How I changed my life for the positive

Apparently my subconscious mind has been simply yammering away at decoding why it is I am so recently able to be positive.  I really hadn’t dedicated much more thought to spelling it out, but I woke up this morning with a very nearly complete picture in my mind.  So now I figure that I need to get it down on “paper” before it fades.  I know this is something so many people struggle with I may be able to dedicate and flesh this out into another book, which would be a huge accomplishment for me.  So here goes.  I am gonna brain shotgun this all out, and hope that at least some parts of it can help you in your quest.

First, I think the part that is most often overlooked with depression, stress or positivity is the physical.  Some people think that depression and stress will manifest as an imbalance of brain chemicals, and are willing to treat it with pills.  I believe it is a chemical cause, but I have always refused to simply take the pills.  I know that our body is a contained system.  If something is in error, it is because something that needs to be put into it is lacking.  We really are a great big engine that is fueled by our food.  Two things I have learned recently that affected me are that an overgrowth of candida yeast in the guts causes depression symptoms in the brain, and also low thyroid function causes depression as well.  I have solved these issues in recent years by going paleo, which starved out the candida yeast.  I then hit that with some healthy doses of probiotics to build the good guys back up in there, and that helps a lot.  I recently also have been taking some thyroid supplements to boost my thyroid levels higher, which is doing wonders for my positivity and my energy as well.  Also, the human brain is essentially cholesterol and water, so as I have done away with the grains and sugars (and now caffeine) I have felt my memory and my emotional state improving in leaps and bounds.

This is not meant to be a diatribe on what you should do for your diet, but this is what I have done“, and the physical is a huge part.  If you are at all feeling not how you want to mentally.  If you are having trouble sleeping, trouble stopping the racing mind in the evening, trouble motivating yourself to fight on, I would highly suggest working with my friend Dr. Stephen Lewis over at http://www.drsnutrition.org/.  I am not someone that trusts doctors at all.  Cause I think they don’t listen.  This is a guy who talks to me by phone or email at least once a week, and actually listens.  He takes all diet and environmental factors into consideration, and will cure these things naturally using herbs, but also using testing to verify the cause and the treatment.  This isn’t shot in the dark witchcraft, this is actual scientific process.  Which is something I wish more natural healers would use, since we all know the stuff works.

So the big starting point to me needs to be the physical, but that’s certainly not the only thing  I woke up with several techniques that I didn’t even realize that I use on a regular basis, and I now have better words to describe them.  Also, as you may or may not know about my belief system, I have always taken the bible very literally.  If I hadn’t, some of my experiences in Tucson would have rubbed my nose in that fact, but that’s a story for another day.  I believe that God’s word can be taken as no less than an instruction manual for how I should live my life.  I have not always lived up to those standards, but having this perspective has been the key to combating this problem in my own mind.  As Jesus said in John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me.

The first thing I realized was that i was always afraid.  Period.  It didn’t matter when or why, but I always felt fear.  I could feel it as a physical manifestation, draining the heat from my face, tightening my chest, my hands and feet going numb, I was always afraid.  That is not normal.  I first examined, and realized this fear was baseless.  There was no reason to be this afraid.  So I went seeking the answer.  2nd Timothy 1:7 says For God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness; but of power and love and discipline.  Thus any fear, or stress, or anxiety is not sent to us by God, but is a negative spirit sent to use from elsewhere.  There are varying degrees you can take this to in both belief and action, but at the very minimum, it becomes easier to block out these feelings of self doubt if you almost picture them as a little troll like neighbor shouting bad things at you over a fence.  I have often taken these thoughts to a further conclusion, but that’s where they need to start.

 

The second facet to being positive, it to constantly set your life for a simple success.  It is easy to feel positive when you feel like you are accomplishing our life’s mission.  So perhaps we need to define out mission in such a way that it is easy to succeed.  We can wrap ourselves as tightly as we want into specific goals.  I need to comp sales 15%.  I need to pay off my debt in 5 years.  I need to get promoted.  Yet in the end, these are all ephemeral.  The only lasting impact we have on this planet is the impact we make on other people, and on our surroundings.  Thus, I ensure that I leave every place I go better than I found it, and I ensure that I have a positive impact on every person I encounter.  As Hebrews 13:2 says, Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares and Matthew 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me.

 Again, these two things can take several forms depending on your desires.  For me, leaving the place better than I found it has manifested in my love of permaculture, and trying to create sustainable living systems for people.  I also planted trees everywhere I have lived.  I even use my knowledge of permaculture to apply to business principles to make them more sustainable and thus able to provide for more people moving forward.  In terms of making people better, that really depends on the relationship involved.  With a customer, my first goal is to make them smile.  Then to make them laugh.  Lastly, its to solve their problem.  Even if I can’t solve the problem, I have made their life better by smiling, thus I have achieved something.  With an employee, my goal was always to teach.  Something.  Anything.  Have them leave the interaction with more knowledge than they had at the beginning.  I wouldn’t pick up the phone and call them if I didn’t have something to teach.  This prevents dead air and frustration, and makes it very easy to have positive interactions.  It also makes folks look forward to interacting with you, because they will quickly come to see the value in it.

