This month I decided I would offer a list of 25 questions that are a great self-evaluation opportunity. As you read through these questions, I invite you to really think over the answers. You may be surprised by them. This is a good exercise. It is always good to get to know yourself better.  To improve the exercise, write your responses down. Again, writing your response is even more likely to show you things about yourself you didn’t know. The best practice of all would be to do the first two suggestions then share these responses with a loved one. This serves to make the exercise more real and lends some seriousness to the realization that you want to make progress toward a desired outcome in your life that is of great importance to you. Think of a place in your life where you are stuck or stressed and then ask these questions:

1. I know I don’t know, but if I did, what would it be?
2. How will my life be different if this issue is solved?
3. Who would I be without my story/obsession/compulsion/behavior?
4. If I were to ask a wise old friend for help, what would his/her advice be to me?
5. What if I were advising a friend? What would I tell them?
6. If I was employed as an investigator, what would I find?
7. If I were a lawyer defending me, what would I say in my defense?
8. If I wake up tomorrow and this problem is miraculously solved, how will I know?
9. Being the ideal me, living my ideal life, what positive attributes would others see in me?
10. If everything were great in my life, what would it be like?
11. What would a perfect day consist of?
12. When haveI been like myself the most?
13. What is my secret passion?
14. If I could change anything, what three things would I put into (or take out of) my life?
15. If I were to have this conversation a year from now, what would have needed to have happened?
16. What could I begin today, this week, this month, or the rest of this year to begin the process?
17. What did I want to do before I “grew up” and “got real?”
18. What would I do if no one else ever found out?
19. What would I do if it were really entirely up to me?
20. What would I do if nobody minded?
21. What would I do if money were no object?
22. What would “Wow!” look like in the different areas of my life? (Work/Career, Family, Finances, Friends, Spirituality, Fun Time/Hobbies.)
23. If I take myself forward to the day before I die and am asked to define what I have done and been proud of in my life, what would I say?
24. Who would I have to be in order to attract the life I want? Would I need to study, meet a different set of people, be in a different place, look a different way, talk with a different emphasis, believe different things?
25. What do I know now that I didn’t know before?

Be honest and have a genuine, authentic meeting with yourself. Good luck!

Whenever I hear the song One More Night by Phil Collins it takes me right back to April 1985 and my Junior Prom. I had been asked to the Prom by a really sweet guy on our football team. He planned the whole thing and we had a ball with some other couples on a group date. For my goodnight kiss at the door after the Prom, he gave me a basket of Hershey’s kisses. So cute! My sister had made my formal dress. It was simple and beautiful, making a lovely rustling sound when I moved. My mother had done my hair in a really classy up-do and I can still smell the hairspray. It was a super fun night with great friends and it warms my heart every time I remember it. My Prom song is what’s called an “anchor.” It instantly accesses some very strong emotions and memories.

An anchor can be anything. It can be something we hear, see, feel, taste or smell and can immediately evoke powerful states of being. An anchor is a trigger that sets off a conditioned response. The conditions are made of sensory input that occurs around a certain thing. Anchors are all around us and are nothing new. In fact, advertisers rely on them for effective recall of their specific product. The intent is to produce a programmed response in us to want what they’re selling. A general awareness of anchors originated with Pavlov’s experiments involving a stimulus which would invoke a certain response. In Pavlov’s experiments, the desired response required time and repeated stimulus. Now, with the work of Neuro Linguistic Programming, a specific response can be created by one connection with a stimulus, more along the lines of the song and my Junior Prom memories.

