Under stress, men and women have different brain activation patterns. Stress causes men and women to respond differently to risky decision making, with men charging ahead for small rewards and women taking their time, according to a new study in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, published by Oxford University Press on June 4^th, 2011.

After being subjected to stress, men appeared to be more motivated to act quickly while women slow down.

According to the study, when men are under stress, playing a risk-taking game stimulated areas in the brain that are activated when one gets a reward or satisfies an addiction. The same experiment found diminished brain activity for women in the same areas when they were stressed. It appears women do not feel the drive to get a reward as much under stress. So under stress men are risk-takers, while women are risk-adverse.

This compelling information has many ramifications when it comes to making life decisions with a partner or spouse on matters of importance to the wellbeing of the partnership.

While there might be advantages to both stress responses, especially in areas with the need to weigh short-term gain, such as the stock market, and long-term benefits, such as health decisions or retirement planning, there are many implications for daily life and relationships.

For example, it would not be wise for a man to invest the couple’s life savings on the stock market if he is under duress. Similarly a woman with a life-threatening illness might have to speed up her decision-making process if the disease is progressing rapidly with time.

In the study participants were given a task of filling up a computer-simulated balloon with as much air as possible without popping the balloon.

Subjects earned from $4 to $45 based on their performance, with the men earning much more cash under stress.

Although men performed this task better, the more important conclusion may be that important decisions made under stress should include input from both genders. It might be better to have more gender diversity on important decision because men and women offer differing perspectives. Being more cautious and taking the time to make a decision will often lead to the right choice.

Men and women faced with tough decisions might improve their communication by waiting until a stressful situation has passed because in the absence of stress their behaviour and brain activation is more compatible.

According to lead author on the study Nichole Lighthall, "Men and women appear to think more similarly when they are not stressed. Each party in a couple needs to be aware of the way they are biased in their decisions especially when under stress."

Last year Lighthall authored a study in the journal PLoS One that showed that men under stress may be more likely to take risks, correlating to such real-life behavior as gambling, smoking, unsafe sex and illegal drug use.

Gender differences in brain structure and response to environmental stimuli mean that men and women respond to the world from a very different world-view. Other areas of gender differentiation come into play in the bedroom, social behaviour, attitudes to work and health and in the area of parenting.

In our Essence of Woman Relationships Workshop we explore how to navigate the rocky waters of gender difference so that you can enjoy complementary harmony in your relationship in the way that Nature intended.

If you are interested in learning more about how gender differences shape your relationship and how by understanding them you can bring compatibility into your sexual life, your workplace, your parenting and your extended family life in concert with your partner, click here to go to our Spirit of Woman website where you can view the details of our July 30th and 31st workshop and to book online. Simply scroll down to the Essence of Relationships workshop and you can click through to book.

If you find that you view your spouse or partner as if you are looking in the mirror, expecting the same responses and behaviours from him as you have,  and yet somehow  he 'lets you down every time', then this workshop will delight, comfort, empower and lift you and your your relationship up to where it belongs – to harmony, joy, balance and inner peace.

You can then return here to read more blogs about how gender differences can either make our lives hell or take us to heaven……..

Nature evolved the multitude of species that make up the rich tapestry of life over a period of  3.8 billion years. The 'laboratory of life' has been are remarkably successful research and development program where only those designs that augment and support life have survived. Species that weren't equipped for the long haul died out after a period of trial and error, while those that perfected their evolutionary pathways, either through design, form, behaviour or the ability to co-operate with other species, live on today as a testimony to their success.

It has been only since the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries that humankind initiated major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation and technology that revolutionised the way we live. It is now, in the aftermath of the behemoth that transformed the face of the planet forever, a mere 200- 300 years later, that we are being challenged by the cumulative effects of rapid, unbalanced and short-sighted, parasitic growth.  

Waterways have been intoxicated or bled dry by human irrigators, forests denuded leaving animal species stripped of their habitats and a carbon crisis that contributes to abruptly changing weather patterns, while the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a toxic load of human by-product the size of Texas, presents numerous hazards to marine life, fishing and tourism and is said now to be almost impossible to clean up. The list goes on…….

