In the United States and Western Europe, we are caught in a health crisis. Not only is there an obesity epidemic, which leads to increased incidence of certain types of cancer, a range of cardiovascular

diseases and other lifestyle conditions like type 2 diabetes, This is also symptomatic of a deeper range of illnesses.

In the West anti-depressant and anti- anxiety medications are always in the top

ten of annual prescriptions. These products sell in the billions of dollars every single year without fail. On top of that, in the United States in particular, there is an opioid epidemic.

For the longest time, doctors have been prescribing very powerful opiate-based medications. People have gotten used to these. In fact, they’re so dependent that

 

they found a way to unleash the full pain-killing power of prescription medications like OxyContin and hydrocodone.

The result is an opiate epidemic that has resulted in thousands upon thousands of overdose deaths in the United States. The carnage doesn’t look like it’s going to be stopping any time soon.

The common threat that unites all these sad scenarios is the fact that in the West, we have forgotten about wellness. We really have. The traditional Western view of wellness is very restricted and, given what's going on, on the ground, quite short- sighted.

Traditional Western medicine's attitude towards wellness is built on the assumption that the body and the mind are separate. They are not joined, they are not related in any way, but they are separate.

Just as importantly, whatever treatments are created for either body or mind, have to be based on biochemical compounds. In fact, it's only been recently that we have steered towards the direction of biochemistry. Prior to this, it's mostly just hard chemistry.

This idea of the body and mind being separate has led to doctors treating the symptoms but overlooking the disease. It’s impossible to treat the body without addressing the mind and the spirit.

Unfortunately, in the West, the spiritual component of wellness is hardly mentioned at all. In fact, people get really antsy and uncomfortable the moment the idea of spirit enters any conversation. It's like it's completely off-limits to “credible” scientific investigation.

 

On top of all of this, the typical diagnosis for physical ailments leaves out the attitude, mindset as well as emotional configuration of the patient. In fact, it's only been recently that general-practice physicians have factored in lifestyle considerations.

 

In the world of traditional Western medicine, the idea of lifestyle medicine is quite recent. In fact, the medical institutions in Western countries only began taking this very seriously starting in the 1930s, but in a very

substantial way starting in the 1960s.

Prior to those points in time, the whole idea of changing your lifestyle to improve your health outcomes was considered quaint or even superstitious. By and large Western doctors focused on chemicals and surgery to get people better.

Thankfully, we have overcome such thinking because as it turns out, lifestyle provides input to the human body on so many levels. These inputs are not inconsequential. They really go a long way in making you who you are.

 

Accordingly, if there are any problems with these inputs, you are sure to feel the consequences.

This sea of change in the rank-and-file doctors’ impression of lifestyles’

impact on overall health signals a matching change in medical professionals’ view of the body-and-mind connection. Starting in the 1930s and coming to a head in the 1960s and following decades, the previously thought of iron wall between body and mind started to crumble.

Lifestyle is a summation of that because your lifestyle provides inputs on different levels. It provides a nutritional input and a social input. Your work conditions have a very significant impact on your well-being.

Stress can either push you forward or drag you down. This applies across the board. Your ability to mentally focus is part of the equation. Believe it or not your financial state plays a big role as well.

Finally, tying all of this together is your spiritual aspiration. You may not be a particularly religious person, but everybody has a spiritual component regardless of whether we wish to recognize it or not. All of these inputs work together. They flow through each other, and they impact each other in a very significant way.

The big problem here is the fact that human beings are actually being pushed from different angles. All of these are inputs. What you choose to eat in any given day has a tremendous effect on your overall well-being.

 

Take the case of magnesium. Do you feel irritable? Do you feel sad for no reason? Do you often get out of bed in a bad mood? Does it seem like things don't quite work out for you or at least you feel like things aren’t panning out?

Well, you might want to consider the amount of magnesium in your diet. Fairly recent nutritional studies show that deficiencies in magnesium, which a lot of people suffer from, impact a range of mental, emotional and physical states.

The same applies to vitamin D. A lot of people are thinking that vitamin D is a no-brainer. After all, most people have access to sunlight. Well, you have to expose yourself consciously to sunlight at a certain time range.

You can’t just go out at any time and expect your vitamin D levels to be optimal. You actually have to be purposeful in calculating your exposure to sunlight; otherwise, your body is not going to synthesize optimal levels of vitamin D.

According to fairly recent research on this amazing vitamin, vitamin D actually has a wider impact than bone health. It impacts psychological states, moods. In fact, we're still learning the wide range of benefits people get from vitamin D.

Your overall lifestyle determines whether you ingest enough magnesium or you get enough sunlight to enjoy optimal levels of vitamin D. Sadly, a lot of people are experiencing symptoms of deficiencies in these and other

 

vitamins and nutrients, and they have absolutely no clue. They just feel that they are anxious. They can’t sleep well. They have mood imbalances.

Automatically, they think that they need chemicals like antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication. It is no surprise that Americans are overmedicated. It's like trying to kill ants by burning down your house.

I would think that you know that doesn’t make any sense. However, this is precisely the problem that we have when we do not completely realize how important lifestyle choices are.

Social Input

Similarly, you need social input. Did you know that when you connect with people by simply exchanging small talk and generally hanging out and being

comfortable, certain chemicals are released through your system? This calms you down.

In fact, in a very interesting study of people from a town in Italy called Roseto in Foggia province, scientists concluded that even if people were to eat the same high-fat, high-cholesterol diet just like the modern American diet, they can still have great life outcomes.

The secret? Social connection. That's right. Your social inputs can stabilize what would otherwise be negative lifestyle inputs.

 

There is quite a bit of scientific research out there saying that if you eat a high-carb, high-fat, high-cholesterol diet, chances are your life expectancy is not going to be all that good. At the very least, you're going to run into serious health problems as you get older.

Well, it turned out that people from the town of Roseto did not suffer from these problems despite the fact that they enjoyed the typical modern American diet. They eat a lot of cream, fat, you name it.

The secret, however, is that people who come from this town hang out and socialize. This social input goes a long way in stabilizing the system, and I’m not just talking about the physical effects of socialization.

When you socialize, there's a tremendous emotional effect as well. It's very hard to be lonely. It's very hard to feel so disconnected that you want to kill yourself. That usually doesn’t happen when you are in a social environment where people genuinely care about you. When you don't show up, people ask where you’ve been. People look after you. People are curious what you’re up to.

In primate societies, social cohesion is maintained when chimps and monkeys groom each other. Well, we no longer do that on a large scale, but we have a substitute: we talk to each other. It doesn’t have to be big.

You don't have to talk about the heavy, substantive issues of life. Even small talk is enough. Even smiling at each other produces a biochemical response that tends to stabilize mood. Never underestimate the power of social input when it comes to your general physical health.

 

Work Conditions

In the West, there is an ongoing obesity epidemic primarily because in the past thirty years, people are no longer walking around. In the span of a typical eight-hour work day, people are not normally spending a

significant amount of time standing up or moving about.

Instead, most people sit down on a chair and look at a screen. While this has increased work productivity due to software automation and computing power, societies have paid a pretty steep price.

A sedentary lifestyle has a serious effect on your body's ability to heal itself and maintain proper balance. Not surprisingly, recent research studies indicate that failing to stand up for long-enough periods of time can actually lead to long-term, serious health risks. A lot of people got alarmed by those research papers for a good reason because, by and large, people are sitting down for work.

This has led to a movement in many workplaces throughout Western Europe and the United States and other places where office workers can choose to stand up while using a computer. These are called standing desks. These are definitely steps in the right direction because your work conditions do play a very big role in your physical wellness.

 

In terms of your emotional health, being put in charge of a project or being responsible for something with a higher level of accountability, does wonders for your psychological and emotional state. When people work at jobs where there's absolutely no accountability, they eventually feel like they really don't matter all that much.

At some point in time, they feel that the stuff they do doesn't really count, and it’s not a surprise that people in such environments tend to be more susceptible to negative behaviors like alcoholism, drug addiction, overeating, smoking and other negative behaviors.

Stress Inputs

For the longest time, the conventional wisdom about stress is that it is bad across the board.

Whenever the word “stress” comes up, people always assume the

worst. Well, it turns out according to a fairly recent analysis that there is good stress and bad stress.

Good stress enables you to face your limits and overcome them. In other words, you are challenged enough to the point where you are given the opportunity to step up and push the boundaries of your comfort zone. You become a more competent and confident person. This is good stress.

On the other hand, there is stress that grinds you down. This often involves timelines, delivery dates and group projects. You feel less and less

 

competent, and you are more likely to blame other people for your failings or run away from responsibility altogether by “hiding in the crowd”. In other words, you let other people essentially take the heat for the work you should have been doing.

As you can well imagine, this is negative across the board. It doesn’t make you look like a hero in front of other people, and you are not challenging yourself. You're not putting your skills to good use so they start to deteriorate. You become less and less effective.

The worst part to all of this is that your stress avoidance at work makes you even more mentally unprepared to handle stress. Your tolerance for it deteriorates over time the more successful you are in avoiding it.

Again, there is such a thing as healthy stress. It enables you toughen up and step up to take greater and greater levels of responsibility, not just at work but you take responsibility for

your life in general.

Mental Focus

What you choose to focus on

plays a big role in your lifestyle’s inputs. If you keep dwelling on

the past, don't be surprised if two things happen: you don't enjoy your victories now or you get upset because of past perceived harm. Neither of these are good.

 

The problem with the past is that most people use it the wrong way. There’s really only one good reason you should think about the past: you need to use it as a map for the future. Other than that, you end up dragging yourself down and holding yourself back the more you think about things that have already happened.

I don't know about you but I don't have access to that amazing high-tech DeLorean sports car/time machine from the movie “Back to the Future”. That's really the only way you can change the past. Facts already happened. Things already took place. The genie is out of the bottle. There's no way you can put it back in.

Unfortunately, a lot of people keep obsessing about the past with the unstated assumption that the more they think about what happened that somehow some way it will change their present reality. It doesn’t work that way. If anything, it just depresses you, makes you mad, makes you feel that things are unfair and prevents you from seeing the big picture.

You have to understand that even though bad things may have happened to you in the past, you are still responsible for your response to these memories. Are you going to allow them to hold you back? Are you going to allow them to set up impossible standards that get in the way of your present happiness? It's really hard to prepare for the future when all you can do is look at the past and how you have been hurt, mistreated, humiliated, embarrassed or diminished. Stop beating yourself up.

 

Unfortunately, this easily becomes a mental habit. People keep reliving their negative memories because there's some sort of reward for them. Let’s be

honest. You may be thinking to yourself, “I got abused in the past. I had really bad stuff done to me. What kind of reward could I possibly get from that?

Well, if anything, it gives you someone or something to blame. That's a reward.

Think about it. If you think that other people caused your present difficulties or your present inability to move on or change for the better, you're shifting the responsibility to them. When you blame other people, you no longer own this responsibility to change. After all, in your mind, they caused the problem.

However, you pay a big price because when you say that somebody caused the problem in your life, you’re also logically telling yourself that they have the solution. Do you see why this is a problem? It's bad enough trying to change yourself. Can you imagine trying to change their mind?

Also, if the past abuse or harm was done by somebody who has moved on, how are you going to get ahold of them? It would be physically impossible. Moreover, even if you were able to track them down, it's anybody's guess whether they would really want to help you. They’ve moved on with their lives.

Do you see what's wrong with this problem? Do you see what’s wrong with this “mental solution”? You have given them the ability to fix your problems.

When you blame others, you have given them the ability to fix your problems. You’ve handed them control.

 

Refusing to blame and taking responsibility for whatever is wrong or frustrating with your life in the here and now is one of the most powerful acts you can ever take because you are retaking control. You are saying, “The past may not have been my fault, my present is my responsibility. I choose to change what I focus on. I choose to take action on these negative feelings that I have from the past.”

Please understand that mental focus, whether it takes the form in past issues or worries about the future, tends to get worse over time. Why? What you dwell on grows. So, be very careful about what you constantly think about.

Pay attention to your mental patterns because these have emotional, psychological, physical and other inputs.

Financial Input

Stressing out about money impacts your self-confidence which, in turn, impacts your competence and, eventually, your self-esteem. People who stress out about the fact that they do

not have money often reduce themselves based on their current financial state.

Have you ever said to yourself when you're looking at a nice-looking car or a great-looking gadget at a store somewhere that you do not have the money?

 

Have you ever seen a friend’s Facebook timeline update and said to yourself, “Well, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer” or something similar?

When you say these things to yourself, you are responding to the financial inputs in your life. In particular, you are voicing out your attitude regarding these financial inputs. When you say, “I do not have money”, that's a statement of fact. You're basically programming yourself to believe that you not only do not have the cash, but you're incapable of coming up with it.

It is no surprise that people who keep saying that tend to erode their self- esteem. They tend to deplete their personal ability to change their financial reality. How can they? They just say flat-out “I cannot afford it” That's just not going to happen.”

You can start changing your financial inputs by doing one or more of the following:

First, you can start mentally reprogramming yourself. Instead of

automatically saying, “I do not have the money” or “The richer get richer,” say to yourself, “How can I find the money?” You can also say, “What do I need to do to afford that?”

When you phrase the statement in the form of a question, you are giving yourself a homework assignment. You are putting yourself in a position to engage your creative and imaginative side. Obviously, you do not have the money now, but by phrasing things in a question, this becomes some sort of big, fun puzzle instead of some damning judgment on yourself.

 

When you constantly say to yourself, “How can I find the money?” you start jogging your creative faculties to zero in on an alternative reality. The alternative reality, of course, is you driving around in a Ferrari or living in a big mansion.

The more you focus on it, the more the answers start to appear. This may mean that you'd have to take a second job. This may mean that you would have to reduce your expenses. This may mean that you would have to retool your skill set.

Whatever the case maybe they lead to action, which then begs the question of commitment. When you start making these changes in some aspects of your life, they affect other areas of your life as well, and you become a different person. It all begins with choosing to reprogram yourself based on how you look at money.

Make no mistake about it your attitude towards money speaks volumes regarding your attitude towards yourself, what you're capable of and what you’re about. People who are very competent and self-confident usually do not say, I do not have the money. That’s not for me. I’m a loser. That's for

winners.”

Another thing you can change is your financial inputs. In other words, if you have one job, you can take a second part-time job. Alternatively, you can look into building online income systems like blogging, online stores, or affiliate marketing. There are many fully passive or semi-passive online businesses you can get into, which don't require much startup capital.

 

Whatever the case may be allow yourself to be moved to action instead of simply saying to yourself that you can't afford certain things because the more you repeat these, the further down that competence hole you go. You become more and more mentally and emotionally impoverished. This then translates sooner or later into actual financial poverty.

Believe me there’s nothing more lonely and disempowered than imagining yourself to be the poorest person in the crowd. That’s precisely what you're doing when your financial inputs take the form of “I’m too poor” or “I don't have money. I can't afford that.”

 

The main assumption of this training is that you have a lot more choice over your life and how it turns out than you give yourself credit for. This is a very empowering concept because

there are too many people out there who think that if they are not born with certain advantages, it's game over for them.

A lot of people are under the impression that if they don't have the right parents, the right genetics, or they don't have the right set of advantages when it comes to IQ, emotional quotient or social IQ and other factors, they are pretty much done for. At the very least, they're going to have a much tougher time than people with these advantages.

 

Please understand that there is a genetic basis for wellness. This is indisputable. There are certain genetic predispositions that people are born with. For example, there are certain genetic markers for people who have a higher than average tendency to develop certain types of cancer.

In fact, you can get tested for certain types of genetic predispositions. The most common of these is the BRCA blood test. Using analysis of subjects' DNA, scientists can see how susceptible your genes are to harmful mutations that can lead to breast and ovarian cancer.

Genetic predispositions do exist. There's no denying them. But there are limits to a genetic basis for wellness.

For example, you may have a predisposition for high blood pressure, heart disease or certain types of cancer. At this point, you have a choice. Are you going to choose a lifestyle that tends to trigger those predispositions so they become full blown health conditions? Or are you going to choose a healthier lifestyle? Understand that the game is not over just because you are born with certain genes.

Lifestyle: It All Boils Down to Choice

Now, please don't get the idea that just because you have a tremendous amount of choice on

 

certain aspects of your life that you can pretty much dictate how your life will go. It doesn't work that way.

Although you have a higher amount of control than you probably give yourself credit for, please understand that your lifestyle does not operate in a vacuum. There are other factors outside of your control.

You can lose your job, your partner might leave you despite your best efforts, you might suffer from genetic damage, and so on down the line. Still, by being mindful over your lifestyle inputs, you will end up exercising a lot more control over your life than otherwise.

If you're looking to live a more empowered life, this is it. It really all boils down to choosing to be more responsible.

The great thing about lifestyle inputs is that, to a certain degree, they can dampen or limit the effects of factors you can't choose. You can't choose your parents. You can't choose the country that you're born in. Depending on the economy, you might even feel like you can't choose employers. The list goes on and on.

The good news is that by exercising your control over your lifestyle and being mindful of its many different inputs, you play a bigger role in your life. You're not just sitting back and letting your life play out.

Now, keep in mind that this requires three things. First, you need to be conscious. Understand the many different inputs that make up your lifestyle. It's not just about the food you eat. It doesn't just involve how much exercise

 

you get. It applies across the board. Be as conscious of these inputs as possible and take control, as much as you can, of them.

Also, you need to be consistent. Just because you know that a holistic lifestyle can help you become a better and more fulfilled person, it doesn't really help you all that much. Seriously. You may know what to do, but if you do not put this into practice, you're back to where you started. In fact, I would say that you are in a worse place.

There's nothing more depressing than failing and knowing why you fail, but you feel that there's really nothing you can do about it. It's like you're seeing yourself fall apart right in front of your very eyes.

You have to be consistent. You have to take action on the information that you're going to learn from this training. You have to apply it equally in many different areas of your life.

Finally, you have to be constant. This requires constant effort. Not only do you have to be aware, not only do you have to take action, but you have to constantly take action. Consistency is great, but constant effort is crucial.

They go hand in hand. You have to be consistent in your efforts, but you also have to take constant action.

And the great part about this is that even if you cannot take action on nutrition at a particular point in time, you can work on your mental or emotional inputs. If you can't do that, you can work on financial inputs, or something else. As long as you're constantly working on this, it becomes a habit. It becomes easier over time.

 

Please understand that it's too easy for a lot of people to look at lifestyle as essentially a physical project. They think that it really all boils down to whether they are going to be healthier or not. While this is true, you have to look beyond the physical and medical impact of your lifestyle choices.

You have to understand that you are a complete person. There are many different parts to you. Your body and mind are not separate. You are your nutrition. Part of you is defined by how social you are. A significant part of your identity revolves around the kind of work you choose to do.

Similarly, the amount of stress you subject yourself to as well as the things that you dwell on or focus on impact your identity. Your financial input and spiritual aspirations round out who you are. Be aware that this is the case. Be aware of how these combine and work together.

The best part to all of this is that this is chosen. You are right in the middle. You are always in the driver's seat. Open your mind to the power that you have in your hands. You can always choose.

It may seem like a lot of things are already set in stone. In fact, you might even be under the impression that your life is pretty much on autopilot and there's really not much you can do at this point. Well, that's just an illusion.

By starting small and making certain changes, you'd be surprised as to how they cascade or knock loose other parts of your life that you thought were just plain unchangeable. It all begins with a commitment to change.

 

Let's be real here, you're taking this training because, at some level or another, you're not happy with your life. Maybe you feel you're out of shape, maybe you are suffering from some sort of health condition, perhaps you feel uneasy or anxious. Whatever your frustration may be, the answer is a holistic lifestyle.

Because just as you can push a balloon on one side and expect it to swell up somewhere, any action you take in any aspect of your overall person can set in motion the changes that you need to go through to become a happier, more complete and more content individual.

If you're still unclear as to what this training brings to the table, here are the 5 key benefits of a holistic focus on a sense of wholeness.

Benefit #1: Deep impact on your complete being

What if I told you that there are a lot of millionaires who commit suicide? What if I told you that there are a lot of people who grew up in very

privileged backgrounds, but feel that they are living empty and pointless lives?

What if I told you that there are lots of people who seem to have their act together, but they constantly feel that they are falling apart? They are under

 

so much stress thinking that, at any given moment, everything will just give way.

The reason why a lot of people suffer from these stresses is because they did not focus on their complete being. Sure, you may have a couple of million dollars in the bank, but that doesn't really help your health. It doesn't really help your mood. You feel imbalanced.

The great thing about focusing on the whole you is you achieve a tremendous sense of inner calm. Things fall into place. You can see the big meaning behind your life. And this ultimately leads to a sense of control.

You're no longer feeling adrift. You no longer think that there's really not much going on in your life despite the fact that certain areas of your life are doing well. You operate with a sense of purpose. There's a sense of joy uniting everything.

