When I received an e-mail announcing the "Creating a Spiritually Inspired Future" event at the Urban Zen Center, with Arianna Huffington moderating a conversation between Deepak Chopra and Andrew Cohen, I immediately signed up and told all my friends about it. I am an ambassador of the heart -- a trained psychotherapist, social and political activist, and spiritual teacher -- and the opportunity to experience three great thinkers discussing a topic that has been at the core of my existence for the past several years excited and inspired me. Little did I know that attending that event would lead to an invitation to blog for The Huffington Post.
Over the past few years, I have been exploring new platforms from which to share life-changing tools that I have successfully integrated into my practice. My counseling work took an unusual turn when neuroscientists discovered that our brains, with the proper exercises, would rewire themselves. We can change practically any unhealthy behavior. Suddenly my clinical work made sense on a whole new level. When my clients practice the assignments I give them -- like writing 10 things they are grateful for each morning -- they are reinforcing and rewiring new pathways in their brains. After witnessing my clients' profound successes and achievements, I knew that I needed to get over my technophobia and find ways to use social media and technology as tools to help me reach people on a broader scale.
We are creatures of habit. Our daily routines -- what time we wake up or go to sleep; how much we eat; what we do when we get home at night -- provide us with the predictability and safety that we greatly seek. But these same habits also interfere with our abilities to change unwanted behaviors or learn new ones, because routines become unconscious and automatic. Most of us are well aware that it is quite hard to change our eating habits, money-spending patterns or our tendencies to procrastinate. Just moving around our morning routines can be challenging: Try to rearrange your order of showering, drinking coffee and dressing. You might be able to do it for a day or two, but quickly your system would bring you right back to your habit.
We also have hard-wired habits that affect how we feel about ourselves and the people around us. These pathways determine a lot about our personalities, how happy we are, how we get along with people and how adept we are in identifying and fulfilling our goals. However, these habits can also change, and we live in a pivotal age to realize healthy transformations. I have been facilitating these changes one-on-one, and I now clearly see our opportunity to use technology to help many, many more people.
During the Q-and-A following the "Creating a Spiritually Inspired Future" event at the Urban Zen Center, participants began discussing technology as a way to help advance human consciousness, to help us reconnect to ourselves. Coincidentally, I had just released such a tool in the form of an iPhone/iPad application called "Awareness." This app randomly intercepts the user's daily routine and asks, "What are you feeling right now?" This simple question reminds the person to redirect his or her attention inward. This concept struck a chord, and then a chorus, and ultimately led to this blog.
As technology becomes increasingly present in our lives, we are afforded tremendous opportunities to use it to help us rewire our brains and create new, healthy habits -- like less reactivity and more patience; less anxiety and more peacefulness; less anger and more compassion. Imagine the impact on our planet as more of us learn to check in with ourselves and move forward with understanding and purpose. Wouldn't it be great if you could program your personal computer or smartphone to know when you are most likely to be stressing over something so that a gentle reminder or inspirational quote would pop up at just the right time? As the technological systems we use become more and more integrated, we will be in a position to find even more ways to consider how we live our lives.
I will be using this blog as a platform not only to further discuss how we can better understand and change our brains, but to also explore the potential ways we can use technology to connect us back to ourselves and each other. I will be sharing what I have learned in my practice about what makes us humans tick, and the exciting breakthroughs in brain science that inspire us to change how we operate day to day. I believe that this dialog holds one of the keys to humanity's next level of evolution, and I look forward to exploring it with you!
Follow Ronit Herzfeld on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ronitherzfeld
Awareness app: Upgrade your mental software | Health Tech - CNET News
AWARENESS iPhone Application | ronitherzfeld.com
Psychotherapist releases new iPhone app - BostonHerald.com
AWARENESS for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store
iPhone App 'Awareness' Pocket Psychotherapist Calms Nervous Souls - ABC News
http://www.bioprodownloads.com/pdf/article_2-04.pdf
Now you need the damn thing to think for you.
Who is the boss?
Wards of the iPhone - sounds like a good idea for a Sci-fi flick.
Well put.
... At the time, and to this day, we are both actively trying to grow, spiritually and otherwise. So, I have given that question alot of thought over the years. I would say that of course there are many instances, and tools, like the authors, that utilize technology in positive ways, but overall, at least in its current state, I think that technology is hurting rather than helping. I won't get into the technical aspects or the philosophical ones for that matter, I will simply say that in my experience technology has created and accelerated separation rather than union. There are other negatives, but I think this is the biggest.
.... We can jabber on and on about "mindfulness," and talk about "exciting tools" that seem to me to be attempts at fixing some of the byproducts of technology, but in the aggregate, technology as it stands today is not helping you to feel more connected to your neighbor or your fellow human. Don't believe me? Go to a coffee shop. How many are texting and how many are really talking/sharing?
If the author is proposing that "technology [can] help advance human consciousness," shouldn't we know what that means?
Thank you for your stimulating question. It inspires me to blog more about this issue in the future.
I find myself filled with questions, and wanting for more precision in your definitions. My dog is in touch with his thoughs, feelings, body, values, and goals when he is seeking a treat: if he does something good, he will be rewarded with a tasty morsel and be happy. Is that consciousness? What is the "system" of the heart, or the soul, and how can it be blocked? Are you quite sure that merely recognizing different emotional states ensures that individuals become capable of seeing things more objectively? A fair amount of circumstantial evidence would suggest otherwise, especially among the emotionally unbalanced. What does it mean for a person to "flow and grow" from experience, exactly?
And so on. I think it would be helpful to use more scientific rigor in defining consciousness, or at the very least to be more precise in what you are trying to convey.
Behaviorists will enjoy your piece Ronit for are there not two processes underlying it - habit-making and habit -breaking?
The world's oldest behaviorist lame joke:
Two behaviorists meet. One says to the other: '' You're fine. How am I? ''
Masaru Emoto demonstrates that electromagnetic forces have negative impact upon water molecules, causing deformation in their crystalline structures. Since human beings are something like 90% water...
The internet is the universal mind?