Effectively, the swift and cataclysmic changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution had the effect of not only negatively impacting the natural environment, bringing humanity almost to the brink of destruction, but of simultaneously separating and alienating human beings from the natural world, so that we were blinded to the exquisite beauty and functionality of natural design. With biomimicry, a relatively new science, we see the return to an appreciation of design principles that are rooted in the Divine Feminine. 

So what is biomimicry? According to Wikipedia, "Biomimicry is the examination of nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take inspiration from in order to solve human problems". Biomimicry, as an innovating process, generally comes from one of two directions. Sometimes, the innovator sees a process in nature and connects it to an existing technology or problem. Other times, the innovator studies an existing design problem and turns to nature for help.

For example, new housing design in Africa is mimicking the construction of termite nests whose cool building strategies include aligning the nests north-south and and constructing air vents that constantly move air throughout the mound, cooling or heating it to the same temperature as the mound itself, to achieve a constant inside temperature. Architects and engineers are building several large office complexes that mimic the termite approach to temperature control.

Another of Nature's marvellous designs concerns a beetle that inhabits the searing deserts where there is no ground water. His back is constructed using a ripple effect, consisting of water-attracting molecules along the peaks and water-repelling molecules along the troughs. The beetle stands with his back to the wind on top of a sand dune and collects water from the air which collects on the peaks, and rolls down into the trough when sodden. Repelled, the water then runs along the troughs which slope down into the beetle's mouth. A company in Sydney is investigating this age-old technique for innovative inner city roofing where a 40% humidity can jackpot into a massive water-load over a single day, enough for all the household's daily needs. 

On the planet today, there are as many brilliant designs as there are remarkable species, all of which have perfected their own unique way of working co-operatively with Nature to survive. Some species survive through mutual reciprocity with other species, others by design features in their form, others through biological strategies, such as repellent surfaces that make their lives not only comfortable but enables them to survive. Ecological systems rely on mutual interaction and co-operation between species and family groups and net-working between the plant and animal kingdoms that enhances their own survival while lending support to another. The planet itself is an interacting vital collective of self-supporting eco-systems that equally enhance and support each of the individual parts for the greater good.

Nature is the Divine Feminine in action, expressed through the principles of co-operation, mutual support, conservation, net-working and working towards the good of the whole.

As humanity, in true humility, embraces the intelligence of design that has evolved over billions of years on this planet, we simultaneously step out of the ego-base of the prevailing masculine paradigm to recognise that we are a part of Nature, not some arrogant overlay that dominates and prevails. As humans being, we must acknowledge that we do not know everything – that is the realm of the Divine Goddess in conjunction with Spirit – we are merely mirrors of the Divine – both Feminine and Masculine.

Females are biologically inscribed to express Divine Feminine values in their life because they are the ones who bear, nurture and socialise their children, the adults of the future. Because life is designed to evolve, Nature well-equipped them for this role with the very principles of being that uphold and support Nature's evolutionary drive. Essentially it is females who carry the baton of evolution through to the next generation.

Males are biologically inscribed to protect the female and family. Theirs is to uphold life, honouring and protecting it's processes so that it can recycle itself for better and better outcomes with each succeeding generation.  

What has gone askew is that the Divine Feminine and the Masculine Spirit have been cycling out of balance, so dis-ease has set in. The Masculine has somehow prevailed as being the one that holds the power, over females and over Nature, while the Feminine has collaborated by dishonouring their own power base and accepting being 'second-class citizens. Although different, the two genders must stand together and collectively create a new life for humanity and the planet.

As humans being, we must redress the imbalance by bringing the Divine Feminine into the light while subduing the arrogance of the Masculine Spirit. When harmony is achieved, the Feminine and the Masculine are in balance, and we will experience the Golden Age of Peace that is just waiting around the corner.