Wholeness makes this all possible because it strikes deep. It doesn't just focus on getting your act together when it comes to certain parts of your life. It looks at the big picture. It sees that everything is tied together. And the more progress you make patching things up in certain areas of your life, the more peace, calm and assurance you will get when it comes to other parts.

 

Benefit #2: Integrated approach to well-being

I like using the analogy of the squeezed balloon because it really highlights how integrate d a complete human being is. When you push on one aspect of a person, it impacts all other areas of their life.

The balloon analogy also brings home the point that you don't know which part is more greatly affected. You know that any kind of change in any area will have an effect on a person's whole system, but some are more impacted than others.

Adopting a wholeness lifestyle approach looks at your well-being as a complete system. It doesn't slice and dice you like traditional Western medicine. It doesn't just deal with your psychiatric mood or biochemical state. Instead, it fires on all cylinders at all times.

It looks at the many different heaps that make up who you are. These then flow together and lead to a more comprehensive and sustainable set of changes.

Just as importantly, a lot of this is internal. In fact, changing your assumptions and expectations regarding certain parts of your life could have

 

a tremendous impact on your physical health, the kind of work you do, and your overall stress levels.

Benefit #3: Organic centered

Another great benefit to a holistic approach on wholeness is the fact that this is chemical-free. We're going to teach you certain truths that will enable you to make changes based on your willpower and your attitude.

You're not going to be taking some sort of pill or capsule to make your problems go away. Instead, everything is organic. It all involves your ability to focus and decide.

Benefit #4: Nature centered

One of the biggest drawbacks to traditional Western medicine is that it often boils down to human beings putting their stamp on

Mother Nature. The idea is that human nature is so wild, so unpredictable that you just have to apply some sort of artificial template on it to get it under control.

 

We take a completely different view. Instead, you have certain natural tendencies. Instead of having to apologize for them or outright cancel or neutralize them, we teach you to work with these inner natural tendencies.

It's kind of like working with a river. You can either work with the flow of the river to create a dam, which produces electricity, or you can re-route the river by digging new trenches and changing its flow.

Now, you may be thinking that changing the flow of a river is easy, but if it rains really hard or certain climate changes happen, you'd be surprised as to how quickly that river goes back to its natural state.

Usually, the best approach would be to work with Mother Nature instead of against it. The same applies to human nature.

There is such a thing as human nature. We all have tendencies. These are hardwired. Instead of looking at the world based on how we wish it was, a wholeness approach works with people based on the way the world actually is.

Benefit #5: Centered on personal choice and autonomy

The wholeness principle that we're going to teach you in this training enables you to take control over your

 

life. A lot of your frustration and anxiety really boils down to the impression that at some level or another, you have no control.

This eats away at you. It prevents you from achieving inner peace because at some point, you feel that regardless of what you do, you're really not in control. This leads to a downward spiral of powerlessness and a lack of purpose. You feel like you're just going through the motions at a certain point.

When you apply the things that we teach you in this training, you regain that sense of choice. The more power you take back, the more independent you feel. You no longer feel that you are at the mercy of what other people think of you. You no longer feel that your genetic predispositions rule your life.

In other words, you start seeing yourself in perspective; that there is a lot you can do about the direction and the quality of your life. This makes you a more responsible, independent and, ultimately, a more powerful person.

 

As I have mentioned in the introduction of this training, the traditional Western conception of medicine tends to focus on the physical and biochemical. While these two aspects of wellness account for a substantial portion of

what a person feels and the overall quality of a person's health, they don't go quite far enough. In fact, traditional Western medicine has a very fragmented view of human wellness.

This is why there are a significant amount of physical conditions in the United States and Western Europe that simply escape traditional diagnosis.

Regardless of the kind of medication doctors throw at these conditions, they

 

do not go away. A lot of this is due to the fact that people hang on to 5 common myths.

These myths are not harmless. They position you to suffer from a wide range of diseases and dysfunction. These conditions may not be life threatening, but they definitely put you a long way away from optimal health.

Myth #1: All your different aspects are distinct from each other

This common myth assumes that your mind and your body are completely separate from each

other. Now that Western medicine has come around to seeing the intersections between mood, psychiatric states and physical states, there is still a lot to be desired.

While it's commendable that Western medicine is now paying more attention to mood and mental states as far as overall wellness, they still think that there is a tremendous distinction within these aspects. Old habits die hard.

Thankfully, we are beginning to make progress regarding how interconnected these aspects are. But by and large, these and other aspects like financial stress, spiritual states and others are still viewed as completely and totally distinct. There's still quite a bit of progress to be made on this front.

 

Unfortunately, the more people hang on to this idea, the more difficult it would be for them to achieve a sense of wholeness.

Myth #2: Most effective solutions have to come from outside of you

This is a very hard assumption to break free from. Almost all of Western medicine is built on this

assumption. The thinking is, if the disease or the dysfunction is within you, then the solution must come from the outside.

It's all about intervention. It's all about some sort of chemical or outside force going from the external working its way to the internal. In other words, whatever ails you can only be taken care of if a solution is imposed on you from the outside.

This is a serious problem because a lot of internal processes need to be lined up properly for external agents, chemicals or triggers to produce the desired effect. You only need to look at the current research on the power of placebos to see how this works out.

Believe it or not, a person's belief that medication will work plays a significant role on whether external biochemical compounds would have the desired effect. This is not a simple matter of just ingesting the right stuff from the

 

outside. If things were only that simple. There is an internal component that has to be in place.

Unfortunately, the more people believe in this myth, the harder it would be for them to open themselves up completely to therapeutic inputs, whether it comes from the inside or from the outside.

Myth #3: You are completely a product of your external circumstances and other people

We live in a postmodern age.

According to contemporary philosophy, which is often reflected in public policy as well as academic disciplines, human beings are essentially composites of external inputs and factors. In other words, if we were to change the external environment, people would have better lives.

This thinking completely discounts the impact of internal choices and internal truths. Everything that constitutes a human being is essentially just a compilation of external inputs, which can be controlled.

In other words, the solution to whatever frustrations you may have involve external circumstances as well as other people. Change those circumstances and people and you will get better.

 

Now, it's very easy to see what's wrong with this thinking. As I have mentioned earlier, it's hard enough changing yourself, can you imagine trying to change other people? There are circumstances and people outside of your control.

You may have some influence with these individuals, but ultimately, it's their call. Whether they're going to help you or not, if this help is going to have to take the form of them changing, that's definitely their call. Do you see how problematic this is? It's almost impossible.

But unfortunately, this thinking that people are simply products of their external environment is just all too common. It is no surprise that too many people are sick and failing to live their lives to their fullest potential. How can they? They're dependent on external inputs and external changes that are simply not going to happen.

Myth #4: Spirituality only has a psychosomatic or placebo effect

According to this thinking, to the extent that spirituality has an effect on people, it is quite limited to

psychosomatic or placebo effects. In other words, it's all in your head.

This really does a big disservice to how crucial a sense of purpose and transcendence is to the human condition. It's no surprise that too many

 

doctors, wellness experts and lifestyle counselors are too quick to dismiss spirituality. If they were to incorporate it at all, they would incorporate it in passing. It tends to be treated in a very shallow manner.

They fail to realize that people are looking for a sense of meaning. You can have all the money in the world, other people might give you a tremendous amount of respect, but if you have nothing to live from, then what's the point?

Sure, you have a lot to live for, but there's nothing to live from. There is no core spiritual reality that ties everything together and gives it meaning and a sense of transcendence.

You don't necessarily have to be religious in the classical sense for this to make sense. Everybody has this need to answer the question "Why?" Unfortunately, hanging on this myth completely disregards this deep internal need.

This has to be addressed, otherwise, you're not going to be completely whole. There is something important that will remain missing. And unfortunately, the more you go on with that gap, the bigger it grows.

It kind of scales up over time. And ultimately, when it comes to spirituality, it starts eating away at other parts of your life. You might think you have your act together, but don't be surprised if, for some reason or another, something seems missing from your life.

 

Myth #5: Disease can only come from physical or biochemical sources

This myth really grows from the first and second myths. If our aspects are distinct from each other and

solutions have to be imposed from outside, then it naturally follows that disease, dysfunction or anything that affects wellness negatively must come from biochemical or physical sources.

As I have mentioned earlier, there are significant numbers of people who get tested extensively and pass with flying colors who still express symptoms.

They still feel sick. They still feel that something is missing.

The simple reason is that they don't feel whole. Whoever their care provider is doesn't look at them as a whole person. Their health is sliced and diced to zero in on the physical, the external and the readily apparent. There's a lot missing from the equation.

This, of course, flows from the myth that disease can only come from physical or biochemical sources. This mindset doesn't address lifestyle. It doesn't address non-physical environments. It doesn't address states of mind that are not rooted in biochemical explanations.

 

Hanging on to any of these myths can prevent you from benefiting fully from the information contained in this training. You need to put down this training at this point and ask yourself if you believe in any of the 5 myths I've laid out.

If you haven't clearly examined yourself to see if you believe in any of these myths, the information I'm going to share is not going to have that much of an impact. It's going to take you a much longer time to benefit from this information, assuming you're able to benefit at all.

Start with a clean slate. Make sure that you are completely clear and free of these myths because they will get in the way. The very least you can do is to approach the following information on holistic wellness with a completely open mind.

Allow yourself to be a blank slate. You owe it to yourself.

 

Your mind is your most powerful biological complex. Now, this would surprise a lot of people because most people would focus on the body.

Most people would look at the biochemical processes that make up the human body. I am, of course,

talking about respiration, circulation, digestion, neural networks, the human brain, the endocrine system, and so on and so forth.

But the problem is, physical health can only go so far. Your mind plays a major role in the effectiveness of whatever biochemical compounds are applied to, introduced to, or imposed on your physical body.

Let's put it this way, if you were playing basketball and you were taking a shot and you assume that the ball is not going to go in when you take a shot,

 

chances are quite high that when you take a shot, a lot of them will not make it.

Maybe the ball will bounce off the backboard, maybe you won't even hit the rim, maybe the ball will bounce off the rim. Whatever the case may be, since you assumed that you suck at basketball and the ball is probably not going to go through the rim, it's going to have an impact on your physical actions.

You're less confident, you're more likely to hesitate or you might just rush through the decision process when trying to determine how to make that shot. However it plays out, your belief system gets in the way of optimal action.

The same applies to your mind. When you are not psychologically, emotionally and spiritually there, and these parts of you are not meshing efficiently, don't be surprised if the chemicals that you are taking for depression and anxiety don't produce optimal results. Don't be surprised if you develop certain lifestyle diseases.

Your mind keeps getting in the way. And this is why you have to understand how this bio-organic complex works. It is very complicated, there are many different parts to it, but by understanding how everything flows together, you can position yourself for more optimal physical health.

