The Fourfold Path to Healing – Thomas S. Cowan MD, Sally Fallon, Jaimen McMillan
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The Fourfold Path to Healing merges the wisdom of traditional societies, the most modern findings of western medicine and the esoteric teaching of the ancients. The fourfold approach includes: Nutrition using nutrient-dense traditional foods; therapeutics through a wide range of nontoxic remedies; Movement to heal and strengthen the emotions; and meditation to develop your powers of objective thought.
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring the many sides to Cancer:
- I’ll explain what cancer is and will show how a normal healthy cell functions compared to an abnormal cancer cell
- I’ll talk about how cancer causes death
- I’ll explain the one true cause behind cancer and the many contributing factors to this cause
- I’ll talk about the one true cure to cancer (hmm… interesting)
- Finally I’ll share natural holistic health tips that will help you heal from cancer as well as prevent cancer from growing out of balance
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
This is part 2 of a 3-part series I’m doing on cancer. In the previous episode I spoke about the conventional wisdom of cancer and how it’s all misinformation. The truth about cancer is that you shouldn’t be afraid of it. Like any other lifestyle disease you can cure cancer naturally and I’ll be talking about that in this episode.
So what is cancer? I’m going to give you 3 definitions because cancer is that big of a confused mass of information. Hopefully by giving multiple definitions you’ll be able to see cancer for what it really is from your own perspective.
First definition of cancer comes from orthodox conventional mainstream western medicine which says that cancer is an out-of-control malignant tumour that metastasises or spreads throughout your body. In a word cancer is a tumour. Yeah. Alright, it’s close. But I know there’s way more, a lot more in fact to this cancer story than just a tumour spreading.
I like this second definition of cancer better and it comes from early 20th century Nobel Prize winner, physiologist, and doctor Otto Warburg who defined cancer as any cell that produces less energy through the oxidation of macronutrients in an aerobic environment and instead produces most of its energy by fermenting sugars in an anaerobic environment. I know that’s a lot to take in. To paraphrase Dr Otto’s definition and make it simpler: a cancer cell produces extremely low levels of energy compared to other normal healthy cells. In a few words cancer is low energy production.
Not bad, a much better definition I reckon.
The third and final definition of cancer I have for you is my own. Cancer is a block in cellular communication leading to malnutrition and dysfunction in healthy cells that are still in orderly communication with each other and this blocked communication also creates abnormal function and abnormal growth of chaotic cells. Again a lot to take in so to make my cancer definition simpler: cancer is when there is miscommunication between your cells decreasing healthy cell function and increasing abnormal cell function. In a few words cancer is confusion at the cellular level.
If you think about what I just said my definition it doesn’t focus just on the abnormal cells or cancerous cells, but also includes, what used to be healthy cells, the suppressed cells. So to redefine what I just said:
“Cancer is the presence of both suppressed healthy cells and abnormal cancerous cells.”
Personally I really like this definition (no surprises), but I have to say even this doesn’t tell the whole story about what cancer really is.
Now I believe these 3 definitions together do give us a better picture of what cancer is all about.
Cancer is a tumour that grows out-of-control and spreads. Cancer is a cell that uses sugar to produce low amounts of energy in an environment with hardly any oxygen. Finally, cancer is a miscommunication between cells causing an imbalance of healthy cells to abnormal cells.
To see how these 3 different cancer definitions actually do come together pretty nicely when it comes to explaining exactly what cancer is, I’m going to give a little lesson (actually quite a big lesson) on cell biology and will explain how healthy cells work and how they create energy compared to abnormal cancerous cells.
Remember this is just a general overview of what happens with your cells, although I do get a bit specific at times. There are tens of steps and processes relating to cell function that I’m not including here to keep it simple and sustainable okay.
Your body is made up of a community of cells approximately 100 trillion of them, but only 10 trillion of these cells are actually yours containing your DNA with the rest of the cells belonging to microorganisms. These little guys live in, on, and throughout your body. All of your 10 trillion cells have one direction or goal or purpose or dream, which is to remain, not to attain or to get somewhere externally, but to keep expressing internally their true innate nature which is health.
These healthy cells are always talking and communicating to each other and are completely in rhythm and in harmony with one another. Every cell follows their unique purpose such as being a heart cell, a lung cell, an immune cell, skin cell, etc and this purpose aligns with the overall goal of the community of cells, which is to remain healthy and thrive.
Each of your cells are made up of a cell wall called a membrane and inside this membrane is a massive pool of fluid called the cytosol. Think of the cytosol as a massive swimming pool with the cell membrane the coverings of this pool. Hanging out in the cytosol or floating around in this swimming pool you’ll find many different cell organs called organelles and these organelles have their own function to perform to keep the cell and your entire body healthy and thriving.
One important organelle is the nucleus. In the nucleus you will find your body’s personal genetic code, your genes which are wrapped up in a double-helix structure that looks like a spiral ladder called DNA. Your DNA holds about 24,000 genes that act as blueprints for how your body functions physically, emotionally, and mentally.
One thing about DNA that I’d like to highlight are your telomeres. At the end of each strand of your DNA you have telomere molecules that act like shields and protect your DNA from damage. Once these telomeres run out then your DNA is exposed and this is when a healthy cell knows it’s time to die. The shortening of telomeres is what we call ageing. A healthy cell becomes old due to the shortening of telomeres.
Going back to your cell another very important group of organelles in your cells are called mitochondria. Mitochondria are the power plants of your cell. They are the main provider of units of cellular energy called adenosine triphosphate or ATP. So ATP is the form of energy that your cells use to function and to remain healthy and thrive. Mitochondria are the only other organelle in your cells to have their own genes and DNA. They only have 37 genes and these genes act as blueprints for how your mitochondria function and remain healthy and thrive.
Now all cells starting from birth go through different stages or seasons of growth and development and do so within the organs in which they are a part of. These different cell cycles ensure the continuation of health for your entire community of cells by keeping the creation of new cells in balance with the death of damaged or old cells. Healthy cells are always talking to each other and do what is required of them in that moment.
Healthy cells only have a limited number of times that they are allowed to divide before they die. This number of divisions is controlled by tumour suppressor genes. Cell death is controlled by what I mentioned earlier about aging, the length of your telomere molecules at the end of your DNA. Old cells have their tumour suppressor genes switched on and activated to prevent them from dividing again and without their telomeres these old cells will be asked to initiate a self-destruct sequence called apoptosis also known as programmed cell death.
When your healthy cells are asked to divide and create new cells this is when your DNA replicates itself and this is also the time when most things can go wrong in the form of genetic mutations. Genetic mutations are like someone scribbling all over your blueprints making them unreadable. DNA mutations are prevented, checked, and fixed by enzymes called polymerases. These enzymes make sure that when your DNA makes a copy of itself it does so without error or mutation and if polymerase does find an error it’ll fix it. A healthy cell which is unable to fix any damage to its DNA or has damage in other areas of the cell becomes a dysfunctional or abnormal cell. This damaged cell will be asked to self-destruct.
When a healthy cell divides out of control, grows old, or becomes damaged and does not die by skipping apoptosis then your immune system comes along, sees the out of control cell and then your immune cells release molecules called tumour necrosis factor or TNF for short. TNF will trigger another form of programmed cell death in the multiplying, old, or damaged cell called necroptosis similar to apoptosis.
Let’s now look into cellular respiration or how your cells and mitochondria produce energy, ATP.
There are actually 3 pathways that your cells can use to create ATP. One pathway happens in the cytosol or in the swimming pool of your cells and is anaerobic meaning it does not require oxygen to work. This anaerobic pathway for energy production is called glycolysis. The other two energy producing pathways happen inside your mitochondria and are aerobic meaning they need oxygen to function. These two aerobic pathways are called the Krebs Cycle and Oxidative Phosphorylation. Don’t worry about the technical terms, but stay with me here.
Now the anaerobic pathway of glycolysis that occurs in the cytosol works without oxygen and mainly uses the sugar molecule glucose, but it can also use different parts of proteins and fats, to create 2 units of ATP.
The aerobic pathways of the Krebs cycle and oxidative phosphorylation that occur inside your mitochondria work with oxygen and they use sugars, proteins, but mostly fats to create 30-120 units of ATP. You actually get a majority of your energy or ATPs through the oxidation and processing of fats.
So a short summary of cellular respiration: ATP, energy that is produced inside your mitochondria via the Krebs cycle and oxidative phosphorylation pathways with the help of oxygen using all macronutrients carbohydrates, proteins, and fats creates 15 to 60 times more energy than glycolysis. Remember glycolysis happens outside your mitochondria and without oxygen and uses sugar as its main ingredient to create energy.
Now what does this mini biology course on cell function and cellular respiration mean when it comes to cancer?
Let’s compare everything I just mentioned to an abnormal cancerous cell.
An abnormal cancerous cell is one that does not play well with other healthy cells, meaning it will not communicate with the healthy community of cells in your body. It will not do as it is told. It no longer performs its intended function in the organ it lives in and instead does its own thing and can even separate and move to different areas of your body. This abnormal cancerous cell becomes its own unique entity in your community of cells. It separates itself from the purpose and flow of the rest of your healthy cells and goes rogue and does its own thing. This cell finds its own flow, which disrupts the flow of other healthy cells in your body.
This ties in with the definition that cancer is a tumour that spreads and also that cancer is a miscommunication between cells.
You may be wondering how rebel scum like these abnormal cancerous cells survive if other healthy cells like blood vessels don’t communicate with them, don’t want to work with them, and don’t give them nutrients. Well these abnormal cancerous cells they have this uncanny ability to create new blood vessels. This process is called angiogenesis and provides blood flow to these rogue cells.
When it comes to the cell cycle an abnormal cancerous cell ignores this part and becomes immortal. It never ages and grows old. It shutdowns and deactivates tumour suppressor genes and its telomeres at the end of DNA never get shortened meaning it continues to multiply and it never has to go through apoptosis or programmed cell death. This immortality is due to an enzyme called telomerase. This enzyme produces more telomere molecules increasing their length. In a normal healthy cell this enzyme is switched off to make sure the cell follows its natural cell cycle of birth and death. However, in abnormal cancerous cells this telomerase enzyme is switched on ensuring telomeres stay long enough to protect DNA from being exposed meaning this cell never has to undergo apoptosis. This immortal cell is then allowed to grow and divide and duplicate itself over and over again forever as long as the tumour suppressor gene is switched off and inactive.
This goes back to the definition of cancer being a tumour as your body responds to uncontrolled cell growth by attempting to wall them off from the rest of the body by forming a tumour around them. So a tumour is your body’s way of protecting the rest of your healthy cells.