Biomimicry is a crucial step along the way. At last the ancient wisdom of the Goddess is being recognised and harnessed for the good of the whole …….. not just for humanity but for the healing of the planet as well. Each unique design developed by one species or another both supports the integrated whole and does no harm. Both of these principles are foundational underpinnings of the art of healing…….

The Masculine Spirit, represented by Science (either female or male scientists), by drawing on the intelligence of the Divine Feminine, as intelligent design, can create heaven on Earth.

In the words of Janine Benyus, author of the 1997 book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature.: "The more our world functions like the natural world the more likely we are to endure on this home that is ours, but not ours alone"  

Please comment on this blog post….I am interested to hear your opinion……………… and enjoy the spiral…………

Hailed as the wedding of the century (even though we are only one tenth into it!) Prince William and his commoner bride Kate fired up the heart of the world, in a brilliant display of British pageantry that caught the imagination of so many. According to ‘guess-timates’ there were two billion people viewing the spectacle across the globe.

It was elegant in its simplicity and understated style and seemed to cut through the dross of hyper-sophistication, leaving us, the viewers, feeling somehow deeply connected to the heartfelt intention of the young couple.

Kate looked serene, if somewhat shy and demure, especially when William saluted his entourage, but it was her dress that said it all for her – pure sterling silver this girl, and a fine match for the Prince of Hearts.

What a powerful statement they made as a couple – honouring the position of influence they carry, by celebrating love rather than pomp and ceremony. It is no doubt that the regalia of royalty was on display, and what a splendid treat to have the opportunity to see the Abbey, the landau, the coaches and the historical finery trotted out for all of us to enjoy. But all of that simply added to the feeling that was so evident. At its barest, it pared away the stiffness of privilege and social standing to reveal the simple joy and truth of love as a common thread that runs through all of us and taps us into our deepest yearnings.

Bravo dear young ones………you brought freshness and hope to the common people from the midst of your historically stiff and distant heritage.

The word that kept echoing in my mind as I watched the event was connection.

We all yearn for love and connection and an occasion like the Royal Wedding brings that aspiration out in all of us. Prince William’s mother Diana was affectionately known as the Queen of Hearts because she managed to touch into the deepest aspirations of all people and the tidal wave of love she evoked has never been forgotten. Her beloved son resonates to the same note.

We are blessed to have such a role model in both these two lovely young people for they remind us of the importance of love in our life, no matter how ‘common’ we perceive ourselves to be. It is love that makes all relationships ‘royal’ including the unique love relationship we have with ourselves. It is that that makes us sovereign in our own lives.

Thank God that humanity is turning the corner in some parts of the globe.

It is connection that maketh the human human, not wealth, ego-satisfaction, achievement or worldly success. These things satisfy our need for security, safety, basic survival and include food shelter and avoidance of pain, and are not to be diminished in relative importance in this three-dimensional world we live in. We have only to compassionately recognise the absence of these basic human rights throughout some countries in the Middle East to know that many of our human family suffer, on a daily basis.  

But in the so-called First World where we are suffering from an over abundance of material wealth with our two and three car families and houses that echo with emptiness because they are so big, it is the memories of the heart that bring the deepest peace on the deathbed.

Long live love, long live connection and may peace reign throughout the globe as we awaken to the throb of the love bond that exists throughout all the universe, connecting everything to everything else in the vast immeasurable web of life.

Thank you to the Prince of Hearts and his blessed bride for courageously parading their love for the world to see and feel.

I would like you to meet Bleeding Heart, one of the new essences in my Spirit of Woman Australian Wild Flower Essence range being launched on 21st June, 2009.

Bleeding Heart
Omalanthus populifolius (Queensland Poplar)
A fast-growing, rainforest tree belonging to the family Euphorbiaceae. It has leaves shaped like hearts. As they are dying, the leaves turn red, thus the name.
The minute, cream flowers grow in dense, terminal, slender racemes.
It pops up everywhere in perfect weather conditions, but wilts and dies quickly once ‘the heat is on.’
Doctrine of Signatures
This tree is extremely fast growing as if it is in a hurry, like those who fall in and out of love at the drop of a hat, desperately seeking what they feel a relationship should be offering them.
The leaves are distinctly heart-shaped and just before they fall off the tree, they turn to a brilliant and dramatic red colour. Called Bleeding Heart, the tree’s growing habit reminds one of the drama and intensity that goes with the break-up of a relationship — painful memories, hurt and grief, making the heart bleed.
The numerous tiny flowers located on a slender raceme seem to be reaching out as if desperately seeking for acceptance and love or for a need to be met. The abundance of the flowers suggests although the affairs have been numerous, none have yet satisfied the need. The smallness of the flowers suggests that the person feels small and not worthy of notice and what is so desperately being sought is a feeling of self-worth.
Dying For Love
This is the person who seeks outside of herself for validation and a sense of being worthy. She seeks love in every encounter, and feels validated and alive if she is in the intense honeymoon period of a love affair.
Often this person is ‘dying for love,’ and can sabotage her own desire for a relationship by wearing her heart on her sleeve and actually pushing away a prospective partner with her intensity.
Or sometimes this type of person will fall in love with the unattainable — the clergy, a married man, etc. — thus subconsciously fulfilling her own prophecy of never finding the right partner.
These women romanticize love, holding it up as an ideal and are often unable to sustain a relationship when the person turns out to be ‘ordinary.’ Because of their idealized view of love, they put their lover or spouse on a pedestal, then wonder why they are disappointed when he turns out to be human and not ‘superhuman’ after all.
Many women put romantic expectations on their lover or spouse, and when he doesn’t deliver they lose their loving feeling. They may fantasize about leaving the present relationship and finding one where they will ‘truly be loved.’
A Wall Around the Heart
Some women cut themselves off from the rest of the world because they are partnered. Their unreal expectations that their partner will fulfill all of their needs — physical, social, emotional, sexual, security and friendship — puts a heavy strain on the relationship. The woman will feel sad when her partner can’t deliver and find that she is isolated and lonely.
Some women put a wall around their heart because they don’t want it to bleed again, having been hurt in the past by a love relationship gone wrong. These women experience great pain because in their deepest heart, they want to love again, but they are too scared to reach out.
Love is a Natural State
This essence attunes one to the feeling that one is worthy of experiencing true love that endures in a state of grace, delicacy and gentleness. It helps one to recognize that love can be constant and enduring and does not falter when the chips are down. It allows one to see that true love is unconditional and not focused on only what one is receiving, but also what one is giving. This love does not control, but rather lets things be the way they are based in the profound heart wisdom that everything is unfolding perfectly as it should.
Bleeding Heart helps a woman to recognize affinity as attraction to a significant other, and when that magnetism is felt, there is genuinely something there. It helps to put into perspective the notion that touching and being touched is a demonstration of the power of feeling between them and not simply an end in itself.
Love is a natural state between all living things. Love radiates throughout all existence, including human beings and the plant, animal and mineral kingdoms.
Live to Love and Love to Live
The cry of a ‘warrior of the heart’ is live to love again. When we stay open to love, we become more loving and consequently attract love to us. This is the healing energy of Bleeding Heart.
Your Healing Challenges

• For those who wear their heart on their sleeve.
• For those who pine for love.
• For those who fall in love with the unattainable.
• For those who put a wall around the heart.
• For co-dependency.
• For those who feel they can’t live without love.

Your Healing Outcomes

• Brings discernment in selecting a partner.
• Quiets the hungry heart.
• Opens the heart to true love.
• Encourages individuality within a relationship.
• Enables love of the self.
• Helps one to take a risk.
• Works on the first, second and fourth chakras.

I heard recently of a medical conference being held to discuss the link between depression and heart disease. Hailed as a first in the industry, it appears to be a real ground-breaker, challenging the old Cartesian notion, which is the basis of modern medicine and emphasizes the split between Mind and Body. And not before time!