 

Psychological Wellness

When it comes to psychological wellness, one of the most common causes of problems involves our beliefs. In particular, beliefs that limit our capabilities.

Maybe they limit your self-esteem. Maybe you're not all that sold on your ability to get things done. Maybe you feel that you're not all that worthy when it comes to the good things or the rewards of life.

Whatever form this takes, your limiting beliefs have a cascading effect in many areas of your life. You're less confident, which leads to less competence, which leads to less rewards.

Usually, real world success turns on how competent you are. Can you get the job done right? Can you get it done quickly? Can you get it done at the right price?

The world couldn't care less about what's going on in your mind. It definitely doesn't care about your feelings. All it cares about is whether you can produce the right results. In other words, it cares about actions.

Unfortunately, if you have all sorts of limiting beliefs, you are less likely to take quality actions. In fact, you're more likely to look at the world as a very limiting and even hostile place.

 

For optimal psychological wellness, you have to identify the mental script that you play every day. This is a personal narrative that you don't necessarily physically hear, but it still sends you signals every single day.

Ask yourself, what kind of messages do you send to yourself? Do you constantly tell yourself you're ugly, you're unattractive, people aren't going to like you, and that whatever it is that you're trying to do is not going to work? When you find yourself in a situation, do you constantly say, "this is going to suck?" Do you assume that things are going to end badly before you even try?

These come from a certain place. You have to track where this negative self talk is coming from. If you're completely honest with yourself and you take a lot of time to do this properly, you would notice that they go back to certain beliefs that you hang on to for dear life.

The problem is, the more you cling on to these beliefs, the more they drag you down and hold you back. They're toxic. They make you feel unworthy. They give you the impression that you're smaller and weaker than you are.

Maybe you're thinking that the best things in life are already taken by other people. Maybe you're thinking that when you give your heart fully, somehow, some way, it's only a matter of time until your heart is broken. Maybe you believe that the more you work towards something, the greater the disappointment, so why work so hard?

 

There are just so many limiting beliefs out there. I'm just giving you some common examples. Still, they all go back to the same place. They make you feel smaller, weaker, and ultimately, more fearful.

If you keep rehashing these beliefs, they get stronger and stronger, and your ability to make things happen in your life becomes weaker and weaker. You get caught in corrosive thought patterns and mental habits that make you less and less effective. You're more fearful.

Alternatively, you may seem prideful. But really, blind, stubborn pride is really just a shorthand for fear of change. You need to let go of these.

Identify what limits you because you're only as capable as you think.

You may come off like a competent and confident person, but deep down inside, if you hang on to these limiting beliefs, nothing's going to happen. You're just playing a role. You're just fooling yourself.

Let's face it, ultimately, the only person that really knows is you. You know if you are playing a game with yourself. You know if you are just being a hypocrite.

Emotional Wellness

Once you have done some house cleaning regarding your limiting beliefs and corrosive thought patterns and mental habits, the next step involves your emotions. People

 

who suffer from a less than optimal sense of wellness usually carry around a tremendous amount of emotional clutter.

Do you work yourself up over stuff that really doesn't matter? Do you keep dwelling on stuff from the past that drains a tremendous amount of your emotional energy? Are you hanging on to stuff that just continues to burn you up or take up a lot of emotional resources?

Usually, when people say the word "hoarder," we think of a person who keeps all sorts of junk in their home. You probably have seen cable TV documentaries of hoarders. It's not pretty. They obsess about keeping all sorts of stuff they can't let go.

So soon enough, one room fills up, then they fill up another room. And before they know it, they filled up their own house. It's definitely nasty, I'm sure it smells terrible, but they can't help it. They hang on for dear life to this stuff.

Well, the same applies to emotions. You may be hanging on to certain memories. You feel that if you move on that these negative memories might repeat themselves again. You might be played for a fool again. You might make the same mistakes again.

Whatever reasons you give yourself, you hang on to these memories and these negative thoughts. The negative emotions that they produce clutter your mind. You feel like you can't help it.

 

For example, if you had a boyfriend or a girlfriend in high school broke your heart, you can choose to constantly think about that person or certain memories regarding that person. As you live your life, when you come across something fairly random, it might trigger memories and the emotions keep coming back. This clutters your emotional state. It weighs you down. It's hard to move on.

It would be nice if this was all benign like a tumor, but it actually spreads to other areas of your life. That heaviness that you feel, drains emotional resources that you could have been using for better results.

Maybe without this emotional clutter, you would be a more optimistic person. You may be more open to new experiences. You may be more likely to experiment or view life as some sort of adventure. Unfortunately, you keep hanging on to this emotional clutter and, worse yet, interpreting them in the worst way possible.

It's like hanging on to poison. You think that the more you hold it in your hand, the less likely you'll put it in your mouth. Little do you know it's seeping through your skin. It's definitely holding you back from grasping more productive things with your hand. At best, it's taking up space, which you could have used for more productive emotions.

 

Spiritual Wellness

Your sense of meaning and purpose is crucial. If you want to live a truly complete and meaningful life, you have to have a sense of why. You really do. You have to at least have

an impression that your life is meant to go somewhere. There has to be some grand narrative tying everything together.

Again, as I mentioned previously, this does not necessarily have to be classically religious in nature. You don't have to be a born again Christian. You don't have to necessarily see Jesus or Allah or Karma in every aspect of your life. Still, there has to be some sort of unifying sense of purpose. It must feel like a huge river that has a general direction.

Unfortunately, as we get older and live our lives, it's very easy for us to turn a blind eye to spiritual pollutants. Spiritual pollutants involve internal beliefs that we come up with based on stuff that we observe.

For example, if you keep hanging out at online forums where members make fun of each other and constantly tell each other to "kill yourself," don't be surprised if your reading or interpretation of that corrodes your sense of hope.

If you hang out with people who keep saying that life is pointless or you expose yourself to entertainment that gives you that same message, don't be too shocked if you feel that life is purposeless.

 

You have to be very careful what you feed your mind because ultimately, this can infect the central question of your life, which is "why?"

Spiritual pollutants are everywhere. Even if you don't watch TV, you can be reading online articles, hanging out on forums, consuming certain social media content—the list is endless. Whatever form and shape they take, spiritual pollutants always try to corrode, degrade or cheapen your sense of spiritual value.

The moment you think that your life is purposeless by nature, then you know that your spirit has been polluted. If you feel that there is really no purpose or meaning to your life, then you have been absorbing spiritual pollution.

Again, you don't necessarily have to believe in heaven or nirvana for this to be valid. The key here is that a sense of flow is missing. It seems like your life is just you spinning your wheels and going around pointlessly, each day the exact replica of the day that preceded it.

Understand the Impact of Your Mental Habits

Make no mistake about it, if you don't have a laser focus on your psychological, emotional and spiritual wellness, you're likely to pick up negative mental habits.

When you detect certain things, for example, a friend that says he or she got

 

a new job, it's very easy for you to become negative. It's very easy for you to assume the worst.

The same applies to new relationships and new experiences. You may not be aware of it at first, but the more you entertain emotional clutter, limiting beliefs and spiritual pollutants, it all becomes a thick, corrosive mental soup. This then sustains and nourishes negative mental habits.

If you feel that you're always assuming the worst or if you feel that you are always envious and comparing yourself to other people and coming up short, it's because you have developed these mental habits.

The good news is, just like with any other habit, you can break them. Seriously. The first step, of course, is to be aware that you have these habits.

Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Dysfunctions

What's the big deal about having negative mental habits? What's the worst thing that can happen if you have limiting beliefs, suffer from

emotional clutter, and surround yourself in a toxic sea of spiritual pollutants?

Well, if that is your internal, psychological, emotional and spiritual environment, don't be surprised if you feel depressed. That's right. Regardless of how much money you make, regardless of how much stuff you

 

have, and regardless of how well off people think you are, you can't help but feel sad. You can't help but feel that there's something missing in your life.

Now, this is not just a simple case of personal disquiet. Depression can really sink into your bones. In fact, it doesn't matter how positive things are. You might win the lotto and get millions of dollars, it would still all feel pointless, sad, shallow and empty.

Depression is a real threat. And according to pharmaceutical industry figures, more and more people are getting antidepressant medication. This is called the prozac effect.

Now, a lot of this may be due to over prescription, this may be due to doctors just being too eager to prescribe antidepressants, but a large part of this is also reflective of the fact that people, by and large, have become disconnected. It's harder and harder for them to feel that sense of purpose.

It's harder and harder for them to feel complete.

 

 

“No man is an island.”

“It takes a village to raise a child.”

“Everyone is connected by 6 degrees.”

What do all these quotes have in common besides the fact that you probably have heard them before? They are quite common because there is a tremendous amount of truth to them. Human beings by and large are social creatures; even the most introverted and shy person would at least interact with his or her relatives, or at least has one friend or acquaintance.

Truly asocial people are quite rare – they exist but they are definitely outliers. Most people need other people. Understand that this is part of who you are, and your social relationships and how you function within this

 

interconnected network of human beings directly impact your wellness. In fact, the more you interact with people and the more positive your interactions are, the better off you feel.

Indeed, author Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers described a study involving Italian-American immigrants from a town called Roseto. As I mentioned in the introduction to this training, people from that part of Italy had pretty much the same lifestyle as other Americans. What was different about that population group is their high level of social connection. Although they had pretty much the same lifestyle and diets as other demographic groups.

When it comes to length and quality of life, they pretty much dominated. This really stumped a lot of epidemiologists. Usually, the standard literature in the United States is that when people groups have the same inputs like diet, environment, and activity levels among others, they would have the same health outcomes. Not the Roseto group; it was definitely an outlier.

And the secret “ingredient” it turned out was their social relationships. They had this small town, very warm Italian interpersonal connection that ensured nobody fell off the social map. Nobody felt disconnected, alienated, alone in the crowd, or lonely. Somehow, someway there's this social fabric that sustained people in that network and this translated to better mood, psychological states, and life expectancy.

Social relationships have a strong impact on overall wellness. Make no mistake about it – there are many parts of the United States and Western

 

Europe that are very well fed. When it comes to basic nutrition, security, shelter and other basic needs, as well as creature comforts, people are well taken care of.

Still, their later years as well as their general quality of life is not as good as it could be. They suffer from tremendous amount of anxiety that the people are grappling with depression, and this all leads back to the need for connection.

Although your most basic needs are taken care of, they don’t define completely. There is a lot of other things that are missing. One key element a lot of people suffer from and is missing from their lives, is this social interaction.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be some sort of

extrovert. This doesn’t necessarily involve you having to have this extremely bubbly personality that just loves to meet new people; it doesn't have to be like that.

