The neuroscience of meditation… this is where the meeting of science & spirituality gets really exciting… I can’t believe how far we’ve come.. and more and more of these scientists keep ‘coming out of the closet’ to step up and in to a much needed conversation about prescribing meditation over medication…

The following is an excerpt from an interview with Dr. Richard Davidson (internationally renowned for his research on the neural substrates of emotion and emotional disorders):

“… Our work indicates that there are signals in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which can be recorded, that reflect an individu- al’s overall level of happiness or well-be- ing. Individuals with greater left side pre- frontal activation, on average, tend to be individuals who report themselves to be happier, more energetic, and more opti- mistic. These are the kind of people who jump out of bed in the morning and are ready to embrace the world. They are approach oriented. It’s not a laid back type of happiness. It’s an active, involved happiness. And that’s what my index reflects…”

How cool is it that our brain’s are built for to be trained and re-trained… and we can ‘learn’ happiness, compassion, love, peace… and interesting that this activity is predominantly occurring in the left hemisphere…

And not only can meditation bring you happiness, and peace, but it also brings you a stronger immune system, more focus, greater vigilance… so what would happen if we started teaching our children and soldiers and physicians and politicians all to meditate? What would the world look like then? well.. at least our country…

And not only does it affect us, but it also affects the people around us… here’s the closing note of the interview:

“…To be succinct, we can influence other people’s health simply by the way we act.

EXPLORE: So we know that, if I medi- tate, I can affect my brain. Do we have any data that, if I meditate, I can affect the brains of the people that I am in- teracting with? If you are in the presence of an enlightened person, are you up- lifted?

DAVIDSON: Yes, I have no doubt in that. And, again, I don’t think it requires any nonstandard theoretical framework to un- derstand. It’s not as if there is a transmis- sion of some unknown energy, but, rather, simply by the demeanor of an individual, by what they say and how they say it, by
their gestures, they can affect, unquestion- ably, the mind and brain of those with whom they interact.
For instance, there is a lot of nonspe- cific healing that occurs in the ordinary course of a doctor-patient relationship. A doctor can make his or her patients feel more at ease, well cared for and attended to, and that can actually promote real bi- ological change that is beneficial.
When I am in the presence of the Dalai Lama, I am affected. There is no question about it, and it is very powerful. For in- stance, one interaction I had with the Dalai Lama occurred during a break in the meeting. He was sitting in a chair, and I was kneeling beside him, talking to him. We were close, and the whole time he had his hands on my ear lobe and was rubbing my ear. This went on for fifteen minutes. It was completely natural, and the impact of touch in that way can be very powerful. I had the experience of feeling very deeply secure and comforted by the Dalai Lama’s presence. But I don’t think it requires these crazy theories that there is some kind of energy that we really have not identified scientifically. It can be explained using the principles that we understand. I have yet to be confronted by new and compelling evidence that cannot be subsumed within the rubric of conventional scientific un- derstanding. But the fact that we can affect each other is very important, and having a scientific understanding of it doesn’t at all diminish its importance.

EXPLORE: So you would say that a per- son’s mind can affect other people?

DAVIDSON: Yes, and we should pay at- tention to this in our culture. That’s an- other issue that is addressed in the ethical framework of many of these traditions— the interdependence that all beings have on this planet. There is a level of interde- pendence that is very profound, and, when you actually begin to understand this scientifically, it makes perfect sense. The way we think, how we behave, the qualities that we exhibit, very directly af- fect those around us. We can affect their brains, and we can affect their bodies. To be succinct, we can influence other peo- ple’s health simply by the way we act.”

AHO! Well said Dr. Davidson! And thank you for stepping out of your spiritual closet and stepping up to lead a revolution in our way of thinking, feeling, and being!

If you would like to read this entire interview, here’s the reference:

EXPLORE, September 2005, Vol. 1, No. 5

I was just doing some research for the 22 Ways 2 Love You film project and came across this inspiring article published last year in Science News. The Helen Fisher group is the only one I know of getting public attention for the brain imaging studies conducted on romantic love. What a great journey & great training ground to explore and essentially study Love on every level from my own personal experiences to my coaching clients’ experience to what people share on the street in random interviews, to what scientists have to share from their findings.

