What Do You Want To Feel This Year? Let Your Feelings Power Your Intentions

Have you noticed that most of our new year's resolutions center around stated behaviors, action steps, goals?  It certainly makes some sense - after all, we're trying to engage in actions that are important to us. But often times, we don't ask the next set of questions.  What is it we're hoping those actions will help us feel?  What do we truly want to feel as we go through our lives this year?

Stop and think about it.  What you're really wanting when you set a goal is a certain way of feeling.  Right?

We choose to engage in certain actions and behaviors (we establish goals and intentions) because we really want to feel something specific and good.  Underneath every goal is a desired feeling.

For example, one of my goals is to increase my public speaking engagements this year.  Why?  Just to do more speaking?  I do get a lot of joy and fulfillment from public speaking!  But there's a deeper issue.  Because I want to feel significant.  I want to feel enthralled (which comes from using my strengths in a broader setting that puts me in my "zone," my wheelhouse of abilities).  I want to feel like I'm making an increasingly bigger difference in the world, in people's lives.

And as it turns out, it's our feelings that are actually the most powerful drivers behind our aspirations.

The Neuroscience Behind Feelings

Here's how:  the brain pathways for emotions make their way directly to the areas that generate attention (and vice versa).  In other words, the way we feel - and our choices to feel certain emotions - can powerfully direct our attention.  And where we direct our attention produces that outcome - our brains automatically begin developing a map ("motor maps/action plans") for how to make that happen.  Attention is what brings to life our intentions.

For example, people who are anxious are more prone to identifying anxiety-provoking or fearful things than people who are not.  What's the outcome?

"What I often tell people is that when they spend their lives in dread, they are writing an invitation to the feared outcome rather than preventing it."  (Life Unlocked:  7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear, p. 55, by Dr. Srinivasan S. Pillay, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and executive coach)

The point is, the reverse holds equally true.  When you choose to focus on positive feelings, you activate your attention which in turn activates your intention.  Feelings are the most powerful drivers behind our aspirations.

My Practice of Focusing on Feeling Words

So here's what I've been doing the last few years:

Step one:  I look at a list of feeling words and allow any of those words to jump out at me.  Which ones are speaking to me right now?  Which ones seem to be calling out to me - feelings that I'm wanting to feel more deeply than others this year?  I make a list of 3-5 feeling words.  If your list is longer, go through that list and keep narrowing it down until you reach 3-5.

Here's the list I use:  Feeling Words

Step two:  I write a one-two sentence definition of each word.  By specifying a definition, I'm bringing greater clarity to why this feeling word is really resonating with me.  And the more clarity I have, the more targeted and powerful my attention is and therefore the more possible my intention becomes.

Questions to ask:  What does this word really mean to me?  What does the word feel like?  What are examples of this feeling word?  Why is it valuable to me?  Why do I want to feel this way this year?  What is it about this word that is calling out to me?

Step three:  I make a list of 3-5 accomplishments (intentions) for each feeling word that I believe if I engage in them will help me feel that way.  And I like to break those intentions down like this (thanks to blogger Danielle LaPorte for this idea):

Three things I will do today to generate these feelings;  Three things I will do this week to generate these feelings; Three things I will do this quarter to generate these feelings.

Step four:  I share my list with several trusted people a) so I can stay focused - sharing deepens impact, and b) so I can have accountability with my process as the year goes by.

What I Want to Feel More Of in 2014

Here's the way my list turned out for 2014 (in case some of this might stimulate your creativity):  MY 2014 FEELING WORDS

Every time I read my list of words, my inner spirit jumps up, I feel real positive energy inside, and hope increases as I anticipate the year.  It's keeping me focused on what's most important to me.  And I can already tell these feelings, and my attention on them, are driving forward my intentions.

I challenge you to do this process, too.  And let me know what your feeling words are for 2014.

______________________________

Looking for a Speaker or Coach?

If you or someone you know in your organization is looking for a keynote speaker or workshop teacher for events in your company, congregation, or association gatherings, I would be happy to come speak on this theme or others like it.  And interested in strengths coaching?  Feel free to email me at greg@gregorypnelson.com.

PART 2, The Final Three Steps to Living in the Present Moment

How Good Are You at Being In the Present Moment? Most people I talk to these days all describe their difficulty in being able to live more deeply in the present moment.  The ability to stay present at any given time is becoming a rare art.  We get caught up in the crazy and often overwhelming demands of staying alive and what we think comprises living life.  Consequently, time flies by without us ever really having lived in the moment.  And we either get fixated on the past or anxious about the future.

My last blog post told a zen story from which emerges six powerful steps to learning how to be grounded more deeply in the present.

The Parable

A monk is being chased by a ferocious tiger through the jungle.  He breathlessly comes to a clearing and is faced with a cliff right in front of him with a rope hanging over the side.  With the tiger catching up and no more options available, he quickly grabs the rope and shinnys down along the side of the cliff until he reaches the end of the rope.  He glances up and sees the tiger baring its hungry fangs.  He glances down and sees huge, sharp, jagged rocks beckoning to him 100 feet below.  What should he do?  About that time, two mice begin gnawing on the rope above him.  Now what?

Caught between a rock and a hard place, he suddenly notices something that captures his attention.  It’s a bright red, delectable-looking strawberry growing out of the side of the cliff an arm’s length away.  Hanging on to the rope with one arm and both feet, he reaches out with his other hand, plucks the strawberry, and puts it in his mouth.  Eating it, he exclaims, “This is the most delicious strawberry I believe God has ever made and I have ever tasted.  Yum, yum!”

Quick Summary of the First Three Steps

I describe the first three steps in my last blog post:  First, notice the strawberry; pay attention to what's around you; Second, take a risk and reach for the strawberry; and Third, take it--don't just be a spectator, get involved, participate in life right now.

But if we stopped with these three steps, we wouldn't really be plumbing the present moment for all it can truly give to us.  The final three take us to a deeper, more fulfilling and satisfying experience.  Here are the next three steps the story describes the monk taking.

Step Four:  Eat the strawberry.

Had the monk simply hung there on the rope looking at the beautiful strawberry, or had he even just held it in his hand, admiring its beauty, he would have missed the most delightful potential of that moment.  He had to put it in his mouth and chew it.

I wonder how often we miss out on joy and delight by simply not partaking of what's in front of us?  We're great at analyzing and debating the pros and cons of strawberries.  We dissect the past and philosophize about the future--we're experts with this.  But could we be missing out on the deeper experience of the present, the eating of the strawberry itself?  We stop short of putting it into our mouths and tasting it.  We can talk about it until we're blue in the face, but if we haven't eaten it, we really don't know what we're talking about.

This is why sacred scripture makes this statement:

"Taste and see that the LORD is good."

No taste, no see, no good.  Without taste, everything else is only theory.

Step Five:  Savor the strawberry.

The fact that the monk, hanging on to the rope for dear life, is so present in his moment with the strawberry that he not only enjoys the taste but notices it enough to realize that it's the best strawberry he's ever tasted, shows that he has mastered the practice of savoring.

Savoring means you stay present long enough, you linger over something, that it deepens your enjoyment of it.

When is the last time you truly truly savored something?  When is the last time you stayed with an experience long enough to really really appreciate and delight in it?  When is the last time your lingering over something gave you an focused appreciation of the various nuances of delight caressing your senses in that moment?  That's savoring.

One of the reasons more of us don't savor is because savoring takes time in the moment.  We have to choose to invest more than a split second seeing and tasting something.  We linger and pay attention to what we're experiencing while we're lingering.  We develop vocabulary to describe what we're tasting or sensing or feeling.  And that takes knowledge and awareness, both of which take time to develop.

But if we practice it, we get good at it.  And consequently our delight and enjoyment and focus deepen and widen and profoundly increase.

Step Six:  Give Thanks for the Strawberry.

This is tying the bow on the gift we've just received.  Expressing gratitude.  The monk, in the throes of his culinary ecstasy while hanging precariously on a rope (with tiger above and rocks below), gives thanks to the God who could create such a marvelously-tasting strawberry.

