This interview was originally published in The Simplifier #71.

Interview:  Patt Lind-Kyle – Author, Businesswoman, Meditator

By Shawn Tuttle

When Patt Lind-Kyle smiles, the entire room brightens. Her insightfulness combined with her curiosity creates an irresistible charm, such that you can’t help but feel brighter after talking with her. (This may explain why our interview was actually twice as long as would fit below! The entire section on her background can be read here.) For the last several years, she has offered a monthly meditation circle through Gather the Women. I’ve been in the circle for the last year and a half and have been fascinated by her understanding of what the brain is doing when meditating. She has just completed a book (which is on the way to a publisher right now) entitled Meditate the Way the Brain Works – The Mind’s Most Powerful Resource. Whether you meditate or not, this woman has a lot of enlightening thoughts to offer.

Patt Lind-Kyle

Lind-Kyle: I was living in Portland at the time. One night I got out of the truck to open the gate, and didn’t pull the emergency brake. It started moving and I jumped on, but it was too late. It crashed through the gate, went over the little precipice and was stopped by a tree. It threw me off and I landed on my bottom. Eventually I went to the hospital and I had a broken coccyx. Three days later, my kundalini rose. Kundalini is the energy in the spine; it goes through the spine, and it was quite an experience. It took six months to bounce back from that. After that experience, all I wanted to do was meditate.

ST: So the kundalini being released was a positive experience?

Lind-Kyle: Yes, It’s an energy that shoots through your spine and it changes conscious. My consciousness was changed and I had no interest in anything but meditation. I’d do the dishes and take care of things and then I’d just sit all day long.

ST: How long ago was that?

Lind-Kyle: This happened in ’94-’95. Then David said, “You really need to do something longer than just a 10-day retreat. ” He was very supportive–so I did a 3-month in ’95, then in ’96 I did another 3-month. It was like heaven.

ST: One of the things I find very interesting about our meditation group is how you tie it in with the brain. How did that connection develop?

Lind-Kyle: neuro-feedback machine. I ran across Anna Wise’s website and I found it fascinating. She said you check people to see if they are meditating. I thought, that’s revolutionary! I can check my brain to see if I’m meditating or not? So I studied with her and learned the machine and learned about the brain waves. Anna showed me that there were indicators if you shifted levels of consciousness. 

ST: What do you see as the connection between meditation and everyday life? How does it affect ones ability to do business and to function in the world?

Lind-Kyle: Meditation reduces stress. Stress affects our blood pressure and it affects our ability to think clearly. Meditation keeps us in balance. Most every illness is stress-based in some way. What meditation does is create a homeostatic balance between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system. When you are under stress, the sympathetic nervous system gets in gear to take care of whatever the issue is that’s going on, and if you don’t meditate or otherwise get it back to the parasympathetic, it will continue producing those stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, which are really toxic to the system if they are not released within about 90 minutes.

The cells have to “poop” and they should “poop” within about 90 minutes. So you should only be under a stressful situation for 90 minutes or two hours, and then go back in to rest and reset. If you meditate, you can get right out of beta, go into alpha and reset your system, and that will reduce stress–it’s a health issue.

ST: Do you have advice for those beginning meditation, like how often or for how long?

Lind-Kyle: Meditating right before you go to bed is really good. The cortisol needs to come down. If it’s high, you can’t sleep. It keeps you in beta, and when you sleep, you want to get deep, into delta. 

ST: Cortisol is one of the stress hormones?

Lind-Kyle: Yes. So that’s really good. Meditation is really good to do in the morning, too. Even if it’s just to sit up in bed for 10-15 minutes. Once you do that, some people want to go longer, which is great, but most people don’t have the time. So morning and night would be wonderful for 10-15 minutes. You’re building little muscles in your mind.

ST: It’s funny how those are the hardest muscles to flex! 

Lind-Kyle: It’s proven that meditation actually builds a level of cells in the area on the left frontal lobe related to positive thinking. You’ll find that meditators are likely to have a more positive attitude. 

ST: So Beta is our normal waking chatter-brain. Alpha is when you are more physically relaxed and the breath starts slowing down…

Lind-Kyle: Yes, and you are in the present. There no longer is a past and future in Alpha. In Beta you are always worried about what is going to happen. So Alpha gets you out of that and drops you into awareness of your body. You feel calm and present. When you exercise, like when you ride your bike, you go into alpha, and then when you get the endorphines going you can get into Theta. It’s a place of expansion and well being. It really is that place of peace, tranquility, serenity and a feeling of love. 

ST: And Delta?

Lind-Kyle: Delta is the unconscious, theta is the sub-conscious, and the other two, beta and alpha, are the conscious. Delta is making the unconscious conscious. It is the being state. Where theta was being “one with”, this is an “I am that I am” quality. People here are equanimous. Something terrible will happen and they’ll go, “oh, I see” and then something wonderful and they’ll say, “oh, I see”. 

Image courtesy of Dr. Hugo Heyrman’s Museums of the Mind

ST: Anything else you’d like to share with the readers who are in business?

Lind-Kyle: They really need to take care of themselves. Yes, they need to take care of their business but if they don’t take care of themselves, there’s no business! In order to take care of yourself, you have to balance the inner and outer life. The prefrontal lobe, which is the newest brain that we have, contains the tools for self reflection–no other mammal has it. These mental tools are the ones that allow us to look inward. And as we look inward, it allows us to be more complete, more fulfilled. The outer world doesn’t fulfill us, the inner world does. So if everything goes to hell in a hand-basket, you have this refuge to come to.
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Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify.