Walk and Talk

One “who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

A friend sent this my way. I have passed it on to several clients. I wonder if it will resonate with you as well:
To “let go” does not mean to stop caring,
it means I can’t do it for someone else.
To “let go” is not to cut myself off,
it’s the realisation I can’t control another.
To “let go” is not to enable,
but to allow learning from natural consequences.
To “let go” is to admit powerlessness,
which means the outcome is not in my hands.
To “let go” is not to try to change or blame another,
it’s to make the most of myself.
To “let go” is not to care for but to care about.
To “let go” is not to fix, but to be supportive.
To “let go” is not to judge,
but to let another be a human being.
To “let go” is not to be in the middle, arranging all the
outcomes, but allow others to effect their own destinies.
To “let go” is not to be protective,
it’s to permit another to face reality.
To “let go” is not to deny, but to accept.
To “let go” is not to nag, scold, or argue,
but instead to search out my own shortcomings
and correct them.
To “let go” is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes, and to cherish
myself in it.
To “let go” is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future.
To “let go” is to fear less and love more.
– Anonymous

I was reading an article in livehappy magazine while awaiting an appointment. Here are some great reminders when you are feeling a little down:

1. Do a couple of minutes of jumping jacks. Aerobic exercise boosts one’s positive mood.
2. Call a friend or a family member. A conversation with a friend can have a lasting positive effect, increasing your energy and cultivating motivation.
3. Write down three things that you are grateful for. The effects of this five- minute activity can last up to 6 months!
4. Imagine the best-case outcome for your near future. Think positively (and realistically), and positive emotions will be delivered!
5. Set an intention for the day. This will give you a sense of purpose for the day, and an opportunity to be consistent in the way you interact with the world.

As Jeff Olson says in The Slight Edge, “easy to do, easy not to do.” How do you choose to live your life?

I have been reading Susan Jeffers’ book, Feel The Fear…And Do It Anyway. It is an excellent read. Here are a couple of gems:

“At the bottom of every one of your fears is simply the fear that you can’t handle whatever life may bring you.”

And the truth is that you can, in fact, handle whatever comes your way. It may not be comfortable, but you can handle it.

Your brain is set up for safety, and there is comfort in safety. If something is in the realm of the unknown, which are all challenges, there will be discomfort and your subconscious brain will try and get you to put on the brakes and seek safety/comfort. What your subconscious brain does not know, which Jeffers articulates well in her book, is that “people who refuse to take risks live with a feeling of dread that is far more severe than what they would feel if they took the risks necessary to make them less helpless.”  True helplessness is in fact a safety alert that will send your brain into survival mode. So the message is, feel the fear (which is not true danger but simply your feelings of helplessness), and do it anyway!

Jeffers’ Five Truths about Fear

1. The fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow.
2. The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it.
3. The only way to feel better about myself is to go out…and do it.
4. Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I’m on unfamiliar territory, so is everyone else.
5. Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.

I read this on Facebook today, and it really resonated with me:

“It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There’s almost no such thing as ready. There’s only now. And you may as well do it now. I mean, I say that confidently as if I’m about to go bungee jumping or something – I’m not. I’m not a crazed risk taker. But I do think that, generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”   – Hugh Laurie

Be brave and dive into your dreams.

I am reading Jeff Olson’s The Slight Edge. This is an excellent read that I will start buying for all my friends and family members. In the section I am currently reading, he talks about a conference he attended where Dr. Seligman (founder of positive psychology) presented evidence showing a direct correlation between attitude and health. Using around 40,000 words in over 80 million tweets, the study showed that those with heart attacks commonly used “expressions of anger, hostility and aggression, as well as disengagement and lack of social support, including ‘mad, alone, annoying, can’t, mood, bored, tired’ – and a slew of words that I can’t repeat here.”

The words that correlated with low incidence of heart attacks included, “morning, fabulous, helpful, share, running, forward, great, interesting, lunch, discussion, seems.”

Need I say more?