Neuroscience research informs us that expressing gratitude is the strongest, most transformational activity your brain can engage in.  Brain function becomes more balanced, harmonized, and supple; your heart begins to pump in a much more coherent and harmonious rhythm; and biochemical changes trigger a host of healthful responses throughout your body.

Studies how us that people who practice gratitude consistently report a host of other benefits:

• Stronger immune systems and lower blood pressure
• Higher levels of positive emotions
• More joy, optimism and happiness
• Acting with more generosity and compassion
• Feeling less lonely and isolated

What's so amazing about this simple practice, step six in living in the present moment, is that it in the end grounds us and anchors us to the delightful moment we've just experienced.  It seals it for us, physiologically, emotionally, and spiritually.  It ties the bow on the gift we just received.

We could learn a great deal from that little old monk who hung there on the rope suspended between a fearful past and uncertain future.  There's always a strawberry.  So look for it, risk a reach for it, take it, eat it, savor it, and express thanks for it.

Your present moments will never be the same again!

Personal Reflections For You:

• When you notice something good in your present moment, do you take the time to taste it, to put it your "mouth" and feel it?
• Describe an experience when you truly savored something, lingered long enough to relish the flavors or delightful nuances to your senses.
• How often do you express thanks and gratitude for your positive experiences in life--whether it's to yourself, to others, or to God?
• Do you have a regular gratitude practice?  What or Why not?

How Hope Can Trump Fear

This last Saturday at Second Wind we began a new series ("Applying Your  Spirituality To This Week's Glocal Hot Spot") in which we're taking a very current event happening in the world and asking what the story tells us about the journey of spirituality.  How does this event inform and shape our spirituality so that we develop a real-world kind of spirituality, a perspective on faith and the spiritual life that works in real life, that embraces contemporary life in a relevant way.  Saturday we focused on the story unfolding in Chile with the 33 trapped miners which has already broken the record for the number of days miners have been imprisoned underground.   Experts are predicting that it will be at least another 3 months before the men are able to be rescued, provided more collapses don't take place.  A heartbreaking story, to say the least. Imagine if you were a family member or one of the miners.  How would you be feeling?  What would keep you alive and hanging on?  Would you hope for a good ending, even if the possibility existed that it might not happen?  Would you allow hope to set you up for a potential catastrophic disappointment?  Does hope work?

The Washington Post last week reported about Jerry Linenger  who was the only American on the Mir space station in 1997 when a small fire caused a crisis that left him isolated in space for four months with two Russian astronauts. Cut off from his family and facing a lot of stress, Linenger endured a period of uncertainty that provides a good parallel to what the 33 Chilean miners are facing.

The initial explosion terrified and galvanized the crew of six. After the fire, the connection between the two modules that made up the space station was cut, leaving Linenger alone with the Russians. Over the next months, the Mir lost its oxygen generator and had serious trouble with the carbon dioxide scrubber. The toilets malfunctioned, and communications broke down. But the worst aspect, Linenger said, was being led to expect something that failed to materialize.

"Expectations unmet are a horrible thing," Linenger recalled, "especially when you're already psychologically stressed. The biggest dips for me and the others is when we were told something would happen and it didn't."

Among the many examples he could point to, the one that remains raw after 13 years is when he was told he would be able to speak with his pregnant wife at a time when potentially life-threatening problems had begun to mount.  "They said I could talk to her for a short time as we passed over a ground antenna near Moscow," he remembered, "and I prepared for a week. I wrote down what I would say and then crossed things off and added new ones. I was so excited. But the time came, they said she was on the line, and all I got was static. And then another emergency started and we were cut off entirely. After that, I expected nothing and was psychologically more healthy."

What do you make of Linenger's conclusion?  Is it healthier to simply not hope, to not have expectations, in order to prevent disappointment?

Though I can appreciate the need to try to minimize emotional pain from loss and grief (I've gone through this many times myself), the truth is that according to recent neuroscience about brain formation and function, hope is one of the most significant brain functions to not only taking away fear but also to producing profound life transformation.