Enjoy! And stay tuned for more postings…

Source: Science News/ Home / News / December 6th, 2008; Vol.174 #12 / News item

Still crazy (in love) after all these years
A brain imaging study reveals that some people are as giddy as teenagers in love, even after two decades of marriage
By Laura Sanders

December 6th, 2008; Vol.174 #12 (p. 17)

WASHINGTON — New research on brain activity confirms that people can be madly in love with each other long after the honeymoon is over.

Researchers led by Bianca Acevedo at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York wanted to know if romantic love — or at least the brain activity it triggers — could last in a long-term relationship. To everyone’s relief, the answer is yes. The group presented its results November 16 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

The new data suggest that people who have been madly in love for an average of 21 years maintain activation in a brain region associated with early-stage love. “We now have physiological evidence that romantic love can last,” says coauthor Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.

Most couples who have been together for many years experience a change from a frenetic, obsessive love to something more subdued and comfortable, says study coauthor Lucy Brown of Albert Einstein College of Medicine. But the researchers noticed a small group of outliers who had been with the same person many years and claimed to be as much in love as they were during the exciting early days of their relationship.

Since that earlier study in 2005 using functional MRI brain imaging, the researchers knew that a certain part of the brain called the ventral tegmental area was activated when people who had been in love for relatively short times — an average of seven months — saw pictures of their sweethearts. Perhaps not coincidentally, the ventral tegmental area is also activated by the rush of cocaine, and is the region that controls production of the natural stimulant dopamine. The researchers concluded that this area was associated with the intense, burning stages of early love. It was unclear whether this region would still be active after 20 years of being in a relationship.

Long-term lovers who had been married for an average of 21 years viewed a picture of their partner while the scientists monitored the subjects’ brain activity using fMRI. People who claimed to be madly in love for 20 years and people who had been in love only for months showed similar activation in the ventral tegmental area of the brain.

At the same time, key differences between the early- and late-stage lovers emerged that suggest potential benefits to staying together for 20 years. People in long-term relationships who were madly in love showed higher levels of activity in a part of the brain associated with calmness and pain suppression, whereas people in love for shorter periods of time had higher activity in a region of the brain associated with obsession and anxiety. “The difference is that in long term love, the obsession the mania, the anxiety has been replaced with calm,” Fisher said in a news conference.

“There is an evolutionary advantage to being paired,” says researcher J. Thomas Curtis, who studies pair-bonding in prairie voles, small animals that are well-known for forming life-long monogamous pairs. Much of the research on voles, including Curtis’ work at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa, Okla., supports these new findings on long-term pairing in humans, he says. In fact, when researchers get rid of the ventral tegmental area of a vole brain, the same region activated in human couples who are in love, the animal no longer forms pair bonds.

To understand the complicated subject of human love, the scientists plan to conduct more brain imaging studies. The next step will be to periodically monitor the brains of newlyweds as the couples slowly enter long-term relationships. The researchers hope to understand how brain activity may correlate with life events, like the birth of a child or relationship troubles, Acevedo says.

After three decades and more than a few relationships, what I finally know to be true is that communication is what keeps love alive. Love cannot live outside of communication. The word itself comes from the root word, commune, which means ‘to be one with’. Interestingly enough, I learned this lesson within the context of friendship. Although, I admit it took a little romance to spark the conversation.

Not just any kind of communication will cut it however. One must be clear, genuine, and without expectation. This is not an easy way to be. If you look at yourself closely, in any conversation, you will find that many conversations occur beneath the backdrop of fear. We rarely say what we truly feel in fear of hurting someone or being hurt. Well, one good place to start is by sharing how scared we are. Letting your fear be present is a surefire way of letting the other person’s guard down. Once that is out of the way, you can get down to what’s important.

Love. It’s the counterpart to fear. Love and fear cannot exist without each other. Love is what is important and often acknowledging our fears is a good way to get back to love.

The kind of love I am referring to is not that crazy electrochemical wave of sensation that runs through us when we are falling in love. There’s no way to keep that feeling alive. If there were, someone would be making billions. Certainly, we can keep chasing the high and there’s nothing wrong with that but how is it any different from chasing any other high? Whatever the high, the primary function of it seems to fill the void of something or perhaps it is just for pure fun.