In my endless attempts to keep refined sugars out of my diet through consciousness, I find this passage in Udo Erasmus’s book, Fats that Heal Fats that Kill, quite helpful:

Refined sugars shorten life span, partly through their tendency to produce fats. They rob our bodies of minerals (especially chromium, potassium, magnesium, and zinc) and vitamins (especially Bs). They prevent mobilization of essential fatty acids from storage. They stress our pancreas and adrenal glands. They produce hard fats and cholesterol that interfere with insulin function, inhibit our immune system, interfere with the transport of vitamin C, feed yeasts (such as candida), feed bacteria that produce acid which dissolves the minerals in our teeth, and cross-link skin proteins causing wrinkling. They also produce free radicals that may escape from confinement and cause random degenerative reactions.

 Exclusion of refined sugars from our diet slows aging and lengthens life span.

It’s that simple.

I recently read Udo Erasmus’s book, Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill. It’s a tough read at times – lots of chemistry – but I would like to pass on a couple of gems I have gleaned from it.

“Laughter is such an effective form of exercise that it has been called inner jogging.”

Since I read that, I have been conscious of allowing myself a true belly laugh whenever I get the opportunity. A simple smile just doesn’t do it. Go for it; it feels great!

Udo also talks about the necessities of a healthy life: a wholesome diet, activity, “the fun is as important as the exercise” , relaxation, rest, inner quiet and faith and trust in life.

“Faith in life is of key importance because it makes the challenges of wholesome living in a complex, often confusing, sometimes contradictory, usually hectic, and occasionally unbearably stupid, corrupt, and hateful world easier and worth the effort.”

And finally this quote from Udo, which seems to sum up what I am hoping to instil during my Walk and Talk sessions:

“A sunny disposition, inner peace, laughter, and freedom from fear, anxiety, worry, and depression” all contribute to a healthy life.

To your health.

I read an interesting passage in Joe Dispenza’s book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, which I wanted to share. It explains through brain-wave development how we come to internalize so deeply messages that we received as small children.

Dispenza writes that “between birth and two years old, the human brain functions primarily in the lowest brain-wave levels”, known as Delta waves. At this stage the brain is functioning primarily from the subconscious. “Information from the outside world enters (the brain) with little editing, critical thinking, or judgment taking place. The thinking brain — the Neocortex, or conscious brain — is operating at very low levels at this point.”

Theta brain waves begin from the age of two to five or six. These waves are faster than the Delta waves and children are “primarily connected to their internal world. They live in the abstract and in the realm of imagination, and exhibit few of the nuances of critical, rational thinking. Thus, young children are likely to accept what you tell them. At this stage, phrases such as the following have a huge impact: Big boys don’t cry. Girls should be seen and not heard. Your sister is smarter than you. If you get cold, you’ll catch a cold. These types of statements go straight to the subconscious mind, because these slow brain-wave states are the realm of the subconscious.”

“Between ages five and eight, brain waves change again, to an Alpha frequency….  Children in this age- group typically have a foot in both worlds — the inner world of imagination and the outer world of reality.”

Beta waves go on from ages 8 to 12 and then on throughout adulthood, and “are representative of conscious, analytical thinking. After age 12, the door between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind usually closes.”

Most of us probably have some old messages lodged in our brains, stuck there when we were young and unquestioning. Can you remember any of those childhood “truths” that could be removed with some rewiring? If you want to change those old messages and re-wire your brain, you need to move into slower brain-wave states.

How?

1. Meditation

2. Take a walk and talk with me.

If that last post didn’t inspire you, here is one more that just might (also found in gratitude prayers):

Happiness

           She loves West Tenth Street on an

            ordinary summer morning.

- Michael Cunningham, The Hours

And I love this ordinary summer afternoon,

sitting underneath my cherry tree full of overripe fruit,

too much for us to pick, an abbondanza of a tree,

I love this dark gray catbird singing its awkward

song, and the charcoal clouds promising rain

they don’t deliver. I love the poem I’ve been trying

to write for months, but can’t; I love the way

it’s going nowhere at all. I love the dried grass

that crackles when you walk on it,

leached of color, its own kind of fire.

Way off in the hedgerow, the musical olio

of dozens of birds, each singing its own song,

each beating its own measure. This is all there is:

the red cherries, the green leaves, sky like a pale

silk dress, and the rise and fall of the sweet

breeze. Sometimes, just what you have

manages to be enough.

- Barbara Crooker