 

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, is the need to simply let go.  I realized that I would spend far too much time in my day, agonizing over things that i had done years in the past.  Some of them major screw ups, but most of them were just stupid things that I had done or said at one point, and that I guarantee no one on earth even remembered happening except for me.  Why the hell would I do that?  That’s accomplishing nothing, because once something is done, you can’t undo it.  You are merely wrapping up neurons in your head that can be used for something else, and you are constantly wallowing in a negative place.  Matthew 6:5 says But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.  Just as important as forgiving others is forgiving yourself.  There is nothing at all to be gained by wallowing in a negative space.

This one was the hardest for me.  I was not a forgiving person, I liked to hold a grudge because I valued myself as a person enough to know that I was worthy of better.  Yet in the end, I was only making myself miserable.  So I actually wanted to know why.  I was unable to find the article I had read initially, but I am sure there are dozens out there now.  I found this one today.  http://lindagraham-mft.net/resources/published-articles/the-neuroscience-of-attachment/ which hits on the same material.  Our minds out shaped very young, and it determines the initial setup of the brain, but more important, is that we never lose the ability to rewire ourselves.  If we keep using the same patterns over and over, we won’t change, but we can at any point in our lives push ourselves into new ways of thinking and literally rewire our own brains.`There are literally more neural pathways in the brain then their are atoms in the universe.  God doesn’t want us squandering that incredible gift on keeping old scores alive.  He isn’t telling us that we can’t get into heaven if we die with a grudge, we are fallen creatures, of course we will get some stuff wrong.  He was using that passage to literally tell us how to set ourselves free.  Once that key turned for me, it was like the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders.  Not only more positive, but hell, I felt like I had more time available to me.  It literally changed everything.

So that’s what I got so far.  This information has now been cauterized from my brain and laid to rest for now.  I do believe I will expand it into a book, as we can’t be the only people who are struggling with such things in their lives.  I hope that I can use this to make the life better of everyone who reads it.  Most importantly, I hope at least some grain of it can help you.

My No Shave November Journey

Well my friends, I have finally bowed to socially conscious peer pressure.  I generally manage to avoid all trends and fads that lead to people doing things that make themselves feel like they helped, while not actually accomplishing anything.  I don’t wear pink in October because of my long-standing dislike of the Susan G Komen foundation.  I didn’t wear a yellow wrist band in support of a doping cancer survivor.  I didn’t dump ice over my head because I don’t like being wet or cold.  However, mainly because of a quiet post from a respected friend on my personal Facebook feed, I have decided to cave and participate in No Shave November #Letitgrow.  However, I just wouldn’t be me, if I didn’t try to use what limited platform I have earned in this life to make an actual difference.

So first off, for the four of you that haven’t heard what it is, No Shave November is the month when men stop shaving their facial hair and use the money they “save” by not shaving and donate it to the cancer charity of their choice.  The one most commonly suggested on the No Shave site is the American Cancer Society.  Then, just like in a relay for life, you can get your beard sponsored by other people who believe in your follicles doing good for the universe.  I guess women could skip shaving as well, but it’s probably not the kind of photo that would spark massive support on the internet.

My freshly shaven November 1st Mug

None of this to me is a bad thing, so don’t mistake my occasionally snarky tone, or the issues I am about to raise as being anti-charity.  I am a huge fan of viral giving and making a difference where possible in the lives of others.  Also, I can’t very well criticize an organization whose hashtags and marketing engine I am going to use in my own posts, as that would just make me a hypocrite.  I just have huge issues with what I feel is the collective idiocy that we as a society have when it comes to cancer.  The myths, half-truths, lies and misinformation that comes pouring out from the medical community sometimes leaves me breathlessly angry, because I feel it is a collective betrayal of the global public.  Your average person that has not educated themselves on health goes to the doctor and trusts in them to provide guidance on the correct solution.  Yet your average doctor simply signs you up for a round of toxic chemicals coursing through your body, invasive surgery and horrible radiation.   The first chemo therapy treatment was done in 1956, according to cancer.org, you can’t tell me that we couldn’t have come up with a better way to treat this by now if we really wanted to.  The only way to turn the corner on what is truly an epidemic is to educate ourselves better on what is really happening.

So what set me off?  In the course of researching for my own knowledge just a few days ago, I came across a campaign slogan for cancer detection that shot me over the moon.  Early detection is the cure.  Oh really now?  Explain to me how in any universe that holds water.  If you have detected something, you HAVE it.  The entire goal of any of this should be to keep this plague as far away from your body as possibly.  If you have detected it, it’s too late.  So why are we billing that as the ultimate solution?  Why are we not educating ourselves on how to keep our bodies healthy so that we don’t need detection?  Because it’s not flashy, it’s not sexy, it’s not easy, and it doesn’t make a good T-Shirt slogan or call to action for armies of bright-eyed volunteers out there.  It might also represent personal empowerment instead of a corporate panacea, and we just couldn’t have that.