When it comes to DNA mutations abnormal cancerous cells actually thrive with mutations and do not die off as they should. First of all their polymerase enzymes which are supposed to proof-read and fix any errors in DNA replication are switched off or they function poorly. This increases the number of mutations in the cell. These mutations actually provide many benefits to an abnormal cancerous cell including not having to listen to instructions given to it by other healthy cells and not having to die. Remember a healthy cell with damaged or mutated DNA self-destructs, but an abnormal cell will not.
Going back to my definition you can see how cancer is a miscommunication between cells.
Normally an immune cell will see these out-of-control multiplying, immortal, and damaged abnormal cancerous cells and use TNF to kill them off. However, remember these cells are stubborn and they don’t play well with others.
Abnormal cancerous cells get around the immune system in four ways.
First, damaged DNA. These mutations in the DNA make it impossible for the abnormal cancerous cell to carry out normal cell function including apoptosis or necroptosis so even if they got the message to die they couldn’t. Second, these abnormal cancerous cells they’re really clever little buggers and even if they could carry out normal cell function they will actually produce a protein called survivin. This survivin protein prevents the cell from dying due to programmed cell death and also promotes cell division allowing the cell to multiply and become immortal. Third, abnormal cancerous cells protect themselves with a thick protein coating over their cell wall making them bulletproof and invisible from your immune system. Fourth, these wise guys actually have their own way of suppressing your immune system by secreting specific enzymes to put your immune system to sleep.
Finally let’s look at energy production in these rogue cells.
Let me repeat again about normal healthy cellular respiration because I really want to make sure you get this. A healthy cell creates more energy inside your mitochondria using oxygen and fats than it does from the cytosol of the cell using carbohydrates. So anytime a cell is creating less energy in the mitochondria and instead is making more energy outside the mitochondria than Houston you have a low energy producing cell called an abnormal cancerous cell.
So hopefully you can better understand Otto Warburg’s definition of cancer which is a cell that produces more of its energy through the fermentation of sugars outside the mitochondria than it does through the oxidation of fats inside the mitochondria.
From Dr Otto Warburg’s definition and the knowledge of how healthy cellular respiration is supposed to work we can see that an abnormal cancerous cell ultimately is either lacking in oxygen and is living in an anaerobic environment or that the mitochondria in the cell are damaged and not able to use oxygen to create ATP or both situations could actually be true. This forces the cell to ferment sugars for its main source of energy.
This is also why you’ll see a dramatic increase in insulin receptors on the cell wall of abnormal cancerous cells. Insulin is the hormone your body uses to drive nutrients into your cells and abnormal cancerous cells have a lot more insulin ports or docks or places where insulin can connect and deliver its payload compared to healthy cells. Because abnormal cancerous cells produce such a tiny amount of energy they become very hungry very fast. By having more insulin receptor sites they increase their chances of getting fed and actually get fed a lot more than your healthy community of cells. This starves your healthy cells and they become malnourished which leads them to either waste away and die or to become an abnormal cancerous cell themselves.
My definition of cancer ties in here as healthy cells begin to malfunction in the presence of abnormal cancerous cells.
Okay so that was a lot of cell biology 101 to take in. I hope you know a bit more about what cancer is and how it works. You could say that an abnormal cancerous cell is actually one that has reverted back to a primitive state where it only performs 3 basic functions required to survive. Which are eat, excrete, breed, and then it repeats. Take note of this primal state of cancer cells as it’s relevant to what I’ll be talking about shortly regarding the cause of cancer.
Seeing how cancer works is it any clearer to you how cancer kills and causes death? Cancer actually kills indirectly more than directly.
A tumour for instance may impinge or intrude and bump and grind up against other tissues such as arteries, veins, or nerves in your spinal column. So while these tumours aren’t doing anything but growing and getting in the way what this does is cause stress, pain, and discomfort and this stress creates an inflammatory and immune response. If this stress is left to linger for long periods of time this chronic persistent low-level type of inflammation will lead to more sickness and diseases further down the road.
However, the main way cancer kills is through cachexia. Over 90% of deaths from actual cancer, not from the conventional treatment of cancer, remember medical cancer treatments chemo, radiation, and surgery these kill over 50% of patients. But deaths from cancer itself over 90% of these are due to cachexia or wasting of the body caused by the spreading of cancer. In other words your healthy community of cells waste away and die not because the abnormal cancer cells are attacking them, but because these rogue cells are sucking up all the nutrients leaving hardly any nutrition behind for your healthy cells.
“Cancer kills through malnutrition and by starving your healthy community of cells.”
Alright let’s talk about the one true cause of cancer, but is there such a thing?
According to mainstream western medicine cancer is caused by genetic mutations.
According to Dr Otto Warburg and I’m paraphrasing here cancer is caused by a lack of oxygen and due to malfunctioning mitochondria.
According to Bill Henderson in his book Cancer: The Problem and the Solution he states three causes for cancer: emotional trauma; root canals; and the food you eat.
According to the docuseries Quest For The Cures created by Ty Bollinger cancer is caused by toxicity with the dirty dozen being:
- Vaccines
- GMOs
- Cosmetics
- Pesticides
- Herbicides
- Mercury
- BPAs
- Root Canals
- Dental Amalgams
- Aspartame
- Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) and
- Fluoridation
According to Webster Kehr founder of the Independent Cancer Research Foundation and cancertutor.com cancer is caused by microbes also known as pathogens or disease causing microorganisms.
Cancer already has many definitions and functions in so many different ways is it possible to find one cause out of this list? I believe so. Follow me now down this cancer-causing rabbit hole as we play a bit of Sherlock Holmes and deduce our way back to the real cause of cancer.
In order to find the cause we need to go back to the 3 definitions and find the answers to what causes: tumours; the lack of oxygen and damaged mitochondria; and the imbalance in healthy cells to abnormal cancerous cells.
Well looking at the previous list of causes to cancer let’s start with the first one – genetic mutations. Yes it has been shown that 5% of all diagnosed cancers are due to inherited genetics. If you have certain inherited genes then there’s no getting around this. But that still doesn’t account for the other 95% of cancers.
Now you can still get damage to your DNA and genetic mutations by:
- Smog and pollution
- Prolonged UV radiation exposure
- Smoking non-organic materials
- Environmental carcinogens or toxins that create cancer
- Reactive oxygen species
- Reactive nitrogen species
- Obesity and
- Magnesium deficiency
The issue I have here is that DNA damage and genetic mutations caused by the environment take 40-60 years before they create an imbalance of healthy cells to abnormal cancerous cells leading to symptoms and doesn’t explain kids with cancer, the majority of other cancers in younger individuals, and cancer patients with minimal DNA damage.
The second cause of cancer was a lack of oxygen in the cell and damaged mitochondria. Now this is a tricky one to track down, but if we look at the next two causes together we might find a pattern. The third and fourth causes all relate to environmental factors.
Now one of these causes is emotional trauma and you might be thinking that can’t affect you physically and it isn’t from your environment? Remember your body and your mind are one being your bodymind and your thoughts and feelings affect your physiology, biochemistry, and physical being and vice versa. A negative thought increases stress hormones. A positive thought reduces the amount of stress hormones in your body and lowers inflammation. Your internal environment of your thoughts, feelings, and emotions are hugely impacted by your external environment.
What I’m getting at here is that external environmental toxic chemicals and foods as well as internal environmental toxic thoughts create stress. Stress leads to inflammation and an immune response. Chronic stress means that your bodymind is always on fire with inflammation and your immune system may become overactive and will get trigger-happy and attack anything in sight including your own bodily tissue. Your immune system may also fizzle out and get tired and just fire off aimlessly again attacking your own body or it won’t fire at all and your immune system will no longer do its job of fighting off infections and helping your body heal.
So your environment, external and internal, creates stress leading to inflammation and an immune response and if this goes on long enough your immune system eventually cracks under pressure. The amount of time it takes for your immune system to buckle depends on your unique biochemistry, physiology, genetics, your own situation, but I would estimate that this can take as little as a month or it can take decades.
We found it right? Cancer which is an imbalance of healthy cells to abnormal cancerous cells is caused by a weakened immune system. Oh wait. We still haven’t explained how a weakened immune system relates to a lack of oxygen and damaged mitochondria in cells.
Well this brings us to the last listed cause of cancer – microbes.
When you have a weakened immune system microbes are no longer killed off, but take hold in your body and infect your cells. When a microbe takes over and infects a healthy cell many changes happen in that cell. Microbes love sugar and they ferment sugar to create energy, but because fermentation creates very little energy compared to oxidation the cell gets hungry really easily so it increases its insulin receptors to absorb more sugar. As a result of fermentation acids are created such as lactic acid. This build up of acids is very toxic and creates havoc in the cell. The increased acidity shoves oxygen out of the cell creating an anaerobic environment. The acids also cause damage to your DNA and the DNA of your mitochondria. Recall that fermentation doesn’t need oxygen so microbes can live happily in this very acidic environment.
So when a microbe infects a healthy cell the cell is left with very little energy, very little oxygen, has damaged mitochondria so it’s unable to create more energy by using fats and it has damaged DNA. This damaged DNA prevents the cell from performing its usual duties, and it becomes immortal, grows out of control non-stop, and stops communicating with other healthy cells.
This is how you get an abnormal cancerous cell.
Remember earlier how I described a rogue cell as one that went back to its primitive roots. You can’t get more primal than a single-celled microorganism which lives inside an abnormal cancerous cell.
When you have a weakened immune system and microbial infections you have tumours, you have cells lacking oxygen and with damaged mitochondria, and you have an imbalance of healthy cells to abnormal cancerous cells.
So to recap from the symptoms of cancer to the actual root cause:
- Healthy cells are infected by microbes turning them into abnormal cancerous cells
- A weakened immune system allows this infection to occur and also damages or suppresses the function of other healthy cells
- Chronic stress and inflammation cause chronic immune activity eventually causing it to be hyperactive and hypoactive
- Both external and internal environmental toxins cause stress in your bodymind
- External toxins come about through industrial, agricultural, and pharmaceutical practices
- Internal toxins come about through difficult relationships, marketing by media, and extreme religious beliefs
- Civilised society is the source of these external and internal toxins
Am I actually saying that civilisation is the root cause of cancer? No. Because the next question you need to ask yourself is well what brought about civilisation?
Civilisation came about when human beings let go of their animal nature and dismissed their connection to Mother Nature and to all other life on this planet.
If I were to sum up the root cause of cancer and every other chronic disease for that matter I would say that the cause of cancer is living against the natural flow of your innate way of being. In other words:
“Cancer is caused by living a lifestyle out of balance with the seasons and rhythm of Mother Nature.”
Well now that we know the cause we can finally, finally, get to the cure… right?
No. There is no cure for cancer, but there is a way to heal from cancer and to prevent it.