As we know, our brains were originally wired for fear responses - it was to protect humans from being gobbled up by predators - it's the basis for the fight or flight response.  And according to recent research, fear is so wired into our brains that the brain actually "senses" fear-producing stimuli even at an unconscious level (before we recognize it).  When something dangerous occurs outside of awareness, the conscious brain reacts to it.  In other words, as experts are telling us, your brain prepares you to respond to danger faster than it does to other tasks, and it starts to respond to frightening things before you even realize they are frightening.

And unless this wiring tendency is proactively dealt with, fear always trumps everything.  And when we live in fear, our stress levels stay heightened, causing us to live on increased cortisol which keeps our physical and emotional systems over-stimulated and thereby more susceptible to disease and deterioration.

I'm reading a book right now written by Dr. Srinivasan Pillay, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the former director of the Outpatient Anxiety Disorders Program and the Panic Disorders Research Program in the Brain Imaging Center at McLean Hospital.  Dr. Pillay is writing about the recent neuroscience findings about the brain and fear and how to overcome the tendency to be paralyzed from from fear:  Life Unlocked:  7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear.

He says that hope is the choice to make the assumption that something is possible.  Instead of allowing the facts to justify fear, we use hope to reveal new facts and remove the fears.  This is precisely what people like former South African president Nelson Mandella, world-class athlete and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, and countless others have done every day.  Rather than wait for their fears to disappear or for facts to back up their hope, they used hope to create new facts and reach their goals.

According to brain science discoveries, hope and fear both wander around in the unconscious parts of our brains.  They both require amygdala activation, and whichever one is stronger will win the amygdala for its own use (the amgydala is the almond-shaped part of the brain, a mass of nerve cell bodies, designed to be the danger alert system, "the guard dog of the human brain."  "It's so powerful and efficient that it alerts us to danger in our environment within tens of milliseconds of detecting it.").

Dr. Pillay's point is this:  "To be processed by the amygdala, emotions have to stand in a queue, with their order determined by their strength - the strongest soldier gets to the front of the line.  If fear is strongest, then it will grab the amygdala's power and dominate all the other soldiers in the line.  If hope is stronger, then it will be preferentially processed over fear ... So we have to develop a strategy to help hope 'bulk up' and have an intelligence that supersedes the intelligence of fear.  This isn't easy because, as we've learned, our brains are structured so that the amygdala processes fear first in order to protect us from danger."  (p. 52-3)

This certainly explains why it's easier for us to give in to the impulse of fear instead of building hope.  But it also explains why it's so important for us to choose hope, to give intentional attention to hope and what it is we're hoping for.  Regularly imagining the state of life that hope is directed to.  Those specific activities build up our hope response.  And when we hope, says Dr. Pillay, we stimulate out brain center (amygdala) to use its mass of nerve pathways to empower our bodies to act in harmony with that hope instead of short-circuiting it with fear.

Hope isn't a naive, feel-good fantasy approach to life.  It's central to using our brain structure to facilitate positive, profound life transformation.  We do need fear, too.  We need to feel fear to keep us from dangerous situations - we need the fight or flight response for survival.  But we can't live there - we end up destroying our systems if we do.  So we must "bulk up" hope.  We must choose to imagine what we truly want our lives to become.  We must spend time directing our attention to that picture.  We must allow our emotional, rational, physiological systems to mobilize us toward that preferred future.

No wonder many of the sacred scriptures of the great faith traditions talk about hope and setting our minds and hearts on the object of our hope.  "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see."  (Hebrews 11:1)  Confidence.  Assurance.  And the rest of that chapter describes how those qualities lead to dramatic and transforming action.  Maintaining that kind of hope is what empowers us to take necessary steps to bring it into reality.

It's significant that all the families of the 33 trapped Chilean miners are staying on the mining site in a tent village that they're calling Camp Hope.  They are choosing to stay focused and to embrace hope.  Like Elizabeth Segovia, the wife of one of the trapped miners (reported by CNN).  The day before the tragic mine collapse, she received a piece of great news - she was pregnant with a girl - an ultrasound had confirmed it.  The next day, her world collapsed.  She cried and cried.  As the weeks went by, she found herself talking to her baby girl inside her, "Daddy's okay?  Daddy's okay!  It's going to be alright!"

Last Thursday, Segovia got a handwritten letter from her husband Ticona proposing they name their daughter Esperanza Elizabeth -- esperanza is Spanish for hope.  "First, because we never lost hope," she said, and "second, because it's the name of the camp where the families are living; and third, because the 33 miners never lost hope either."

With her daughter due to arrive in less than two weeks, and her husband due to arrive in perhaps four months, Segovia plans to make a video of the birth to ensure he doesn't miss it altogether.  "We have to record the birth in great detail, as well as everything that happens to my baby day by day so we can show him," she said.

What do you need to hope for in your life?  What is your preferred future?  What do you need to hang on to in order to stimulate your brain center into powerful action?  Where are you most fearful?  Is your fear paralyzing you?  Can renewed hope in you create new facts to bolster that hope and bring transformation?  Esperanza.  Hope. Best to hang on to it!

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A Secret to Living in the Moment and Enjoying More Peace

[If you like these posts, feel free to share them with others - click on the share button to the right.  If you would like to receive each new blog post as an automatic email, please subscribe at the right.] So what does it take for you to live in the moment - to be truly present in a place of peace?

Karen Armstrong is a former nun and now one of the world's foremost authorities on comparative religions with her latest book A Case For God topping the best-seller list.  She is also the recent creator of the "Charter for Compassion," whose signatories (like Prince Hassan of Jordan and the Dalai Lama) fight extremism, hatred, and exploitation throughout the world.  She was recently asked by Oprah's O Magazine what it takes to live in the moment, to seize the day.  She replied:

"Sometimes you wake up at 3 A.M. when everything seems dark, and you think, 'Life isn't fair. I've got too much to do. I'm too put-upon.' It's a rat run of self-pity! But when you feel compassion, you dethrone yourself from the center of the world. Doing that has made me a more peaceful person."

It's amazing how much stress we put ourselves under when we sit on the throne of our lives, trying to be in control of everything.  Rather than producing peace, this worldview contributes to anxiety and distress instead.  It's kind of like trying to spin multiple plates on sticks.  The first few plates we seem to handle pretty well.  But as the plates get added, we're running around trying to keep them all from falling and breaking into pieces.  It isn't long before the task is simply too much for us, no matter how gifted or full of energy we might be.  So much for ruling our kingdoms with ease.

I like Karen Armstrong's perspective - what helps to dethrone us from the center of the world is compassion - having an outward focus of empathy and caring toward others.  Counter-intuitively, including more people in our lives that we give love to actually decreases our dis-stress and anxiety and centers us more in a peaceful frame of heart, mind, and spirit.  It's almost like we were designed to live with compassion.

And actually, we were!  Neuroscience research in fact reveals that compassion, helping others, triggers activity in the portions of the brain that turn on when people receive rewards or experience pleasure.  Every compassionate act causes a pleasurable physiological response.  In addition, behaviors associated with compassionate love—warm smiles, friendly hand gestures, affirmative forward leans—actually produce more oxytocin in the body which is the hormone that promotes feelings of warmth and connection to others and enhances feelings of trust.

And the compassionate act doesn't have to fancy or extreme or complicated at all.  Dr. Lorne Ladner, a clinical psychologist in private practice in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., wrote:  “I just recently read one research study that found that people who pray for others tend to live longer than those who do not. The point is that when we develop feelings of love or compassion, we may not always be able to actually benefit others in a direct way, but we ourselves do always benefit from such feelings. They serve as causes for our own happiness.” When's the last time you chose to actually pray a blessing for someone else?  How difficult is that?

So Karen Armstrong seems to be on to something when she talks about her personal experience of how compassion actually helps her live more peacefully.  The act of dethroning self with our obsessive need to control life by giving authentic love and compassion to others is a eustress rather than a distress - the positive, energy-producing kind of stress rather than the debilitating kind.   And the long term affects of this are truly transformative.

