“Every failure to cope with a life situation must be laid, in the end to a restriction of consciousness.  Wars and temper tantrums are the makeshift of ignorance, regrets are illuminations come too late”.      Joseph Campbell (Reflections on the Art of Living)   

Shakespeare wrote that there is no prison more confining than the  one we don’t know that we are in. When we hold onto grudges, perceived wrongs, resentments, anger and judgments, we profoundly affect our  Mental, Emotional, Physical, Spiritual health in detrimental ways. Unconsciously inhabiting a prison of our own making.

The brain loves efficiency and doesn’t like to work any harder than it has to. When you repeat a behavior, such as complaining, your neurons branch out to each other to ease the flow of information. This makes it much easier to repeat that behavior in the future—so easy, in fact, that you might not even realize you’re doing it. So when we judge someone or a group of people, hold a grudge, hang onto resentment or anger the neurons in our brains connect making neural pathways similar to a well-worn path in the woods.

“We don’t see things as they are we see things as we are”  (Anin)


Repeated complaining or any habit of thought rewires your brain to make future complaining or repetitive thoughts and behaviors more likely. Over time, you find it’s easier to be negative than to be positive, regardless of what’s happening around you. Complaining and negativity  becomes your default behavior, which changes how people perceive you. Psychologist Eric Bern found that “we act in ways to make people behave in order to justify how we already feel”. In other words, the outer world mirrors back what is going on in our inner world. Yet we are convinced that it is the outer world that is causing us to feel bad.

What’s worse: along with chronic stress,  complaining and holding grudges damages other areas of your brain as well. Research from Stanford University has shown that stress and negativity,   shrinks the hippocampus; an area of the brain that’s critical to problem solving and intelligent thought. Damage to the hippocampus is serious, especially when you consider how important it is to have full use of our mental faculties to cope with the many challenges we face in our work, family and personal lives. (Travis Bradperry, PhD)

Resentment, complaining and holding grudges  is bad for your health. 

While it’s profoundy helpful to know that negativity, pessimism and chronic stress leads to brain damage, it doesn’t stop there. When you are angry, anxious, fearful, stressed and   complaining, your body releases the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol shifts you into fight-or-flight mode, directing oxygen, blood, and energy away from everything but the systems that are essential for immediate survival. One effect of cortisol, for example, is to raise your blood pressure and blood sugar so that you’ll be prepared to either escape or defend yourself.

The extra cortisol released by chronic stress, frequent complaining and negativity impairs your immune system and makes you more susceptible to high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and obesity. It even makes the brain more vulnerable to strokes. Digestion and wound healing are also impaired making us more suscuptible to gastointestinal disorders and infectious dieseases.  ( Robert Sapulsky, Phd)

Why Forgive? 

“ You are not here to cry about the miseries of the human condition, but to change them when you find them not to your liking, through the joy, strength and vitality that is within you.” (Unknown)

To start the process of of forgiving:  Look at the real consequences of holding on to upsets. Ask yourself:  

  • What do I get by keeping the upset going?
  • Write down any benefits. Who benefits and how?
  • Is being right more important than being happy?

 Being a Victim

  • How long has my victimization been going on?
  • How long is it okay to let others be in control of my happiness?
  • Am I a possible contributor to the problem and not just the victim?
By being honest with yourself and owning your role or part in the situation, you are more able to forgive.  You may need to start small at first but when you do; if feels like a burden has been lifted from your chest or shoulders,  you will feel lighter and better.  If you don’t forgive; remember holding onto grudges has a link to depression, OCD as well as a decreased immune function.  (Forgiveness Foundation.org)

So when we forgive, we get:  Mental, Emotional, Physical and Spiritual Freedom. (Jim Dincalci PhD)   Our brains work better, we are happier, more creative and able to enjoy life more fully. Forgiving help us connect better to spirit. How can you experience the unconditional love and grace of God if you hold onto resentment, anger, grudges and prejudices yourself?

When will you really be ready to let go of all of your upsets? 

* See Robert Sapulsky’s National Geographic video “The Portrait of a Killer- Stress”.



Where Synchronicity & Magic Happen by Peter Metzner

Where Synchronicity & Magic Happen 

By Peter Metzner




What keeps teams or people from performing optimally?