You don’t have to go to such lengths, instead you just need to be open to sharing with other people and truly caring of what goes on in their lives and vice versa. The sense of connectedness not only makes for more vibrant communities, but it also has a measurable impact on your sense of well- being.

You feel complete; you feel like you are part of a larger cause; you don’t feel like you’re this free-floating person out there that nobody really cares about.

 

This is not just a mental state. This is not just a mood but it actually has physical consequences.

Sadly, we live in a modern age where people pack up, pull up their roots routinely. In fact, it's not uncommon for the typical American family to move at least 5 times during the childhood of the children in that family. As the

parents chase after new career opportunities, it’s not uncommon for families to bounce around the Continental United States and even to other countries.

While there is a tremendous amount of economic benefit to that, it also leads to tremendous emotional and social dislocation. We need to feel connected to other people and to a larger community. And sadly, given how fast our economy is developing, this is not always available and is not always present.

The Impact of The Concept of Enough

You have to be mindful of what you think you have going for you. A lot of people are focused on getting “more”. They think that the answer

to everything is just to get more. If you need to get a promotion at work, you just need to do more work, produce more stuff, deliver work with more quality.

If you are feeling lonely or disconnected, you normally would think that you just need more friends or need to spend more time with people. If you are

 

not feeling healthy or you are not that happy with the person that you see in the mirror in the morning, you feel that you just need to work out more. It’s all the same: more, more, more.

But if I told you that this idea of more is dragging you down and holding you back; what if I told you that it’s actually grinding you down and putting you in a state of existential paralysis? Maybe the better way to go about doing things is to focus on the concept of enough.

You have to understand when people say I have to do more; I have to get more; I have to be more, they often chase shadows. They often chase vague concepts that are not of their making.

Oftentimes, they view it on metrics that are very alien to their life. Oftentimes, these are involving other people's expectations; this may be social expectations; this may be family obligations; whatever the case may be.

They end up using a ruler so to speak, set by other people often very distant from them – this is a problem. When you set up these standards for yourself, you think that your life has direction.

After all, according to the old saying, “to reach the moon, aim for the sun”.

When you aim high, don’t be surprised if you get to a better place. It may not be the ultimate place but it’s definitely much better than where you started.

It’s easy to understand these but the problem is when it comes to actually working towards getting more, people end up grinding themselves down.

 

They become victims of their own expectations. They feel like losers and failures because they did not achieve the grand vision whatever form it takes.

Sadly, this destroys a lot of lives and the worst form of destruction is this low- level feeling that you are a disappointment. This happens all the time because people lose sight of the fact that there is an alternative concept.

Instead of looking for the grand things, the big victories, the ultimate

achievements in life, why not just focus on “enough”? That's right, there is such a thing as enough social status – income, wealth; yes, it’s possible to be happy enough.

The problem with wanting more is that you eventually become blind to the fact that you will never get there; it is the eternal future. I remember when I was in college and I was living on $20,000 a year for housing, food, you name it – this was of course outside of tuition.

I was happy as a clam. I and my friends would get together and everybody would bring a cup of instant noodles, and I would turn on the hot tap, and we would just drink some beers, enjoy our noodles, and have a great old time.

I meet up with the same friends 20 years later and everybody rolls in with their Mercedes Benz, BMW, people live in gated communities; and

everybody’s bitching and moaning about property taxes, insurance, finding private schools that are worth the money, and on and on it goes.

It dawned on me that when I was in college, living on what now seems like a ridiculously insignificant amount of money, I was very happy. I always looked

 

forward to that nice hot bowl of instant noodles that was my breakfast, lunch and dinner and guess what? I never got tired of it. I mastered all the flavors that instant noodles came in. It was a delight to switch flavors.

But when I moved on after graduation, all of a sudden, my needs changed. Instead of focusing on what I actually needed – really wasn’t that much, I mean let’s get real here. You don’t really need that much; you just need a roof over your head; people around you not to kill you, food, water, light, and you’re good to go.

Those needs don’t change. Believe me, my needs when I was in that cramped dorm room 20 years ago were the same as my real needs now. But I live in a completely different place. I have 3 cars. I do many different things with my time and my world is completely changed.

I share this with you because your consumption of need changes with time and changes with your income as well as the opportunities presented to you. It also changes in a very dramatic way based on your social circles.

If you hang out with people who belong to country clubs and drive Ferraris, and Lamborghinis, and Mercedes Benz vehicles, your concept of “need” is going to be very different from other groups of people. But one thing is clear, regardless of your concept of need now is going to be very different from when you were younger.

I raise this with you because the constantly wanting more, more, and more is corrosive. As I mentioned earlier in this training, there are many millionaires who kill themselves because they are just absolutely miserable.

 

They are miserable because they are not getting what they think they deserve; they want more. When they cannot attain it, everything else is a failure; everything else is a complete and unmitigated disaster.

I can't even begin to tell you how wrong this is. Just one fact to bring everything into perspective, please wrap your mind around this statistic. Hundreds of millions of people all over the planet live on less than $2 a day.

Let that sink in; next time you think about your disappointments and not being able to afford the latest BMW sports model, think about that figure; the next time you worry about having to wait a little bit more to afford a new set of golf clubs, think about that figure.

You have to understand that there’s a big difference between what you really need and what you want, and unfortunately, people make themselves unnecessarily miserable when they confuse the two.

As I mentioned above, your needs have hardly changed. The only thing different between myself now and who I was 20 years ago, is the fact that I now have a wife and a kid – that's pretty much it fundamentally.

Now my income has changed, what I do for a living changed, my

surroundings have changed, I drive cars now but fundamentally, and I’m talking about me as a person, the only change really is me becoming a parent and a husband.

Focus on your fundamental identity when trying to define your needs

because if you can’t figure this out, you're going to be doing what everybody

 

else is doing; they are confusing their needs and their wants. Their wants start to look like needs. This is going to be a problem because your wants are all about more, more, more.

The antidote? Focus on enough.

When you focus on the concept of enough, you allow yourself to be dragged back, pulled back, and cemented to the concept of need.

Again, you really don't need all that much. You need shelter, safety, clean air, sunlight, food, water, rest – you know the basics, and the more you shave off a lot of the unnecessary stuff and focus on what is “enough”, the saner and healthier you will be.

I raise this issue here because often times our needs are influenced by our social settings. Like I mentioned earlier, the needs of a working-class person are going to be different from those of a middle-class and an upper-class person. It's time to question the impact of your social setting on your needs.

If your desire to get more and more and more is dragging you down, making you feel miserable, you might want to start deconstructing your needs and rediscover the concept of enough.

You might want to question if it's really all that wise to absorb on a wholesale basis, everybody else’s expectations, as well as definitions of “need”. This is

 

going to be tough because a lot of people would say to you that you’re

lowering your standards; you are not living up to your full potential. They’ll say a million things to you to make you feel lousy. But the bottom-line is you have to do something that makes sense to you.

You can't kill yourself based on other people's definitions and values – that’s not going to work and unfortunately, it happens all the time. Just because you live in a gated community with well-manicured lawns and amazing golf courses, everybody drives around in luxury cars, doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do the same. What you choose to drive, how you choose to live must make sense to you. And the concept of enough must be part of this.

Relational Dysfunction

most familiar.

“Quarter/Mid-Life Crisis”

 

So, what could possibly go wrong when you are suffering from a breakdown of a relational wellness? Here's just a partial list. The actual list can be quite long but these are the

 

Did you just graduate from college or graduate school? Or have you been working for 20 years and you feel like you hit a wall? You may have a well- paying job or you may be jobless, it doesn’t matter. If you are in this place, you are questioning your decisions, you're asking yourself where do I go

 

from here? Did I make the right choices? What should I do for a living? Is my career helping me blossom as a person? Do the things that I do for a living really make me happy? Do they bring the kind of fulfillment that I truly desire?

These are serious questions and unfortunately, the idea of a midlife crisis doesn't just apply to people in their 40s and 50s. In fact, a lot of millennials starting at the age of sixteen onwards are feeling the same “symptoms”. They have this tremendous angst about who they are, what they do for a living, what they should do for a living, what things are worth doing, and on and on it goes.

And a lot of this can be traced to relational dysfunction. A lot of this can be traced to whose standards are we using to measure success and purpose.

Are we shooting for more, more, and more? Have you forgotten about “enough?”

Anti-Social Behavior

A lot of people simply just break down due to lack of meaningful relational connections. This does not mean that they actively seek to harm others; this does not mean that they are serial killers or criminals by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, they become so self-absorbed that their self-regard and self-concern become some sort of emotional black hole.

They find it very hard to care about people because they have a tough time convincing themselves that they themselves matter; this is a really tough place to be in. We have to understand that for somebody to say something

 

hurtful, it has to come from some place. People who consistently spout out negativity that corrodes other people are themselves hurting. It really all boils down to, if I'm going through hell, why shouldn't you? Bad stuff.

Lack of Contentment

Even when things seemed to be going well on many fronts in your life, it’s still easy to find yourself feeling inadequate. You can't quite put your finger on it, but something is missing. You may be confident enough in your abilities but you just can’t find it in you to be truly happy. You can’t quite accept everything as it is and let it go.

There’s just something free-floating that feels to complete your experience. A lot of this can be traced to relational dysfunction – either you are using standards that do not make sense in the specific context of your life, or

you’re scared to explore what else is out there.

Lack of contentment is very troublesome to a lot of people because different people deal with it in different ways. Others feel sad, so it's really hard for them to feel happy, not just for themselves but for other people.

Others deal with lack of contentment by making other people miserable. They are very critical; they’re picky; they always try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory; they’re always looking at the flaw of what would otherwise be an amazingly beautiful diamond.

 

Others deal with lack of contentment by being very proud to the point of being obnoxious. They know deep down inside that they are not really all that happy, so they project this imaginary perfect life.

You probably have seen some of these people on your Facebook timeline. There are many other ways people deal with lack of contentment. Make sure you recognize it and understand that it can trace back to dysfunctions and how you relate with other people.

Interpersonal Conflict

A lot of people have a tough time realizing that they love their fathers or mothers. A lot of people have traumas from their past – maybe that their dad wasn't around physically because he was so busy trying to put food on the table; maybe their mother was too protective and shielded them from lessons that they needed to learn. Sure, these lessons are hard and oftentimes uncomfortable but they need to go through this.

So, they grew up with a tremendous amount of conflict and resentment. This of course is manifested in interpersonal conflicts if you see your father in

everybody or you’ve tried to find your mother in everybody.

