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By Dr. William K. Larkin on April 26, 2010
There is a lev
el of energy we call appreciation that describes a state of the way we are seeing things. It also embodies a way of being in the world. We "notice" the beauty and the goodness in the world around us. We apprehend what is pleasant and beautiful. We are taking things in by being in a place of noticing and receptivity. It seems to be the opposite of the "disgruntled" way of life. When we are disgruntled, we notice everything there is to be disgruntled about. Things that would not have bothered us, things that would have passed us by, now jump out to "bother" us and to "rub us the wrong way." It is just the opposite of things rubbing us the "right" way. Each of the states is a "sticky" state of mind. The more you are appreciating, the more there is to appreciate and enjoy. The more you are disgruntled, the more there is to be disgruntled, uneasy and irritable about. Disgruntlement is like a rash that has to be itched, but upon scratching it, it just itches more and requires more attention. A rash of disgruntlement can go on for a whole day of discontent and end in so much irritability that it creates anger and seething. It's easy to get to the place where one feels like, "I cannot take one more bit of this, it's intolerable." From an itch to 
disgruntlement is quite a journey. Some people are able to go to anger even more at the end of the day, even in just an hour or less.
Appreciation is the opposite of all of that. If disgruntlement is a cumulative energy than can end in anger or worse, the opposite "cumulative" direction of feeling is appreciation. It would seem that it could nearly be bliss by the end of the day, if we could put as much energy into appreciating as we put into disgruntlement.
Appreciation is really a very special a
nd important state of mind that opens us to good things and directs our perception in an enlivening, savoring, creative way. Things just get better, there is more and more to appreciate and enjoy, there is more pleasure to have and to experience, and by the end of the day of appreciation, we can have the experience of a rare day of loveliness and joy.
But how do we direct our energy to appreciation if we aren't there? What about those times when something negative is on our mind and we just "need" to think about it? Most likely, we don't "just need to think about it." As much as this disgruntlement wants to create a sense of "mulling" it over, that energy creates, by its use, a negative vacuum that is going to continue to "suck up" and notice what is negative, incomplete, unfinished, still raw, and unpleasant.
These states are very sticky and the more time we spend in either of them the "stickier" they get. So much so that it is possible to get stuck in either one of them, but it takes training. Yes, it takes training to be in either appreciation or disgruntlement. There are people who have practiced either of these most of their days.
The significant re
alization is that we are dealing with energy. Each of these states has energy and that energy attracts more of what it needs to replace its use and depletion. The vacuum of energy in either direction is going to be replenished with a like supply of the same thing. That energy will direct focus and mindfulness and will build and establish our consciousness. Over the long term, appreciation or disgruntlement can characterize a basic approach to the apprehension of life itself.
These apprehensions of life are rooted in the feeling habits you have acquired from your environment and then later acquired for yourself by your own decisions and behavior. If you want to change the habit of your apprehension and your consciousness, find ten things in the first hour of every day that you appreciate. Usually these are small things; they are not large experiences of gratitude. We appreciate what we appreciate as an extension of likin
g the nature of things in our lives, the nature of ourselves, the nature of our being-in-the-world. It is a decision to like what is there, to find what there is to like, and to "appreciate" it today and to let tomorrow take care of itself. You are working with your own very real "energy." Your negative energy will create a sticky vacuum that will be replaced with more negative energy. Your positive energy will create a sticky vacuum that will be replenished by what is positive.
By Dr. William K. Larkin on April 19, 2010
The Dharam
sala Monks of the Dalai Lama, who were the subjects of the original study we cited about gamma waves as a measure of compassion, are also able to do something else that is very interesting. These monks are able to lower or raise their body temperatures by 15 or more degrees, pretty much "on-call" as a result of meditating. The implications of that for those who live in the desert, or really in any climate, are quite significant. It is a very "natural" and a very "green" way of conserving energy. Think about the power of dropping your own body temperature 15 degrees in the heat. It would be quite an energy savings over a year.