We now know that we can use a one-time stimulus input to create a lasting and meaningful response that can be called upon at our most urgent times of need. I love that idea! For instance, if we are in the process of changing an old thought pattern for a new, more healthy one, we can anchor the new thought pattern and call on it when needed. If we want to anchor a new understanding, or remember a piece of information at a certain time, we can create an anchor that will recall it at will. Here’s how it’s done:

1. Think of a positive state you want to be able to access at will. (We will refer to this state as a resourceful state.)
2. Remember a time when you were in that state. Go back into that time; see what you saw then, feel what you felt then, hear what you heard then. Relive the experience and let that feeling grow as strong as it can.
3. Come back to the present.
4. Choose an association or anchor you want to use that will act as a trigger to bring back that resourceful feeling. It may be a sound, a word or an action. (Some people squeeze a thumb and a specific finger together.)
5. Now go back and fully experience the resourceful state you accessed just now. Go back into that time again; see what you saw then, feel what you felt then, hear what you heard then. Relive the experience and let that feeling grow as strong as it can. When the feeling is at its height, use the anchor you chose.
6. Come back to the present and think of something else, unrelated to the anchored state.
7. Now test the anchor. Does this bring back the resourceful feeling? If not, or not strongly enough, go back in time, relive the experience and set the anchor again. Do this as many times as you need to set a strong resourceful feeling. (Usually it happens pretty well with the first try.)
8. Now, imagine yourself in a situation where you would like to be able to use that resourceful state. Visualize the experience and imagine yourself triggering the anchor.

Anchors are putting themselves in place in our thought processes all the time. Sometimes it’s innocently done by circumstances and other times it’s intentionally done by others in an effort to exercise a portion of control over us. These types of triggers are often experienced negatively. Why not put anchors in place to our advantage, triggering the experiences and understandings we want to recall at will, and then enjoy their benefits when needed and desired? Good luck!

So I am preparing to present a workshop in Louisville, Kentucky in October to a national group of medical professionals. My topic is about coming back home to the heart. The heart has the ability to accurately balance our thoughts and feelings to create clarity, effectiveness, real solutions, and true caring. It seems that the medical model has been teaching professionals to turn off their emotions—or hearts—in order to avoid becoming burned-out in their jobs. That would be a lovely solution, if it worked.

                Here’s the truth about caring vs. overcaring. Care is a function of the heart. Really. Science can now back that up with spectrum read-outs of the electromagnetic fields from both hearts and brains. It turns out that a heart that is coherent and firmly in the field of caring will instantly entrain the brain to it—not the other way around as we have believed for far too long. Recently, I read a fascinating seventy-page medical research paper on this very subject from the Institute of HeartMath. But one needn’t do all that. Just visit their website at www.heartmath.org and browse around. It is so interesting! There are numerous implications from this work, but today I will focus on the art of heart-caring.

                Think of someone, or something, for which you deeply care. Feel that feeling for a moment and then notice what those thoughts have done to your body. What has happened to your pulse, your breathing, your state of tension, your general feeling of wellbeing? Care is more valuable to us than we realize. It revitalizes and soothes the whole human system. It acts to motivate us. It gently reassures us, leading to feelings of security, support, and, most important of all, connection. Not only is it wonderful for our physical health, but it feels good—whether we are giving it or receiving it.

                A genuine core heart emotion like sincere care creates a bounce in your step, a glow in your eyes and an emanation of happiness from your being. And the physiological effects are equally dramatic. It increases the synchronization and coherent heart rhythmic patterns, which are not only good for the heart itself but for the nervous system and brain function. We have all had times of feeling this caring emotion deeply. Sometimes it can feel like a random visitor in our lives, though, and that we are victims to its illusive timing.

                The opposite of these genuine feelings of care is what is called over-care. Overcare occurs when our care goes too far and becomes burdensome, accompanied by worry, anxiety or insecurity. It leaves us feeling overloaded, overwhelmed, and overboard. The key thing to know is that this is actually a function of the brain and not the heart at all. People mistakenly attribute these negative feelings to the heart and assume that it mars professional or rational decision-making. Nothing could be further from the truth! What has actually happened is that the heart-fields have been abandoned in favor of the brain where we rehash, revisit, and just fret it out.  The truth is that abandoning the heart weakens us.

                “Balanced care paves the way for intuition. Overcare eats up the pavement, and then we don’t have a road to travel on anymore. That’s why we don’t get anywhere.” (Institute of HeartMath). Overcare doesn’t help. It squelches clarity, incapacitates people, induces panic and dilutes creative thinking. Here is a simple question to ask ourselves in determining if we are wandering in states of overcare, “Is what I am caring about adding quality to my life or is it adding stress?” When we have the answer to that question, we can be on the lookout for overcare. Notice if you are slipping into judgment, excessive drama, or feelings of resignation. These are sure indicators of overcare.