Compassionate acts as simple as loving, sympathetic touch are powerful, too.  According to experts in a study about emotion and touch, sympathetic touches are processed by receptors under the surface of the skin, and set in motion a cascade of beneficial physiological responses:

"Female participants waiting anxiously for an electric shock showed activation in threat-related regions of the brain, a response quickly turned off when their hands were held by loved ones nearby. Friendly touch stimulates activation in the vagus nerve, a bundle of nerves in the chest that calms fight-or-flight cardiovascular response and triggers the release of oxytocin, which enables feelings of trust.  Research by Darlene Francis and Michael Meaney reveals that sympathetic environments — those filled with warm touch — create individuals better suited to survival and reproduction, as Darwin long ago surmised. Rat pups who receive high levels of tactile contact from their mothers — in the form of licking, grooming, and close bodily contact — later as mature rats show reduced levels of stress hormones in response to being restrained, explore novel environments with greater gusto, show fewer stress-related neurons in the brain, and have more robust immune systems."

The practice of compassion has the potential of radically transforming the life of the giver as well as the lives of the receivers.  No wonder Jesus, in concluding his public discourse about the values of God's kingdom, connected the giving of compassion, living a life of unconditional love and care for all others (including even our enemies) with a life characterized by freedom from worry, anxiety, and distress (Matthew 5-6).  Compassion, one of the most godly things we can do in life, puts us in place of inner peace and tranquility, a state of trust and unselfishness in the very heart of the Divine Life.

So what empowers you to be able to live in the moment, to seize the day, even in the midst of stress?  Have you tried compassion lately?  As the spiritual and scientific experts reminds us, it just might help transform your heart, mind, spirit, and body.



Four Ways To Overcome the Spirit of Indifference

We all read about it in the news last Monday.  Many of us saw the video.  Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax, 31, a Guatemalan immigrant who went to New York City in order to help his family back home, made his living as a day laborer, and when the economy crumbled, so did his job prospects. He wound up homeless, first living in shelters and then finally on the streets. A grainy surveillance video trained on a street in Jamaica, Queens, on April 18 captured the final moments of Mr. Tale-Yax’s life: A couple argues, Mr. Tale-Yax comes to the woman’s aid, the man stabs him in the stomach and runs away.

Helping a stranger was the last act of a broken man.

The video has made headlines across the globe, not just for its brutality, but for the indifference it seems to convey. It shows Mr. Tale-Yax lying face down for more than an hour on a sidewalk on 144th Street, near 88th Road, his life slipping away on the pavement as dozens of people walk past him.  Over an hour later, the paramedics arrive to find him lying in a pool of his blood.  They pronounce him dead at the scene.

I would be curious to interview the 2 dozen or more people who walked past Hugo as he lay there on the street Monday evening.  What did they notice?  Anything unusual or just another New York City scene?  If they did notice, what did they feel or think as they saw him?  Did they immediately assume he was simply another drunk passed out on the street corner?  Or they did see him as one of "those" illegal immigrants who shouldn't be here and doesn't deserve the City's help?  Did they simply not know he was in any trouble?  Did they perhaps naturally or even unconsciously ascribe the whole scene to a normal urban landscape - it's just the way it is here in the City?  Did they notice something wrong but assume someone else would call it in to 911?  Were they busily on their way to an appointment so they couldn't take the time to stop?  Were they afraid to get involved (after all, here in the City even good samaritans get hurt - this story is a good example of that danger)?

Why would over 24 people walk by a hurt and dying man without even stopping?  Makes you wonder, doesn't it.  What might you have done?

His brother Roland refused to watch the video when he was first told a tape existed, but found he could not avoid it on the local news. He was in shock, he said, that nobody helped his brother.

"Any animal that is hurt on the street, the city or anybody walking by goes to rescue it. But in this case, he saved this woman's life, and where was the conscience of the people around him?" Rolando Tale-Yax said.  "They have to realize that it could be a member of their family who is the next victim. … I just hope it doesn't happen again."

Perhaps this sad and tragic story provides some insight as to significant steps you and I can take to act more compassionately as a general life style.

One, change indifference.  Contrary to popular opinion that indifference is simply at the core of who we are as humans - it's evidence of our fallen nature - original sin - so we'll sometimes say, "Oh well, it's just the way we are - we're wired for indifference" - recent research shows otherwise.