This is a startling example of our ability to direct "energy." Another is in the area of radiation. Small beads of gold are used to surround a cancer as radiation energy is directed at the area of the cancer. The gold beads better catch and direct the signal of radiation that works on the cancer. Another exa
mple of the direction of energy that can't been seen.
The signal or energy we've been working with for three weeks is the energy of "love." I wonder what its power would be if we could increase it 15 degrees (our ANI measure called "intensity" of emotional muscle), and direct it and measure its impact on a particular target "person" or target "situation." That is our work this week. Pick a target of your love. You have perhaps learned in our work together that you can make an emotion last (duration) and intensify it or increase its emotional "muscle." Take aim at your target of love and give that emotion some duration over time and then intensify it and stay directed at your target. Send "love" treatments, increase your gamma waves in a particular direction. Send love to someone or some situation as surely as if it were a wave of radiation.
Love is an energy and gamma wave measurement i
s the first way into measuring the power of that love. We have an infinite capacity to heal ourselves and others by learning to direct love as a source of energy and healing. The best news about it is that the more you send it, the more you have it. Find your target of love, aim your energy, and let the love go. For those of you who are familiar with the third position of the "love of the world" or "the hug" in our Emotional Gym, use that gesture as you, in your imagination, embrace the other person, and send the love you feel.
Consider this. Your target of love can be a part of your body that needs healing. It can be a person that you don't like or for whom you have negative feelings. It can be a situation for which you feel fear. It can be anyone or anything. Just be consistent with it for a week and tell us what happens.
By Dr. William K. Larkin on April 11, 2010
Love i
s not "niceness." It is not the culture of "nice, nice, nice" that shrouds hostility and back-biting. Love is very idiosyncratic. It is not the failure of courage to be forthright and clear about one's opinions.
I recall three experiences with Mother Teresa. The first was one at a college commencement in which she told the students there not to quit what they were doing and come to India. Instead, they were told to find the lonely person in their own backyard and to give them companionship. Second, in a cathedral with a not-so-good loud speaker system and a complaining audience, she stepped away from the microphone so the crowd would have to strain to hear her and to be very, very quiet. Third, in a new home for her sisters to serve an American slum community, she told the providers of the home for her sisters to take out the beds, take out the carpeting and to make other changes that stripped the place of the "beauty" the well-meaning church folks had created. She didn't even thank them, but just told them that her sisters needed to be able to identify with the poor. Not so nice, no, not very nice at all.
Love is highly idiosyncratic. Everyone loves differently. There is a different quality and different nature to everyone's love. And to anyone who says, "love is love and you can always
feel it," I say not true. It took me years to realize the ways my father showed great love for me. It took me years to realize that the most exasperating professors were showing a love of learning for expecting the most astute analysis from me. It took me years to realize, in the journey of loving myself, that I had been very loving all along the way, but oftentimes it wasn't recognized by others.
Idiosyncratic love takes form and shape differently in different people. Those caught up in the cultural idea or notion of love make a romance out of everything, but fail to realize that the teacher who is demanding, the worker who is faithful, the person who will not give in to the other jurors to close the case, the CPA who has got to get it right, are all giving their love in particular and oftentimes in peculiar ways that we may seldom recognize.
So what is the "to do" this week? Pulse love and manifest it genuinely in your own way. If you didn't send cards for the last "greeting card created" holiday or you just didn't feel like bothering, stop feeling guilty for how you don't love and celebrate the idiosyncratic way you do love. The people who can receive your love will come into your sphere when you just love with the love that you are.
By Dr. William K. Larkin on April 6, 2010
In a laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, researchers have measured gamma waves and their relationship to love experiences, expressed as compassion. Gamma waves are the fifth of the brain waves; the others are alpha, beta, delta and theta. Gamma waves have only recently been able to be measured. Monks who have practiced compassionate meditation for thousands of hours have not only raised the level of their gamma waves to extraordinary levels, but they have also reduced the size of the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with anger, fear, rage, and strong negative emotions. College students who practiced feeling compassion and emotionally sending it "outward" to the world also measured smaller but similar changes in the brain in only a week's time.