The love I speak of is available to us at any moment, it’s eternal yet it takes some work to get in touch with it. This love encompasses all loves, including the kind that creates butterflies not only in your physical core but also in your soul. This love is so powerful it brings you to tears when you look at someone and are able to see just how amazing they truly are. In its’ greatest expanse, this love unveils the raw beauty of every human being and piece of life on earth.

I spent the last three years of my life in a serious relationship. We were engaged to be married and we chose to end the engagement, not in marriage, but in friendship. I am happy to say that as I write this, we are friends. We are the best of friends. We are support, respect, inspiration, and a stand for each other’s individual happiness. We have promised each other to do whatever it takes to support each other in living a happy, inspirational, and powerful life.

This has only been possible through communication and some introspection. When our romantic relationship ended, we were devastated. It was like something died and the next logical step was to go our separate ways. This is how so many relationships end up, they just end. What we don’t realize is that the very thing that hurts us the most is withholding our love for that person. We confuse love with certain expectations and if those expectations are not being met, well, how could that be love? Right?

The thing about expectation is it’s all about us and as human beings it is only natural to experience it. The trick is when you feel yourself getting angry or tense, stop to look at it. Where is it coming from and why? You can even go the next step and share the experience with someone. You will be surprised as to how much unfolds in a conversation through the process of communication. This is how fear and anxiety from not getting what you expect can transform into understanding, peace, and ultimately love.

This is how my ex-fiance and I have kept our love alive. What an amazing feeling it is know we will always have this love. It starts here with me and you and all of our personal relationships. If we can master the art of keeping love alive at the personal level, imagine what is possible at the global level?

Life Coach, Pearl Lee Schroy, Ph.D., shares about her personal struggle with her bipolar mother

For some, going home to visit family is a welcome, loving even healing experience to look forward to. For others, like myself, going home begins with the sense of a welcoming experience that quickly turns into a battlefield loaded with triggers. The way I see it, I have two options: either get shot down by all the traumatic memories and emotional hostility or take it on as my training ground as a life coach.

The following is an excerpt from a journal entry I wrote about 8 months ago during my last visit home:

“…This morning, my mother was triggered into an episode and I remembered why it can sometimes be so difficult to come home.The last thing I want to do is fall into the role of playing victim. Indeed, my question is how can I transcend the pain and not dwell in the sadness of the situation? I’m not really sure how many experiences could hurt more than the experience of being harshly judged and rejected by my own mother. I noticed as my chest became really tight and my whole body went numb. I tried to become a filter through which her force could just pass through with no resistance. When she enters that place, I watch her soul disappear, it’s as if a demon has resurrected her corpse. Who is this woman? I ask. She’s my mother. Yet I have no idea who she is. And I see she has no idea who I am. All she knows in the fiery moment is that I am her enemy so she goes into attack mode.

I feel myself disconnecting. Tears run down my face as she continues to scream at me. I call my father because I’m desperate to make it stop. In the past, I would’ve yelled back but who I am now refuses to battle and knows it would be futile. Only peace. That’s what I must bring into the space. My father lovingly reminds me that it’s her disease, not her. I pass the phone to her and she begins yelling and then changes the subject rapidly to how she needs a new music CD to listen to in the mornings, Al Green. She laughs for a second. Her sentences become incoherent. Her thoughts are fragmented and the anger begins to fragment as well.

Finally, she returns to herself and she sees my tears. She apologizes. She tells me that she loves me and I tell her I love her too. Meanwhile, all I really want to do is get on a plane and fly back to my home in Colorado that, probably by no accident, happens to be thousands of miles away.

I watch my thoughts take on the old unconscious, conditioned patterns, of not being enough, fear of all the hurtful things that she said being true, full disempowerment in my frustration of not being able to help her heal. I’m a joke, what kind of a doctor, what kind of coach am I?”

The human kind, I remind myself. I come back to the question, “How can I transcend the pain? How can I transcend the self-destructive patterns? All I want to do is run.”

This time, I’m not running. This time, I’m not surrendering to the machine created in the wake of some disease. If there is to be any hope at all, for me, and for others like me, I must rise to the challenge of reinventing myself so that I can love in the wrath of a violent storm.