                In the event that we should find ourselves laden with the resultant stress of overcaring, there are three easy steps one can employ to bring back a balanced, heart-centered caring that adds quality to our days. They are as follows:

Step 1: Heart Focus

Focus your attention around your heart in the center of your chest.

(At first, you may want to put your hand over your heart area.)

Step 2: Heart Breathing

Breathe deeply but normally and feel as if your breath is coming in and out through your heart area.

(Breathe slowly and casually until you find a natural inner rhythm that feels good to you.)

 Step 3: Heart Feeling

This is the most important step!

As you maintain your heart focus and heart breathing, activate a positive feeling.

(Recall a positive feeling, like sincere gratitude, or remember a special place you’ve been to, the love you feel for a close friend, family member, or pet.) Really embrace this heart feeling. Then notice how the stressful overcare thoughts have dialed down several notches.

                It is important to remember to employ these three simple steps anytime we catch ourselves in the grip of stress. It can be done in under a minute when we become practiced at it. We need not be subject to random feelings of care. We can recall and use them at will. It is good medicine! I invite us all to get out of our heads so much and back into the wisdom of our hearts as we deal with the rigors and stressors of daily life. Good luck!

I am often made fun of for my compulsion about rainbow order. To me, if colors are present they should be organized into rainbow order—or as close to it as is possible! It appears to people that I have a funny little obsession and, while that may be, I would also like to disclose some facts about color, its order, and its healing properties.

As we contemplate the realms of all matter, we first have to own that everything is in a state of vibration. First there was darkness and then light was infused into it. The result was color. But I’m getting ahead of myself. All life on our planet depends on light from the sun to live. Light is the creator’s paintbrush.  Total light would blind us and total darkness would render us unconscious. The meeting of the two is where color emerges. And if we look around us, life is color. All the minerals, plants, animals, people and sounds have color! Even our organs each have a specific color.

So what does all this have to do with rainbow order?  Consider this: Isaac Newton discovered that when sunlight is directed through crystal prisms at the appropriate angle, the white light of the sun is broken into a band of different colors. If one considers themselves as the prism and white light is directed through us we will also manifest these different bands of color—the chakras! And it always goes in rainbow order! Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and purple to be exact. Now consider this.

Light is the medium for the transfer of information. According to Dr. Jacob Liberman we are actually living photocells as light transfers energy information to the mitochondria of our cells, speeding various chemical processes and stimulating the body’s ability to heal. Dr. Fitz-Albert Popp determined that we are bathed in a field of light—from the inside out—as the very DNA of our bodies act as biophoton machines. In the 1800s a scientist named Cabal first linked the hypothalamus with light. The hypothalamus is the brain’s regulator of our autonomic nervous system and the master endocrine gland, the pituitary. One of the glands it controls is the pineal which serves as the body’s light meter, taking in information through the eyes and also through the earth’s electromagnetic field. He showed that the correct light used at the appropriate intensity, speed, and color can shift imbalances in the autonomic nervous and endocrine systems. What we know now is that this can shift imbalances on the physical, emotional, spiritual, mental and energetic levels and dimensions. Why? Because different colors of light frequency are the carriers of specific information. 

Though light has been used for healing purposes since the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, and later the Greeks and Romans, it was researcher Dinshah Ghadiali in the 1940swho developed a method of using colored lights directly on the body. He showed that the body could be healed by systematically exposing it to colored lights. It was his work that brought to light (no pun intended) that babies with elevated bilirubin in their blood could be medically treated with blue light—a treatment that is used daily in Newborn Intensive Care Units and regular nurseries and homes across the world. It turns out that the frequency of blue light is the carrier of specific information an underdeveloped liver needs to cleanse itself from overwhelming toxins that would permanently disable or kill the infant if left untreated. In the 1980s Dr. Rosenthal realized the existence of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and the need for full-spectrum light therapy to ease the resultant depression. I could go on ad infinitum about what research is treating now with intensive light therapies.  But what does all this mean to us in our normal everyday lives?

I invite us to surround ourselves with color. We can dress ourselves in it, paint our environments with it, grow it, eat it, and enjoy it in so many ways! It will bless the life in us more than we can know. Use this most basic table of colors and the specific information each frequency carries to conduct personal experiments.

• Red                       Life energies
• Orange                 Creativity and feelings
• Yellow                  Intellect
• Green                  Healing
• Blue                      Communication
• Purple                  Vision, clarification of choices, and results of decisions
• Pink/rose            Love
• White                   Divine will, spiritual destiny
• Black                     Power of movement, force behind change
• Gold                      Harmony
• Silver                    Transference of energy from one place to another
• Brown                  Practicality and grounding

Different colors carry specific information, intelligence and blessings to us. How will we know what colors to use? We can go with what calls to us! Trust it. There is a reason we are being drawn to it. Intentionally take advantage of the energy and information color will bring into your life!

It was a blustery mid-December day in 2003.  I walked with a bounce in my step as I replayed the Fetal Foto session I had just enjoyed where I learned that the precious bundle I was carrying inside was a tiny little girl.  A girl was a rarity in my extended family and I was feeling particularly clever that we had successfully, though unknowingly, implemented the recipe.   We had been waiting to be pregnant for 13 and a half years, so to be expecting a baby was a miracle.  To be expecting a little girl was just icing on the cake.  Her name would be Makenna. I rejoiced that my cell phone was actually charged as I dialed to tell my husband the great news.  We exulted together as I made my way to our van, which was secreted in the middle of a sea-sized mall parking lot.  I was just hanging up the phone as I reached for the van door.  The instant my hand touched the handle, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of pure and consuming love for my little girl.  The feeling started at the top of my head and washed over me to my toes and out into Mother earth herself.  I stood rooted to the spot as sobs of gratitude involuntarily began to issue forth from the center of my soul.  “I love you so much, Makenna,” I whispered over and over again.  I felt a mutual melding of our hearts and souls in that moment and, as I regained my mobility, I climbed into my van and drove back home, aware that my heart had been stamped with a supernal, intimate experience in the midst of an impersonal parking lot.

Six short weeks later, at 22 weeks gestation, I awoke in labor.  We rushed in a panic to the nearest hospital.  My bag was bulging and I was dilating quickly.  The doctor said they really couldn’t keep me and so they called the Life Flight team.  I was flown to the University of Utah Hospital and within the hour my water broke and Makenna was washed into the birth canal.  Delivery was imminent.  Makenna was born at 10:04 a.m. on January 28, 2004.  She weighed 530 grams (or 1 lb, 2 oz).

“I’m so sorry.  I’m so sorry,” I cried over and over again.  My husband and I couldn’t have been more shocked or devastated than we were.  Makenna was whisked away from us and Trent went to follow her.  As for me, it was the easiest delivery ever—which riddled me with remorse and guilt.  My physical recovery was a cinch.  But my soul recovery time was lagging Makenna’s by a bit.  My heart was thenceforth lying in a giraffe bed in Room One, right next to my little girl.

The first time I saw her I stood by her bed and cried.  I cried the next several times I visited.  Then suddenly, my soul rallied to do the battle and my demeanor changed.  I committed to learn everything there was for me to learn in the experience from that moment on.  I promised to be Makenna’s biggest cheerleader possible.   The heart melding experience we had shared together in the mall parking lot cemented and I knew that with my husband beside me we would get through whatever was to come.  We knew what we wanted that to be, but we were willing to allow it to be what it was going to be.

During the ensuing four and a half months in the NICU we had a hard course.  Makenna had  grades three and four intraventricular hemorrhages (IVH), an enlarged heart from her open patent ductus arteriosus (PDA)and pulmonary hypertension, acute bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), hydrocephalus, porencephaly, surgically inserted ART lines, sepsis, stage 3+ retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) which required laser surgery, and decreased left ventricular heart function, just to mention a few.  Add that to all the other crazy ups and downs that are the NICU experience, and I felt very insane a lot of the time.  The Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) became our lives.  We were balancing four other children at home, two of which had just been adopted a few months earlier.  We cried, laughed, and prayed our way through.  We took pictures, wrote in journals, read stories, tried to rest, and tenaciously guarded a space of possibility for our tiny girl to move into if she chose to.  We also loved her madly, no matter what the outcome was to be.  Many times we were told it wasn’t very likely we would get to keep her here on the earth.  We were advised to decide if we wanted her to stay alive on more than one occasion.  We let her choose, and promised her we would support her no matter what she chose.  She mirthfully said she was staying!  We rejoiced and buckled in for the ride.

As she developed, I realized I would need to find answers for facilitating Makenna’s complete recovery. I held that intention and prayed to be guided. A little over a year after coming home I was introduced to the world of kinesiology and knew at once I would be pursuing it with vigor. It taught me that all things are possible and that our body/mind/spirits are intelligent enough to know how to heal with the right support. I needed to know how to support her in her healing journey.

Makenna is now seven years old and a joy beyond measure to our family.  She has some residual issues from her ridiculously early birth.  Sometimes I still grieve for the loss of that normal pregnancy and the ensuing normal development of my sweet little girl.  Sometimes I still wish I could go back and fix it all.  But that would be assuming that she is broken—and she is not!  The only thing broken is my picture of how it was going to be.  And the truth is, what is ends up being better than what I had dreamed up every time.  I am grateful for life and the merciful learnings of it.

I stood at her bed while she lay asleep the other night and watched, with fascination, the sheer genius of her body and spirit at work, sustaining her life while she rested and repaired from an exhausting day at play.  “I love you, Makenna,” I said over and over again.  “And thank you for the journey you have led us on—blessing the life in all of us.”

I believe that all our varied life journeys usher us to the same universal lessons, and so I have written a book called From Delivery to Deliverance—My Journey Through a Newborn Intensive Care Unit, by Tawna L. Burton. It is available on Amazon in the Kindle Store; however, one does not have to have a kindle to download it. It will download to many different electronic readers, including your  computer or phone. If you would like to read the complete story of Makenna’s birth and NICU journey, please follow this link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_28?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=from+delivery+to+deliverance&sprefix=from+delivery+to+deliverance.

Decouvertes says, “It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” How is it that questions bring enlightenment? I am a question-asker and I love the energy of a great query. It is an invitation to open the door of creativity and embark on a learning adventure. What could be more fun than that? But beyond the factor of fun, Tony Robbins offers this insight, “The quality of your life is directly related to the quality of questions you ask.” This suggests that question-asking is a very weighty matter.

In the English language there are basically two components of our speech—statements and questions. Statements come in the form of declarative or exclamatory affirmations. An affirmation has a certain power in and of itself, but I would suggest that the application of such be taken under serious consideration to reach clarity before use. Here is why I say that. Statements affirm what is and therefore can easily lead us to feel that we have no choice in the matter. To illustrate this idea ponder the feelings that accompany these statements:

• I’m so unhealthy.
• I don’t have enough time.
• I’m always late.
• I can’t pay my bills.
• I didn’t deserve this situation.

Here is another truth for examination: When we make a statement, we are primarily using our logical, rational left brain. These statements are static in nature. The potential problem is that our unconscious mind acts on whatever our conscious mind tells it, or states to it. For instance, if we say we don’t have enough money, our unconscious mind will ensure that we won’t. This may take the form of self-sabotaging any money-making solutions in accordance with our own belief systems.

Conversely, questions invoke more of our intuitive, creative right brain. They challenge us to discover what might be, leading us into unexplored territory. They open doors to new possibilities, mobilizing the immense power of our unconscious mind. When we ask a question, our unconscious will always answer it. Here is the good news: our unconscious mind can draw from unlimited resources and wisdom that are not directly available to our conscious mind. The key is to develop skills in asking constructive, open-ended questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. For example, if we change the above statements into empowering questions they might look something like this:

• What lifestyle change will give me better health?
• How can I make more time for what is important to me?
• What can I cut from my routine so that I can be on time?
• What can I do to change my financial status?
• What can I learn from this situation?