Alberto Villoldo is a PhD and trained psychologist, medical anthropologist, and shaman and he describes in his book One Spirit Medicine how a cure is merely the elimination of symptoms, whereas:
“…healing works at a much deeper level, treating the causes of the imbalance that lead to disease.”
So if the cause of cancer is a lifestyle out of balance with Mother Nature than the way to heal and to prevent cancer is to get back in touch with our roots as human beings and to live a lifestyle that follows the flow of Mother Nature.
The best place to start would be by following the 7 Holistic Health Principles that bring together all aspects of life into a simple strategy to living happy and healthy in modern civilised times. I talked about these 7 principles in another podcast episode 30 and here I will give you one tip from each principle that you can use to heal and to prevent cancer.
The first principle is called the Moon principle. This relates to sleep and rest. Melatonin is a hormone that helps you sleep, but has powerful anti-cancer properties too. It suppresses tumour growth, triggers apoptosis, and acts as a powerful antioxidant fighting of free radical damage to your DNA from reactive oxygen species. To get the most out of your melatonin you must get rid of blue light exposure at night from indoor lighting, televisions, computers, and smart devices, and you should aim to sleep between the hours of 10p and 6a. Blue light and sleeping after midnight reduce the amount of melatonin that gets released.
The Ether principle is about how toxic your environmental space is. Most of the toxins you’re exposed to come in the form of clothing, personal and home care products, and the food you eat. If you look for organic natural untainted sources of these you’ll be doing yourself a huge favour by reducing the amount of stress that’s placed on your body.
The Air principle relates to how you breathe and the quality of air that you’re breathing in. Deep belly breathes through your nose with your mouth closed and your tongue resting comfortably on the roof of your mouth is the quickest way to put your body into rest and digest, calm and connect mode. Meaning this type of breathing keeps you out of flight and fight stress mode reducing inflammation throughout your body.
The Water principle relates to the quality and the amount of water you drink. You are 70% water so make sure you’re drinking enough water for your unique activity needs and to drink the best spring or filtered water you can find. Be wary of plastic water bottles and keep them out of the heat, away from sunlight, and don’t reuse them, but recycle them instead as they are full of cancer causing agents.
The Fire principle is all about movement. Whether it be high intensity training or simply walking around the block, movement ensures that nutrition gets moved around your body to where it’s needed and it also helps remove toxic waste products from your body. Long periods of inactivity are associated with higher disease risk and increased chances of dying earlier. Aim to move or change your position every 30 to 60 minutes to keep your blood, oxygen, nutrients, and waste in motion and moving to where they need to go.
The Earth principle relates to food – real food. Stay away from industrial seed oils and processed and packaged foods from Father Industry. Instead focus on real food that’s in season from local organic farmers and producers.
“Fake pretend food-like products are full of cancer causing ingredients, whereas real food is full of cancer fighting nutrients.”
The Sun principle is the 7th Holistic Heath principle and focuses on connecting with others, sharing your gifts, and loving yourself and others for your authentic selves. The best tip I can give here for learning how to connect, share, and love is to have a dream bigger than yourself that you want to see come true. Whether it is to pass a certain exam, change your body composition, climb a mountain, or to be a better lover to your partner, by having a dream you give yourself direction in life and once you begin to move in flow with this direction other aspects of your life eventually fall in alignment with your dream.
Okay this is the longest podcast I’ve ever recorded, but I had to add some science, I had to give cancer its day in court, and I just hope that this information has been useful to you in some way, shape or form.
In the next podcast I’ll be talking about one side of cancer I have yet to mention – the light side. Yes believe it or not there are benefits to cancer that I will be talking about in next week’s episode. See you there.
Links and Resources
- Cancer-Free — Bill Henderson
- Quest For The Cures — Docuseries about cancer
- CancerTutor.com
- One Spirit Medicine — Alberto Villoldo
- WGP 030: Want the Good Life? These 7 Holistic Health Principles Will Guide You There
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring the dark side of Cancer:
- I’ll explain the truth about cancer in terms of the type of disease it is and is not
- I will bust other conventional beliefs about cancer that you might have
- Finally I’ll give a few resources that you can use to enhance your knowledge about cancer and to help you take control of your health
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
About 1 in 2 people alive right now will get diagnosed with cancer. Look around you count how many people there are divide that in 2, they’re going to get cancer. And 25% of men and 20% of women will die from cancer. The American Cancer Society have estimated that in the U.S. in 2016, that’s this year as of this recording, 3 people will be diagnosed with cancer and 1 person will die from cancer every single minute.
Pretty scary stuff right or is it?
Media, which includes not just the news and magazines, but any influence on your mind and the way you think. So media really is your family and friends, your workplace, your church, social media, anyone you’ve heard or know are forms of media and media has a huge impact on how you think and on what you believe in.
When it comes to cancer the media would have you believe that to be diagnosed with cancer is automatically a death sentence and if it’s too late to treat conventionally then you need to get your affairs in order before your inevitable early death and if the cancer is treatable according to conventional western medicine standards then you only have a limited amount of time to choose between chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgery or a combination of the three, which are western medicines biggest hammers to fight and destroy the nails of cancer.
Problem is anytime you have a hammer of course everything begins to look like a nail and as a society we have been taught to believe that cancer is a nail in your coffin and that the big three, chemo, radiation, and surgery are your only hope. But like I said these are hammers and these hammers do one thing very well and that’s to nail cancer right into your body.
The truth about cancer is this – cancer is not any different or especially significant than other non-communicable diseases or other lifestyle diseases like heart disease, lung disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, osteoporoses, stroke, MS, ALS/MND, chronic kidney disease, etc.
Let me repeat.
“Cancer is not any different or especially significant than other diseases.”
So all this extra fuss and fear mongering about cancer by the media by doctors isn’t justified and in my view it’s just plain irresponsible.
What this means with a cancer diagnosis is that it’s not a death sentence and like all other NCD’s, like all other lifestyle diseases you can take control of your health and live with your sickness and manage it or even overcome it. When it comes to cancer there’s no need for additional fear than if you were diagnosed with any other disease.
You know what? And what I’m about to say may be controversial to hear, but this is just my personal opinion that has rapidly evolved over the past few months of intensive, highly intensive personal research of reading scientific papers of watching and listening to hours upon hours of doctor and patient interviews including both success and failure stories… I believe that cancer is simple to cure. Now I did not just say it’s easy to cure from cancer. What I mean is that the solutions to curing cancer, which I’ll talk about in the next episode, are simple and require one thing and one thing only – a real intention to heal. So this means dedication, commitment and staying on the path to healing.
Now I’m not the only one who thinks cancer is simple to overcome. Here’s a quote from an article written in 1990 in the ‘Townsend Letter For Doctors’ by Dr Dan C Roehm regarding the Budwig Diet, which is a very effective cancer treatment protocol that’s been around since the 50s. Keep in mind that Dr Roehm is not only a medical doctor, but an oncologist (cancer doctor), a former cardiologist (heart doctor), and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He also has many years clinical experience working with people! And it was only through this work that he came to write this:
“CANCER IS EASILY CURABLE, the treatment is dietary/lifestyle; the response is immediate; the cancer cell is [rendered] weak and vulnerable;
Cancer treatment can be very simple and very successful once you know how. The cancer interests don’t want you to know this.
May those of you who have suffered from this disease (and I include your family and friends) forgive the miscreants who have kept this simple information from reaching you so long.”
Alright let’s move on to other false beliefs about cancer which revolve around current cancer detection technologies and cancer prevention and treatment practises.
Mammograms, aka x-ray mammography, are used for early detection of breast cancer in women, but unfortunately this procedure gives more false positives and overdiagnosis, allows breast cancer if there is any to metastasis or spread throughout your body, and can even give cancer to an already healthy individual.
Let’s just imagine for one second that your body, it ain’t stupid folks! Your body knows how to heal, if you support it and get out of its way that is. When you get a cut, that area of your body swells up and it heals. If you do get cancer, is it possible that a tumour surrounding cancer cells is actually there for a reason? I say absolutely not only is it possible, plausible, and probable that tumours or neoplastic tissue are your body’s way of dealing with cancer, but to my mind it’s obvious that your body creates tumours as a way to protect itself, to prevent these cancer cells from growing out of control and spreading to other parts of your body. Your body knows what it’s doing.
So imagine now when you or someone you care about goes in for a mammogram and they take your breast and put it in the mammography machine the ‘pancake smasher’ and this may cause any tumours that are present to burst and all of that cancerous tissue gets what it wanted – freedom! And the cancer grows more aggressively and spreads throughout your entire body.
Alongside this mechanical damage to the tumour and your breast is the ionising radiation from the x-ray which is a known carcinogen or cancer causing agent. The x-rays used in mammograms actually put you at a higher risk of getting cancer in the breast so mammograms are just a bad idea anyway you look at it.
Look I’m not a certified doctor and I don’t claim to be one or play one on the Internet, but here’s a quote from Dr Leonard Coldwell a natural cancer cure expert:
“We as a medical society are giving women breast cancer with our demanding that they get mammograms. Mammograms cause breast cancer. Period. So mammograms are not healthy for women. Women should not be getting routine mammograms. That’s crystal clear, published in the peer review literature.”
Now that’s a powerful statement from someone with years of experience who deals with cancer patients every day.
Okay now the Prostate Specific Antigen or the PSA test to detect and help treat prostate cancer in men is almost as bad as mammograms. It has been shown that PSA testing has no benefit in reducing death rates and causes more harm than good due to the high rates of false positives and overdiagnosis.
Another belief is that the big three conventional western medical treatments for cancer, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery, are the only options you have and that alternative natural treatments are a bunch of baloney.
Chemotherapy, where drugs and chemicals are used to treat cancer, is like a nuclear bomb going off in your body leaving behind a massive wasteland and then expecting your body and health to recover from this. Well the statistics show that this approach hardly ever works as 97% of cancer patients that are treated with chemo are dead in 5 years. Another thing is that 42 to 46% of cancer patients die from cachexia or wasting of the body caused by the spreading of the cancer, leaving 54 to 58% that die from, can you guess?… the treatment of the cancer. I’ll say it again over 50% of cancer patients die from conventional treatments. I’m not liking those odds.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise to hear that over 90% of oncologists wouldn’t take chemo themselves and that about 90% of all doctors wouldn’t even prescribe the drugs they give to their patients to their own family.
How is it that so many patients die from chemo? First off all it is true that chemo will kill cancer daughter cells, as well as almost every other cell in your body, and shrink tumours, but the issue with chemo is that it will not kill the cancer mother cells that produce the daughter cells. When I say mother cells I’m talking about stem cells which are the precursors to all other cells in your body. Cancer stem cells, mother cells produce other cancer cells, daughter cells. Daughter cells are what you find inside tumours. Not only does chemo leave the mother cells intact, but another major issue with chemo is that chemotherapy is a known carcinogen. Chemo creates cancer. So yes chemo may shrink already existing tumours, but new ones will be created as a known side-effect of using chemo drugs.