In reality,  there is actually a biological basis for compassion.  There is a specific part of our brain that is wired for a compassion response.  Experiments with both mothers with their babies and people presented with images of victims of suffering showed similar neurological reactions.  The region of the brain associated with positive emotions literally lit up.  "This consistency strongly suggests that compassion isn't simply a fickle or irrational emotion, but rather an innate human response embedded into the folds of our brains," writes Dacher Keltner, PhD , a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

The good news is that an attitude of indifference can therefore be radically changed.  It's not in fact who we are as humans.  We don't have to shrug our shoulders in a spirit of resignation.  We can do something about it.

Two, practice compassion.  Recent neuroscience studies suggest that positive emotions are less heritable—that is, less determined by our DNA—than the negative emotions. Other studies indicate that the brain structures involved in positive emotions like compassion are more "plastic"—subject to changes brought about by environmental input. So, as Dr. Keltner observes, "we might think about compassion as a biologically based skill or virtue, but not one that we either have or don't have. Instead, it's a trait that we can develop in an appropriate context."

This is why all of the major religious traditions in the world see compassion as a spiritual practice.  And each tradition has developed ways to practice this trait.  And here again, the latest neurobiological research shows that our bodies have a built in system to facilitate this practice.

For example, helping others triggers activity in the  portions of the brain that turn on when people receive rewards or experience pleasure.  Every compassionate act causes a pleasurable physiological response.  In addition, behaviors associated with compassionate love—warm smiles, friendly hand gestures, affirmative forward leans—actually produce more oxytocin in the body which is the hormone that promotes feelings of warmth and connection to others. This suggests compassion may be self-perpetuating: being compassionate causes a chemical reaction in the body that motivates us to be even more compassionate.  So the more we practice acts of kindness and compassion to others, the more we are rewarded for it and the easier the skill becomes.  Transformational spirituality is a practice, a discipline, a developing of ourselves into who we were designed to become.

Three, develop mindfulness.  As Mr. Tale-Yax's tragic story indicates, people are often so caught up in their own lives (for whatever reasons) that they don't notice or pay attention.  I've seen this in myself at times:  I'm walking along the city streets often caught up in my own internal world of thoughts, planning, projections, inner conversations, trying to get some place in a hurry, that I really am missing most of what's around me.  If someone would suddenly stop me and quiz me about what I had seen in the last 10 minutes, I would stutter and stammer somewhat incoherently (except about the details of my inner conversations).

One of the key spiritual practices that so many traditions suggest is mindfulness - the ability to step into the present moment - to be truly aware and conscious right now.  This, too, is a skill that needs to be cultivated.  Try walking somewhere and paying attention to what's around you - what do you hear, see, smell, feel?  Try more meditation at home - spend time sitting and becoming more aware of your self, your heart, your body.  Widen that attention to what's around you.  Really notice.

Four, use empathy.  Hugo's brother Roland made the painful observation that if people would simply recognize that the suffering person could be a member of their own family, they would probably respond differently - be more proactive with their compassion.  He's describing the use of empathy.  The power of empathy is the choice to put ourselves in other people's shoes, to enter their space for a moment, in order to try to understand what they're going through.  It's often begins by asking ourselves the simple question, How would I feel - what would I want - if I were in that situation right now?  But then it always goes beyond to the next question, What is that person feeling or really wanting or needing?  Though our personal responses might differ from that suffering person's, research indicates that the choice to enter into empathy actually helps to motivate altruistic behavior.

Four tangible and siumple ways to overcoming indifference and stepping into compassion.  I'm not completely sure how I would have responded last Monday evening had I been walking along the sidewalk where Huge Alfredo Tale-Yux lay dying.  I would hope I would've at least stopped to see if he was alright.  I really hope I would've also gone beyond that simple step and gotten whatever help I could for him to save his life.  Imagine living in a world where people practiced compassion so often that they became really adept at it - a world where indifference was an anomaly rather than the rule.  It's time to unleash the powerful biology of our lives and let our true wiring go wild.  For the Hugo Alfredo's of the world.