Life on Earth was designed to evolve. That’s why we’re here,,,for the ever-changing opportunities to experience life and grow in our humanness. Yet as we move through daily life, we seem to have forgotten the fundamental principle that makes growth possible.
I think it’s fair to say that most of us, me included, fall into the trap of wanting things to remain the same. That’s not surprising, because no-change feels like security. Life seems easier when we know what to expect and how to navigate it.
The desire for the security of sameness causes us to cling to how things are. The more they change, the tighter we cling to them—No, no, don’t go, stay the same. The energy it takes to fuel this resistance is then no longer available for the rest of living, and ends up causing misery and dissatisfaction to varying degrees.
Mindshift…
It is not just you or me—the desire for permanence is baked into the story of Western cultures. It surrounds us in the same way that water surrounds a fish in its usual habitat. And like the fish, we aren’t even aware of how we’re affected by what we are immersed in.
Eastern philosophies are more in tune with the law of impermanence. But for most Westerners, accepting the truth of impermanence requires a mindshift.
Not all Westerners, though. The video below shows a group of people in action on Tenby Beach in Wales, apparently not at all bothered by the reality of impermanence.
To see more stunning sand circles coming and going, visit the YouTube channel of their mastermind, Marc Treanor.
The first time I watched this, my knee-jerk reaction was to wonder how they could put all that work into a beautiful sand circle whose disappearance was both imminent and inevitable.
My second thought was: Hold on a minute! That is a metaphor for life.
Mind-shift…
Here’s what I think we can learn from those folks on the beach:
Accept impermanence. Revel in the process of doing and creating rather than in ownership of the result.
And what about the loss of security?
Security is an inside job.
In an ever-changing world, we will never find security outside ourselves. We need to cultivate it within, and there are tools to help us do that.
Energy activations are a good place to start. Energy activations are designed to enliven (activate) an aspect of your energy field. The words communicate directly with the field, guiding it to a new formation as needed.
This builds your field in a way that you can tap into your inner resources to guide you as you navigate any experience as it arises.
Experiment with listening to it once or twice every day for the next week and see what happens. First thing in the morning and last at night is an easy routine for many people to make this happen.
*** Time for this post? Reading…a couple minutes. Viewing…15 minutes. Changing your attitude…no time at all.
I started an exploration of fear of aging with Scilla Elworthy’s perspective. Today’s post is about a common fear that she didn’t mention—losing authority over our lives. It happens. More, and sooner, than it needs to in many cases.
***Time for this post? Reading…8 minutes. Viewing…2 minutes. Sifting and sorting…as much as you want to.
Last week I wrote about knowing when enough is enough. That post was about medical treatments at the end of life. However, the concept of “enough” also applies to our possessions, and that’s what I’m addressing today.
In either case, determining what is enough—and what is excess—challenges us to think about our values, what’s important to us, what we cherish.
*** Time for this post? Reading… 7 minutes. Implementing… however long it takes to make the call that gets the ball rolling.
Most of us cringe when we think about making our wills.
Such a pain! Don’t even want to think about it. I know that I should…and I will do it… one of these days.
“One of these days” doesn’t come for all of us.
Some die suddenly and the family is left scrambling to find out what is where.
Others find themselves very ill, debilitated, and in the hospital—with family members delicately trying to find out if there is a will without appearing to hope the person will die so they can get their inheritance.
Not a pretty sight, and not what any of us would want if we were thinking rationally.
Interesting thing about death, though…
The topic of dying tends to evoke irrational responses. Here are a few reasons for this. What would you add? Continue reading →
In this culture, where technology makes a lot of things possible and affordable, we North Americans are inclined to embrace new things wholeheartedly. Some would say we’ve thrown caution to the wind in the rush toward new and improved.
If we stopped to take a breath, we might decide that sometimes the precautionary principle is called for. The Canadian Environmental Law Association has defined it this way: “The precautionary principle denotes a duty to prevent harm, when it is within our power to do so, even when all the evidence is not in.”
[tweetshare tweet=”Instead of asking how much harm we are willing to permit, the Precautionary Principle asks how little harm is possible.” username=”LauranaRayne”]
Sometimes it takes a number of years for harm to show up. By then, many people have been affected. By the time we experience these unintended consequences, the product is entrenched in such a way that banning it becomes an epic struggle. Bisphenol A (BPA) is one example. Read this blog for more about toxic ingredients in non-food items we use regularly.
We’d like to think that scientists can do a study and find definitive proof of the safety (or not) of a product. Not so. Scientific uncertainty is a fact of life, and scientists word their statements cautiously.
Years ago, when I was investigating the relationship between food additives and children’s behaviour, I watched a film in which a highly placed Canadian health official talked about food additives and safety. He said, “We can never definitely prove safety. At the most, we can say that, in the quantities given and under the conditions of the test, a particular additive is probably not unsafe.”
I remember his statement so vividly because it was one of those pivotal moments when a bubble burst for me. Before then, I had lived under the happy illusion that if something had been tested and approved, then it was clearly safe for consumption. In that moment, I realized this is not true. Stating that something is “probably not unsafe” is quite different from providing an assurance that it is safe.
Preventing harm…
By allowing new products to be widely used until proven harmful, we become inadvertent test subjects. What if we changed our attitude and created a culture of preventing harm instead? We could ask how little harm is possible instead of how much harm we are willing to permit. The precautionary principle is based on this important distinction.
[tweetshare tweet=”Instead of waiting for proof that something is harmful, what if we created a culture of preventing harm?” username=”LauranaRayne”]
Originating in Germany in the 1970s, the precautionary principle has now become part of international law. We can hope that our governments will use this principle to guide their decisions and avoid unintended negative consequences from new chemicals being introduced into our food and environment.
In reality, this doesn’t always happen. Many products in the marketplace are detrimental to our health and well-being. So it’s important that we take individual action to look after ourselves. That’s what healthy deviance is about.
But we need to keep a sense of proportion…
Conscious consumption challenges us to choose judiciously rather than react in a knee-jerk fashion. We need to keep a sense of proportion. Automatically shunning everything new is as shortsighted as mindlessly adopting everything that comes along.
Someone who generally takes a balanced view is Dr. Alan Christianson, a Naturopathic Medical Doctor (NMD) who writes a useful newsletter. One thing I appreciate is that he’s an independent thinker. Rather than repeating the common wisdom, he investigates by reading research studies and forming his own assessment. Sometimes he does a direct investigation himself.
In the video below, he is looking into the level of electromagnetic fields generated by appliance and devices in his house. Many of us wonder if we should turn our wi-fi off when it’s not in use, or if we should be concerned about carrying a cellphone in our pocket. He measures these and much more.
The video received a lot of response, so the following week he posted another one to answer the questions that arose.
I’m curious what you think. Looking forward to comments.
For a long time, I have thought that we live in a culture where “normal” is the lowest common denominator and, therefore, not something I want to aim for.
[tweetshare tweet=”Food for thought…It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society. Krishnamurti” username=”LauranaRayne”]
I thought I was alone in my opinion—until I heard and interview with Pilar Gerasimo. She is a health journalist and change agent best known for her work as founding editor of Experience Life, a whole-person healthy living magazine that reaches more than three million people nationwide.
Becoming and staying a healthy person in our culture is tougher than it ought to be. You can’t just roll merrily along with the unhealthy status quo, or you’ll become part of it. You have to maintain a base level of hyper-vigilance just to avoid getting sucked into the dominant-culture machine.
From The Healthy Deviant
Healthy deviance is a term she coined. According to Pilar, it means “being different—in a weirdly healthy, happy way.” She elaborates…
Choosing to be a healthy person in an unhealthy world means becoming an outlier. It means frequently walking against the traffic of a mass-hallucination — and that’s not something most people are prepared to do.
The good news is that we can live outside the “normal” culture without moving to a cave or shunning the good things in modern culture. According to Pilar, healthy deviance is a change in awareness and behaviour that involves…
Waking yourself up and noticing what’s going on within and around you.
Reclaiming your energy, attention and autonomy.
Learning to think differently, choose differently, be different in ways that please you.
Hopping off the conveyor belt and tossing some well-placed wrenches into the dominant-culture machine.