Regarding radiotherapy everything I just said about chemo goes for radiation therapy as well. One extra negative side-effect of radiation is that it enhances cancer mother cell activity meaning more cancer daughter cells get produced after being exposed to radiation. Radiation is already known to be carcinogenic and yes it may reduce tumours in one area of your body, but it almost always will create more tumours somewhere else as well.
When it comes to surgery and cutting out tumours there are two main issues. First issue is the tumour is a grouping of daughter cells and while you may remove the tumour and the daughter cells, the cancer mother cells are still present in the organ tissue that’s left behind after surgery, and new daughter cells and tumours will eventually come back and grow from these missed mother cells. I mean how many times have you heard of cancer coming back seemingly out of nowhere. The surgeons they just never got rid of the mother cells.
Second issue with surgery is that there’s a high risk of puncturing and spilling the contents of the tumour allowing the cancer to metastasis and spread. This is absolutely the worst case scenario for anyone with cancer. You also get the same problem with biopsies, where a little bit of your bodily tissue is extracted and analysed to diagnose cancer. A biopsy could cause your cancer to metastasis and spread, but this risk is lower than actual surgery.
What is all this telling you?
To me it says that conventional mainstream western medicine has it completely backwards when it comes to treating cancer and most other diseases. Am I saying you should never use these big 3 treatments? No. I’ll talk more in the next episode on how to integrate these hammer-like treatments with a more feather-like holistic touch.
One final conventional belief about cancer I’d like to talk about is the idea that cancer is a random disease caused by genetics and it has nothing to do with your lifestyle. This is completely untrue and just really bad misinformation.
Let’s look at the stats on what’s causing cancer. About 18% caused by infection. About 23% caused by obesity. 41% by environmental factors, which leaves 18% with no known cause and of this 18% it’s estimated that about 5% of cancers are caused purely by inherited genetics.
So you have 5% of all cancers caused by genetics. Where’s the other 95% coming from? Lifestyle factors all of which are in your ability to manage. You may not be able to control the air you breathe, the people that are in your life or other factors, but you can manage your exposure to your environment and you can definitely manage your internal environment, your thoughts and feelings.
I’ll talk more about other causes of cancer in the next podcast, but for now I’ll leave you with this quote by Soren Kierkegaard that says:
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
Don’t play the fool. It’s one thing to be fooled by other people, but do not let your own beliefs and ways of thinking fool you into not seeing what’s right in front you.
I ain’t nobody’s fool and I don’t want you to be fooled so I ask that you take all this information that I just laid out for you and don’t believe any of it.
Yep. Don’t believe a single word I just said. Instead do your own research. Read the science; read first-hand testimonials of people overcoming cancer naturally; read books on cancer; find out the truth and origins behind chemo (spoiler alert – it started as mustard gas used during war); and watch documentaries about cancer.
The truth is no-one cares about your health more than you do and the first step to health success is knowledge, second step is planning, and finally action. If you or anyone you know is dealing with cancer or you just want to have the tools to prevent yourself from getting cancer then do the work, do the research, get that knowledge, and see how far down the truth-about-cancer-rabbit-hole you can go.
A couple of online places I’ll point you to right now include the awesome website cancertutor.com. This is a fantastic resource and it’s packed full of real honest truthful unbiased cancer information. One of the best documentaries ever on cancer is the 9 episode online docuseries The Truth About Cancer: A Global Quest. You can find this at go.thetruthaboutcancer.com. Register and get the first 2 episodes for free, but you will have to pay to view the other 7. Trust me it’s worth buying the whole series.
In terms of books I recommend Cancer-Free by Bill Henderson, Cancer: The Problem and the Solution by Dr. Johanna Budwig, The Gerson Therapy by Charlotte Gerson, and The Fourfold Path to Healing by Dr Thomas Cowan, Sally Fallon, and Jaimen McMillan.
For real food recipes that’ll heal cancer I like the Nourishing Traditions cookbook by Sally Fallon and Dr Mary Enig as well as the ever popular Practical Paleo by Diane Sanfilippo.
I hope this information helps put cancer in a different perspective for you and gives you hope and strength in knowing that when it comes to cancer, you got this! You do have control over your own health. You just have to make the choice to take responsibility for your own self first.
In the next podcast I’ll be talking about the many different sides to cancer: the mechanics how it works, the cause, the contributors, and of course the cure!
Links and Resources
- Cancer-Free – Bill Henderson
- Cancer: The Problem and the Solution – Dr. Johanna Budwig
- The Gerson Therapy – Charlotte Gerson
- The Fourfold Path to Healing – Dr Thomas Cowan, Sally Fallon, Jaimen McMillan
- Nourishing Traditions – Sally Fallon and Dr Mary Enig
- Practical Paleo – Diane Sanfilippo
Please leave a 5-star iTunes review for the Whole Guidance Podcast
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring your many different Bodies:
- I’ll explain how your physical body is more your energy body
- I’ll talk about four other bodies that help make the whole entire you
- Finally I’ll share how you can nourish and meet the needs of your 5 different bodies
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Humans, that’s me and you included, some of us we like to think that we’re different or better than other creatures, that we’re above other animals, plants, and sometimes even other humans.
Truth is on the surface we all look a little bit different. Okay majorly different, but if you were to zoom in, into your cells, into your molecules, into your atoms, and into the quantum particles themselves like quarks and leptons guess what you’d find? The exact same thing you’d find as if you zoomed in on a cat, on an insect, on a fish, on a tree, or even zoomed in on the sun.
Nothing.
Well you’d see nothing, but with devices like the superconducting quantum interference device or SQUID for short with such devices that measure energy you would find that this invisible nothing that you’ve zoomed all the way in on is actually energy swirling around vibrating as a wave of pure energetic potential and you only see this wave become physical reality and realise its potential when you zoom out of the very small quantum space where you see the particles form into atoms and molecules.
All this to say that your physical body, your physical being is really waves of potential energy manifesting and becoming real creating formed particles, molecules, cells, organs, muscle, bone, skin, and everything within.
Now your physical body is just one of the many parts that make up the whole you, one of the many energy bodies that you have and need to look after. I will now explore four other bodies that you may not be aware of.
Imagine looking at yourself standing on the Earth naked, your feet and legs connected to the Earth represent your physical body. This is the first of your 5 bodies.
Moving up from your legs we reach your groin area and here you’ll find your second body, your sexual body or sexual being. This body exists when you’re born, but doesn’t come into full expression until your teenage years when your hormones begin to go into overdrive so this body is concerned with your hormones and keeping them in balance is the key to a healthy sexual body. Your sexual body isn’t just about procreation and making babies. It’s also about creating experiences that take you out of your physical body and into a state of bliss and euphoric orgasmic ecstatic oneness with the universe. Your sexual body also strongly influences how you relate to your physical body and to other people in general. The more you explore your sexual way of being the more you will know thyself and the more confidence you will have being in your own skin in your physical body as well as having the confidence to be yourself when around other people.
If you have issues around sex where you find it difficult to think about sex let alone talk about it this will come down to the culture that you were brought up in and to how you were raised and there’s no right or wrong way to think about sex. There’s no right or wrong way about anything. Maybe this quote by French writer Marquis De Sade (I’ve no idea if that’s how you pronounce it) may help you see sex from a different perspective:
“’Sex’ is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.”
So sex like food is a nutrient we all need and while food may feed your physical body sex feeds your sexual being.
Moving up your body we come to your chest area where your emotional body or emotional being radiate from. Your emotional body builds upon your sexual body and is about relationships with self and others. Your emotional way of being determines the kinds of energies or emotions you express externally and receive internally into your heart and how you express and receive these energies will determine the kinds of relationships you will find yourself in. This body is focused around perceived stress and about giving and receiving the most powerful stress-busting emotion of them all, love.
Moving up into the head area now we come to your mental body or mental being. Remember though that your mind doesn’t reside or live just in your brain, but lives in your entire being, your bodymind. Your head is merely a symbol for your mental being. Your mental body is all about thought energy and choices. Your mental body communicates with the brain, your heart, and your gut with neurotransmitters and by keeping these neurotransmitters in balance you keep your mind clear and focused which allows you to make better choices. Thought energy along with your emotions and how you feel will influence your choices which will control your actions which will determine the results you get in life.
Going above your head above your crown is the final and fifth body, your soul body or just your soul. Your soul symbolically lives outside your physical body, but it permeates, it runs, it beats through every single cell and every wave of energy of all your bodies physical, sexual, emotional and mental. Your soul joins these bodies to all the other bodies in the Universe. Meaning you are connected to the Universe, to Great Spirit, to Infinite Intelligence, to the Creator, to God, or whatever it is, whatever name you choose to call the thing that created you and everything around you. That connection to something bigger than your self happens through your soul body. Your soul is pure energy and the level and frequency that your soul vibrates at is determined by the health and the functions of your other four bodies as well as your environment. A high vibration and frequency is associated with happiness, health, wholeness, and peace. A low vibration and frequency correlates to sadness, sickness, separation, and stress.
So those are your 5 bodies and all of these bodies, physical, sexual, emotional, mental, and soul they need to be taken care of and I’ll go through now how to nourish and feed each of your 5 bodies.
In terms of your physical body you can really feed this body well and nourish it with all that it needs by following the 7 Holistic Health Principles as laid out in the previous podcast. Two simple tips that I can give now though is eat real food and move often. Simple, right? Well in reality, you know the real world, for a lot of people eating real food and moving often those aren’t easy recommendations to stick to. This is why I believe the best way to nourish your physical body besides the 7 principles is by nourishing your other four bodies. With your sexual, emotional, mental, and soul bodies fulfilled and nourished you will find your physical body feeds itself the right foods and moves itself when it needs to.
Your sexual body needs to express itself freely without it feeling shame. It receives nourishment through physical and mental erotic and sensual pleasures. This can include the obvious sexual goals of orgasm and ejaculation, but also includes something as basic as touch. Being touched or touching someone else can help feed your sexual being without having to get naked and making it an erotic or adult experience. Reading erotic literature may be helpful as well. Make sure though that you’re in a safe space with yourself or with other consenting partners when expressing your sexual way of being. Your sexual body also needs hormones in the right balance and this will come down to how well you follow the 7 Holistic Health Principles.
Your emotional body really loves love. Not just love from another person, but especially love for your self. Because if you can learn how to love yourself you’ll find it easier to love others. The best way to love you is to know you. Know thyself and you will love yourself. There are 3 practises that I use daily to learn more about myself and what it is in life that I really want or don’t want.
