Moving Consciously
Living the Truth of Who I AmArchive for facebook
My New Blog Site
Hi everyone!
Please continue to follow my blogs — only on a new blog site. Follow this link: http://ajoyfuldance.posterous.com/
I will be closing this blog out in a bit of time, so I hope you’ll join me at me new blog home!!
You can also find me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/niachick
And on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/JilltheNiaChick
Thank you so much!!
Abundance
Day 29 of 52 Days: Blue Electric Night
“Acknowledge the abundance in our life; it creates waves of grace on which to move in the world. Generosity means giving, and it begins in the heart by affirming confidence in the abundance of the Universe…” — Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo
Many people dream of abundance…wishing for more of whatever it is they want. Life gives abundantly…not just some of the time…not just to a certain few…but ALL of the time and for everyone. It is when we are in a place of receiving what comes to us that we are able to acknowledge the gifts we are given.
Picture a waterwheel and all of life’s gifts come flowing to us from this waterwheel. We see something that we want, so we stop the waterwheel so that we can enjoy it or get more of it …OR…we see something coming that we don’t want and we stop the waterwheel. In either case what happens to the water’s circulation? It stops. The water becomes stagnant. We begin to complain that we’re in a rut and that Life has foresaken us. And who is it that stopped the flow of the water? Certainly not Life. Such an arrogant lot are we humans.
Thankfulness in all things. Life is sacred AND impermanent. Enjoy life’s abundance NOW.
The temptation is always present to judge what comes to me. I remember as a child being disappointed with some of the gifts I would receive from my family. “What am I supposed to do with this? This isn’t what I wanted.” Arrogance…
Over the years (and now at the age of 60), I’ve become more consciously aware of Life’s gifts when they land in my lap. It might be in the form of a person who is looking for some guidance — or perhaps a person who is offering some guidance to me. It might be in the form of more responsbility at the office — this is my current area of receiving Life’s gifts. In the throes of our office manager leaving somewhat unexpectedly, many of her responsibilities now lie with me. Where my days used to be creating and enjoying putting together Nia routines for my classes, my days are now spent enjoying more time at the office. My Nia practice time is more limited which means less time surfing Facebook and Twitter. My social networking time is now face to face time with my co-workers. Life finds its way of bringing people together…we were not meant to be sitting isolated at our computers — social networking has a whole different meaning for me now.
Receiving life’s abundance. Reaping the abundance of the love we’ve sown.
I do believe I’ve just set my focus for tonight’s Nia class at 5:30 p.m.: A-Bun-Dance.
Brain Freeze
The March 7th Newsweek issue features the topic “Brain Freeze — How the deluge of information paralyzes our ability to make good decisions.” And Angelika Dimoka, Director of the Center for Neural Decision Making at Temple University has written an article entitled “I Can’t Think” in which she addresses how “The Twitterization of our culture has revolutionized our lives, but with an unintended consequence — our overloaded brains freeze when we have to make decisions.”
Dimoka did some research where participants in the study were deliberately confronted with problems that overtax decision-making abilities. The complicated biological phenomenon in the brain that occur as a result showed that “as the information load increased, so did activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region behind the forehead that is responsible for decision making and control of emotions.” As the information load was deliberately increased, activity in that area “suddenly fell off, as if a circuit breaker had popped.” People started making stupid mistakes and bad choices. The brain region responsible for smart decision making had essential left the building. Frustration and anxiety soared. Where previously the brain’s emotion regions were held in check by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, they (the brain’s emotion regions) began to “run wild as toddlers on a sugar high.” Dimoka says, “With too much information…people’s decisions make less and less sense.” People are experiencing “info-paralysis”.
Researchers say “the ceaseless influx trains us to respond instantly, sacrificing accuracy and thoughtfulness to the false god of immediacy…the brain is wired to notice change over stasis. An arriving e-mail that pops to the top of the Blackberry qualifies as a change; so does a new Facebook post…we are conditioned to give greater weight in our decision-making machinery to what is latest, not what is more important or more interesting…we’re fooled by immediacy and quantity and think it’s quality…if we manage to make a decision despite info-deluge, it often comes back to haunt us…the more information we try to assimilate, the more we tent to regret the many foregone options.”
In her book, Conquer Cyber Overload, Joanne Cantor says, “if you let things come at you all the time, you can’t use additional information to make a creative leap or a wise judgment…you need to pull back from the constant influx and take a break.” She goes on to say, “That allows the brain to subconsciously integrate new information with existing knowledge and thereby make novel connections and hidden patterns.”
