Stephen’s Comments (group member since Mar 14, 2012)

Stephen’s comments from the Q&A about all self-help subjects and more with Stephen Richards group.

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "Owl City - Shooting Star:
http://youtu.be/K7KMRBoqQUg"

Dustin, I like this one by Owl City. Nice title "Shooting Star". Brighter than a shooting star ... way to go!

Thank you for your continued support here,

Stephen Richards

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "Owl City - Garden Party:
http://youtu.be/T47a2zlyDo4"

Dustin, Ah ... now this one is right up my street ... nice lyrics and tune. I like the line, "You can't please everyone, so you gotta please yourself."

Well selected, thank you and blessings,

Stephen Richards

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "Owl City - This is the Future
http://youtu.be/b9kztEQZ3ms"

Dustin, I gather Owl City is one of your favorites, and I must admit are fast growing one me, too. A great pity, though, that the video is just written words, but still a catchy song.

Thank you for your continued support on here,

Stephen Richards

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "Sia is a very creative musical artist - check out this very visual music video of "Soon We'll Be Found" :-)
http://youtu.be/t1x8DMfbYN4"

Dustin, Great to see this video ... thank you. I like the fact that it was produced by Monkey Puzzle Records Ltd. Loved the wall shadows and colored hands. All in all, a great visual video.

Thank you and bless you for your continued support here,

Stephen Richards

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "Good Life - One Republic:
http://youtu.be/jZhQOvvV45w"

Dustin, Great mention of London in this song, of course New York and LA is mentioned too (for my overseas friends ... although I visit often as I can).

Thank you for taking the time to contribute to this group, I hope we can continue to receive your offerings.

Always A Friend,

Stephen Richards

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "Thank You for taking the time to explain & share this information :-) I appreciate it."

Dustin, always a pleasure to help a Friend ...

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "Sally wrote: "My understanding - after many many years.... is very briefly our individual 'ME' is the 'bed rock' from which our Soul can grow. To atain the true growth of our Soul we need to first ..."

Dustin ... When it comes to tackling fear head on and seeing how we react in different situations we have to look back a few hundred millions years to get the answer. The brain stem is the oldest and smallest region in the evolving human brain; this is where our basic emotion of fear is stored. This is called the 'reptilian brain'. It is more like the entire brain of present-day reptiles.

When it comes to making snap judgments, which can cause fear to rear its ugly head, it is something which happens on a barely conscious level. This is the “lizard brain” at work. To put it simply, the lizard brain is purely concerned with survival. This is why we can do irrational things when we are in a tight spot. Fear can be stored as emotional memories, and that is what can trigger certain physiological actions within you. In order to overcome and rationalize a particular fear emotion you need help in shifting those particular memories.

So when you are in a tight spot and take instant fight or flight action, it is the lizard brain, which sits at the base of the skull that takes over. Evolutionists tell us that we've had this “lizard brain” since we were, well, lizards.

In the context of fear, the lizard brain’s reactions to everything are limited to: eating, attacking, running away and mating. That is why you sometimes make surprising judgments.

Whenever you feel fear, your mind is often yanked into an imaginary future scenario where you think you might fail. Your brain is over-analyzing a likely outcome, which leads for many of us to a negative, descending spiral of feelings. This inflates and empowers your fear to the point where you become literally become frozen with fear.

Why is it dire to allow these fear memories into your life? To accept these negative thoughts would reinforce the fear emotion. Accepting the feeling can reinforce it at a later stage. Some therapists advise you to accept the feeling of fear so as to nurture your true self. This can be unreliable as it may cause more emotional memories to be stored in what is known as the lizard brain, and hence your fear is perpetuated. How do you overcome this and escape being the grip of fear?

When fear strikes you it is your lizard brain, scientifically known as the amygdala, which takes over. Your nervous system is flooded with powerful neurochemicals. Hence your senses, such as hearing and vision, become heightened. The amygdala blocks out anything that competes for your awareness, this why the fear grips you. Naturally at this stage all of your resources are devoted to keeping you alive. The number one fear is public speaking followed by asking someone out on a date. This is fear of rejection.