One of the most fascinating parts of the research is that the gamma waves of another person in the room in the presence of the monk also experience similar brain wave changes even when they were doing nothing. The monk's energy affected them. 
What were the monks doing? They were pulsing love. They were experiencing the last two measures of the strengths of emotional muscle- duration and intensity. They were able to increase the experience of love (intensity) and they were able to make it last (duration) so that it actually changed the structure of the brain. That is neuroplasticity of the brain at its best. It was the Dalai Lama who asked neuroscientists to consider that compassionate meditation might change the structure of the brain. Our Emotional Gym is an expression of compassionate meditation.
This week is the second of four weeks directed to experiencing love and building that emotional muscle in your Emotional Gym. It is more than a feeling. It is an energy. It can change more than your amygdala and your gamma waves. It can change your day. It can even change your life.
We can live in love throughout the day. Recently I sat for more than an hour and a half waiting for an eye appointment I had driven 2 hours to get to, only to have it cancelled. I tried to get angry and upset but it di
dn't really work. I couldn't get there. Then I pulsed "love and love and love and love" and an hour later the doctor called apologizing, offering me a free appointment and procedure at my convenience.
I have had to learn to do this. I have had to practice and to remember. You can feel love and pulse love. It is a test many times and I often don't remember, but it is taking me less and less time to go there. Every time I go to love and pulse it, I am better for it. Never, never am I worse for having done so. And the world unfolds because love is a measurable force.
By Dr. William K. Larkin on March 29, 2010
We have spent a week pulsing joy, and in the process, seeing the things that give us joy. And for no reason at all, except the sheer joy of it, we have chosen to feel joy, on-call, immediately, whenever we wanted to go there. Whenever we wanted the reality of joy, we created in and lived in the emotion. As we lived in the emotion, we noticed more and more in the world that deserved the experience of joy.
So it is with love. I have found, over time, that love is often the hardest emotion for people to experience. It is often the last one that people begin to exp
erience. Gratitude is usually the easiest and so we go there first. But eventually we end up with love and compassion.
The next four weeks are about love. We will look at love in four different ways and we will consider how idiosyncratic love can be. Its expressions are endless.
What we create inside, or really find inside, and then create in our way, is the essence of love. It's in every one of you and it is the deepest, truest, greatest reality of you. You are born with a core and center of love already existent and operable in you; your charge is to bring your expression of love to the world.
If we could measu
re it, and actually we can, love is the most powerful energy in the Universe; it IS the Universe and it exists within you.
So feel love 25 times in the morning with a broad smile on your face and make it the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning. Then throughout the day, give love to the world. Pulse love at everything, with everything and to everything.
What stories we will share throughout and after these four weeks!!
By Dr. William K. Larkin on March 22, 2010
One of our m
ost significant insights is the reversal of cause and effect as it concerns both emotions and our "being." With emotions, we have assumed that we are joyful when something happens on the outside of us that causes us to feel joy. That can be true. However, there is always something on the outside of us that can cause joy if we can apprehend it.
But rather than wait for joy, be the cause of joy in you and let the joy you choose to feel within be the "effect" you hav
e on the world. I want to recommend that we have a week of focused pulsing using "joy." Work on pulsing joy all week long. Just decide to feel joy on a scale of 1-10, starting with a little and making it grow all week long. Let's all focus our attention on feeling joy because it is our choice. Joy, joy, joy, joy all week long!
Joy can be a difficult feeling state to get to, but just start with a joyful memory. If you can feel it, think it for it a week, and eventually the feeling will catch up. It is like blowing air into a balloon. The more "joy air" you feel into the balloon, the more the balloon grows. And if you remember blowing up a balloon, it was the first few breaths of air into the balloon that were the most difficult.
As you feel mo
re joy, look for more joy, expect more joy, and make the decision to manage it yourself by feeling it "on call," you will look around your world and find more things to be joyful about.