[tweetshare tweet=”Healthy Deviance is choosing to become and remain healthy even in the midst of an unhealthy culture. Pilar Gerisimo ” username=”LauranaRayne”]
The Living Experiment
Pilar has recently teamed up with Dallas Hartwig to produce a podcast called The Living Experiment. Dallas is co-author of The Whole30 and It Starts With Food. He’s a functional medicine practitioner, Certified Sports Nutritionist, and licensed physical therapist
The Living Experiment is one of my favourite podcasts. I appreciate their thoughtful conversations about the issues we encounter in trying to thrive in an unhealthy world. These are some of my favourite topics, but there are many others so scan the list and see what appeals to you.
Purpose vs Pleasure
Eating Meat
Conscious Language
The Health of Others
Conscious Eating
So…I’m interested in your thoughts on the concept of healthy deviance. Can you relate or not? Do you have experience in trying to thrive in an unhealthy world, even though you didn’t call your actions healthy deviance? I’d love your comments if you have anything to share about this post.
Because I write about alternative approaches to health, I suspect some readers may think I’m opposed to everything conventional. Today I’d like to set the record straight.
[tweetshare tweet=”Out-of-hand rejection of conventional medicine would be as shortsighted as never considering alternative practices.” username=”LauranaRayne”]
When I’m working toward resolution of a health issue, it’s so much more constructive to consider all available options and adopt those that best suit me and the situation at hand. The considerations could include surgery and prescription medications offered by conventional medicine, in conjunction with the holistic perspective and nutritional knowledge of functional practitioners.
Case in point…
I recently had cataract surgery. Removing a cloudy lens and putting in a new one is an amazing procedure. I greatly appreciate living in a time and place where this surgery is readily available.
Cataracts are not an emergency; they develop over time. When the optometrist first noticed mine, I asked if there was anything I could do. “No,” she said. “When they progress far enough, I’ll refer you to an ophthalmologist for removal.” And that’s what she did.
In the year I waited for the ophthalmologist to have an opening in his surgical schedule, I had time to think. And I kept coming back to the idea that there must be something I could do. If not to change the course of the cataracts, then at least to help my eyes be as healthy as possible before the procedure was undertaken. I needed advice from someone who took a holistic view.
I spoke to my functional medicine doctor, who referred me to a functional optometrist. A functional optometrist has traditional training as a doctor of optometry, with additional courses in functional medicine. She knew everything my previous optometrist did, and more.
[tweetshare tweet=”When choosing how to treat health issues, a both/and mindset gives us a huge advantage.” username=”LauranaRayne”]
From her broad base of information, the functional optometrist advised me that my somewhat-fragile eyes would benefit from specific supplements. I brought the list home, muscle tested to find out what would be optimum for me, and took them regularly.
It’s now two weeks after the second eye was done. The procedures went well, and I had no pain at all. I’m both continuing the supplements and applying several eye drops multiple times a day as prescribed. So far, so good.
Different thinking…
I’ve been told that I don’t think like other people. I take that as a compliment. Since the way I think comes naturally to me, I sometimes puzzle over what is different and why.
What’s different? I think it’s that I’m eclectic. Here’s the first definition that came up when I searched. I’d say both aspects apply to how I think.
ec·lec·tic
1. deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources. “her musical tastes are eclectic”
2. PHILOSOPHY: of, denoting, or belonging to a class of ancient philosophers who did not belong to or found any recognized school of thought but selected…as they wished from various schools.
I draw from the resources around me, and bring together elements that are best suited to me in my situation. This means that I don’t buy into any particular point of view. For example, when the first optometrist said there was nothing to be done, I recognized that as the conventional mindset. I knew it had a limited focus, and didn’t accept it as the only possibility. I was open to finding more options than were offered by that practitioner.
Researching options…
A lot of my blogging has been about alternative means of resolving health issues. I present this information with a view to helping others expand their sense of what is possible. In the works: A resource guide to bring these resources together in one easily accessible, user-friendly format.
Checking options against your needs…
As I mentioned in my eye story, when I was given a list of eye-related supplements to take, I checked to see what my body needed at the time. Recommendations are always based on averages, so checking allows me to optimize the information as it applies to me. Doing this enables me to proceed with confidence. For more about how to check what your body needs, refer to my blogs here and here.
Pre- and post-operative care…
In my experience, which includes two major surgeries before the above-mentioned cataract procedure, patients receive little advice about what they should do before or after surgery—other than no food or water for a specified time before going to the hospital, and taking any prescribed medications once you are sent home.
Because it’s treated so casually, we don’t really appreciate how invasive and disruptive the surgical experience is. Yet there is so much we can do to reduce the impact of surgery and foster healing afterwards. Restorative measures include:
Nutrition and supplements
Probiotics to mitigate effect of antibiotics
Herbals and homeopathics
Meditation to reduce anxiety and discomfort
Energy practices like Chi gong and tai chi
Acupuncture and acupressure
Movement and gentle exercise
There’s plenty online material to expand your awareness of what to consider. If you search for “pre-and post operative instructions” you’ll get lists of standard recommendations from hospitals, clinics, and universities. If you want to tap into alternative approaches and holistic thinking, try “functional approach to recovering from surgery.”
Here is a comprehensive article from a website I respect. This site focuses on paleo eating, but don’t let that throw you. The article covers important aspects of recovery and contains plenty of sensible advice. I would add…ask family and friends to help, both before and after. What you need will depend on many factors.
Be realistic and plan accordingly as one of my friends did when she was scheduled for a procedure that required a day of rigorous and unpleasant advance preparation. Although she probably could have toughed it out and made her way through it alone, she enlisted help from two friends. One came to spend the day, facilitating the process in a number of ways. I arrived late in the afternoon, stayed overnight, took her to the hospital in the morning, brought her home, warmed up some lunch, and stayed until I was sure the sedative had worn off and she would be okay on her own.
A few days later, she commented how much better the experience was than it might have been. I was glad to help, and she gets full marks for recognizing what she needed and asking for it. This little plaque, and the Beatles, remind us that we all need a little help from our friends sometimes.
Enlist an advocate…
We should also think about who we can ask to advocate for us in the hospital. The need for such a person isn’t top of mind before surgery, when we are clear-headed and feeling capable. But once we are in the hospital, that changes.
The system is set up to be disempowering. I was surprised how much I lost my get-up-and-go once I had changed into the short ugly gown that gaped at the back no matter how tightly I tied the two pairs of strings. And once I’d had anesthetic and pain killers, I felt feeble in both brain and body. Certainly, I wasn’t in any shape to effectively look after myself and my interests.
For more about the systemic issues, read this article by David Katz, a medical doctor with a 25-year clinical career, writing on the topic after a family member was hospitalized. His experience is in the US, so there are some structural differences from what we experience in Canada. But the fundamental premises and resulting attitudes are similar.
The system – overwhelmed, understaffed, and itself a victim of misguided priorities ― is an inadvertent threat to you and your loved ones needing in-patient care…In the current context, our so-called “health care system” is really a system about disease, and money rather than health and caring.
Eye supplements
In case you’re curious, here’s the list of recommendations that were given to me, with amounts where they were specified.
~ DHA 1000 mg, from Omega 3
~ Glutathione
~ N-acetyl cystine 1800 mg, split doses
~ CoQ10 100 mg
~ L-carnitine
~ ALA (alpha-lipoic acid) 100 up to 800 mg
~ Lutein 20 mg …3 cups dark leafy greens will do it but be sure to have 1-2 tsp saturated fat with it (butter or coconut oil) to ensure absorption
I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. It doesn’t mean I don’t accomplish things. But I go about it differently.
The problem with resolutions…
Resolutions are cousins of goals, and both are fraught with similar difficulties. One problem is that goals and resolutions are pass/fail propositions. They come with baggage. You make it or you don’t. If you don’t, you are judged—by yourself and others—as a failure, a bad person, less than.
Another difficulty is the inflexibility of resolutions and goals. Stephen Covey, in First Things First, compared goal-setting to placing a ladder against a wall and resolutely climbing to the top, only to get there and discover you had placed it against the wrong wall and wasted a lot of time and effort getting somewhere you didn’t want to go.
Often the goal was achieved at a cost—the sacrifices that were made to push through and get to where you said you were going. Perhaps there’s an element of character-building when we say we’ll do something and follow through no matter what. But I think we do better when we set up our lives in ways that allow us to respond to changing conditions.
Sticking to old plans isn’t useful in rapidly changing conditions…
I’ve noticed that business researchers are now writing about how important it is for companies to be able to pivot as circumstances change. The same applies to our personal lives. Heaven knows, we are living in times of rapid changes of great magnitude. In the last year there have been numerous occurrences—political, environmental, social—that would have been unthinkable a short time ago.