What is fear? Fear has been described as a neural circuit that has been designed to keep the organism, you, alive in dangerous situations. The amygdala determines the significance of the stimulus and triggers emotional responses like freezing or fleeing. This is a process that would best be described as the “emotion of fear”. The amygdala is the storage area where the memory of fear is kept.

Why is it that when you get an attack of fear that occasionally you can become incapacitated? Simple, it is related to the hyperactivity of the amygdala! This almond sized object is the storehouse for the memory of fear! The amygdala can misinterpret physiological signals from the body and cause inappropriate actions. Then in the cold light of day you can see how ridiculous you behaved, but too late ... the emotion is stored.

This is how your fear/panic manifests itself. The definition of panic is a heightened state of anxiety. This fear/panic feeds off itself in a positive feedback loop and jumps to faulty conclusions.

When you are focused on an impending situation you have wrongly construed as “dangerous”, like public speaking or going on an airplane when you are feared of flying, the body undergoes many changes that prepare it for intense action, albeit this is a falsely activated call to arms. This brings on symptoms like: difficulty in breathing, increased temperature, localized sweating, decreased motility of the stomach, constrictions in the stomach and intestines, as well as making your hair stand on end.

Once this emotion of fear has been turned on it is difficult for the cortex to turn it off. Fortunately there are methods of reducing fear and inhibiting the fear response.

So just how do you go about overcoming these “false” alarms? Well there is something called “immersion” therapy; you are literally thrown into the very situation that brings on the fear within you. Then there is cognitive therapy, you are slowly exposed to what it is you have a fear of.

Perhaps in an effort to overcome this irrational fear you’ve read all the self-help books and listened to all of the hypnosis or subliminal downloads you can handle, and all with little success in eradicating that irrational fear. So what now? One way to overcome your particular fear is to replace some of your negative thoughts (that creates negative feelings) with unmistakable positive thoughts.

So how do you beat the fear in such situations without resorting to hypnosis or subliminal messaging? There is a potent way to help you overcome your fear, which is a roadblock of irrational thoughts about uncertain situations that stops you progressing in life.

In order to really make inroads into eradicating your fear, techniques that get right to the core of the problem, and in rapid time are needed. By using up to date methods with brainwave technology it can be resolved.

While many methods of helping you overcome fear claim success, they can involve a great deal of mental effort. Some retraining of the mind also requires frequent therapy sessions over several weeks, such as hypnotherapy (which is a great way, but sometimes prolonged). When testing how such a brainwave audio could do away with the traditional methods of therapy it was found that in less than 30 minutes the core of the problem was targeted.

Targeting the zone of the amygdala is the answer. It totally disarms harbored memories of the particular fear emotion. Methods previously used to target this area did not take into account how your lizard brain reacted in certain trigger situations. Minor obstacles and irritations which were once magnified and a cause of the cycle of fear can now be broken.

Hope this is of some help.

♥ ♥♥Universal ԼƠƔЄ,

Stephen Richards

Andrew wrote: "Hi,
New to the group, and although I've been signed up on Goodreads for a while, I'm only now, having retired, finding time to get involved. I'm a writer, my books are on spirituality and religion,..."

Wow! Awesome stuff, Andrew. I am sure your expertise will not go amiss on here. Thank you for taking the time to introduce yourself, and as our Friend Dustin says, welcome, Andrew.

Andrew wrote: "I think too many of us confuse God with Santa Claus, and think prayer is for asking for something that will "make me happy". Real prayer, imo, is about asking God what I should be doing, what I sho..."

Andrew, thank you. I do like your anaolgy of too many confusing God with Santa Clause. It makes me wonder then that Christian prayer is not as many of the movies depict.

Thank you for your valued contribution to this post.

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "Music is really important to me. The thing with music videos is that the video part often doesn't match the greatness of the song (in my opinion - I often think the song deserves more) - the Vanill..."

Yes I agree, Dustin, that the video of a song sometimes doesn't quite match the greatness of the song. One in particular is the video accompanying the Cranberries song "Dreams". What a great word to have as a tattoo ... "wonderful". I think with all of these tattoos you could eventually become a walking directory of "greatness".

Your selection of songs is quite eclectic, a great mix and meaningful to you in a special way. Thank you for taking the time to share these with us.

Cosmic smiles to you ...

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "Ellen Degeneres inpires me. I think she is a funny woman, looks at the world positively and helps other people. I have enjoyed her tv sitcoms, talk show and books. I think Humor in life is importan..."

Dustin ... Wow! Yes, Lucille Ball ... "I Love Lucy" was inspiring, I really used to look forward to it. I am sure it would still stand the test of time, too.

Thank you, ♥ ♥♥Universal ԼƠƔЄ.

Abbey wrote: "Dear Stephen I have to say that you have inspired me more than most.

Thanks, Abbey"

Thank you, it is a pleasure to have you as my Friend. ♥Gratitude

Alfred wrote: "You helped me a long time ago and now look how far I have come."

Thank you ... Thanks so much for your nice friendship.

Sara wrote: "I liked Stephen's comment about ... I'm very interested in Manifesting too, Dustin.

I'm most interested in if it really works. I like Stephen's term Cosmic Ordering—it's a good way of thinking ab..."

Sara, such a great addition to this thread by you ... thank you. I am sure many could benefit from your audio course "The 4 Steps to Creating Miracles", sounds interesting.

With regard to your comment on Cosmic Ordering (There's no "one way".), we are all on the same highway ... and if some use a four leaf clover, a rabbit's foot or some other means to manifest their desires, we just have different ways of how it comes to us.

As you say, Sara, it is a useful tool.

♥ Love & Peace Your Way ♥

Stephen Richards

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "I am following this discussion because the Law of Attraction is a very intriguing idea to me. I have always believed that words and thoughts are powerful. Last year, I finally got around to reading..."

Thank you, Dustin. Indeed, such a subject is greatly fascinating, thoughts do become things.

Blessings ... *☆*.¸¸.Great week to you my kind Friend!!!

Sara wrote: "We can choose to live in old-style, rational world, or we can evolve into the conscious view that law of attraction, the Secret, not only do work, but can be utilized by anyone.

This is just the ..."

Sara, Great viewpoint, and of course the law of attraction is just the theory side of things, whereas Cosmic Ordering is the realy nitty-gritty practical side of that. Your take on the desired reality already being there is an interesting one. I see, so by expanding your viewpoint enables one to see what is already there ... very nice way to see it, too.

I am sure that your book "Writing the Divine" gives a much more expansive viewpoint on that belief. WOuld be great to see what others think of this theory.

Once again, a BIG thank you for your contribution.

♥ ♥ ♥Happy Cosmic Week,

Stephen Richards

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "This is a really nice Music Video
Vanilla Twilight by Owl City:
http://youtu.be/pIz2K3ArrWk"

Great to see all of the people transfixed by what's up in the sky, and of course great use of the wors "owl" in the band's name ... I think you can add videos in this group, look to the right-hand side for the links. Love ♥

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "My favorite musical artist is Mary Chapin Carpenter - her newest album was released yesterday & I bought me a copy today :-)

Other favorites include: One Republic, Owl City, Train Enya and Sia
I'..."

That's great, and the one with the owl in the title sounds interesting ... thank you.

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: "I'm Dustin aka Little Brown Owl. I live in Boulder, Colorado & am excited to hear the ideas presented in this group. I haven't read any books by Stephen but will have to look into them :-) Thanks f..."

Such a pleasure to have your comment on here, thank you. There are some great ideas within this group and will look forward to them being built upon ... your help is graciously received.

Sally wrote: "Ooops sorry Steve - sorry everyone - did I go off the topic there of Introduce yourself? I apologise for my exuberance.... All Love....Sally x"

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ Ah bless you, Sally. No apologies required. It would be great if you could create a new thread for the topic you mention above, as it is quite profound and worthy of anyone's attention. I cannot create for you as if I do then the question will be attached to my profile image. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ Gratitude ...