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1. A Note From Shawn

The grand finale vacation of the summer will be upon us this weekend (in the U.S., that is)–Labor Day. With fall right around the corner, I’m already feeling my head coming in from its flee-the-heat annual summer vacation. Not that it’s gone completely, but I have noticed that work patterns are different when the temperature is high. Just like the computer threatens to go kaput if it gets too hot, my brain has been letting me know that its optimal running time is after 8pm.

A warm welcome to the new readers from the Green Aware Fair! I spoke at this fair on Saturday about, you guessed it, simplifying! One of the tips –  taking quiet time — is a close neighbor to the subject of this issue’s interview with Patt Lind-Kyle. Her studies of the brain and meditation are interesting whether you meditate or not. While this subject may seem divergent for a small business newsletter, learning to focus the mind is actually one of the most powerful tools you can put toward any goal.

Whether your goal this week is to have a clean desk every night or to be ready to walk out the door at 3pm on Friday for a long weekend, let it be easy!

Enjoy,

Shawn Tuttle
Head Simplifier, Project Simplify
Co-editor, The Simplifier

 

 

 

 

2. Our Featured Quote

“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless – like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

-Bruce Lee

 

 

 

3. 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

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ST: How did you fall into meditation?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.

4. Your Simplification Tip

by Shawn Tuttle

Mantra Meditation

When new to meditation, or even when trying to take quiet time, some people get frustrated that their mind won’t stop chattering away. In his book Turning the Mind into an Ally, Sakyong Mipham likens the untrained mind to wild horses–and truly, I think it may actually be easier to stop a wild horse.There is a game you can play with your mind to distract it from constantly wandering thoughts. The cool thing is, it’s even better than a game. Some traditions use this as a practice by itself. It’s called a mantra. Elena at Focal Point yoga provides an excellent and thorough description. I recommend you read her description, but I’ll give the basics below. 

A mantra is a word or phrase, usually from a spiritual tradition, that invites inner expansiveness. Since the mind is somewhat lazy, it pretty much can only track one thought at a time. So if you repeat the mantra continuously, that’s the track it will follow. 

The mantra I say the most is, “I am so grateful” and I use it in three situations:

1. When I’m sitting for meditation and feel like I’m being hijacked by my mind.
2. During the day when I want a little reprieve from the ole chatterbrain; for example, when driving.
3. When I feel myself getting riled up for whatever reason.

Wild horses belong out on the plains, not running you around. The mantra is a great way to take the reins of your wild mind and start getting it under control.

 

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5. In the News

Compiled by Lance Brown

How to Live the Simple Life (interview) (U.S. News and World Report)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/67xk2b    
The author of the Alpha Consumer blog interviews the author of the High Price of Materialism book. (And the author of the “In The News” column passes it on to you.)

Building a Simpler Wedding  (Examiner.com – Denver. CO)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/6pfn63
Traditionally, at least if you believe TV (and I do), weddings are one of the most complicated and stressful things one can subject oneself to. And expensive? Ooh! Don’t get me started, sister! But does it need to be that way? (Would I be asking that question if it did?)

Poetry: A sense of calm in the midst of chaos (The Evening Sun – Hanover, PA)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/68fxop
Poetry can calm you, that’s for sure
(Whether you just got fired, or stepped in manure.)
Unless you’re in high school, it won’t make you irate
Poetry will put you in a meditative state.
Not that this article is actually about poetry, strictly speaking. But I can’t pass up a chance to rhyme. (Most of the time.)

If you know of something in the news that should be featured here, let us know!

 

 

 

6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com

by Lance Brown

Top 5 Categories

It’s interesting…while blogs pretty much originate from the “diary” or “journal” family of publications, those older forms don’t traditionally involve arranging thoughts into categories. It makes me wonder how this will influence the evolution of personal thought. Will blogging eventually bring about a new way of thinking, where we unconsciously divide all our thoughts into categories and sub-categories? (After all, don’t many of us already have a “comments” section in our mind, where we store everybody’s reaction to what we say?)

I’m sure there’s a dystopian movie in there somewhere. (Picture Charlton Heston screaming, “Soylent Blog…is people!”)*

Here are the top 5 subdivisions of Project Simplify’s brain (with the number of posts in parentheses):

1. Musings (83)

2. Connections (62)

3. Articles (61)

4. Tips to Simplify (55)

5. Tools (54)

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Keep Smiling

Introduced by Lance Brown

Things to do with a Stranger in an Elevator

• Make race car noises when anyone gets on or off.

• Blow your nose and offer to show the contents of your Kleenex to him.

• Grimace painfully while smacking your forehead and muttering, “Shut up, dammit, all of you just shut UP!”

• Offer a name tag to her. Wear yours upside down.

• Stand silent and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.

• When arriving at your floor, grunt and strain to yank the doors open, then act embarrassed when they open by themselves.

• Sing “Mary had a Little Lamb” while continually pushing buttons.

• When the elevator is silent, look around and ask, “Is that your beeper?”

• Play the harmonica.

• Start a sing-along.

• Shadow box.

• Loudly say “Ding!” at each floor.

• Lean against the button panel.

• Say, “I wonder what all these do” and push the red buttons.

• Listen to the elevator walls with a screwdriver.

• Draw a little square on the floor with soapstone and announce to him that this is your “personal space.”

• Take a bite of your sandwich and ask her, “Wanna see wha in muh mouf?”

• Make explosion noises when he presses a button.

• Blow spit bubbles.

• Stare at your thumb and say, “I think it’s getting larger.”

• If anyone brushes against you, recoil and holler “Bad touch!”

 

Copyright ???  – The Internet

 

 

 

 

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Thanks for reading!

Publication Information
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The Simplifier is published by:
Project Simplify
P.O. Box 597
Nevada City, CA 95959
phone: 530.205.5775
web: www.projectsimplify.com
e-mail: newsletter@projectsimplify.com