I know there are many others, like myself, who are faced with the challenge of having relatives who have been diagnosed with psychiatric conditions. While it’s not easy to create and maintain healthy, loving relationships with those relatives, it is possible. The trick is to believe in the possibility and never give up. While my mother still relapses from time to time, I could write an entire book describing the leaps and bounds she has made over the years and continues to do so.

My family is living proof that there is hope. And my heart grows larger every time I choose to rise to the challenge.

If you have a story or an experience you’d like to share on this topic, I’d love to hear it.

July 10th, 2009

Pearl & Johanna Pre-Lunch Interview

Make business decisions with ease and grace.

Ever find yourself questioning and doubting yourself with every choice you encounter for your business?

Are you expending enormous amounts of energy sifting through what seems like an overwhelming bombardment of information from infinite sources?

Is everyone telling you to do something different?

Making wise business decisions can be a tricky business in and of it self.

While experience and knowledge can bring you so far, tuning in to your inner guidance system is essential for moving your business forward in a way that aligned with your truest self.

Join us for the July 10th Women in Business Luncheon as Pearl Schroy and Johanna Klouda-Mercado, of East West Wholistic Education, share some simple, yet powerful tricks to maximize your intuition.

You will learn how to listen to your own voice. Pearl and Johanna take an integrative approach to get you connected to what is most important.

Be prepared to engage in somatic and meditative exercises that will have you learning to make choices with confidence and ease.

According to the results of several studies, remote prayer or mental intention certainly can and does have a physical effect on physiological systems.

One laboratory (Bengston and Krinsley, 2000) has published findings in the Journal of Scientific Exploration demonstrating the curing of cancer in mice by such methods. In a controlled experiment, these scientists employed a noncontact form of “laying on of hands” in an attempt to cure mice of transplanted mammary adenocarcinoma. There were three groups such that one had a group of healers place their hands just above the mice with healing intention and no contact. The other two groups were control groups (one in the same room and one in a separate room from the experimental group) that were treated exactly the same except they were not given mental intention with hands.  Following three replications, 87.9 percent (29 out of 33 mice) were cured of the cancer in the experimental group compared to 69.2 percent (18 out of 26 mice) being cured on site. None of the control mice off site were cured. Furthermore, when the scientists re-introduced tumor cells to the treated, cured mice, the cells were rejected, suggesting a long-term physiological effect.

Scientific reports of this type of mental phenomena date back to the 1960s. A study published in the Journal of Parapsychology shows these effects can occur from a distance on fungus cultures in a laboratory (Barry, 1968). In this study, ten subjects were told to use conscious intent to suppress the growth of fungus. Each subject concentrated on the cultures for fifteen minutes from a distance of approximately 1.5 yards. The cultures were then incubated for several more hours. An impressive 151 out of a total of 194 culture dishes demonstrated retarded growth.

More recently, remote prayer has been shown to have significant beneficial effect on hospital patients. Harris et al. (1999) published significant results in the Archives of Internal Medicine for a double-blind experiment involving 990 consecutive patients admitted to a coronary care unit (CCU). Patients were randomized to either receive or not receive remote, intercessory prayer. The team of outside intercessors prayed for patients in the prayer group daily for four weeks. Patients were made aware that they were being prayed for, and the intercessors never met the patients and were given only the patients’ first names. The medical course from hospital admission to discharge was summarized in a CCU course score derived from blinded, retrospective chart review. The results showed that the prayed-for group had about a 10 percent advantage compared to the usual-care group and this difference proved to be significant (P = .04).

What does all this mean? Perhaps it means nothing at all. Or maybe, it means we could benefit greatly from re-conceptualizing what is possible and practical in placing health and well-being into our own hands. If nothing else, let it be a reminder that there is still an enormous amount to learn about our minds and there is so much potential in the power of our thoughts. In line with these findings, the former editor of Nature, Sir John Maddox, stated, “The catalogue of our ignorance must…include the understanding of the human brain…. What consciousness consists of…is…a puzzle. Despite the marvelous success of neuroscience in the past century…, we seem as far away from understanding…as we were a century ago….The most important discoveries of the next 50 years are likely to be ones of which we cannot now even conceive” (Maddox, 1999).

Barry J. 1968. General and comparative study of the psychokinetic effect on a fungus culture. Journal of Parapsychology. 32: 237-43.

Bengston WF, Krinsley D. The effect of the “laying on of hands” on transplanted breast cancer in mice. Journal of Scientific Exploration. 2000;14(3):353-364.

Harris W, Gowda M, Kolb JW, Strychacz CP, Vacek JL, Jones PG, Forker A, O’Keefe JH, McCallister BD. 1999. A randomized, controlled trial of the effects of remote, intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients admitted to the coronary care unit. Archives of Internal Medicine. 159(19):2273-2278.

Maddox J. 1999. The unexpected science to come. Scientific American. 281(6):62-67.

The universe is constantly moving toward a state of chaos. Indeed, incredible amounts of energy and work are required to keep matter organized. This natural tendency for disorder is known as entropy. Entropy is evident in everything that we do, in every space that exists. There is constant flow seeping through the cracks of every structure set in place. Perhaps we are most vulnerable in the realm of the nonphysical, for very few have mastered the art of creating structure out of something as evasive as a cloud or even more intangible, like a thought. The written language is arguably the closest humans have come to pulling scattered thoughts together into a form that is comprehensible. At the other end of that same spectrum is the absence of language as can be found in silent meditations.

It is so easy to get caught up in the chaos of our own and other people’s thoughts. Our experience of every moment in life is subject to responses to every internal and external stimulus in the universe. How often have you woken peacefully to have your entire day shaken up by one little phone call or email carrying the ripples of someone else’s sadness, anger, or confusion? I dare to say distraction is more often than not our normal state of existence. So how do we learn to ride that powerful wave of chaos and not wipe out in the wash? And then, once we learn to ride, how do we master the ride with the kind of stealth and grace that others can look upon with complete and utter awe? Isn’t this the skill to strive for? It matters not what wave we choose to take on in life. What matters is how we ride it.

This ultimate challenge must be taken on at the level of the mental, the physical, and the emotional. Each of these realms is like a circle, or a sphere, ever so persistently contracting and expanding. Each is a boundless entity, breathing in, out, and all around the source which is center.

Bring it back to center. Bring all back to center. Whatever the moment and experience is, always be able to bring yourself to center. The instructions are simple yet the knowing is never enough. A certain shift must first occur. Transformation of the knowing into the Being is how we access what we call Center. Being breath, being silence, and being acceptance. The body manifests in the realm of the physical where our breath serves as source. Thoughts manifest in the realm of the mental where silence serves as source. Feelings manifest in the realm of the emotional where acceptance and peace serve as source.

In source is center and from center, there is choice. Where there is choice there is a sacred freedom, the freedom required to gracefully master the art of creating form from chaos. Here, we no longer wait for the perfect wave to arrive. Here, we simply create the perfect wave of our lives.

Always remember…bring it back to center.

Learning: what does it have to do with Happiness?

Learning may be more fundamental to happiness than one might initially think.
What do you think of when you think of learning? Have we evolved as a species in the way that we learn? Or could we be experiencing a crisis in learning as we advance in the realm of science and technology?

At a conference on professional life coaching and personal growth, a major theme persisted, emphasizing that it’s not so much what we learn but more the process of learning that matters in the pursuit for happiness. It would make sense to first define happiness. For different people, happiness means different things. According to Merriam-Webster, happiness is a noun referring to a state of well-being and contentment (i.e. joy) or a pleasurable, satisfying experience.

Interestingly enough, scientists have demonstrated in the laboratory that the part of the brain long agreed upon as the ‘pleasure center’ is activated during associative learning in rats (Young et al., 1998). Specifically, rats are trained to associate two neutral stimuli, a flashing light and a tone. The tone was subsequently paired with a mild footshock using standard aversive conditioning procedures. The procedure can be likened to what Pavlov demonstrated with salivation becoming the conditioned effect of the bell ringing once the sound of the bell was associated with the presentation of the delicious piece of meat. Thus, conditioning is a very basic kind of learning. In fact, I would be so bold as to suggest that associative learning is the fundamental process underlying all learning.

What Young et al. (1998) showed in their study is that learning, by itself, is rewarding. Being that the neurochemical correlate to reward is the release of dopamine in the mesolimbic dopamine system and observing such release when learning had occurred suggests that not only is there pleasure in learning, but the pleasure is designed to motivate learning. Both rats and humans experience pleasure when learning occurs. Indeed, it doesn’t even matter what the subject is learning. It can be the association between two stimuli that are in and of itself neutral and quite boring such as a flashing light and a tone. Though it’s worthwhile to note that the scientists had to first associate the tone with a mild footshock, suggesting the potential importance of the emotional system to facilitate the learning process.