First one is meditation. 20 minutes in the morning of Qi-gong helps me train my bodymind to focus on one thought, but I also learn what other thoughts keep trying to creep in and take over. You’ll learn a lot about the way you think through meditation.
Second practise is gratitude. Before bed every night I give gratitude for the experiences I had that day and this keeps me grounded in knowing what’s important in the larger scheme of things, helps me see the bigger picture of life.
Final practise is mindfulness. Being in the now, in the present moment brings a lot of awareness to how I’m being. It doesn’t stop me from being or doing things I’d rather not, but I can observe myself and be fully aware of my actions and so there’s no regret later on for how I was or for what I did as I fully accepted in the moment that if this is what is, then so be it. But mindfulness also gives me the opportunity to choose a different way of being in that moment.
So for example let’s say I’m eating way too many chocolates a lot more than I should, which happens. I will think to myself, ‘okay I’ve almost eaten an entire bar of dark chocolate. Do I continue and enjoy the whole bar with its dark sensual bitter flavours or do I stop and leave the rest for tomorrow?’ Whatever action I take it doesn’t matter. I would have taken it in full awareness and acceptance. Mindfulness allows me to observe my behaviour and to choose acceptance on how I’m being and to choose an alternative action and to do something different if I wanted to. These 3 practises meditation, gratitude, and mindfulness teach me a lot about myself and allows me to love who I am and who I’m not and to love who others are for who they are and for who they are not.
Okay your mental body this needs information. The more information you can give it the better it will serve you. Now I’m not talking about books and logical types of information I’m talking about energetic information or informed thought energy. The more informed thought energy you can feed your bodymind the more nourished and healthy your mental body will be. One way to get informed thought energy is to meditate. Again I just talked about this meditation trains you in focusing your thoughts on one thing. This clears up the chatter, the clutter, the monkey speak in your bodymind and gives you the ability to control what it is you would like to be thinking about. This focus and control of your thoughts gives you the power of choice and in making choices that are life-affirming.
You don’t want scrambled thought energy as this will just mess up your bodymind, create confusion, cause doubt leading to indecision and poor choices and this scrambled energy will cause other imbalances in your other bodies. Organic farm-fresh scrambled eggs are healthy, but a scrambled bodymind is not.
Your mental body also revolves around your brain, heart, and gut and these organs are connected through your vagus nerve. They speak to each other using neurotransmitters and hormones. By following the 7 Holistic Health Principles you will keep these molecules of communication in balanced amounts giving you better focus allowing you to think more clearly and feeding your mental body informed thought energy.
Finally, your soul body. Your soul is connected to everything in the universe because your soul is pure energy, the very essence of the universe. The thing that breathes, that beats, that sleeps, that moves everything in the universe is what makes up 100% of your soul, energy. Now your soul is always giving and receiving energy. If your soul is starved it’ll give off bad energy. If it’s nourished and satisfied it’ll give off good energy. Now there’s a universal principle of like attracting like so if you’re giving bad energy that’s what you’ll receive, if you’re giving good energy that’s what you’ll receive. So how do you nourish your soul so that it gives and receives positive energy? By having a dream.
“A tortured soul is one without a dream. A peaceful soul is one moving towards its dream.”
When you’re following your Dharma or your duty here in this lifetime, when the way you live your life is on purpose and in alignment with your core values and your dream your soul is vibrating at a very high vibrational frequency, good vibes, positive energy, which always leads to happiness and health. However, if you don’t know what you’re doing or why you’re doing it or if you’re making life choices that are not consistent with how you really want to live then your soul, your energetic being begins to fizzle out and you begin to experience more pain than pleasure and more sickness than health.
Your soul is interconnected, integrated, inseparable from not only the universe, but also with your purpose, with your goal, with your vision, with why you’re here. By having a dream you will find your place in the universe and will soon realise the oneness that you, we, all things in the universe truly are.
So I want you to think to yourself before this day is done what’s one thing that you can do to feed your physical body (example eat real food); one thing you can do to feed your sexual body (say a sensual massage); one thing you can do to feed your emotional body (have some gratitude); one thing you can do to feed your mental body (try a 2 minute nasal breathing session); and what’s one thing you can do to feed your soul body (how about getting some clarity on your life purpose or take some action on the next step in reaching your goals).
You are more than your physical body, a lot more, and by nourishing the different parts that make the whole you, you give yourself the best chance at living the good life, an awesome life, a happy healthy holistic life.
Links and Resources
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Knowledge:
- I’ll explain why having knowledge is not as empowering as you might think
- I’ll talk about two types of knowledge that are truly empowering
- Finally I’ll share how to best apply accumulated knowledge giving you phenomenal powers to live an awesome life
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Today a lot of the human experience is all about watching TV, YouTube videos, and sharing information through social media websites. Which is great! I mean it’s awesome that we can learn so many new things about so many different topics and connect to so many different people through the power of the Internet.
But, how much of this knowledge and of these online relationships are actually relevant to your life and how much of that relevant information have you actually applied and done yourself? Think about what you’ve learned in just the past 7 days. How much of that information was relevant to you and how much of it have you tried for yourself? Probably not a whole lot… and that goes for me too.
The old saying ‘knowledge is power’ doesn’t hold true. Because what you know could have absolutely no use for you in your current life situation and more importantly even though you know a lot of stuff if you don’t apply that knowledge and get it out of your head and into the real world then there’s really no power in knowing that stuff.
“Knowledge that isn’t relevant and applied is weak.”
There are two types of knowledge that are relevant though and easy to implement in your life empowering you to become a better version of yourself.
First knowledge type is a knowing. Knowing is all about self-knowledge. It’s about an innate, instinctual, intuitive know-ing that you feel emotionally deep down to your core and because it comes from within rather than without this knowing is all about you. With this type of knowledge you will know what you want and don’t want, what you like and don’t like, who you want to hang out with or not, what career or job you’d like to have, what foods work for you and don’t work for you.
There’s a musical lyric ‘to know you is to love you’ and what I’m saying here is:
“To know thyself, is to love thyself.”
With a knowing you will better understand what it is you love and what it is you don’t love. This helps guide you to filter out the crap information and to choose better info to download into your bodymind. By knowing what’s worth learning and what isn’t you ensure that what you do know is relevant to you and your life.
The second knowledge type is about being knowledgeable. Being knowledge-able. Where you are able to put your knowledge into being. Meaning applying the knowledge you’ve learned and taking action on that knowledge. So turning a learned thought and idea (which is external energy downloaded from the universe) and integrating this with your knowing of self (which is internally sourced energy from within your own bodymind) and making it a reality in the physical world (which is a combination of both external and internal energies). So being knowledgeable is all about taking action on what you’ve learned to create a new experience for yourself and others.
You could read, watch, and listen for an eternity about how to drive a car, ride a bike, or swim, but you still wouldn’t be able to do any of it until you actually get into a car, on a bike, or in the water and apply what you’ve learnt.
It’s only when you apply knowledge by being in action, by being knowledgeable and using your knowing of self that you actually get to experience life and find out your own truth about something you’ve read, seen, or heard about. So knowledge isn’t power, but potential power and applied knowledge is truly where you have the power.
As I said before in order to make sure you’re accumulating relevant knowledge you must have a knowing of your self and one of the best ways of doing this is through meditation. There’s nothing like focusing your mind on one thing for 20 minutes to 2 hours to get you intimately connected to who you really are on the inside because your mind wants to do everything else but focus so you’re constantly having to bring yourself to centre. But along the way you get insights as to what thoughts are clogging up your body and using up a lot of your thinking energy. It’s these thoughts you want to come back to after meditation to figure out why they kept coming up during your meditation practise.
The one tip I have for putting a lot of your accumulated knowledge into action is to be mindful during the learning process or in other words pay real attention while you’re learning. What I mean is when you’re not completely focused on what you’re learning or on what’s happening right in front of you then you only pickup fragments and get a partial download of what you see and hear into your consciousness.
You see there’s a difference between seeing and watching, hearing and listening, trying and doing.
For example, you could see someone cook scrambled eggs a million times, but unless you actually focus and look for the details and watch you won’t be getting the full download of what they’re doing. You could hear them talking about temperatures and egg yolks and timings, but unless you actually focus and clear the chatter in your head and listen you won’t be getting the full download of what they’re actually saying. You could try in your mind and visualise the steps, but unless you actually get up of the couch and into the kitchen and do and act and cook you won’t be getting the full experience of cooking scrambled eggs.
But then of course even if you did cook a beautiful plate of scrambled eggs, what if you got gas or stomach cramps after eating them. This would be part of knowing, knowing your self and understanding that scrambled eggs are not relevant to you at this time and that this particular knowledge while it doesn’t serve you personally it may still help someone else.
So yes of course you want to be learning and growing and enhancing your skills throughout your lifetime, but you want to make sure the information you learn and download into your consciousness, into your bodymind fits you and your lifestyle and you most definitely have to make sure you take action on what you’ve learnt, because the power of knowledge is yours only when you’re able to put that knowledge into being.
Bonus tip, pick up the awesome book The First 20 Hours by Josh Kaufman. It teaches you how to learn anything easily and quickly. I read this and picked up tips on how to break down complex ideas, on how to save on my learning time, and how to keep moving forward by creating an optimal learning environment.
So remember to keep learning, to keep learning about yourself, and to keep moving forward by being in action.
Links and Resources
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Diet:
- I’ll explain why dieting doesn’t always equal health
- I’ll talk about the two main types of diets that all other diets can be grouped under
- I’ll talk about the one true diet that I believe everybody should be on
- Finally I’ll highlight a few techniques that you can use to fine tune your real food nutrition
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Diet; dieting; to diet; to be on a diet; and for some people don’t even mention the ‘D’ word. For anyone who has dealt with body weight issues hearing the word diet brings up a lot of other words:
- Restrictive
- Tasteless
- Boring
- Struggle
- Willpower
- Low energy
- Anger
- Frustration
- Pain
Notice how there’s no mention here of an improvement in health.
Diets are mainly used to reduce your weight and yes all diets will change your weight and modify your body composition, short-term. It doesn’t matter what diet you go on you will lose both muscle and fat in the first few weeks.
The problem with any diet when used for far too long, way past its due by date, is that you may end up losing a lot more healthy muscle than non-healthy fat and even more importantly you will eventually create havoc, chaos, and a huge imbalance in your hunger, satiety, stress, growth, and reproductive hormones. Meaning that if you follow a diet purely to reduce your weight and to change how you look that diet will work in the here and now, but in 6 months or 6 years this same diet will cause a cascade of health problems making you a very sick, sad, and surly person to be around.
The reason for this is because the main type of diet people use to reduce their weight and to look good in the mirror is a limiting diet. Anytime you limit the foods you eat you run the risk of missing out on vital nutrients. That is nutrition your body and mind need for vitality. Long-term deficiencies in nutrients may make you look good in the mirror, but it’s the hormonal havoc that these nutritional deficiencies cause that is at the root cause of many diseases including cancer.
It’s not just food you limit in these body image diets, but anytime you limit your way of thinking and feelings toward food and your relationship with food you limit your entire human experience. Your mindset, which was once open to the many possibilities in life, is now closed off to a collection of experiences that life has to offer. Limiting your way of being can cause a lot of distress and this emotional and mental stress will change your physiology creating real physical stress in your body. Remember the body and mind are one and the same, the bodymind.
I’ve mentioned one type of diet already, a limited diet where you limit your eating and your way of being to achieve a body image goal. There is a different type of diet and what differentiates this diet from a limited diet is that it doesn’t restrict foods in the same sense because it’s not based on looking good, but based on thinking, feeling, and doing good and this other type of diet accomplishes this goal through healing. This healing diet I call a limitless diet.
A limitless diet is followed for health and life reasons and not for body image reasons alone. The reason this type of diet is limitless and not limiting is because your why is much bigger than just looking good in the mirror. Your why could be to overcome a disease like cancer, to have more energy to play with your family and to get work done, or to be able to think clearly in order to start and finish a personal, a professional, or a community project you’ve been thinking about for a long time.
When your why for following a diet is bigger than just how you look in the mirror than the foods you restrict yourself to eating no longer seem so, restrictive. Whereas a limiting diet is about scarcity where you feel like you lose and miss out on foods in order to lose the weight, a limitless diet is all about abundance and where you feel awesome dropping the foods that will stop you from realising and sharing that abundance.
What I’m saying here is that no matter the diet whether you go on a medical or detox or paleo or vegan or vegetarian or low calorie or low carb or low fat or a crash diet or even a religious diet if it’s to look good naked and nothing else you will feel limited, restricted, and neglected in every ounce of your being. However, if you use this diet to improve your health, to improve your life and the health and life of other people you will never feel like you’re missing out and you will be nothing but thankful for having a way of eating that is helping you make a difference in the world.
Now that’s not to say that wanting to look a certain way is wrong. Far from it. Being a vein person is a great motivator and inspirer for change.
What I’m saying is that dieting purely for looks is a lot more difficult and harder to stick to than when you’re dieting for other reasons. Hence the statistic that 95% of dieters regain all of their lost weight and then some. So unless you’re one of the 5% who can live through a limited period of your life thinking in a limited mindset you may want to rethink why you’re following a particular diet.
A limited diet is very difficult to integrate into your life, a limitless diet on the other hand doesn’t need integration as it becomes a part of your life and following it becomes a part of who you are and your lifestyle.
Now there is actually one diet that trumps every single other diet out there. This diet is one diet that I believe every person should be following and the cool part about this diet is even if you’re on it just to look good naked you won’t feel limited in any way, shape, or form. This one diet for all is a limitless lifestyle diet no matter your reasons for choosing it.
There’s not really a name for this diet because there’s no one-size-fits-all approach with it. There’s no prescribed food list of restricted and allowed foods. There’s no specific end to this diet either. Like I said it’s a limitless lifestyle diet so it only ends when you end.
This diet is many other things. It’s:
- Original
- Individual
- Adaptable
- Flexible
- Customisable
- Attainable
- Relatable
- Educational
- Delectable
- Flavourful
- Nutritional
- Healthful and
- Spiritual
You will definitely find out who you are on this diet.
This diet is unique to your physical, sexual, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs and no other person on this planet will be eating the same foods, at the same times of day, in the same portion sizes to you even though both of you are on this one single diet. Same goes for twins. Just because you can eat broccoli with tonnes of butter with a nice piece of steak at this point in your life doesn’t necessarily mean your identical twin can eat the same way.
Okay so now I’m just trying to think how to describe a diet that is different for each person.
The whole point of this diet is to find the right foods that work for you and the wrong foods that don’t work for you and by work for you I mean after you eat a certain food does it make you look, feel, and perform better in life and if you continue to eat this food overtime is it helping to improve your financial and health status, is it improving your relationships, and most importantly is this food making you a happy, joyful, pleasurable, and peaceful human being full of vitality, love, and laughter.
So I guess you could call this diet a diet of discovery or a process diet because as time goes on you will be fine tuning and figuring out the foods that you should be eating and shouldn’t be eating in this moment. On this diet you will find some foods that worked for you 6 months ago may no longer be serving you now and the right foods that are working for you now in a few years time may turn out to be the wrong foods for you. This diet is constantly changing and evolving and it’s the process that you focus on while eating this way, not some far off distant goal or outcome.
To begin this unique individualised diet it must start with real food. I’ve talked about real foods compared to fake foods in podcast number seven and eight so listen to those for more detail, but basically if it came from a man-made packet instead of a nature-based pasture it’s not real food.
So starting with real food the next step is to find out what foods are creating a low-level inflammatory, immune, and stress reaction in your body and which foods aren’t.
One simple way of doing this is by tracking your heart rate. Fifteen minutes before eating the food you’re testing measure your resting heart rate for 60 seconds to get your heart beats per minute. After finishing the food wait another 15 minutes before measuring your heart rate again. Be sure to keep yourself in a relaxed state during the entire process. If your heart rate increased up to 9 beats per minute retest the food. You really want no increase at all in your heart rate, but anything under 5 beats per minute is fine. If your heart rate increased by at least 10 beats per minute then your body is reacting to that food and it’s best not to eat that food for another 3 to 6 months before retesting it again.
One of the oldest methods to find out if your body is reacting to a food in a negative way is by following a strict elimination provocation diet. This diet integrates well with your unique diet that you are working on discovering as they both have the same basic idea. Eat the foods that work for you and don’t eat the foods that don’t work for you. Plus both diets keep you in a limitless mindset as they’re both about discovering your own unique diet. The main difference being that at the very beginning of your new way of eating with an Elimination Provocation diet you cut down on the highest allergenic foods and other foods that a lot of people are intolerant and sensitive to. The other difference is that most people do an EP diet once and believe that’s how they should be eating from now on until forever. Whereas with the unique diet that your customising for your own needs you are continually improving and testing and removing what works and what doesn’t work over your lifetime.
So after 90 days on the EP diet you begin introducing one at a time 4 days apart a new food and keep track of any changes in your bodymind. If you react badly keep that food at bay for another 3 to 6 months before reintroducing it again. If you respond positively that food stays in your diet until the next time you want to test if it’s working for you or not.
Check out The Elimination Diet book by Tom Malterre and Alissa Segersten for more detailed information including food elimination introduction lists, meal plans, and recipes.
Another method you can use to find out if the foods you’re eating are making your bodymind happy or not is by muscle testing. Muscle testing, also known as applied kinesiology, is based on the energetic being of your body and is used to diagnose and treat many health issues by testing how your body reacts to certain objects or questions. With regards to foods you could hold a food with one hand close to your chest and heart and hold up your other arm keeping it straight. You would get someone else to press down on your extended arm and if you’re able to keep your arm straight and in place then that food would be acceptable to eat. If your extended arm becomes weak and drops down then that food should not be eaten at this time.
Another thing you’ll need to discover is how much fats, proteins, and carbohydrates you should be eating, that is what is your ideal macronutrient ratio. One way to find this out is by keeping a body language log. You want to track your satisfaction, energy, and mood levels after each meal. Regarding satisfaction one thing to keep an eye on is whether you’re still hungry or crave sweets after a meal. If you’re still hungry then you may have had too many carbs. If you’re craving sweets than maybe you didn’t have enough carbs or you had too much fat and protein. When it comes to energy levels if it didn’t get noticeably better after a meal you probably had too much fat and protein and if you feel absolutely wiped out and ready for a nap that’s a sign of too many carbs. Finally, with your mood if you’re anxious or irritable than you most likely had too much sugar and you’re crashing after the meal.
For more information on real food and for a body language log that you can use to track your macronutrients I highly recommend Sean Croxton’s eBook The Dark Side of Fat Loss. It talks about real food and other holistic ways of improving your health and includes a really nice one page body language log that’s intuitive and simple to use.
Remember:
“There’s no one true diet for all.”
So the next time someone says there is and that these are the only foods you should be eating for the rest of your life and they don’t allow for flexibility and adaptability and growth, well don’t accept it blindly. It doesn’t mean you can’t use restricted diets in limitless ways. It just means these diets should only be used for short periods of time before moving onto the next one.
But instead of going on a diet why not make your diet a part of your lifestyle. Because there is one true dieting process for all and with heart rate monitoring, elimination diets, muscle testing, and body language logs you will find out and realise for yourself the one true diet that works for you and that makes you happy, healthy, whole, and complete. Forever.
Amen!
Links and Resources
- WGP 007: Food Nutrition – What is Real Food?
- WGP 008: A Real Food Manifesto
- The Elimination Die — Tom Malterre, Alissa Segersten
- The Dark Side of Fat Loss — Sean Croxton
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring How to get Yourself Back on a Holistic Track after Overindulging on Food:
- I’ll explain how overeating can be a gateway to many other dream-negating bad habits
- I’ll talk about some of the causes for overeating
- Finally I’ll share five tips that’ll help get your bodymind back into a holistic way of being after an episode of overeating
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Overeating, binging, and overindulging on food are habits that other animals don’t seem to exhibit. The human animal, however, practises this habitual way of eating to the extreme a lot more than it should.
When you binge eat there’s the possibility of thinking that since you’re already doing something that’s not exactly health-promoting you may as well do some other non-healthy things like indulge in some alcohol, sloth around all day, or just think horrible negative thoughts like how sucky it is to be you right now for not having the willpower to just say no to food.
As a kid I would binge eat on cookies or crackers and hot chocolate (yummy) and I still have binge eating episodes to this day. I know for myself that once I start going down the binge eating path my return to the path of a healthy way of eating can be a long and difficult one as other healthy habits fall by the wayside as well. My sleeping pattern would go all over the place, I’d forget (on purpose) about keeping up with my usual movement practise, and I’d find my thoughts heading down a dark corridor.
One reason for overeating is not being mindful and conscious of your own actions.
I know many people who literally eat like ducks. They barely chew their food and end up swallowing big portions of food down their gullets. I know many people like this because I used to be one. You can only see what you have within you, so that’s why it’s easy for me to see this because I definitely had this mindless habit for a long time. Back in the day I was one of the fastest eaters on the planet (true story) and I never took the time to chew my food, you know to just enjoy the taste. I was never fully involved in the whole eating process. I guess you could say I thought eating was a waste of time and I had better things to do. Problem is because I ate so fast I wasn’t giving my body the proper signals that I’ve eaten and it’s time to stop now. So I would have seconds, thirds, and all too often a fourth serving. Looking back at it now all I can think is ‘man I really was a pig… or a duck.
