one because it gives us one specific technique that you can apply to your next workout: vividly imagine a successful lift for the upcoming set while you’re resting between sets.

NOTE: it’s important to mentally see (visualize) the exercise and mentally “FEEL” the muscle contraction. This is multi-sensory – both visual and kinesthetic.

In some of my previous articles, I talked about density training and superset training as excellent techniques for busy people because these methods reduce rest intervals, making the workout time efficient.

But the rest time between heavy sets doesn’t have to be wasted – now you know what to do with that time…

Instead of chatting with your gym buddies, or scoping out the attractive bods in the gym, you can be mentally rehearsing your next set… and enjoying the strength increase that follows.

Most fat loss programs only focus on diet or physical training. If you want to learn more about how you can add “mental training” techniques to increase fat loss, muscle growth and muscular strength, then be sure to check out chapter one in my ebook, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle.