Showing posts with label behaviour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label behaviour. Show all posts

Friday, September 12, 2014

The DNA of Bullying: Why Society Favors the Bully...


Bullying and its affect upon individuals and society has been in the news a lot this year. It's also been a hot topic on many of the interviews I've done around the world lately.

Interviewers are often surprised when I show little sympathy for the bully. I hear things like - but they are humans too - which of course is true. The issue is that serial bullies lack one important human trait - empathy. Perversely this seems to provide them with a social advantage when it comes to manipulating and traumatizing their victims and then getting away with it.

A recent study by the University of Warwick has recommended that anti-bullying policies must focus on all of society, because as long as bullies reap the life-long benefits of increased status and opportunity, bullies will thrive, while their victims suffer life-long negative health and social impacts.*

So, here is the unadulterated truth: society loves bullies. Yes, that's right, society selects bullies for promotion, leadership, wealth and position, and has done so for thousands of years. We love winners, and despite our moralistic preaching, will look to blame the victim, because we perceive them to be a loser in the competition of life.


Neil Tippett, lead author of the review, emphasized, "This hierarchy is familiar to us all from our own school days. In my view, so long as the rewards exist for bullies in the form of social status, it is difficult to make bullies to change their behaviours as there is little incentive for them to do so."*


We are fascinated by bullies, uncompromising winners and those who pursue success at all costs. The charismatic bully holds us in their thrall, convinces some of us to participate in acts of physical, emotional or psychological harm to others, and promises to share the rewards. This phenomenon contributed to the Global Financial Crisis, and resulted in those who tried to warn government and the financial sector of the impending crisis, being ostracized and victimized.

If the bully is rewarded early in life, they are unlikely to change their behavior for the better, or develop empathy, instead hard-wiring in the mind-maps for bullying and manipulation, becoming extreme narcissists. If they are one of the 3% of the human population who is a psychopath, then this bullying behavior can set them on a path that will most likely do immense harm to others. If the psychopath is bullied, then the results can be even worse. Research suggests that when a psychopath is bullied during childhood their lack of empathy can become pathological.

So what do we do?

As a society we need to stop rewarding bullies, from the playground, to the classroom, to the shop-floor to the board-room. We need to take complaints about bullying seriously, and swallow the short term bitter-pill of removing a bully from their position of power. If we observe a bully in action, submit a complaint and then remove yourself from the bully's sphere of influence. It is not your job to fix them, it is not your job to make them better, leave that to the professionals. Take your energy elsewhere and reclaim your life.




If we are serious about creating a bully-free playground, we need to stop rewarding the teenage and adult bully; we need to champion co-operation, consultation and collaboration and reward these behaviors instead.

Are we as a society prepared to walk-the-talk?

Elisabetta is the author of The Energy Code, The DNA of Bullying, The Infidel, Veritas and D'Arc, the Legend of Saint Joan.

More from Elisabetta 


*Journal References:
  1. Neil Tippett, BSc, and Dieter Wolke, PhD. Socioeconomic Status and Bullying: A Meta-Analysis. American Journal of Public Health, April 2014 DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.301960 
  2.  University of Warwick. "Anti-bullying policy must focus on all of society." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 29 April 2014. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140429125737.htm.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

What is Energetic Health? Excerpt from The Energy Code by Elisabetta L. Faenza



 To celebrate the launch of The Energy Code, today's blog shares an excerpt about the very important concept of energetic health; a concept that relates to our internal well-being as well as how we interact with the world at large.


Enjoy,

Elisabetta 25th of August 2014




If we think of our bodies, cells and relationships as buckets of energy
that we can have conscious awareness of, we start to be able to better
manage our health. And by this, I am not referring solely to physical
health. The latest scientific discoveries imply that the physical, mental,
emotional and even metaphysical are intertwined via the DNA feedback
loop, and cannot be understood in isolation.


One area of our life links to another, so I use the term Energetic Health
to represent the sum-total of the health of these systems. Using the 7 Key
Principles I outline in The Energy Code, we can manage the Energetic Health of our
cells, and organs, with a flow on effect to the health of our body, mind
and spirit.

This doesn’t stop at the individual. Because of the DNA’s ability to
broadcast its health into the environment, each of us affects the Energetic
Health of everyone we interact with. So managing our own Energetic
Health, by implication, helps us to manage the health of our close
relationships; whether at home, at work or at play.

The alternative to Energetic Health is Energetic Disease - a state that
leaves us vulnerable to the over or under methylating (silencing) of our
genes, toxic overload of our organs and cells, mind-blocks rather than
healthy, flexible mind-maps, and negative feedback loops between our
peptide receptors and information/emotion molecules. Perpetuated over
time, this leads to a state of chronic fatigue or unwellness, eventually
resulting in acute illness. It is clear we are all born with the
mechanisms to self-heal; we are in fact a self-healing organism, with all
the mechanisms and back-up systems to promote health.

For some, the decline into disease, whether it be classed as mental or
physical illness (I believe the distinction is a misnomer, as the mind is
the body), leads rapidly to an under functioning in many areas of life;
for others, it leads to acute illness and death. For a great many, the path
is slowed by watching the actions of those around us and changing our
behavior to mimic theirs. If we adopt the habits of the energetically
healthy, we can return to wellness bit-by-bit.

If you think of our body’s ability to store physical and mental energy as
akin to a battery that is recharged through rest, diet, exercise and healthy
thought patterns, then just like a battery, we can be drained - in our case -
by poor diet, lack of exercise, not enough rest, and negative thought patterns.
Just like a car battery can be used to jump start another car battery that has run flat,
so the human energy system can be drained by those around us.

All too often, we charge ourselves up by stealing energy, often
learning these techniques at quite a young age. The energy theft required
is unsustainable as one-by-one those we have stolen from succumb to
illness or leave for self-preservation. Bullying is a common example that
drains the victim and temporarily tops up the bully. Countless studies
have shown that both the bully and the victim have increased incidence
of mental illness, depression and incarceration as young adults. The bully
has learned this behavior by observing adults or older children and
then mimicking it. You can often see this playing out in family groups
where a dominant, aggressive parent will berate and bully their spouse,
draining them of energy, who may then use passive-aggressive techniques
to gain pity and sympathy, from friends or family draining them in turn.

Children observe this and learn to adopt either:
♦ A passive aggressive, ‘poor-me’ style, demanding sympathy and assistance without any serious
   intention to change their situation
♦ An aloof, detached style, requiring others to spend a lot of time and energy trying to    
    connect with them
♦ An interrogating, critical style, seeking to undermine others through criticism, sapping
    all joy
♦ Or the more aggressive and overt, dominator style that seeks to overpower and intimidate
    others

I class all energy theft as a form of predation, and the thinking that
goes with it as ‘the predator’, because regardless of whether the technique
is covert or overt, it involves the theft and devouring of someone else’s
energy - their life-force.

In extreme cases, this is obvious - the work place psychopath, the
sociopath and narcissist have developed successful techniques for stealing
energy from others in a conscious, planned way, literally draining the
reserves of those around them. Do not be fooled however, we all do it to
some degree if we are not taking care of our system’s energy needs through
healthy means.

Entertainment and media, especially, reinforce these patterns by
feeding the dominant thought patterns of this predatory mind-set,
through fuelling our fears, anxieties and insecurities, prompting division
over gender, race or beliefs and draining society and the individuals
within it of energy. Ill-gotten gains are never sweet, however, and the
predatory path of energy management leads to more despair, insecurity
and ill health, leading us to consume more of the earth’s resources, trying
desperately to re-charge our batteries.

Clearly the predatory path is not sustainable and it is at the root of
many of society’s ills. It is the voice in your head telling you ‘I’m not
good enough’ that fuels jealousy, greed, anxiety, violence and addictions.
It sets in motion chemical feedback loops within the body/mind that
may persist for years, reinforcing and deepening our unhappiness, until
we believe that voice is us, forgetting that it is something we learned and
adopted. It is a false mind that prevents us from activating our natural
predisposition to living in harmony with each other, our environment
and ourselves.

Fortunately, we can free ourselves from this negative energy pattern, by following
some common-sense steps that free our body-mind to be healthy and energized, allowing
us to be the best we can be, and make the most of our time on this precious planet.*

To discover the 7 Keys to Energetic Health go to:
The Energy Code by Elisabetta L. Faenza

*Faenza, Elisabetta L., The Energy Code, Motivational Press, New York, 2014, pp88-89

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Monkey See, Monkey Do?

Monkey See, Monkey Do?

I was recently drawn to an article in Science Daily about the role of 'mirror neurons' in Human Behaviour.  Below is an article that summarises the most recent discoveries and seeks to clarify the myths around these interesting brain cells, which were once believed to hold the key to conditions like autism and the development of human language.  In addition, they were believed to allow us to observe and understand behaviours or movements we observed in others, without having to repeat them ourselves.  In other words, 'mirror neurons' were believed to be crucial to our ability to mimic, as well as learn from others.  In the research cited at the end of this article, it is this function and not their role in language and understanding that best defines 'mirror neurons'.

I started to reflect on what I understood about human learning and how habits are acquired.  Mimicry is one of the first pre-requisites for any habit, in fact we often need to experience someone else's behaviour before we acquire it.  Babies watch adults and older children walking and begin to mimic this behaviour until they have acquired, through trial and error, the requisite co-ordination and skills to walk.  In fact one of the simplest ways to help a baby go from crawling to walking, is to put them in a room with another child of a similar age who is already walking.  The non-walking baby observes the behaviour and mirrors it.

As a hypnotherapist, I know a similar process occurs in the adoption of habits like smoking, drug taking, alcohol consumption and gambling.  Much work has been done in recent years about the contagious nature of behaviour, and how our friend's habits are likely to determine our own.  Body weight is something that is often reflected amongst family members and groups of friends, as both the behaviours of eating, and exercising are mimicked by children and spouses.

Another discovery is that the very experience of constantly being around people with either a higher or lower than normal body-weight resets an individual's sense of body size, and in the longer term, may induce Body Dismorphic Syndrome (where an individual seriously misperceives the size and proportions of their body).  This resets an individuals sense of what is normal.

So amongst populations of teenage girls not only is there a risk of anorexic or binge behaviours being mimicked, but the very perception of the body is shifted by mimicry.  Likewise in populations where obesity is the norm, new members of a community may alter their perception of their own body as a result of this new norm.

It now seems that 'mirror neurons' are at the root of this apparently 'contagious' behaviour.

Of course mimicry is also essential in all the positive habits that fill our lives. This got me wondering about how important mimicry is when we go through the process of conscious habit change, that is replacing one habit with a new one that is more productive.

In previous blogs and newsletters I've discussed the steps to ensure permanent habit change, and I've included these below.

What I want to add to this list is the crucial step of spending time with people who have achieved what you want to achieve, to switch on the powerful effect of our 'mirror neurons' in shaping behaviour.

This is where mentoring becomes extremely important.  Find a mentor who has achieved what you are aiming for.  Donate your time and services for free to spend time absorbing their behaviours and attitudes.  Buy them lunch or dinner and ask them about how they achieved their goals and then watch them at work, or pay them for direct one-on-one mentoring.

As a manager in the work-place, a sporting coach or parent, spend time exhibiting the behaviours you want in your staff, team or children.  The power of the 'mirror neuron' is switched on by seeing rather than hearing.   There is something about watching someone's behaviour that switches on these cells, where being told what to do does not.

So harness the power of your own 'mirror neurons' to acquire new desired skills and behaviours, and leverage the 'mirror neurons' of people you influence by demonstrating the behaviours you want them to mimic.

Ideas Into Action: 10 Steps to Permanent Behaviour Change:

 

1. Reward the goal
The key message here is - attach a reward to your new habit or goal - make the reward personal, and make it something that brings a smile to your face every time you think about getting your reward.  Our cells respond to pleasure even more than pain - use this to your advantage.

2. Write it down
Next, write your new habit or goal down as if it is already achieved.  This is one of the most important steps in setting goals that stick.  Write your goal down in the present tense, as if it is already achieved, and you are expressing your gratitude (to yourself) for sticking to it.  This kind of goal is called an affirmation - it literally affirms the intent of your goal.  This gives you clarity and focuses your intent - which is essential.

3. Use emotive language in present tense
Your affirmation needs to use emotive language that feels good to you - it needs to paint a picture in words of how you'll feel, and how life will be when the goal is achieved.  And each affirmation needs to include only one goal.  You can have multiple affirmations, but keep each goal specific.

Here's an example of an affirmation I wrote for a client who wanted to make better food choices and exercise in order to lose weight and stay healthy.  This was a wellbeing goal.

"I am slim and slender, lean and fit.  Every day I nourish myself with healthy food choices, pure water, and fresh air.  I enjoy exercising because I love the benefits it provides to my body, and it feels so good to be fit and full of energy.  I honour my body through every choice I make throughout my day, and give thanks for this amazing body I have been given.  I am slim and slender, lean and fit."

Emotive language charges up your cells, which switches on DNA.

4. Say it out loud often
Next you need to say the affirmation out loud - about 10 times a day if you can manage it, and for about 30 days.  It takes about 28 days for a new habit to be locked in - so I say 30 days to be safe.  Read your affirmation with energy and passion.  Even if you feel it isn't true, or can't be true - read it as if it already is.  Your subconscious mind lives in an eternal present - so it gives priority to things that are immediate, rather than future time.  Writing your affirmation and saying it as if it is already a reality, now - will make it a priority, or command for the subconscious mind.   This is why wishing and hoping doesn't work - they both put the things you want into future time - which never comes.  Your cells and DNA are listening to you - within your DNA, somewhere, are the codes to make this goal easier - you just have to give your cells the command to open the right book in your DNA library.

5. Find a role model
Mimic the behaviour of people who are successfully doing what you want to do.  Observe them at work or play in the desired behaviours and allow those magic 'mirror neurones' in your brain to absorb the behaviour.  Conversely, stay away from those who exhibit the behaviour or habits you wish to leave behind.

6. Visualise the goal using all your senses
The next step is to visualise yourself in the new habit, achieving the goal.  Close your eyes and allow your mind to wander forward to a time when you have mastered this goal, changed the habit and reclaimed this part of your life.  Imagine in detail how good that will feel, what it will look like, sound like, taste like even.  Collect pictures from magazines of people who have achieved this goal, and put them in a scrap book or poster.

Your cells and DNA will turn this day dream into a programme if you do it often enough.   Eventually the new programme will replace any older, outdated behavioural programmes.

7. Break the goal down into steps - actions that you need to take to get from where you are to where you want to be
It's not enough to want something, we have to align our actions to our intent.  The more you do this, the quicker your goal will be achieved, and the more permanent the change.  So work out what people who have achieved this goal do - read about them, talk to them, get a coach, whatever you need to break the goal down into steps that you can approach one, by one.  Make these behaviours part of your day.  Repeat them every day for 30 days to lock them in. That’s when they become a habit.

When you were a toddler and learned to walk - you took one step, then another.   Over time this turned into walking, and eventually running.  All goals need to be approached the same way, so your nervous system can learn, become familiar with the steps, and eventually make them unconscious - or second nature, turning them into unconscious mind maps to drive the wanted behaviour and replace the unwanted maps.

8. Enjoy the reward
Once you've reached your first milestone - celebrate.  Take the reward you planned, and write a new affirmation thanking yourself for the steps you've taken to get you there.  As you enjoy the reward, keep associating the pleasure with the new behaviour - i.e not smoking, eating more healthily, exercising, saving money, being more organised, listening actively, delegating tasks etc.

Remember the pleasure principle is a very powerful biological and psychological driver.

9. Stay Vigilant
My last tip is to remember to never get cocky about old behaviours.  If you've given up smoking, don't think you can have one and it will be okay. The old behaviours don't need much encouragement to rear their ugly heads.  It's much easier to stay 'on the wagon' than to fall off and have to climb back on.  However, if you do slip and fall back into old habits - revisit the 8 steps above, and if you need to, get the assistance of a mentor, coach or hypnotherapist.



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Monkey See, Monkey Do? The Role of Mirror Neurons in Human Behaviour

ScienceDaily (Aug. 2, 2011) — We are all familiar with the phrase "monkey see, monkey do" -- but have we actually thought about what it means? Over the last two decades, neuroscience research has been investigating whether this popular saying has a real basis in human behavior.

Over twenty years ago, a team of scientists, led by Giacomo Rizzolatti at the University of Parma, discovered special brain cells, called mirror neurons, in monkeys. These cells appeared to be activated both when the monkey did something itself and when the monkey simply watched another monkey do the same thing.

The function of such mirror neurons in humans has since become a hot topic. In the latest issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a team of distinguished researchers debate whether the mirror neuron system is involved in such diverse processes as understanding speech, understanding the meaning of other people's actions, and understanding other people's minds.

Understanding Speech

The mirror neuron system probably plays some role in how we understand other people's speech, but it's likely that this role is much smaller than has been previously claimed. In fact, the role is small enough that it's unlikely that mirror neurons would be causal factors in our ability to understand speech. Mirror neuron-related processes may only contribute to understanding what another person is trying to say if the room is very noisy or there are other complications to normal speech perception conditions.

Understanding Actions

Mirror neurons are believed to play a critical role in how and why we understand other people's actions. There are many physical actions, like Tiger Woods' golf swing, that we ourselves can't do, but we understand those actions anyway. However, contrary to what some mirror neuron proponents have suggested, doing isn't required for understanding. In fact, neuroimaging data reviewed in this article demonstrate that the actions we ourselves have the most experience doing -- the actions we are best at doing and understand best -- actually show less mirror neuron activity. Such findings suggest a need to reappraise the role of mirror neurons in guiding how we understand actions.

Understanding Minds

One of the most powerful roles suggested for the mirror neuron system in humans is that of understanding not just other people's physical actions or speech, but their minds and their intentions. It has been suggested that some persons, such as persons with autism, have difficulty understanding other people's minds and, therefore, might lack mirror neurons. However, numerous research studies reviewed in this article consistently show that persons with autism are highly capable of understanding the intentions of other people's actions, suggesting that our intuitions about persons with autism and mirror neurons needs to be revised.
This article presents some of the toughest questions asked about mirror neurons to date. The answers to those questions, guided by hundreds of research studies, clarify the limits of the function of mirror neurons in humans.
The article is entitled, "Mirror Neuron Forum."
Email or share this story:


Cited from the Association for Psychological Science. "Monkey see, monkey do? The role of mirror neurons in human behavior." ScienceDaily, 2 Aug. 2011. Web. 5 Aug. 2011.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Smart Cells and the end of the Tyranny of Genetics

I've just been reading and enjoying 'The Biology of Belief' by Bruce H. Lipton PhD. In this seminal work, Lipton introduces the concept of Epigenetics or the science of the effect the environment has on switching genes on or off.

Lipton is a Cellular Biologist and former Professor of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. After some 20 years as a pre-eminent biologist, pioneering the cloning of cells, Lipton realized that the cell tuned itself to its environment, and it was the environment, not our DNA that determined our evolution. He realized that the environment provides the cues that a cell uses to determine which codes to switch on or off. Even more startling Lipton provides proof that cells actually assemble new DNA in response to environmental conditions.

Perhaps, most startling of all, Lipton shows that cells borrow DNA from other species, and that the human body is actually a community of differentiated cells, working and cooperating with foreign species - like the bugs in our gut - to do more than survive.

All of this goes hand in hand with what quantum biologists are discovering about the way DNA codes are affected by emotions, behavior and environmental conditions.

What Lipton adds to the debate is that every cell in our body is listening to our thoughts, feeling our emotions and responding to the thoughts and emotions of others. Like ripples in a pond, the DNA within our cells organises itself according to the needs of the cell and then broadcasts this response into the environment.

Now the ramifications of this growing body of science is astounding. There is a revolution occurring in the world of the evolutionary sciences. Darwin is no longer pre-eminent with his 19th century doctrine of survival of the fittest, and the determinism of the genes. Darwin's contemporary, and the first to publish a theory of evolution - Lamarc -  was long pilloried for his belief that cells are more than factories at the whim of flight or fight responses. His thesis that an organism evolves through co-operation, is at long last being considered by modern science. In the battle for hearts and minds in the scientific community where nature seemed to triumph over nurture, the tide has turned. Nurture now seems to be the determining factor in what gets expressed by genes.

What all evolutionary scientists, cell biologists and geneticists agree upon, however, and what is often not conveyed to the general public, is that our genes are how we store and transmit the memory of our experiences from one generation to another. Our DNA is a library, one where new books are being written, old books re-read, and others edited. Our genes are the memory of our cells.

So what does this mean for you and I?

It means that we are not at the mercy of our genetics. That unless we suffer from one of a small handful of genetic conditions like aplastic anemia, our genetic make-up is far more mutable than previously publicised. The environment we live in, the experiences we have and the choices we make about our environment, behaviour and thoughts determine what gets switched on or off, or indeed constructed in our DNA.

As someone who was born with a potentially fatal genetic condition, I have experienced the power of choice in my life. The choices I have made around healthy food, to exercise regularly, avoid alcohol and tobacco, pharmaceuticals and recreational drugs has helped me to beat the odds. However, the decision to manage my thoughts and emotions has been even more profound.

By focusing on positive outcomes and commiting my energy, intent and actions to the steps that will make these outcomes a reality, I know I have changed my destiny. I did not perish at three years of age, from bowel disease, althought I was diagnosed with it. I did not die at 12 as a result of the four strokes I suffered. I was not in a wheel chair at fourteen or dead before adulthood. I am now 46 years old, the mother of four healthy children with a full and productive life. I have outlived my mother, who died at 44 of breast cancer.

In short I have made the best of a bad lot. What the future brings is anybody's guess. What I do know is that I have choices, and I will continue to exercise my ability to choose as long as I draw breath. I will continue to thank the collection of 50 trillion or so smart cells that make up my being, and send them supportive, healthy messages through the physical, emotional and mental choices I make.

For me, the quest to understand our biology and how our DNA, environment, behavior and emotions interact is extremely personal. However, you don't need a genetic condition for this to matter. It is in the interest of every person on this planet to ask themselves a simple question each day.

"What have I cast my vote for today. Through the choices I have made did I vote for health and a productive, useful life, or did I vote for something else?"

This is what I have asked myself every day since I was twelve years old and a doctor gave me a death sentence. Through my choices, I believe I proved him wrong. Thanks to scientists like Lipton, I can begin to understand why.

7 Essential Tips for Anxiety - Part 5 Mindfulness

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