Another reason for binge eating is emotional.
Feeling alone or hurt. Feeling like you don’t have a purpose and don’t know who you are and what you want or living a life that you really aren’t in love with. So loneliness, confusion, and fear of life itself will cause many people to turn to food for comfort and this can turn into a long period of binge eating.
Last reason I’ll give for overindulging on food is the season.
What I’m talking about here are special occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and holidays, all of these are perfect excuses to get off the health train and on the indulgence express (my kind of ride). I mean who doesn’t love pumpkin pies, fruit salads with ice cream, cakes, and my personal favourite homemade smoked salmon. Smoked salmon, you may be thinking how is that unhealthy? Well let me tell you how. If you can sit down and eat half a whole salmon including the head in less than 20 minutes that my friend is overindulging of the highest degree. Remember:
“Too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing.”
All right so let’s get into five ways you can get yourself back to living a holistic healthy lifestyle after an episode of overeating.
So the day after your however-long binge first thing you want to do is to get back in touch with your dream. What is your dream? Do you even have a dream? Have you written it down with specific goals and outlined the steps you need to take to get you there? Have you got clear personal core values on when to say yes or no when it comes to your dream? If you haven’t got a dream with clear goals and core values then you’re living life with no real direction.
A dream is your compass, your GPS that keeps you on your chosen path.
As the saying goes:
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
So unless your dream is to gain massive amounts of weight or to outdo everyone at a buffet meal or to win an all-you-can-eat contest then overeating, binging, and overindulging on food are not dream-affirmative actions. Listen to the Dream Building podcast I did for more information on using dreams to help guide your holistic lifestyle, it’s podcast number 14.
Second tip: get outdoors. Strip to the bare essentials (not fully naked, but if you can get fully naked more power to you) and get some sunshine on your skin and ground yourself to the Earth by going barefoot on the grass, soil, or sand. Connecting with nature will help improve your mood, boost your immune system, and help reduce the inflammation caused by the excessive amounts of energy you’ve been putting into your body.
Third tip is to do a little fasting. Digestion is a 4-6 hour process and your body has to focus a lot of attention on this very important function. Nutrients and energy will be diverted to your stomach and intestines to ensure proper digestion takes place, but this means other functions in your body will be somewhat affected.
One process that happens in your cells only during times your body isn’t digesting and when you haven’t eaten in a long time is called autophagy. Autophagy is when cells destroy, clear out, and recycle old, damaged, and unused proteins. This makes for a healthier, cleaner internal environment for the cell giving it longevity and maintaining its ability to function at an optimal level. By fasting you give your cells the chance to clear out the junk and to repair or get rid of what’s not working.
Now there are many different ways to fast. You could do a 24 hour fast once or twice a week, a 48 hour water fast, 3 day fruit fast, couple weeks of juice fasting, or what I normally practise intermittent fasting where you fast between 12-18 hours and eat only within a certain feeding window of 12-6 hours.
Right now I’m doing a 12 hour fast with a 12 hour feeding window. So I usually finish eating dinner before 7 and don’t have breakfast until 7 the next morning.
Fourth tip is to move at high intensities. High intensity movement patterns include lifting heavy (at least 80% your 1 rep maximum) and high intensity interval training where you go all out for a certain amount of time and then rest for a certain amount of time and you repeat this over and over.
High intensity training helps maintain and build lean muscle mass, which is a metabolically rich part of your body, meaning the more muscle you have the more energy you actually need to maintain it. HIT also keeps your metabolism raised long after the workout, up to 48 hours in some cases, allowing your body to burn energy and fat even while you’re at rest. HIT compared to longer endurance activities stops your stress hormone cortisol from staying too high for too long, which is exactly what you want as cortisol is catabolic, meaning it breaks things down including muscle tissue. Last benefit to high intensity workouts is that they can be extremely short. So instead of going for an hour long run you could do sprints on a spin bike with the whole workout lasting no more than 20 minutes and turn yourself into a metabolic beast.
Last tip to getting yourself back on track after an episode of binge eating is to get back to eating real food. Stick to whole foods from Mother Nature and skip the packaged and processed junk from Father Industry. If for one week you can lower your starch and fruit intake that’d be even better.
Remember:
“Real food is real medicine.”
And by eating real food you’re giving your body exactly what it needs to heal and repair itself. Especially important after a period of feeding it an excessive amount of energy or significant amounts of fake pretend food-like products.
So follow your dream, connect with nature, do a little fasting, do intense movements, and just eat real food and in no time you’ll be back on track to living your dream and living a holistic healthy lifestyle.
Links and Resources
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Fear:
- I’ll explain what fear is
- I’ll talk about what limiting beliefs are and how they keep you from change
- I’ll talk about how expressing your authentic self helps you see fear in a new light
- Finally I’ll share an exercise you can practise to reframe your thoughts to help you deal with your fear
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Fear can be defined as an emotion driven by the thought of possible danger or the anticipation and expectation of pain and harm. Meaning fear is an emotion based on a thought you have about a future event.
Another way to see fear is that a lot of people believe hate to be the opposite of love, but hate like love is still an emotion that connects you to the object you have hatred toward. In my experience and what many other people have found is that fear is actually the opposite to love as fear has an energy vibration that drives you away and disconnects you from whatever it is that you’re afraid of.
Fear is an energy that you experience in the now present moment based on a future event, and it stops you from moving toward what it is you want.
One major driver of fear is a limiting belief. Now a limiting belief is a thought, an idea that you have downloaded from your upbringing that stops you and restrains you and prevents you from doing anything. This is the essence of fear.
For example you may want to play a sport or join a gym, but you have this belief that you are not coordinated or strong enough so you don’t sign up. You may want to become a fashion model, but you have this belief that you are not attractive, pretty, handsome, tall, thin, or beautiful enough so you don’t even bother looking at job ads for models. You may want to be a scientist, but have a this belief that you’re not smart enough or that people where you come from don’t normally become scientists and have other types of jobs and careers so you stop putting effort into your studies.
Or how about this example. You want to forget the past and start from scratch a relationship with a loved one that you had a fight with many years ago. You want to let go of the resentment that you’ve held toward that person for what they said or did to you or hope that they can forgive you for something you said or did. You want to reconnect with this person so badly it hurts. However, you have this belief, this thought, this idea that no matter what you say or do that person is never gonna’ change and never gonna’ want you back in their life anyway. They will shut you down, you will feel embarrassed and hurt, and you would just be wasting your time. So you don’t reach out to that person and continue to live in the shadow of regret and wondering ‘what if’, all the while missing out on the love that you could be receiving in that relationship.
A belief that holds you back from experiencing life is a limiting belief because it limits you from reaching and realising your full potential and experiencing life in all its fantastic awesome beauty.
A limiting belief is the face of fear and it will always be staring back at you for as long as you allow it. Fear keeps you from changing and you will never be able to change and develop and grow and evolve to reach your full potential if you live in fear.
One of humanity’s greatest fears is to follow one’s own dream. When you’re following your dreams and living the life you want to live and being the way you want to be this is when you shine at your brightest and show your true luminous being, your authentic self.
This fear to dream and act upon one’s dream and shine brightly was summed up brilliantly by spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson who says:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”
Now you may be thinking how it is possible for someone to be scared of their own light energy and their own awesomeness.
Well how many times have you seen someone else shine and be and do and have awesome things only to see them be cut down by others because they are appearing to be too showy, big-headed, egotistical, and up themselves?
How many times have you personally been told to ‘watch it’ whenever you’ve found success, because it looks like you’re showing off or making others feel inadequate?
Every time you shine you are exposing the shadows of other people, but instead of those other people seeing your light as a motive for inspiration and change, they choose to see it as a threat, so they bring you down to their level and keep you from change.
With this limiting belief that any time you dare to dream you are told to get your head out of the clouds and to do as everyone else does is it any wonder why a lot of people give up their dreams, fail to shine and ride the mediocre train into ‘surviville’ to end up living a ‘just okay’ life like everybody else, instead of dreaming big, shining their light, living an awesome life, and thriving.
The thing is when you shine not only are you exposing the shadows of people around you, but you also see your own shadows, your own fears and it is only during the times that you do shine that you can face your shadows and fears full on.
When you look at your fear in the light you will see it very differently. Expressing your true self your luminous being you will no longer turn away from fear, you will face it head on and do whatever it is that needs to be done.
Fear isn’t something to remove or to forget about. It’s an emotion you must use to drive you, motivate you, inspire you to keep moving forward, through that fear to the other side where your dreams live. Of course this is all dependent on you being able to fully express yourself and to shine your light being without regret. Because you can only see your fears when you’re shining at your brightest.
So how exactly do you shine when you have all these limiting beliefs stopping you from doing so in the first place?
By doing the work – that’s Byron Katie’s ‘The Work’ that is.
Byron Katie is an author that writes about self-inquiry and seeing reality for what it really is. Bryon suffered from depression and one day woke up to reality and realised that when she believed her thoughts she suffered and when she didn’t believe her thoughts she no longer suffered.
Byron created a free online tool called The Work, which is a powerful process of self-inquiry. I’ll put a link to the work in the episode show notes, which you can find at wholeguidance.com/blog.
I highly recommend The Work as it makes you question your own thoughts and will help you realise that your limiting beliefs are only there because, well you believe them to be real. But as you go through The Work you will realise that these limiting beliefs are only as real as you think they are and by changing your thoughts about them you can change your entire life.
I no longer run from fear. I embrace it. That doesn’t mean I’m never afraid. It just means when I feel the fear… eventually I push through it.
By questioning your own beliefs you can use fear to move you toward your dreams instead of away from your dreams.
There’s a saying:
“The obstacle is the way.”
And fear is one of the greatest obstacles to humanity reaching enlightenment, but this also makes fear one of humanity’s final hopes to reaching enlightenment and living an awesome life.
I’ll finish with the full quote from Marianne Williamson that I introduced earlier because it’s such an empowering and non-limiting belief:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Make this year the year you overcome fear.
Links and Resources
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Emotions specifically Anger and Happiness:
- I’ll explain how emotions run your life
- I’ll talk about how anger is a necessary and healthy emotion
- I’ll talk about how the pursuit for happiness isn’t a healthy choice
- Finally I’ll share how to express healthy anger and to choose happiness to get the most pleasure from life
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Ah emotions. You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them.
Your thoughts (your ideas) they create your feelings (your emotions) and your feelings well they determine a heck of a lot. It is your feelings that determine your words (what you say); your deeds (what you do); and ultimately your results (what you get out of life).