Notice how the whole energy of the statement portion is completely different from the energy of the question portion. The possibilities suddenly become extended. After we seek to change our limiting statements in life into empowering questions, the next steps involve being aware, watching and listening, and being open to new possibilities and opportunities. They will surely occur to us!

I invite us to practice the art of asking empowering questions in our lives. Leave the restriction of declarative and exclamatory statements that we often embrace in contradiction to our best good, and welcome the exciting frontier of well-constructed questions. There is truly power in them!

As a teenager my response when someone had lost their power of reason was, “Get a grip!” Little did I know at the time, that that need may in fact have been very real. In the world of Neurokinesiology there is a specific dimension of brain functioning that takes care of our ability to perceive and express. It is the laterality dimension. This dimension is encompassed in right and left hemispheres of the neocortex and is the conceptual and intellectual brain center assigning meaning and expression to the data received in our body-mind system from our external and internal environments. The Robinson Grasp Reflex influences the future expansion of the laterality dimension and the myriad things it governs by accompanying the development of the distinction between the left and right body, and exploration of the all-important midline. Let’s look at it a little closer in terms of the effect a non-integrated grasp can have on our lives via physical, mental and emotional manifestations.

The grasping reflex is exhibited in babies when a finger, or other object, is placed in the palm of their hand, giving stimulus to the pads at the base of the fingers. From this stimulus the baby engages in steady gripping—sometimes so intensely that it is possible to lift the baby up. Physically, this reflex has a huge influence on the evolution of gross motor hand coordination, grasping and holding objects, as well as manipulation of bigger objects. As this reflex integrates at the end of the first year, it serves as a foundation upon which fine motor co-ordination develops. Things that call for finger dexterity such as drawing, writing, playing musical instruments, keyboarding, knitting, etc, all depend on the grasp reflex being in place and integrated. In its absence, physical problems that may arise include poor hand/eye coordination, neck and shoulder pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, dysgraphia (excessive pressure on a pencil or pen), problems with the large intestines, and an inability to time when to hold on and when to let go when playing sports.

But physical manifestations are not all that a non-integrated grasp reflex exhibits. Because the grasp reflex has a vast influence on the development of our conceptual and intellectual brain center, there are often manifestations in our mental processing. Just as the grasping reflex affects the ability to know when to hold on and when to let go physically, it also translates to our thinking and processing skills. A person who suffers from an non-integrated grasp reflex may struggle to know when to hold on and when to let go of ideas, relationships, habits, arguments, etc. This reflex is also largely responsible for the development of speech, as it evolves the left and right brain centers. A struggle here might include speech delays and disorders. In addition the grasping reflex is very much a part of a person’s ability to grasp and hold on to an idea and/or to life. Someone who works hard to learn new concepts and then can’t recall or access them—they just slip away—might look to their grasping reflex to see if it needs some time and attention.

Lastly, this reflex also has a significant influence on our emotional state of being. An inability to grasp properly can result in emotional chaos and instability in those transitional moments of life.  A hypo, or weak, grasp can produce feelings of insatiable wanting. A person may want everything but be able to give nothing in return—driven by overwhelming feelings of insecurity. In contrast a hyper, or over-energy, grasp may result in feelings of having to hold on for dear life to people, situations, emotions, etc—driven by an inability to trust life.

The good news here is that addressing grasp reflex issues is very simple and straightforward. This uncomplicated process can produce profound and potentially life-changing results. All it takes is a little phone call and a session with someone trained in the work of Dr. Svetlana Masgutova. I invite us all to take the advice of teenagers everywhere and “get a grip!” It will bless our lives for sure.

For more information on the integration of dynamic and postural reflexes go to www.neurokinesiology.pl.

I like to think of myself as possessing a moderately high intelligence when compared to creatures like bivalve mollusks, but I am not so sure. Upon examination it seems that my friends, the oysters, have great wisdom that I would do well to incorporate into my own life on a more consistent basis. There are three pearls of oyster wisdom I would like to share and discuss. When faced with life-changing challenges, an oyster entrusts itself to the ocean floor, does not alter its nature and responds in a patient, methodical way to its source of pain. So what does that mean to us? How does that knowledge bless our lives? Let’s consider it together.