So what have I learned about cancer, and what am I doing with the information?

Most importantly, there is no cure, because there is no single cause. So what causes cancer?  Everything, basically.  Toxins in the environment, radiation from sources like microwaves and cellphones, your diet (specifically processed foods), extra hormones in the body (cancer cells feed on estrogen), smoking, drinking, drugs, plastics (BPA is terrible).  All that stuff sounds a little difficult to deal with, and it is, so rather than tackle the hydra of issues in their lives that are causing this, they pour money down the rabbit hole of radiation and surgery in the hope of creating a magic pill that makes it all go away.  The solution is never going to be simple, because the cause isn’t simple.

What can we do about it?  Change your life, often drastically.  The good news is that the changes you need to make to prevent cancer are all things your really should be doing anyway.  Change your diet.  Processed foods are bad.  Go look up all those chemicals in the food that you don’t know what they do.  Find out how many are carcinogenic.  Also, cut out dairy and wheat.  Dairy is just loaded with estrogen causing hormones which give cancer a place to thrive in the body, even if the milk doesn’t have rBST.  Wheat causes rampant inflammation in the body, and inflamed cells are more prone to growths.  Get rid of your microwave, on what level is t hat a good thing to do with food?  Get rid of plastic, BPA in your body causes excess estrogen, it’s never a good thing to have around.  You will feel healthier no matter what, and lower your cancer risk at the same time.

So what am I doing for No Shave November?  I am going to use this opportunity to benefit those I feel are actually helping America to beat cancer, whether they know it or not.  I am also going to use my platform and my journey to try to convince others to do so as well.  I have selected two organizations that I feel are doing tremendous good in the world to advance the fight against cancer.  If I am successful in my quest to make it through the entirety of November without shaving, I will donate $100 each to the two organizations I have selected.  If my willpower gives out, I will donate $150 each, just as a built-in incentive to succeed.  I will blog periodically about my progress, information I have learned, ways you can get involved, and how incredibly itchy my face is.

So who have I selected.  Organization number one is the Gerson Institute.  Dr Gerson researched and discovered a treatment for cancer using diet to tune your body and fight it off naturally.  Dr Gerson was then assassinated by Arsenic poisoning to keep his methods from being popularized and going mainstream.  His daughter has now carried on their work and brought hope to thousands of patients.  This is documented in a movie The gerson miracle, that is well worth the 90 minutes if you are interested in learning.  Their website also has lots of good free information as well.  Organization number two is the Farm to Table Legal Defense Fund.  While not a cancer fighting institution in the traditional sense, they certainly are doing great things to help protect the natural diets so key in fighting cancer.  In recent years government over reach into the food supply has reached insane levels.  The defense fund is doing their best to provide farmers with the weapons to fight back against the government and do their best to turn the tide.

What can you do?  Nothing, everything, or some step in between.  Join me in donating to these two organizations.  Pick your own organizations to donate to, just make sure they support what you believe in and aren’t just marketing.  Change your diet.  Change your life.  Tell others the truth about cancer.  Start your own No Shave Journey.  The future is what you make of it, and you will be just old a month from now if you do something as if you don’t.  So get up and make it count.

Radish Pickle Follow up

So admittedly Jenn and I have been on a kick lately for pickling things.  We really can’t wait until it’s fall crop time so we can pickle our own beets.  I don’t know what it is, maybe the heat of the summer leaching something out, but I can’t get enough of eating these things.  Could be replacing some sort of imbalance in my body.

Anyway, after the bumper harvest of even more radishes this morning, we decided to make a second batch of pickles, since the others ones are so far along.  It wouldn’t work out quite right to have them this far apart in relative pickling age and to stack them up now.  We also wanted to go for a slightly sweeter recipe than we did last time, since the radishes were a bit bigger, we figured they would be spicier as well.

So here is our recipe this time.

Sweeter Pickled Radishes:

1 Teaspoon of whole peppercorns

A heaping teaspoon of minced garlic

A rounded teaspoon of dill

Half a teaspoon of kosher salt

3 teaspoons of honey

Splash of unfiltered apple cider vinegar

Add a little white vinegar to allow you to swish it around and mix it all up at the bottom of the jar.  At this point you should be tasting your mixture to see if it is the flavor you are going for.  If it is, go ahead and add enough white vinegar to fill up the jar to the desired level for your radishes.  It’s much easier to fine tune the flavorings when the mixture is smaller.

So far the mixture is delicious.  Jenn sliced up the radishes and put them in the mixture so they can absorb the flavor.  So far so good.

A quick follow up too.  Here is what our other batch looks like 5 days in.

You can see the red color is leaching off of the radishes.  Upon tasting them, they are getting even more excellent.  They would be absolutely awesome on a hot dog.  They were great with some sausage the other day, but I know a hot dog would just light up with these babies.  Any of the radishy sharpness is long gone, and they just taste amazing.

What we really need to do is get some apple cider vinegar with mother, so that we can make our own PRObiotic pickled things.  I don’t know if that will affect the taste or not, but they will be even healthier that way.   I can’t wait.