Let’s take a look at how ideas and emotions in your bodymind really do lead to the results you get in your life.
Human thought begins with the perception of an internal or external stimulus. This thought then creates subtle energies. These subtle energies influence your physical, emotional, and mental ways of being by mobilising chemical messenger molecules throughout your bodymind. Examples of chemical messenger molecules include immune cells, hormones, and neurotransmitters. So once these molecules have energy and motion they travel to, are received, and used by your cells as instructions that drive both your verbal and physical actions.
These molecules of energy in motion or another way to say it would be these molecules of e-motion absolutely, 100%, no doubt about it determine the course of your life because what you say and what you do will always, always determine what you get out of life.
Now there are two main emotional forces that drive the human experience: pain and pleasure.
One emotion associated with pain is anger. The root cause for you to get angry is because you have a need that is not being met. But I’m not talking about basic needs like food or shelter. No I’m talking about deep-seated, inbuilt, animal, innate, primal, evolutionary-rooted physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs. The ultimate human need is the need to connect and to share your self with others.
So when your need for connection and sharing is not being met many emotions can come up and anger is the emotion that people think and feel of when they wish to express externally to another person that they have this unmet need. As I talked about earlier this anger really is a collection of molecules of energy in motion. Anger is an emotion that has very hot, unstable energy attached to it so your words and deeds will also be hot and unstable when in an angry state resulting in a heated and rocky outcome to whomever you are expressing that anger toward.
When taken to the extreme anger turns into rage, which has even hotter less stable out-of-control energy associated with it.
Now when anger does not turn into out-of-controlled rage it can be a very beneficial and healthful emotion. In fact anger is one of the most powerful and impactful emotions as anger alone can cause you to change. Your fits, your bouts, your outbursts of anger are all opportunities for change. To change what? To change anything you want.
Whether your anger causes a change in you, in someone else, in your environment, or a global change it doesn’t matter as change of any kind is what life is all about.
Many inventions, services, businesses, restaurants, and even airlines were created because one person got given a crappy deal, got angry, and then got even… an even better idea that is. For example successful businessman Richard Branson he was left stranded at an airport and instead of moping around complaining, getting worked up into a rage and eventually doing nothing about it, he got over his anger and frustration and asked other stranded passengers if they’d like to charter a plane with him and thus the seed for Virgin airlines was sown.
Unfortunately many people use anger purely as a release valve and nothing else and there’s nothing wrong with releasing pent up energy, but if you don’t do something after that release you miss out on the main benefit of getting angry, the benefit of change.
Anger can be a healthy emotion with the potential for unlimited benefits because who knows where change can take you.
Happiness on the other hand is an emotion associated with pleasure. You usually feel happy when you get what you want and need and when personal expectations are met. I say usually feel happy because even when your needs are met you may still find yourself to not be in a happy place as I’ll explain shortly.
The emotion of happiness has an energy signature that is adaptable and stable. Happiness can warm you when you’re feeling cold and can cool you when you’re feeling the heat. Happiness can help ground you to the present moment and keep you centred, even when you think that everything around you is falling to pieces.
The issue with happiness lies in its pursuit.
The pursuit of happiness is an endless everlasting game that you can never win. When you’re told by others such as your parents, well-meaning family and friends, and the media that in order for you to be happy you must act a certain way, own a certain product, buy a certain perfume, wear a certain brand of clothing, follow a certain political party and you end up getting what you thought you always wanted you find yourself still very unhappy indeed. So you begin to pursue the next false idol of desire, get it, and still find yourself unhappy and this perpetual persistent pursuit for happiness goes on and on for as long as you play it.
Even if you were to pursue your own goals you will find that at the end of that rainbow there is no real pot of gold. Think of all the personal goals you’ve set and achieved and ask yourself after the fact right now in this moment long after you accomplished what you set out to do, are you happy? Are you happy because you fulfilled your dreams and goals or are you happy for another reason?
I used to always wait for something to happen in my life before I would allow myself to be happy such as earn a certain amount of money or lift a certain amount of weight or to see a certain number on the scale before I would say to myself I was happy and I was finally successful. Now, however, not only am I extremely happy and satisfied once I’ve achieved a goal, but I’m also happy during the goal seeking process. For example, I’m happy and satisfied after eating a delicious, nutritious, and tasty dish, but I’m also happy while shopping for, preparing for, and cooking the actual meal.
What I’m saying is that in my experience being happy isn’t something that you can get out there externally. Happiness can only be found in one place, internally, inside of you. No matter how much pursuing you do to be happy, no matter how much money you make, no matter what you own or how many material objects or awards you accumulate you will never find happiness in any one of these actions specifically. In order to express the energies of adaptability and stability, in order to express true happiness you must choose to do so in any one moment.
In other words happiness doesn’t have to be a destination, but can also be the journey itself and the only thing stopping you from being happy is you.
“In order to be happy, you must choose happy.”
It doesn’t matter who you’re with, what you’re doing, where you’re going, or how you’re feeling, I believe that happiness really is a personal choice and it’s a choice that you can make in any moment.
I’m not saying it’s an easy choice to make. For some people choosing happiness will be such a foreign concept that to make such a choice may look impossible. For other people like the Dalai Lama for example choosing happiness comes as second nature. For me personally I am constantly having to remind myself daily to stop waiting for happiness to come to me and to let happiness come from me.
It’s a simple idea seeing happiness as a choice, but boy is it a bloody difficult choice to understand.
Alright so now I’ll talk about how to express healthy anger and how to make it easier to choose happiness.
Firstly, when it comes to healthy expressions of anger you must give yourself permission to express that anger. Do not hold anger or any other emotion for that matter inside your bodymind.
Remember emotions are actual chemical messenger molecules or molecules of energy in motion and when you experience an emotion and a feeling these molecules of energy are mobilised throughout your entire body. When you express that internal feeling and emotion by sharing it externally those molecules get used up by your cells and the energy releases from your body into the environment.
However, if left to linger inside your body these molecules and energy will build up and accumulate in certain areas of your body depending on your genetics and upbringing. If you chronically and consistently hold back from expressing your emotions this bundle of molecules and energy in your body will eventually create a disease and the most common disease associated with pent-up suppressed emotions is cancer.
Secondly:
“Get mad, then get over it.”
Is a quote by American statesman Colin Powell and it’s a quote that you must keep in mind when it comes to healthy expressions of anger.
Back in the day when I was dealing with depression I was also dealing with anger issues (actually I still am). Whereas back then I would attach to my anger as if my life depended on it and it would grow into full-blown rage and I would totally forget what it was that I was angry about in the first place, now I am able to let go of that anger once I’ve allowed myself the chance to fully express it. Plus I’m fully aware of how I am being and what I’m saying during the outburst of anger, which is pretty weird. It’s like I can see how much of an egg I’m being and all I can do is be a witness to my outburst. This is a good thing though because it helps me remember what I got angry about and makes it easier for me to change what it is I want to change so I won’t be triggered as easily the next time I might get angry.
So do not attach to anger and let it develop into full-blown rage. Stay in control of your aggression by fully expressing it and do not confuse yourself with those molecules of energy in motion. You are expressing anger, you are not anger itself.
Healthy anger is anger that is expressed, let go of, and learnt from.
With regards to happiness there’s a brilliant quote by James Openheim that says:
“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.”
As I said before happiness isn’t necessarily the destination, but also the journey itself and the journey is always where you are in the present moment. Happiness isn’t something to pursue, but something you choose to express while in pursuit of your dream. Yes achieving your dream will definitely be a cause for celebration and joy, but you’re allowed to be happy as you make your way toward reaching your dream.
“Happiness is found in the being, not in the having and the doing.”
So in this present moment and any other moment you wish, you have the power to choose to be happy. The choice for happiness is and will always be yours.
So how exactly do you practise letting go of anger and choosing happiness in any one moment… by practising mindfulness.
How many people today are on autopilot waking up to go to school or work, coming home, going to sleep, and then repeating this all over again without being fully present and aware that there were a thousand other events and experiences they had that day.
Life and the human experience is exciting, exhilarating and extremely complex and full of ups and downs and twists and turns, but too much of modern society today is all about numbing the human experience and reducing it down to the most basic of tasks and needs making life appear to be such a boring experience.
Mindfulness practise improves your awareness of how you’re being, how you’re feeling, and what you’re doing in the now the present moment. Mindfulness keeps you in touch with what’s happening internally in your body and what’s happening externally in your environment. When you live your life with a heightened level of awareness you will find that life is so much more than work and sleep.
By practising mindfulness on a daily basis you enhance your ability to express anger and then let it go. You are also able to learn from that expressed anger what changes you need to make to reduce your chances of getting angry in the future and to learn what changes you see are necessary in order to reduce what may upset other people as well.
By practising mindfulness regularly you will come to see that happiness isn’t a reward, an object, or an end date, but it’s an energy that you have inside of you and you can choose to express that energy of happiness anytime you want. Mindfulness gives you full awareness of our ups and downs and during those times that you’re feeling down you will begin to notice, like an observer outside of your body, that you’re actually feeling down in the dumps and this awareness helps you to choose to continue to live in the sadness (and that’s perfectly fine) or to let it go and to choose happiness instead.
The best way to practise mindfulness is to take time out from your day and to just sit with your thoughts. That’s right I’m talking about meditation.
Meditation isn’t about achieving some divine connection with the universe (although that can be a nice bonus if you can receive such a gift). Meditation is about keeping your mind focused on one thing and one thing only and anytime your thoughts start to wonder, stray, and go walkabout you bring yourself back to centre which is your original thought that you were focusing on.
Meditation comes in all forms and sizes:
- Sitting
- Standing
- Walking
- Gardening
- Paddle boarding
- Dancing
- Sports
Whatever experience you can have that will keep you focused on one thing and crowd out all other thoughts you can make into a meditative and mindfulness practise.
The key words here are regular, daily, consistent, and practise.
Meditation and mindfulness they’re like everything else in life. You don’t just take one breath, or sleep for one night, or eat just one meal, you must breathe, sleep, and eat consistently in order to live and learning to enhance and improve your levels of awareness takes time, takes effort, and it’s an ongoing practise.
There’s a brilliant book by Daniel Goleman called Emotional Intelligence that gives great insight into how your emotions influence your life and how they influence your intelligence.
There’s a saying:
“When emotions are high, intelligence is low.”
Meaning your levels of emotion determine your levels of intelligence, which brings us back to my original statement about how emotions run your life.
Don’t be scared to get angry. Use that anger to learn and grow and change to improve your life and other people’s lives.
Don’t be thinking that happiness is some tangible external object that you must get. With practise you can choose happiness whenever you feel you need it.
By learning from anger and choosing happiness sooner rather than later you can make yourself a very smart and intelligent human being indeed.
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