I’m a big e-mail nut and probably a bigger Facebook nut. I love this stuff. I’ve noticed my own change in habits over the past couple of years. I sit at the computer for more hours than I’d like to admit. I do respond to the little “brrringg” when a new e-mail hits my i-Phone. I’m constantly checking for updates on Facebook, interested in what other people are doing/saying. It’s a bit of an information addiction. And I must also admit that I have suffered from brain freeze and info-paralysis from time to time.
So I take a break. I listen to music and dance. I commune with nature. I love connecting with everyone on e-mail and Facebook, don’t get me wrong, but I know that you know what I’m talking about. Everyone is so insulated. We think we are connecting more, but we’re really isolating ourselves more, too. That’s what I love about Nia. It allows me to “integrate new information with existing knowledge and thereby make novel connections and hidden patterns”…I’ll be dancing and all of a sudden I’ll remember something someone has posted or something that I’ve read from someone’s blog…and voila’ — a focus or an intention for class begins to form — new patterns of movement evolve — my creativity is touched and it is an AWESOME feeling.
I liken it to relaxing in the current of Spirit. Nia is conscious movement upon the Earth while being in direct receipt of the current of Spirit. It’s an amazingly rich and textured practice.
So take a break from the computer — of course AFTER you’ve read this! 
Brain Freeze
The March 7th Newsweek issue features the topic “Brain Freeze — How the deluge of information paralyzes our ability to make good decisions.” And Angelika Dimoka, Director of the Center for Neural Decision Making at Temple University has written an article entitled “I Can’t Think” in which she addresses how “The Twitterization of our culture has revolutionized our lives, but with an unintended consequence — our overloaded brains freeze when we have to make decisions.”
Dimoka did some research where participants in the study were deliberately confronted with problems that overtax decision-making abilities. The complicated biological phenomenon in the brain that occur as a result showed that “as the information load increased, so did activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region behind the forehead that is responsible for decision making and control of emotions.” As the information load was deliberately increased, activity in that area “suddenly fell off, as if a circuit breaker had popped.” People started making stupid mistakes and bad choices. The brain region responsible for smart decision making had essential left the building. Frustration and anxiety soared. Where previously the brain’s emotion regions were held in check by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, they (the brain’s emotion regions) began to “run wild as toddlers on a sugar high.” Dimoka says, “With too much information…people’s decisions make less and less sense.” People are experiencing “info-paralysis”.
Researchers say “the ceaseless influx trains us to respond instantly, sacrificing accuracy and thoughtfulness to the false god of immediacy…the brain is wired to notice change over stasis. An arriving e-mail that pops to the top of the Blackberry qualifies as a change; so does a new Facebook post…we are conditioned to give greater weight in our decision-making machinery to what is latest, not what is more important or more interesting…we’re fooled by immediacy and quantity and think it’s quality…if we manage to make a decision despite info-deluge, it often comes back to haunt us…the more information we try to assimilate, the more we tent to regret the many foregone options.”
In her book, Conquer Cyber Overload, Joanne Cantor says, “if you let things come at you all the time, you can’t use additional information to make a creative leap or a wise judgment…you need to pull back from the constant influx and take a break.” She goes on to say, “That allows the brain to subconsciously integrate new information with existing knowledge and thereby make novel connections and hidden patterns.”
I’m a big e-mail nut and probably a bigger Facebook nut. I love this stuff. I’ve noticed my own change in habits over the past couple of years. I sit at the computer for more hours than I’d like to admit. I do respond to the little “brrringg” when a new e-mail hits my i-Phone. I’m constantly checking for updates on Facebook, interested in what other people are doing/saying. It’s a bit of an information addiction. And I must also admit that I have suffered from brain freeze and info-paralysis from time to time.
So I take a break. I listen to music and dance. I commune with nature. I love connecting with everyone on e-mail and Facebook, don’t get me wrong, but I know that you know what I’m talking about. Everyone is so insulated. We think we are connecting more, but we’re really isolating ourselves more, too. That’s what I love about Nia. It allows me to “integrate new information with existing knowledge and thereby make novel connections and hidden patterns”…I’ll be dancing and all of a sudden I’ll remember something someone has posted or something that I’ve read from someone’s blog…and voila’ — a focus or an intention for class begins to form — new patterns of movement evolve — my creativity is touched and it is an AWESOME feeling.
I liken it to relaxing in the current of Spirit. Nia is conscious movement upon the Earth while being in direct receipt of the current of Spirit. It’s an amazingly rich and textured practice.
So take a break from the computer — of course AFTER you’ve read this!