Yesterday, I did a simple thing. I planted some flowers around my pool. I looked out the window this morning to see how much they had grown overnight and 
I used looking at them to feel just a little joy. Then I just kept going. Keep going with me and let's join together and fill the world with joy, by choice, this week.
JOY, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy. JOY... because we choose to feel it.
By Dr. William K. Larkin on March 15, 2010
Romantic novels and movies are filled with the central theme of people being found by someone who will tell them, in one way or another, "Essentially you, and you alone, are the one I want." There is this idea that if we are "found" by another" who loves our "essence," that we will have "made it." Or the other twist is that if we can find someone whose "essence" we can love and experience, they will love us in return in the same way.
If you believe this and you are excited by it, then consider the basis of what you must "romance" first. The essence of you is gratitude, peace, joy, hope, and love. These are emotional descriptions of your essence. When you start to feel them on your own, and not depend on anything or anyone else to produce them for you, you begin to take the journey from your head and heart into your essence and you discover, at the inmost core of you, these realities of gratitude, peace, joy, hope, and love. They live inside of you as the essence of the Universe and as your essence.
There is magic here. And it's magic because it's so striking when the shift from negativity to positivity happens and you find that it's true -the inmost pa
rt of you, your essence, is all of these things. Feeling these feelings on the "outside" leads you to the "inside" where they dwell. Learn to grow your positive emotions in three dimensions to experience these feelings: 1) IMMEDIACY: you can get to them instantly, on call 2) DURATION: you can make them last over time 3) INTENSITY: you can intensify them and make them stronger at will.
What sounds very mechanical and practiced is this: these seeming "outer" emotions, after you have experienced them and they have found their roots and life in you, 
will appear to you as having already existed within you all along. It's always been "Essentially You, Dear, Just You"
And so the greatest romance begins within and carries itself outward to others. Do the Emotional Gym, go to an UpSpiraLife Group. Come "train" with us, we are the BEST trainers. It will be THE significant workout of your life!
By Dr. William K. Larkin on March 10, 2010
We h
ave the idea that a relationship will satisfy a lot of our "wants." So much of our desire for a relationship with another person is based on wanting to heal a "hole" of loneliness, couched in the belief that everything would be so much better if we just had someone to share it all with. Then we get someone and they don't want to share what we want to share or they don't want to share what we want them to share at the time we want to share it. They don't "come through" for us.
There are many reasons for a relationship, even with an animal. The "other" does something for us emotionally that we need to learn to be able to do for ourselves. What they "give" us is something we have not yet given ourselves.
We want to share times and moments and events in a relationship with someone with the idea that doing so will make them as "shared," more meaningful
. If they would just "show up" and share it! How many times have you wanted to share something with a mate who is snoring, so you just decided that you would enjoy it yourself, on your own? Just because you may be in a relationship doesn't mean, as you well know, that this person will "show up" to share the evening, the sunrise, the vacation, the movie, or just the evening news, when you would like them beside you.
We are always living in a fundamental relationship with ourselves, to some degree of richness and completion, or the lack of it. We treat loneliness as something that only someone on the outside of us can heal or deal with. Loneliness is only something dealt with from the inside out. Loneliness is not about finding a soulmate. It's rather about finding yourself at home for you.
Most of us assume that we are good at feeling positive emotions, good at being happy. Most are not. We need to practice being with ourselves, feeling positive emotions, and most of all we need a whole new discovery of the reality that we need to "learn" to be happy. It just doesn't happen and it never happens because someone else does it for us.
Love is a wonderful thing when someone else doesn't have to fill the cup of what we lack inside ourselves when we have not grown up e
nough to provide it for ourselves.
What about touching, embracing, love-making and just plain sexual gratification? You can't really give these to yourself. There is a great myth in the novels of love and the movies that treat all of this like a drug that fills in our deepest loneliness. Ecstasy and the bliss of love-making, just like the rest of life, happen after you have come home "to you" and found your home in the Source of you that dwells within you. We are "one" in many expressions of love, but the oneness starts by finding it in yourself.