Similarly, if interpersonal conflicts take the form of being needy and holding people to such high standards that you yourself don’t want to live up to. Not only is this hypocritical, it’s also downright annoying.

Self-Blame and Emotional Self-Abuse

 

On the other end of the spectrum are people who express relational dysfunction by consistently whipping themselves into a frenzy. If everything goes wrong, they are at fault.

There might not be any logical or rational connection between the perceived problem or failure and in their actions, but they’ll find one or make one up. The conclusion is always the same – they are the problem. They emotionally abused themselves and this is very toxic.

Not only leads to depression and possible suicidal ideas, but it positions people to become emotional doormats. Let me tell you, if you do not respect yourself, don't expect others to do it for you. There are very bad people out there that are actually looking for people who suffer from emotional self- abuse.

You think they’ll embrace you with wide open arms, and comfort you, and give you the things that you are missing? Absolutely not, they may talk that way but what they'll do is actually use you, exploit you and yes, abuse you worse than you abuse yourself.

Be very careful, understand that what you're suffering from flows from relational dysfunction. The way you define your personhood in the context of everybody else around you, needs work; otherwise, you wouldn't be always blaming yourself. Thankfully, relational wellness can be achieved.

 

Most of our conceptions regarding the idea of wellness ultimately begin and end with our physical bodies. This should not come as a surprise because we need our bodies to experience the world – this is our base for experiencing reality.

We see, hear, touch, taste, and smell things within the confines of our body. All the stimuli the world sends us moment by moment is filtered through this physical machinery called our body; this is a biological fact.

This why we are very attached to the state of our body. Now, unfortunately we live in a time in human history where our physical bodies are under tremendous stress; there is all sorts of stuff in our food; there are all sorts of

 

chemicals in the water that we drink; don't even get me to start talking about the air.

In fact, in certain parts of the world, people live in a toxic stew. There are tons of chemical dangers that take the form of physical inputs that directly affect the body. Now, the impact is not immediate – it’s not like you’re exposed to the stuff once and automatically you die or you develop some sort of very visible allergy.

It usually doesn’t work that way, but when you are consistently exposed to these chemicals as well as to these environmental factors, eventually your body starts to break down.

Medical wellness has two dimensions here. First, you are resistant to disease. Your body has evolved an immune system. Generally speaking, if your immune system is up to the job, it can take care of a lot of the microbes that you come into contact with.

If you are eating the right stuff and you get decent exercise and everything is in proper balance, your body normally is equipped to handle a wide range of viruses and microbes. It makes quick work of those diseases.

Now, due to lifestyle issues as well as environmental factors, if your system starts to breakdown, you become less resistant to disease. The traditional western medical response to the situation of course is to bomb your system with chemicals and antibiotics. While this approach often makes the disease go away, it often creates more problems than it solves.

 

First, there’s the issue of dependency. If you keep getting exposed to antibiotics, you eventually build a certain level of tolerance. If you fail to use antibiotics correctly, eventually they stop working for you. The other dimension to medical wellness is resistance to autoimmune diseases.

Autoimmune diseases involve your body’s anti-illness responses. When you develop a fever for example, the heat generated is actually your own body seeking to protect itself. The same applies to certain types of inflammation. When these processes go haywire, your body starts acting against itself.

Of course, the most extreme example of this is Lupus. As terrifying as that condition is, there are lower level versions of autoimmune disease that people suffer from. And unfortunately, too many doctors are too eager to dismiss autoimmune dysfunctions as psychosomatic or purely environmental in nature.

What they are really doing is just they’re taking a wild guess to explain it away instead of looking at it from a holistic perspective.

It really is too bad because physical wellness must involve the body’s resistance to autoimmune diseases, which in turn requires greater sensitivity to how our body's internal processes normally protect us from the disease as well as some environmental inputs.

Understand that your lifestyle plays a big role in your ability to resist disease as well as the healthy operation of your autoimmune system. They go hand in hand; it really all boils down to your inputs.

 

I’m not in any way dismissing the importance of genetic predisposition but note that your environment plays a big role in this. Look at your genetic predisposition as essentially setting limits regarding your medical wellness.

It also establishes certain sensitivities, but everything else is really chosen by you. You decide where you live; you decide how much air you get; how exposed you are to light at certain times of the day; you also get a tremendous amount of choice regarding the pollutants that you can easily perceive.

You have a lot more skin in the game than you give yourself credit for. Unfortunately, a lot of people think that if they have an autoimmune disease or their disease resistance goes down, that there’s really not much they can do about it.

It's as if they're medical destiny is set in cement somehow, someway. This is not true – while at some level there are certain factors you just cannot control, by and large you can contain how bad things could get.

This might not seem like much of a consolation but it’s actually a big deal because you have a lot more control over your physical wellness than you give yourself credit for. By simply being mindful of the impact your environment has on your physical health, you can start engineering your environment to lead to better health outcomes. Again, I’m not saying that

this completely discounts disease or takes runaway autoimmune responses completely, but there is a lot more control here.

 

The Rise of Lifestyle Diseases

Believe it or not in the western world, our big challenge does not come from communicable diseases; our

biggest challenge doesn’t involve communicable diseases. Long-time

scourges like Polio, Smallpox, Cholera, Dysentery and the like, have been effectively dealt with through large-scale government health and hygiene programs. Even Malaria, Dengue, and other insect or vector-borne diseases have been effectively managed.

The biggest challenge in the western world involves lifestyle diseases. These are harder to get a hold of primarily because they are rooted in people’s habits. For example, Type 2 Diabetes, is causing all sorts of health problems in the West because there is an Obesity epidemic going on.

In a way, places like Western Europe and the United States are victims of their own success. As food becomes more plentiful, diverse and affordable, more people get to eat more food; and as life becomes more comfortable where you don't have to necessarily roll up your sleeves to work or work up a sweat just to earn money, is leading to a more sedentary lifestyle with an abundance of calories that has led to an explosion in Type 2 Diabetes.

This is an environmental disease as well. If your environment involves daily physical activity as well as more nutritious inputs in the form of high fiber foods and fresh fruits and vegetables, your risk of coming down with Type 2

 

diabetes drops significantly. Closely related to this trend is the increase of cardio vascular diseases.

Heart disease is consistently near the top 5 causes of death in the West. Again, this is traced to the fact that people have a lot more access to food due to low cost and variety; mix this with low activity levels, and it's no surprise that a lot of people have clogged arteries.

Finally, Colon Cancer and other common types of cancer related to diet and lifestyle are on the upswing. Again, this all arises from that unholy marriage between cheap access to calories and a more sedentary lifestyle.

These diseases would really not be as big as they are if our concept of medical wellness is more well-rounded. Our resistance to disease as well as our auto immune processes would have easily protected us if we had adopted the right preventive health lifestyles. I'm going to go into this quite a bit in chapter 9 going forward.

The traditional approach to wellness is of course centered on the doctor, and the traditional medical infrastructure and support industries. I am of course talking about the multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical industry, the diagnostics industry, as well as the service industry

comprising of nurses, radiologists and other health specialists. In other words, there's a tremendous amount of people who risk losing their job if the old ideas regarding health and wellness were turned on its head.

This is what constitutes traditional wellness in Western Europe and the United States but here's the problem, traditional wellness is simply not up to the job when it comes to our modern state of health.

 

As I repeated again and again throughout this training, what ails people is not just physical. We are not just talking about physical symptoms because this just shows you what’s at the tip of the iceberg.

For these symptoms to materialize, a lot of things have to fall into place and these places are quite deep. We are talking about social relationships, we are talking about psychological, emotional, and spiritual bases. We are also talking about your place in the world and everything else that’s going on in your life.

Unfortunately, traditional medicine simply looks at the physical and begins and ends the analysis there. You are just a composite of your physical symptoms and not much more. As I’ve mentioned earlier, while we have made great strides in

factoring in psychosocial inputs to physical illness, it’s fairly recent. And if you want to be unkind about it, it really is too little too late.

We are still stuck with pretty much an incomplete definition of what it's like to be sick in the western world. In fact, there are many people who are suffering from a wide range of symptoms that simply won’t go away regardless of how many drugs were pumped into their system; regardless of how many CAT scans and MRIs they go through, the symptoms simply won't leave.

Now, I know that I'm taking the risk of being accused of making a mountain out of a molehill, but the fact that there’s this significant portion of patients that are simply beyond the reach of traditional western medicine, should make us question the assumptions holding up the concept of traditional wellness. It's not up to the job precisely because it misses the point.

People are not just their bodies; people are not just the collection of symptoms that you throw chemicals at. You don't simply just track their progress on the chart and once certain physical signs appear, you sign off on them. Unfortunately, this is how

 

heavily corporate, bureaucratized and automated the health industrial complexes operate.

You have to understand that to the modern health maintenance organization or insurance company, you are just a set of numbers. Seriously, you are a set of calculated risks that they take and the end result is their bottom line; the same applies to a doctor.

It is no surprise that a lot of people fall between the cracks – either they get

pumped up with too many chemicals and they’re suffering lasts far longer than it needs to, or they are not attended to at all.

I hope it’s clear in your mind that this whole approach to wellness is simply not sustainable. In the United States, we burn 16% of our GDP on healthcare every single year and we still have a lot of people who are not well; they are far from happy.

Sure, they got tons of chemicals flowing through their veins and sure, their physical symptoms have been dealt with, but they’re miserable. We have people warehoused all over the country; living miserable, broken, and diminished lives.

The problem here is that traditional medicine just looks at people as physical bodies instead of spiritual, psychological, and emotional beings. In other words, we are not looking at the complete person. Thankfully, there is a better way.

 

Planning Your Personal Wholeness Program

Let's get one thing clear, if you want to achieve wholistic wellness, you have to do it yourself. I know that sounds scary. You probably trust your doctor;

you probably have grown to depend on your physician; but if you want to achieve real wholeness, you have to define the whole concept of wellness on a personal

level. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to completely cut out your doctor – you have to step up.

Understand that you have to be responsible for your complete personal health. Your doctor may be on the hook for the physical aspect of your wellness, well that’s just one part of the puzzle. As I've mentioned in previous chapters of this training, you are actually made up of a composite of many different inputs – your many layers of being. And all of these different factors have to be adequately addressed for you to be completely whole and healthy.

Unfortunately, there’s no template that you can follow.

Now, this should make a lot of sense because every one of us is different. I’m not just talking about genetic predispositions or hardwired physical differences. I'm also referring to your experience; the way you see the world; your personality; how your mood landscape is set up.

I’m also talking about your psychological states; you obviously have a different career; or you earn a living a certain way; you come from a different social setting. These differences cannot be papered over.