It’s tempting to act mindlessly…
Goals are easy in that you have rules and parameters along the way, so you can put yourself on autopilot. Psychologist Adam Alter has something to say about that. He’s an Associate Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, and the New York Times bestselling author of two books. In a recent interview he said, “When there’s a goal, humans move mindlessly toward it. This is a principle that’s used to advantage in designing slot machines and video games.”
Alter’s view is that goals are a broken process that can’t help but be unfulfilling, as he explains in this brief video.
His alternative is to set a system that emphasizes the process instead of the far-in-the-future result that seems like an anticlimax when you reach it. This approach gives more immediate reward for effort but, like goals, still has the potential to be inflexible and unresponsive to changing conditions.
We are in times where we can no longer afford the luxury of mindless, knee-jerk, habitual behaviours. My alternative to goals is based on intention and following the energy.
Following the energy is a mindful way of engaging with the activities of life, Setting an intention puts things in motion. You follow the energy by tuning in and being alert for subtle messages as you move through your days. The trick is to not overlook those messages or discount them when they present themselves.
Here’s a mundane example that I know many of us have experienced in some variation: You’re in the store picking up groceries and something catches your attention. It’s an ingredient you rarely use and your mind says, ‘What do you want that for?” Since you haven’t plans to make anything using it, you move on. A couple days later, in the midst of a snow storm, you are cooking dinner for an unexpected houseguest. The recipe calls for—you guessed it—the ingredient you left in the store. If only you had paid attention.
I had my first direct experience of the unfolding path when I went to England for the first time many years ago. I knew I wanted to travel from Schumacher College in Devon to Stonehenge, and had a time frame but no specific itinerary arranged in advance. By paying attention to prompts and information that appeared along the way, I had some surprisingly profound experiences.
This was a revelation to me because until then I had been someone who liked to have every detail nailed down. In the years since then, I’ve come to appreciate that living by intention and following the energy makes for a much more interesting life.
The first step is to cultivate your ability to pay attention to the promptings, your intuition, or however it is they present themselves. Make it your intention to open up to them, and you might be surprised what happens!
How fun is that!? A catchy tune and cute kids. I hope it brought a smile to your heart, even if Christmas isn’t your holiday.
Sometimes it’s helpful to look at the origin of things, behaviours, and practices. It gives us perspective.
This song, for example. I don’t remember it during that time my kids were growing up in the 1970s. It resurfaced a few years ago, but had its origins back in 1953 when 10-year-old Gayla Peevey was invited to sing a new song on Oklahoma television.
I love seeing these two videos in sequence because it reminds me that times have changed.. and yet some things are enduring. I’d say the charm of children and this catchy tune are among them.
Happy holidays, however you celebrate…and even if you don’t get a hippopotamus.
As I pointed out last week, the consumer culture is structured to propel us to buy, buy, and buy even more, without thinking. From the consumer side of the equation, it’s so easy to react mindlessly to the demands of the culture and then find ourselves dealing with the consequences of excess.
Why does overconsumption matter? Because there’s too much collateral damage when purchase decisions are dictated by businesses that have a vested interest in getting us to buy more than we ever thought we needed.
Collateral damage from the profit-at-all-cost paradigm
Over-indebtedness, which leaves us with no capacity to cope with emergencies such as interest rate increases and job losses. In March 2017, Statistics Canada reported that the country’s average household debt-to-income ratio hit a record high of 167%. This means that Canadians owed $1.67 for each $1 they generated in disposable income, In everyday terms, this suggests that many Canadians are living beyond their means or, at best, are just making ends meet.
Environmental impacts, in more ways than most of us can imagine. Air pollution, climate change, and overpopulation are familiar issues, but a list of 25 on Conserve Energy Future reminds us about others such as light and noise pollution, urban sprawl, and medical waste.
Chronic health issues, caused by stress on many levels. Overconsumption leads to the emotional stress of over-indebtedness, the physical stress of eating food contaminated with pesticides and heavy metals, and the mental stress of trying to sort through overwhelming amounts of information in an attempt to figure out what to do to remain financially and physically healthy.
What can we do?
We can start by taking responsibility for our part in this dysfunctional system. As long as we continue purchasing what corporations sell, we are reinforcing their bad behaviour and they will continue doing what they’re doing.