Want "you."
By Dr. William K. Larkin on March 1, 2010
They are too important in the overall picture. To remove them would be to tear out of you a part that is intended to be an important sign post and signal.
Your character defects, your weaknesses, are the other end of the same stick which is your strengths. It's all on the same line of energy, just at separate ends. When you are heading into a DownSpiral, you will play to your character defects. When you are in an UpSpiral, you will have a greater tendency to play to your character strengths, especially if you know what they are. In fact, if you know what your character strengths are and you know that you need to stay in an UpSpiral to play 
to them, you are more than likely going to do that. It's just easier.
Focus on your character defects and getting rid of them and they will grow. Worry that God hasn't removed them and you get frustrated, irritated, and stuck.
Shine the light on their opposites, which are your character strengths, and your character strengths will grow and grow and grow infinitely. In fact, they can grow to a "genius" level if you feed them and grow them over 20 years.
There is an interesting twist here that I have noticed in researching various 12 step addiction movements. One of the steps is to be willing to have your character defects removed by God. It just says "willing,"
which is very important. It doesn't say brood over them if they aren't removed and use that as an excuse not to grow and live the fully-lived life.
Your weaknesses change very little over a lifetime because they are signposts pointing you in the direction of your strengths, which are infinitely malleable.
Think about this: your weaknesses are the opposites of the strengths you haven't claimed and moved into flexing and growing. They are also reminders when you get off track to go to your strengths rather than to play with the fire of your character defects. Your weaknesses are fire alarms. Don't remove them. See where they point you and learn to grow from them.
By Dr. William K. Larkin on February 25, 2010
Street gangs in o
ur cities concern us. Gangs form around poverty and powerlessness as a form of support, especially among young people. Negative support and hate seems better than no support at all. The idea of roving gangs creating havoc and violence and gaining power from their numbers is something we abhor. To increase their sense of size and power, oversized jeans, big thick belts, metal piercing flared nostrils, facial tattoos, T-shirts and jackets sized larger than the person exaggerate and give an impression of working very, very hard on dominating and creating respect from fear. And the death toll from young people on the streets just keep rising.
We just don't like the idea of roving gangs on our streets.
We don't like them at all.
Add to that loud, in-your-face rap music, vulgarity and pornographic lyrics and we fear what in the world can come next.
The gangs on our streets are a perfect symbol of negativity. And we hate them.
What a perfect image they are for what goes on in our own heads. The lyrics and power-driven pagan drum beats are a perfect image for our own self-talk and our negativity. When our negative thoughts gang up and when they put on "clothes" larger than they are, when their rhythmic beat is a drum in our heads, we wreak a greater violence on our own sense of self than roving gangs of kids could ever do. If anyone else beat up on us like we do, we would want them shot.
Street ga
ngs mirror, on the outside, the "gangs of negativity" on the inside of our own heads.
When negative thoughts gang up on us, what they tattoo on the brain is a greater violence than anything roving our streets. Our culture has created on the streets, the negative gangs that rove in our brains.
There are gangs of negative thoughts that "rove" the streets of our brains, sometimes with great, great freedom. Sometimes, we haven't done a thing to stop them.
There is another gang in town, another gang on the streets of our brains and it is the louder and louder sweet pulsing beat of:
Gratitude, love, peace, joy and hope.
The pulse of these emotions grows in size when they increasingly take over the streets of our brains and return freedom to one's self-image.
There is a war in the streets of our cities and there is a war in our brains. Let's heal the streets of our cities by healing the negative gangs of thought roving in our own minds.
Can you imagine a world where everyone belonged to an UpSpiraLife Group and worked together on increasing their UpSpiral Score? I really cannot imagine it on my own. My consciousness just can't wrap itself around that. But I can, with all of you holding it in your consciousness as well. When we capture our thoughts and turn them to gratitude, love, peace, joy and hope, there will be no gangs in our heads or on our streets.
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