 

The small variances actually add up to a lot. This is why it’s crucial if you totally want to pull off planning your own personal wholeness program to personalize things as much as possible.

This plan that you're coming up with will not work for other people; it cannot because it is so specific to you. You have to customize it to your environment, your schedule, and your personal set of circumstances.

That's how detailed it should be. Also, it has to be based on your lifestyle. It’s not just a simple question of what medications you take, or which doctor you go to, or the range of specialists you consult with.

Again, the physical elements of health are important but they are just a single piece of a larger puzzle. You have to look at the things that you choose to do every single day; you have to consider your daily routine; you have to look at your list of personal habits. Another aspect of your personal wholeness program is sustainability.

I don't know about you but the last time I tried something new, it took a while for it to kick in. I actually had to keep at it for an extended period of time for it to change my life; the same applies to wholeness programs. This is not a one shot, big shot

kind of approach. It’s not like you’re going to the doctor's office to get a shot – it doesn't work that way; it has to be sustainable.

In other words, when you make certain changes to your daily routine, you must be able to get up in the morning and go through those series of actions without any sense of resistance.

Basically, it cannot be so alien, so foreign and so weird that you stop yourself in your tracks and say, what am I doing? Instead, it should flow naturally from not only

 

the things that you aspire for but based on who you really are. That’s what make things sustainable.

It’s kind of like redecorating a home without spending an additional dollar on new furniture. If you've ever seen those amazing home makeover shows, truly great interior designers work with things that already exist. They don't talk the owner into spending hundreds of thousands of dollars buying a wide range of appliances and furniture – they don’t do that.

Instead, they look at the furniture that already exists and they just rearrange things. Maybe they paint a wall, or put up wall paper, or add new lighting, but the elements introduced are actually quite minor compared to the internal reorganization of stuff that already exists. This is how you should look at sustainability.

Because the more alien, disruptive, or novel your changes to your lifestyle appear to you, the more unwelcome they will be. Now, you may be thinking on a conscious level that you want to change – you know that deep down inside that you have to change. The stakes are too high and you cannot afford to get sick. You get that on a logical and rational level.

The problem is we are creatures of habit and unfortunately, we will sabotage ourselves. Sooner or later, if the change that you have set out for your life seems so radical, so different and so out of place, it's only a matter of time until you give yourself excuse after excuse to stop – it is not sustainable.

You end up bargaining with yourself as to why you should not take that jog in the morning. You’ll end up coming up with an excuse why you should not eat that apple and just dive in to that German chocolate cake. Do you see where I’m coming from? You have to factor in sustainability and the best way to do this is to avoid drastic changes.

 

Focus on what you already have. Believe me, regardless of how seemingly unhealthy your current lifestyle is, there are gems of wellness that are already there. You just need to make this change, just need to reposition this.

Another crucial element of your personal wholeness program must revolve around the concept of an all-natural approach. As I’ve mentioned earlier, people living in Western Europe, and the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other places are over medicated. This is the automatic response of the global medical establishment to any kind of illness: pump it with chemicals.

Now, it’s easy to see why this is the case because pharmaceutical companies make billions of dollars every single year off this reality. Once we get off this train then that industry starts to slow down – they can't let that happen. So, a lot of people are walking around with the idea that the only way to “truly” deal with problems is through chemicals.

Well, you only need to look at the overdose disaster happening in the United States to see that this is a dead end, literally and figuratively. Because if your number one response to pain is to take Percocet, you’re getting on that slippery slope. Then the next thing you do is, you crush Oxycontin, and then sooner or later you’ll find yourself hooked, and it turns out that Heroin is cheaper.

This is not a remote possibility, people are fed in to this addiction pipeline by traditional practitioners of Western medicine. You can’t just throw chemicals at your medical problems. We cannot continue to idolize the god of convenience at

the risk of our long-term health. This is why your personal wholeness program has to be all natural.

In other words, you work with mother nature in terms of what you eat, the environment you find yourself in, as well as your activities. This is one of the most

 

powerful things you can do because you pull yourself away from dependency, not just on chemicals but on bureaucratic, industrialized, medical provisioned infrastructure that reduces you to statistical probabilities.

You’re more than an ROI projection; you’re a human being – a very complex, biochemical phenomena. You’re very valuable; you should treat yourself accordingly. Your approach to a lifestyle-based, sustainable, personalized,

customized wholeness program must be built on the foundation of an all-natural approach. Absolutely no synthetic chemicals; absolutely no pharmaceutical inputs.

The Power of Balance

One of the most crucial guiding philosophies of your wholeness program as you piece everything together should be the concept of balance. It's too easy to take things too

extreme, I know that I may be guilty of this when I describe certain concepts in this training, please forgive me. But, you have to always keep things in balance.

I’m not saying that you should completely eliminate traditional western medicine from this equation, but you should not let it be the primary driver either. Instead, it should be balanced out by the impact of lifestyle, sustainable living, environment, social inputs, emotional and psychological engagement, and quite importantly, spiritual dimensions. This is what constitutes a balanced and holistic human being.

This concept of balance must be there. Otherwise, you run the risk of leaning too heavily on one part of the equation one day and then going to the other extreme

 

the next. They don’t balance each other out; they don’t average out. You have to make sure it’s balanced all the way through.

Starting with chapter 9 I’m going to go through certain key decisions as well as lifestyle modifications you should think about including in your personal wholeness program, so you can achieve greater overall health. Chapter 9 deals with preventive medicine.

See you there.

 

As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This was true yesterday, it's true today, and you can bet it's going to be true long into the future. Why spend a tremendous amount of time, effort and resources dealing

with problems that you could have avoided in the first place?

This makes all the sense in the world. This is not rocket science. If you want to achieve optimal wellness, a significant chunk of this has to be preventive in nature.

By being proactive in how you live your life and setting up a proper wholeness program that you can stick to because it reflects certain key

 

aspects of your present life, you can avoid serious illness later on. Here are just some ideas that you might want to explore.

Keep in mind that everybody's different. Some of this might be a little bit more difficult for you. Some of this might even seem downright unacceptable. All I'm asking is that you keep an open mind. The more open your mind is, the greater the progress you will achieve.

If anything, you should mix and match these. Try them out. Stick with them long enough until you can decide that this is sustainable or it's just out of the question and you're going to be looking for an alternative.

Whatever the case may be, go through these so you can at least figure out how they work and how they can impact you in a positive way. Don't just dismiss them out of hand.

I know it's very tempting because a lot of these may seem uncomfortable and inconvenient. I understand that. It was rough for me at first. But when I went through these steps, they slowly became more automatic.

Eventually, they became part of who I am, and this led to weight loss, better states of mind, greater personal effectiveness, and a higher level of personal happiness and contentment.

Again, your whole persona is like a balloon. If you work on one part of that balloon, don't be surprised if it has a n impact on the rest of your system. It doesn't really matter where you press on the balloon, what's important is

 

that you are making the effort to change your current lifestyle. There are many ways to approach this.

Proper Nutrition

By simply increasing the amount of high fiber foods that you eat as well as fruits and vegetables, you can actually increase your lifespan by up to a full decade. This is not

conjecture. This is not a theory. Recent studies have actually borne this out.

Of course, this is part of a larger context of other habits you need to pick up, like quitting smoking, drinking less alcohol, and exercising. Still, proper nutrition goes a long way.

You might want to increase the amount of plant-based meals that you have in the course of a week. You can also eat more whole foods. In other words, try to eat raw foods or less processed items.

Now, you don't have to do this all in one sitting. This doesn't have to happen overnight. You can start low and slow. Regardless, when you start doing this, you start getting used to it.

Again, look for high fiber, low salt, low fat and starch-based foods. When you're eating starch, try to step away from highly processed starch like pasta, highly refined sugar and flour, as well as well-polished rice. Instead, look for starch in its natural state.

 

The rule of thumb I follow is that the more color starch has, the healthier it is for me. So you might want to do that. It also increases the likelihood that starch, in its natural context, would have more fiber for you to enjoy.

Learn to Say No

Another bit of preventive medical advice that pays off tremendously for people, regardless of their backgrounds, is the ability to say no.

A little bit of self control can go a

long way. I am, of course, talking about drugs. This includes recreational drugs as well as pharmaceutical medication.

If there are more natural alternatives or lower impact pharmaceutical options, make sure you ask your doctor. Always ask for a healthier and more natural alternative. You don't necessarily have to always grab the most chemical-based and synthetic medical option.

Learning to say no also involves turning your back on tobacco and harder forms of alcohol. Maybe you can have a glass of wine every once in a while, but the more you turn away from alcohol, the better off you would be.

Please understand that when compared to marijuana, alcohol is actually more dangerous to you. It leads to more fights and lack of self control. Also, since it is legal, it leads to more accidents.

 

I'm not advocating marijuana use in any way, shape or form. I'm just framing alcohol in its proper context. It may be legal, but it packs quite a bit of baggage.

You might also want to consider toning down caffeine. Now, a lot of people are addicted to coffee the first thing in the morning. I understand that. I get that. But you might want to reduce your coffee intake to maybe one cup a day.

Please understand that according to research studies, the effectiveness of caffeine to jump start your day or take you to higher levels of productivity actually hits a wall. There is a certain amount of caffeine that you can take which would have a positive effect on your productivity.

After that, you hit the point of diminishing returns. A little bit past that point, and then there's really no returns at all. Instead, you just get all the negatives of caffeine intake like jitters, nervousness and possibly even physical tremors.

You might also want to look into replacing sugar in your daily food intake. This is going to be very hard because it's very easy to get addicted to sugar in its many different forms. This is especially true in the United States where almost everything has high fructose corn syrup in it.

It's easy to see why HFCS is so popular in the US because there are many states that produce a tremendous amount of corn. When this corn is processed to release its sugar in the form of HFCS, this corn becomes more commercially valuable.

 

You can use the corn meal and make money off of that. You can use it to feed livestock, and you can, of course, sell the syrup. Not surprisingly, it's all over the place in the US. It's just too abundant and all sorts of products contain HFCS.

The problem is, your body breaks down HFCS into sugar. Sugar can cause havoc with your system. It is highly inflammatory. It leads to constant hunger, which causes havoc with your insulin patterns. There are also all sorts of behavioral issues that you can suffer from due to the peaks and crashes of your blood sugar level.

As much as possible, try to start toning down on your carbohydrate intake. In fact, according to recent research, high fat, low carb diets are actually more conducive to sustainable weight loss, as well as a healthier overall lifestyle due to its anti-inflammatory effect.

You might also want to tone down on any kind of synthetic inputs that you have. Any contact you have with anything synthetic instead of natural, you might want to be more suspicious of. This applies to clothing as well as the stuff you have around the house.