It is common knowledge that an oyster lives firmly secured to the bottom of a sandy, shallow ocean floor. It is designed with a hard, protective outer shell that encases its soft inner workings. In order to eat and breathe an oyster must open and close its shell—the action of which causes water to flow across its mostly formless insides where nutrients are extracted and breathing transpires. The risk of these actions lies in the fact that sand is a way of life for an oyster on the ocean floor. Sometimes while “breathing” water, a grain of sand becomes lodged between the soft belly and hard shell of the oyster, becoming part of its life from then on. It is painful and problematic to the creature, but the first beautiful lesson of our friendly oysters is that they continue to entrust themselves to the ocean floor—sand and all. Our lives are wrought with painful eventualities that could cause us to withdraw our trust and close ourselves off from the nutrients and breath of life. If we employ the oyster’s wisdom, however, we will continue to hazard the sands of life and entrust ourselves to the process of living.

When an oyster is opened it is immediately apparent that its insides are—by nature—soft, tender, and vulnerable. The infliction of a single grain of sand renders pain and discomfort with no option of extraction. The mollusk must simply accept. What I love is that when this offending grain causes continual pain, the oyster does not alter its soft nature, becoming hard and leathery in order to survive. To do so would be a self-inflicted death sentence. And so it is with us. To choose hard leathery subsistence is to choose a spiritual, emotional, and/or mental death. I invite us to remain soft, tender and vulnerable, implementing this second peal of oyster wisdom.

Perhaps my favorite lesson of the oyster is the fact that even in its vulnerability, it does respond. And it is a brilliant response. Very slowly and patiently, the oyster coats the grain of sand in multiple translucent layers. Only over time does it create something of great value in the place where it was most vulnerable to its pain. I believe the same can be true of us. In the beginning our grain of pain is still very much visible through a few layers of translucence. But over time and with the methodical response of patience, our grain of pain is eventually rendered as a luminescent pearl of beauty and value, if we apply the wisdom of the common oyster.

A pearl might be thought of as an oyster’s response to its suffering. The pearl-making process can also be our response to suffering. If we have the wisdom to entrust ourselves to the process of living, the courage to remain soft, tender and vulnerable, and the patience to methodically coat our pain in multiple layers of healing, we, too, will find that these are the very places in which wisdom will begin to grow. And if anyone looks inside our protective outer covering they will find in us a luminescent sense of the value of life and a greater capacity to live it.

I sent my book to be edited and am well into the process of doing the rewrites.  It is a book about my journey through a Newborn ICU (NICU) and the universal truths I learned from my micro-preemie. Writing this book has been a bitter-sweet trip down memory lane, putting all those experiences and their accompanying feelings front and center for me again. Today, as I thought about the topic for this month’s blog—the Bonding Reflex—I was doing some rewrites in the chapter about holding my baby for the first time. I reminded me of some facts I was taught about skin-to-skin, or Kangaroo Care, while being prepared to hold my preemie the first time.

Kangaroo Care is a Central America procedure we have adopted in the United States. It was explained to me that when a mother in some areas of Central America gave birth to a premature infant, the mortality rate was huge since there was very limited access to the sophisticated machinery of the American NICU. The doctors and nurses in Central America would have the mother and/or father expose the skin of their chest and the baby’s naked skin was laid directly on them. And here was true beauty and genius at work. The result was that the babies would live. It changed the face of premature infant mortality there so much that America noticed and wondered.

As our doctors looked closer, here is what they found. Babies who were “kangarooed” didn’t struggle with maintaining their heat, the number one problem for all premature babies.  They can’t maintain their heat and continue to grow their body’s systems. Our doctor’s found that when a baby was lying on mom’s or dad’s skin, the parent acted as the incubator and the baby could continue to develop those essential organs needed to survive outside the womb. They also discovered that laying the babies in direct skin contact with their parents very naturally stimulated them to breathe in concert with their parent’s rhythmic and calm breathing, greatly reducing the incident of apnea and bradycardic episodes. Oxygen needs were also minimal given the baby’s more normal and effective breathing patterns. The baby’s emotions were calmed as they lay with their ear on mom’s chest and listened to the familiar beating of her heart and other internal sounds that had provided the music by which they had been growing during pregnancy. Their heart rates decreased from the former wild beating that accompanied stressed babies. But here is the most beautiful effect of Kangaroo Care—mothers and babies bonded. With premature birth, the bonding issue is a big one since mothers might fear baby’s ability to survive in the first place, and secondly, because of the separation that treatment and support requires. It was a natural remedy that was blowing the medical mind!