This is the place where synchronicity and “magic”  happens.






“The Privilege of a Life Time” by Peter Metzner

The privilege of a lifetime is being
who you are.
The goal of the hero trip
down to your jewel point
is to find those levels in the psyche
That open, open, open,
and finally open to the mystery
of your self
being Buddha consciousness,
the Christ.

That’s the journey




J. Jacobe, The Way of Individuation

There are two gremlins we face every morning.


Lethargy: – chill out tomorrow is another day…


Who are we to stand in its way?








Stepping Into Your Vision by Peter Metzner





The Questions:

  • What constricts you?
  • Am I choosing  security over truth?
  • Am I doing  what my peers do?
  • Do I change and grow and how?
  • Why is so much a disappointment?
  • Why do I hide so much from others?
  • What gets pushed underground in my unconscious?
  • Where do I experience the transcendent?


There are two  gremlins we face every morning.


 Lethargy:  – chill out tomorrow is another day…







References and suggested reading:







What is known about addictions:













References and suggested readings:




The Portrait of Addiction by Peter Metzner

How do addictions and compulsions happen?

According to David Disalvo in his book What Makes Your Brain Happy and why You Should do the Opposite;   “Our brains are equipped with a reward center that serves to adaptively motivate behaviors that benefit us. Without this drive to seek out pleasurable experience we would be very dreary.

This center is  called the mesolimbic reward center. It is like an unprotected power grid that  can be high jacked from external forces.  These forces make use of the same reward circuitry.  The problem is that the new rewards  are usually  not beneficial.  Our brains suffer a type of reward distinction blindness and new imprints are integrated into the grid.  (Koob et al. Neuro circuitry of Addiction)

The common denominator of in all compulsive behaviors is a mal functioning reward center. Whether it is drug abuse, addiction to the internet, video games, gambling, sex, or over eating the same underlying dynamic facilitates compulsive continuation and intensification of the behavior.  (Disalvo)

Research on rats found that stimulation of the reward centers of their  brains made them become compulsive.  Rats trained to press a bar that activated electrodes  in the pleasure center of the brain would not stop pressing the bar – forgoing sleep, eating, drinking or having sex as long as the bar was available.  Many starved to death – they never gave up the bar. This explains why meth addicts forgo food, sleep and sex to get more of the substance their brain craves.   The more the reward is sought the more the craving and the compulsive behavior is reinforced.

Dopamine is often called the reward neurotransmitter.  It  is essential to our survival but  a potent enemy within when our brains reward circuitry is overwhelmed with the wrong types of rewards.  When it comes to technology, Dr. Gary Small, in his book, ibrain, found that someone with compulsive tendencies and (there are estimates of 50 million people in this country) is predisposed to a range of addictive behaviors and technology has a way of accelerating the process.

Carl Jung pointed out to the founders of AA “that the craving for alcohol is the equivalent, on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness – an implicit attempt to connect with a higher power”.

Alcohol or any mood altering drug offers a brief promise of this connectedness and then yanks it away. One must continue in order to anesthetize this new pain and so it goes. (James Hollis, Swamplands  of  the Soul)  “Whatever structure we have erected to bolster our shaky sense of self, our addictive patterns are defenses against anxiety whether we know it or not.”  (Hollis p. 90) All addictions and compulsions are anxiety management techniques.  As the anxiety mounts, we indulge in repetitive patterns that allow us to connect briefly before the angst and emptiness return.  This is a good description of what a living hell is like.   As Hollis writes “what cannot be born consciously  will be projected onto a person, a substance, a behavior … Compulsions narrow life down until there is no living – existence perhaps but no living. “

So in addition to overcoming the physical addiction and highjacking of our reward center, which is very difficult, Hollis also states; “the guilt and shame linked to our short comings erodes the strength needed to confront the unthinkable.”   To go down in the anxiety state to feel what we really feel is to go through and break the tyranny of the timeless emotions that haunt us” .

Suggested readings and references

Swamplands of the Soul – New Life in Dismal Places.  James Hollis 1996 Inner City Books

Under Saturn’s Shadow – The Wounding and Healing of Men James Hollis 1994 Inner City Books


Neurocircutiry of Addiction, George f. Koob et al. Neuropsychophamarcology  35 Jan. 2010