Going back to the definition of happiness being an experience of pleasure, one can begin to see exactly what learning has to do with happiness. There is pleasure in learning. It makes perfect sense. Why wouldn’t we be biologically set up to find pleasure in learning? We would be in a lot of trouble if learning were absolutely un-enjoyable. Can you imagine?

So what do our moods and emotions have to do with learning? The relationship between emotions and learning is clearly seen in many modern educational systems. Did you know that, according to a UNICEF study, 60% of a child’s ability to learn is impacted by emotion? According to this study, when a child has the experience of being loved and reports being happy, they are able to learn and remember 60% more material than a child who does not have the experience of love and happiness. How interesting is it, then, that so many schools claim there are not enough resources to maintain a proper educational system? Many schools insist that children’s education suffers because of the lack of funds for supplies and technology when what they really need is love and compassion. Sadly, our children often become emotionally malnourished in modern educational systems.

Philosophers, some as prominent as Freud and Jung, have suggested that a shift in the emotional domain makes learning take off exponentially. Witnessing the crisis in learning that is happening in modern day America, it’s not difficult to see how this might be true. Indeed, when the environments of our schools do not welcome the full expression of a child’s emotional experience, there is disconnect not only from the emotions but also from the teachers and the objectives they are there to learn. This sense of disconnection carries into adulthood. One must wonder if this sense of disconnection breeds a different kind of learning, the kind that relentlessly acquires more and more knowledge, pushing the envelope of technology, leaving behind the ability to be intimately and fully connected with the experience of life.

Bottom line: Love, compassion, and being connected to our emotions impact the learning process in a way that promotes happiness. There is wisdom in our emotions that goes beyond the rational mind. It’s time we honor that wisdom and dissolve the crisis of the western mind.

Young, A.M., R.G. Ahier, et al. (1998). “Increased extracellular dopamine in the nucleus accumbens of the rat during associative learning of neutral stimuli.” Neuroscience 83(4): 1175-83.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when asked to participate in a transformational workshop called The Red Pill Weekend. As a life coach, I’m always up for any event designed to push a human being beyond their edge and into a whole new realm of their human experience. What I got to witness in this particular space, however, was beyond anything I could’ve ever imagined.

What does it mean for a man to really embrace the totality of his masculine self? The Red Pill Weekend enrolls dozens of male participants to dive deep into this question. On the surface, there are all the expectations and conditioned ways of being that have been instilled by many modern day civilized societies such as ours. And then there’s a whole world of raw maleness boiling beneath the surface and when it erupts from time to time, we call it all but what is essentially nature in the form of the masculine. We call it inappropriate, dysfunctional, and perversion. In extreme cases, we even call it criminal. Indeed, entire lines of defenses have evolved in today’s world to protect us (especially us women) from the shadow world of the masculine.

While I’m still swimming in the mystery of what it means to embrace masculinity, it’s an aspect of my femininity I felt unfolding that has me moved to tears after stepping into the red pill experience…

In a moment, a strange and unfamiliar shift occurred in me. There it was, as clear as can be, this enormous misalignment of the feminine and the masculine, with this moment being a glimpse of what is happening at a higher level in the world. I looked around the room at all the men. Some were screaming, some were silent, some were crying, some were passionately in immersed in themselves, owning themselves, in their totality, for the first time in their lives, owning every aspect of their human experience. In that moment, I got what the red pill was about.

Truth. I found myself stunned by all the truth being unleashed in that room. I showed up to facilitate in the transformation of men embracing their full selves. Little did I know I would discover a dark and hidden truth about myself. And to be honest, I’m still stunned. I’m stunned by what it feels like to own my truth and I’m stunned by this whole new appreciation for men. And not just the present woman in me, but the little girl in me, the lover in me, the mother in me, the Goddess in me, the sister in me, the victim in me, the healer in me… all feeling the light of a whole new reality. I’m not exactly sure what any of it means, but all of a sudden, there is a new-found hope. There is hope and wonder. I can’t help but wonder what’s possible now?