I know this is not always practical. It might set you back a few bucks, but you might want to start walking towards that direction because anything synthetic can have chemical residues.

I'm not just talking about the possibility of lead paint here, although that is kind of an outlier. Instead, I'm talking broadly in terms of anything synthetic.

 

This is not just restricted to paint or composites. As long as it has a way of getting into your body, you might want to be a little bit more wary of it.

Adopt Proper Exercise

up your daily level of physical activities.

 

You know your personal routine better than anybody else. I'm not going to sit here and dictate to you that you're going to have to run a 10k every single day. But you have to step

 

Now, the good news here is that you don't have to be a hero to do this. You can choose to do it in a very passive way. For example, if you normally park right next to the main entrance of your office, you might want to consider parking farther and farther away.

Maybe on Week 1, you would park 20 feet away, and then the following week, you might want to park 50 feet away, and so on and so forth, until you park really, really far away. What this does is that you push yourself to passively exercise more because every step you take burns more calories. It pumps more blood. It makes you breathe more.

And the best part to all of this is that you're not obviously working out. You're not obviously at the gym punishing yourself physically. So you're more likely to do this on a more consistent and sustainable level.

 

The same applies to carrying bags. If you leave a lot of stuff in the office because you don't want to lug it around, you might want to rethink that. You might want to make it a point to carry heavier stuff as you walk back and forth from the office.

Now, in the beginning, it is probably going to be a little bit intrusive. It might even seem unnecessarily inconvenient, but that's the point. When you're feeling inconvenienced, it means that you are physically exerting yourself more. This is an important part of your evolution from a more or less sedentary lifestyle to a more active one.

The key here is to make the active component of your daily activities seem as passive and automatic as possible. If it's just part of your daily routine, you don't even think about it. It doesn't threaten you. It doesn't seem like a hassle after a while. It's just something that you do day after day.

Of course, the big challenge here is how to get to that point. This is why I suggest that you don't force yourself to be a hero. Slow and low is good enough. As long as you're consistent and you ramp up your physical effort, this is good enough.

At first it may be inconvenient, but eventually, you get used to it. Then you challenge yourself more by parking farther, carrying more weight, walking more stairs, until you reach an optimal level.

 

Get Enough Rest

Do yourself a big favor and try not to work seven days a week. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, you're already resting. You may be thinking that you already have Saturdays and Sundays off. Well,

you might want to think again because if you spend a lot of time worrying about work or thinking about stuff at the office, you're not really resting.

Again, keep in mind that this training focuses on you as a whole being. Your mental faculties form a crucial part of your total being. If you're constantly mentally engaged by the stuff that you have to do at work, this is going to put some pressure on you. This is going to haunt you at some level or another.

Accordingly, it's crucial that you commit to a day of total rest. This is a day where you will not play video games, think about work, or engage in any kind of activity that works you up or stresses you out. Instead, this is a day where you're just going to read recreationally, enjoy nature scenes, or listen to inspirational messages or soothing music.

This is not as easy as you think. A lot of people have a tough time slowing down. They assume that they have to always be doing something. They assume that they always have to be thinking at a certain speed.

Determine your day of rest and commit to it. Again, you can start low and slow. Maybe you can say that, on a certain day, one hour would be complete

 

and total rest. Once you get used to that, try to scale it up to two hours, then three hours. Eventually try to reach the stage where the whole day is pretty much sealed off.

If you keep this up for a long enough period of time, you will eventually get there. The key here is total relaxation.

The complete you must be relaxed. You must be relaxed on the types of food you eat, the music or sounds you listen to, the things you think about, the people you surround yourself with, as well as your physical environment.

You have to look around you and nothing must stress you out. The clothing you wear must set you at ease. Everything about your total being from the perspective of your five senses must lead to relaxation.

The Power of Balance

With all the above said, try to balance your preventive medical wholeness program with everything else going on in your life. You can't just stop everything to adopt the initiatives I described above.

While it's a good idea to absolutely stop drugs, tobacco and alcohol, for everything else, you might want to break yourself in. You might want to take a more gradual approach. Usually, strict overnight changes are easily reversible.

 

You have to understand that the human persona and the total human person springs back into shape because of fixed patterns that you have grown accustomed to over the years. And if you adopt a totally new way of living, your old habits actually start undermining you. It's just too new, too foreign, too alien.

Don't do that. You might want to gradually make the change. But as I said earlier, when it comes to certain things like drugs, tobacco and alcohol, going cold turkey might be the better way to go.

Always look for a sort of balance as you try to break into your shift into a preventive medical wholeness lifestyle.

 

As I have mentioned in a previous chapter, your surroundings have a serious impact on your mental, psychological, emotional, spiritual, physical, career and social personas. It cuts across the board.

You can't help but be affected

because the things that you see, touch, taste, smell and hear all resonate.

You're not some sort of free floating being that can just abstract reality based on some fixed concepts and live your life that way. Your external environment has a big impact on what happens to you internally. It not only impacts you from the outside going in, it also impacts how you respond to your work.

 

It is no surprise that some people who buy very small cars feel that they're capable of only doing a limited number of things. The same applies with people who live in very, very small spaces.

Now, this is not a slam on people's income or wealth levels. Instead, it points to the fact that your environment and its physical dimensions as well as its physical qualities do have an impact on your relationship with reality. It impacts your perception of your capabilities, capacities, as well as your definition of the good things in life.

What makes this really troublesome is that these changes take place over an extended period of time. It's not one of those things that happens overnight. Understand that the physical space that you typically find yourself in plays a bigger role in shaping your internal world than you are aware of.

In this chapter, I'm going to step you through the process of reclaiming environmental wholeness. Instead of subconsciously saying to yourself that, "this is just the way things are and there's really not much I can do about it," you reclaim your ability to shape your world and, by extension, trigger internal changes.

Clean Up Physical Clutter

The first thing that you can do to take control over your environment and start on the road to achieving environmental wholeness is to clean up physical

 

clutter. This is fairly straightforward. There might be stuff around you that just takes up real estate that you don't really use. You see it, it's gathering dust.

You might want to hold a garage sale. You might have stuff on the wall that doesn't really look right. You might want to change those materials. You might have lots of stuff eating up precious real estate in your interior space. You might want to sell off and clear out that stuff.

Interestingly enough, the more you clean up physical clutter, the more you free up mental clutter as well. You feel less constrained. You feel that things are more open ended; that there's a lot more you can do.

Also, try to recreate nature in your areas of control. Even if you have a fairly small apartment, you can put in potted plants. You can paint the walls green. You can put up pictures or posters of nature scenes. However you want to do it, you end up recreating nature in interior spaces that you control.

This enables your mind to tap into natural signs or signals embedded in nature, which can lead to a sense of wholeness and completion. It definitely feels more natural. You don't feel like you are hemmed in. You don't feel that everything is artificial, synthetic, mechanical or industrial.

Instead, the sense of discovery, adventure and possibility that most people get when they are out in the open surrounded by Mother Nature is available to you. You just have to be conscientious and purposeful about it.

 

You have to select these cues that you put into your interior space that remind you of the recreational and healing and restorative qualities of nature.

Get Proper Environmental Inputs

In your daily routine, intentionally get fresh air. Now, a lot of people might be thinking that they're already getting fresh air. Well, I'm

sorry to be the one to tell you this, but in any kind of urban environment, you're not really getting fresh air. You're often getting positively charged ions and this can have a negative health effect.

You need fresh air. You need air that moves, so it's some sort of breeze. Also, try to live in a place where there is a decent enough rainfall because any kind of precipitation increases the amount of negative ions in the air, which has a more positive health effect on you.

I'm not just saying this because it feels good, but it lifts up your mood. Research studies have also indicated that heavier volumes of fresh air increases cognitive efficiency and acuity. Don't neglect the positive impact of clean, fresh air.

The same goes with light exposure. Make it a point in your daily routine to expose your skin to light. Previously, people thought that you need morning

 

exposure to sunlight for optimal Vitamin D synthesis. It turns out that it really depends on where you live on the planet.

The key is to get bright enough sunlight for about thirty minutes to an hour without it being uncomfortable. You might want to adjust this, but try to set up your daily workout routine so you get optimal light exposure.

Finally, you should invest in really clean water. While tap water in the US is healthy enough, you might want to invest in proper water filtration technology to make sure that you get super clean water.

Also cut up some cucumbers and put it in water to increase its alkaline levels. Some studies suggest that alkaline water is healthier for you in terms of your body's chemistry.

Get in Touch with Mother Nature... a Lot!

If you have the budget for it or if you have the opportunity to do this, you might want to consider investing in a second home in the woods somewhere.

Now, ideally, you should get a place out in an area that is heavily wooded or at least is in a natural state. So if you live in a part of the US that is very arid, exposure to the raw natural desert is good enough.

 

Whatever your particular spot in the US may be, get a second home so you can get away from the city every weekend. Invest in a home that is in a geographic spot that is in a more natural state.

The Power of Balance

Just like with all the other advice in this training, make sure that you don't go to extremes. You don't have to throw away everything in your physical space in the name of cleaning up clutter. You can start

slow and take it easy. What's important is that you do this in a very intentional way.

You have to start at one particular corner of any interior space, and then work your way through. Create a ritual for it. It shouldn't be chaotic or random. You might end up throwing stuff away that you would regret. You might even buy something similar to take its place. It kind of defeats the purpose.

So do yourself a big favor and start slow. There's no need to jump in with both feet. Just pick a spot that you're going to clean up, and then scale up from there slowly.

 

When you’re trying to change your life, please understand that your number one enemy is not going to be another person. It’s not going to be your past. It’s not going to be situations you have no control over.

Your number one challenger is going to be yourself. Wrap your mind around this reality. We are all creatures of comfort and somehow some way, we are going to undermine, sabotage or stymie ourselves from the progress we could otherwise be achieving.

 

We want the old patterns to persist. We want our old lives to continue

because, at some level or other, we’ve grown really accustomed to them and change terrifies us. Intellectually, we know that we need to change.

Intellectually, we know that we need to be completely whole people so we can truly live meaningful lives in the face of life’s challenges. However, old

habits die hard. Old ways of living don’t go away overnight just because you have seen a better path.

Get ready for this challenge. The good news is the more you challenge yourself, the closer you get to that breakthrough. Don’t give up. Focus on what you stand to gain instead of what you stand to lose.

You know that since you’re taking this training that there’s something fundamentally wrong with some aspect of your life. Start there. Start with the realization that there is a better way forward.

I wish you nothing but great success, happiness, and WHOLENESS!

 

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