Now, apply these facts to what we know about the Bonding Reflex. We discussed that a baby needs to be put on mom’s tummy directly after birth in order to evoke the kinesthetic feeling of the body center. Baby sees and hears mother, which activates sucking motions. All these things help to decrease birthing stress, lower adrenaline levels, and regenerate and adapt the infant to their “new world” faster. South America showed us the truth about this first hand, and now that America has joined the band wagon, these very results can be found in NICUs across the nation. Mother Nature had it right all along, of course!

I invite us to trust our innate wisdom and the genius with which we are formed, function, and healed. It is trustworthy! It is trustworthy at birth and remains so all through the path of our life’s journey.

Working with children and adults in many learning environments, I have been struck by the difference between those who are motivated to learn through curiosity and those who are motivated to learn through fear.   Here’s what I mean.  I have noticed in any group—young or old—there will be some who seem curious about everything and want to engage in new learning so as to understand something they haven’t before.  They feel confident in their ability to acquire new understandings and engage with a spirit of excitement and delight at the prospect.  Learning, for them, seems to come easily and gracefully.  There will also be some who are almost at war with themselves.  They are lacking the sense of confidence exuded by the former individuals, and are driven by expectation (theirs, or someone else’s) and fear of failing.  Their learning process is fraught with dread and hard work.  The interesting thing to me is that there isn’t an actual difference in their ability to process and understand information, but there is a monumental difference in their approach to learning.  It leads me to ask why.

We mentioned in previous articles that the bonding reflex serves to decrease the heavy adrenaline overload triggered during birth.  The extreme adrenaline saturation of the body at birth is never achieved again in life.  It is a merciful solution to help us through a highly stressful event and is meant to support our body/mind/spirit system through the most exhausting segments.  The problem of staying in a sustained hyper-adrenaline state is that it begins to kill neurons and keeps the system in a state of protection for the preservation of life.   When the bonding reflex is not switched on after birth and the adrenaline state continues longer than intended, the learning code of our life is programmed as a call for stress hormones which triggers a protection mode in us.  Then, every time we encounter stressful learning environments in life, this code triggers a state of preservation rather than openness to learning.

A nonintegrated bonding reflex might manifest as follows in a child or adult who is put in a new learning experience.  The immediate response is subconsciously identified as stressful and the hyper-adrenaline state begins anew.  Logic and reasoning flee and the body responds on auto-pilot.  Breathing either becomes rapid and ineffective, or one finds they are holding their breath.  It is hard to see and/or comprehend what’s being seen.  Explanations and instructions become jumbled and undecipherable.  Thinking is muddled and foggy at best. It may become almost impossible to move oneself to action or, on the other hand, one may not be able to employ the natural pausing rhythm that learning requires.  Ultimately, the sense of being able to feel oneself is seriously hampered and is akin to having an out-of-body experience.

Conversely, those who have integrated bonding reflexes are much more likely to embrace the learning environment and actually seek it out.  For them, engaging in the learning process leaves breathing controlled and comfortable. The senses of seeing and hearing are coordinated and functioning. The ability to sort and extrapolate important pieces is smooth and easy. Fluctuation between response and pause is an elegantly coordinated choreography throughout the learning session. Overall, there is a great sense of feeling grounded within one’s self.

The bonding reflex brings integration of coordination, movement, emotions and thoughts.  It brings an awareness of our bodies as a unit.  We feel protected and taken care of, with an assurance that our primary needs can be met.  When this is the case, the body/mind/spirit system will allow energy to be redirected to allow cognitive activities. We are connected to our own essence and able to communicate in a give-and-take manner with those closest to us, as well as groups, societies, and the world.