Born in 1596, Rene Descartes had a primary influence on thinking in his day, and through his book, Discourse on Method, his philosophy went on to influence the development of the underlying principles of the emerging medical model. Descartes distinguished between the res cogitans and the res extensa. The former referred to the soul or mind and was said to be essentially "a thing which thinks." The latter was the material stuff of the body, characterised primarily by the fact that it occupied space and was therefore amenable to measurement.

Descartes was a pretty smart fellow who established several patterns for modern Europe to follow: he laid down the idea that the thinking mind was somehow more real than the body in which it is housed (this is called the Cartesian mind-body split); and that emotions were due to the overall nature of the character of the individual–called Cartesian affect (i.e., emotion) theory.

From that point onwards in European culture, subjective truth would hold a higher and more important epistemological place than objective truth, skepticism would be built into every inquiry, method would hold a higher place than practice, and the mind would be separated from the body.

In recent years neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists have argued that this ontological separation of mind and body is no longer tenable.

Upheld by some of the mind-boggling discoveries concerning the interactive nature of energy and matter described in New Physics, we are charging into the new millennium knowing the ‘energy and matter are dual expressions of the same primary substance’.

So Mind and Body are interconnected after all, and Descartes was wrong.

No wonder modern medicine, with its emphasis on the split between what we think and how our body responds, is losing followers in droves – many people, these days, are more informed about the true nature of how we function as living human beings than medical doctors, who are supposed to be the experts on health and well-being.

The Mind-Body split developed in mainstream medicine as separate disciplines, each robustly defending the boundaries of their own job description. Physicians treated the body, while psychiatrists treated the mind and ‘ne’er the twain shall meet’. In fact, to emphasis the split, psychiatrists are not licensed to touch the body.

I was discussing this very topic yesterday with an ex-nurse. She said that when she was training they were told that when treating patients, any procedure or strategy that would cause their patients to close their eyes was not allowed – because such practice belongs to the realm of psychiatry, not physical medicine!

So, as practitioner myself, the notion that I would be not allowed to reach out and touch a client empathetically, during an ‘emotional storm’, is abhorrent. Touch is such a reassuring comfort, for a person who is ‘beside themselves’ with emotional distress, evoking a sense of connection and safety that assists in healing the wound for them.

True healing involves healing the mind of inconsistencies and distortions, at the same time as correcting the body function that has gone out of balance in resonance. Often we do not recognize the attitudes and mind fixations that negatively affect us, until we have them mirrored back to us by someone outside of ourselves – that is the nature of Mind – it can always defend its own position. But when some disturbing physical symptom appears to come out of nowhere, that is the time to turn inwards for a moment and reflect on what messages we have been giving our body and what parts of our lives we have been neglecting, that have resulted in dis-ease.

The Body is a reflection of the Mind – a healthy Mind results in a healthy Body and vice versa – energy and matter are dual expressions of the same primary substance. And what is that primary substance? It is the Vital Force or energy (Qi) that animates all life and is expressed through the Body-Mind as body, mind and spirit.

So pleased to know that mainstream medicine is finally getting it, as evidenced by psychiatrists and physicians getting together at this conference to discuss the connection between heart disease and depression! It stands to reason that a depressed person will not have a happy heart.

In energy medicine we say that ‘when the heart is unhappy, the organs tremble’

A book on treating cancer that grabbed my attention, when researching this post looks interesting. Let me pass it on to you:

Healing the Mind/Body Split: Bringing the Patient Back Into Oncology
Steven Greer, MD, FRCPsych
St. Raphael’s Hospice, Surrey, United Kingdom
The effect on oncology of the doctrine of Cartesian dualism is examined. It is argued that this doctrine continues to exert a baneful (though unacknowledged) influence on the practice of oncology, Descartes’s doctrine of a mind/ body split is mistaken, and mind and body (brain) are inextricably interwoven. A biopsychosocial model of disease is advocated. The role of psychooncology in healing the mind/ body split by focusing research attention on the patient is outlined.

And if you haven’t read my book, The Essence of Woman, you may be interested to follow this topic. It takes one step further, describing how the energy/matter fusion is expressed in the body, in both women and men, with especial emphasis on feminine intelligence (Yin Qi)

Healing the Wound of the Mother

We heal our disconnection with our own feminine nature by consciously connecting to the energy of the Mother.

As a woman, one of the first things we need to do, to move towards our own self-empowerment and love our inherent feminine nature, is to acknowledge the Mother within.

Many women do this is the course of their lives in their day to day interaction with their real-life mother, if they are lucky enough to have her around being an active part of their lives.

But not all women have the luxury or the inclination to work through childhood issues in face-to-face interaction with their mother. For some their mother may be deceased, ill or estranged, or in some other way unavailable, to experience day-to-day updates on old scripts that have never had a chance to be rewritten.

As a child you were unable to separate between what you felt that you needed and what your
mother could provide in the circumstances that prevailed at the time. Remember your perception of her as a person has been prejudiced by your lifetime personal relationship with her.

If she wasn’t always able to fulfill your needs, you will have personalised this experience and taken it on as a negative belief about your self-worth. It is this distorted perception – that your mother does not value you or love you enough – that needs to be healed for you to fully appreciate and acknowledge yourself.

In most cases, it is a misperception that your mother didn’t love you enough. Because of your childhood need for total love and acceptance always, you may have misinterpreted many situations as evidence that your mother didn’t care for you.

As an infant, you would not have been able to discern all the factors that may have contributed to any given situation, in which for example, you may have felt unloved. However, this is precisely the time when your psychological programming was being laid down in your neural network.

Many beliefs about yourself stemming from these early developmental days became hard and fast attitudes as you grew up. By its very nature, this ‘programming’ process leads to faulty beliefs being laid down in the circuitry. Regardless of the best or worst intentions of your parents, significant programming occurred, which was a distortion of reality.

As the child morphs into the woman, and especially when she is moving into the Mother phase in her own life, she needs to re-evaluate her beliefs around her mother and the quality of her own mothering.

Sometimes, there is a long history of misunderstandings, resentments, incongruity and dislike that affects a woman’s present relationship with her mother. If these feelings drive your relationship with your mother, or there are unresolved matters that still hurt, you will experience self-esteem and self-worth issues. These will be passed on to your own child, if there are not resolved.

Asking a woman to simply forgive a lifetime of perceived hurt can be a tall order. Often the relationship with their mother is so toxic that it affects them on all levels of being, including the physical. In naturopathic diagnostics, it is recognised that women with bowel problems commonly have a current toxic relationship with their mother. To heal on the physical level requires a woman to clear the old toxic patterning of hurt and resentment that still dominates her relationship with her mother.

One of the ways that I work is to have a woman tap into her Archetypal Mother (her idealised mother) to bring about the healing that needs to take place in her heart. Once her own negative feelings are resolved by reprogramming her deepest sense of lack of self-worth, she can begin her journey of healing. She may or may not feel like resolving her issues face-to-face with her real-life mother. If she can’t face the prospect, connecting to the Archetypal Mother will bring about a subtle energetic shift between her real-life mother and herself anyway. In a toxic relationship, when one party comes to a healing resolution, the other party always feels the benefit of the change, in the ongoing relationship. That is the nature of energetic healing.

There are many ways to connect with the Archetypal Mother. They all involve taking time for oneself, by embarking on an inner journey of self-nurturing. Some will take the path of journaling – making daily entries into a journal for ten minutes a day. Others will do it through drawing, painting or writingor some other creative pursuit. While others will prefer to enjoy quiet meditations dedicated to healing their ‘mother stuff’.

There is beautiful meditation on ‘Healing the Mother Within’ in my book The Essence of Woman
available at Sowelu Centre, 83 Latrobe Tce, Paddington. You can phone an order in to be speed-posted to you on 07 3367 1950. Just remember to add postage to the retail price of $37.00 or you can click here to order online.

What a superb Mother’s Day present for you, your Mum, and your daughter/s!!