MegaZEN Well-Being Journal - Volume 6 by MegaZEN

CONSCIOUSNESS | ENTELECHY | INTENTIONAL HEALING COMMUNIT Y

MegaZEN VOLUME 6

WELL-BEING JOURNAL

THE CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION THE KEY TO HEALING THE BIGGEST CHRONIC DISEASES OF OUR TIME

BE H I V E OF H E A L I N G

L .I.G . H .T. A RTICLES

A HEALING GESTURE OF A GIFT FROM

Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami

www.beingclarity.com

M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

I S S UE HIGHLIGHTS:

Health & Nutrition M I N D - BODY W ELLN ESS Food for Thought

Urban Harvest

Are You a Clean Liver?

Parenting SENSITIVE TOPICS Sex Talk and Timing

Don't Call It a Diet

183

Personal Delivery

214

Lifestyle CONSCIOUS LIVING Getting an Earful

Generation Frustration

Retiring from Retirement

110

Staying Power

122

Maneuvering the Midlife Crisis

176

Contributions ARTICLES & POETRY A Work of Art

172

A Life-Changing Appointment

220

Poetry Lounge 226

Appearances SPEECHES & CONTRIBUTIONS Fireside Talk with Tracy Anderson

The Consciousness Connection

It's Allowed

150

The Courage to Lead

206

Second Opinion TA K I N G A C LO S E R LO O K Prescription for Profit

Prescribing Caution

The Ugly Side of Beauty Products

138

The Ecology of Oncology

188

WARNING MEGAZEN IS HAZARDOUS TO THE HEALTH OF YOUR SENSE OF POWERLESSNESS AND LIMITING BELIEFS ABOUT HEALING. RESEARCH HAS SHOWN THAT REGULAR EXPOSURE TO MEGAZEN LEADS TO THE PARTIAL OR TOTAL LOSS OF SELF JUDGEMENT, WHICH MAY RESULT IN THE PE R M A N E NT F U S IO N O F M I N D, BO DY & SOU L .

KEEP OUT OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN Me gaZEN has be e n shown to spontane ously raise self-esteem in laboratory tests. Women who are pregnant or nursing should avoid MegaZEN in order to prevent the awakening of consciousness in a new generation. If you or a family member experience a shift in consciousness after reading MegaZEN, contact your Higher Self immediately.

WELCOME TO THE 6TH VOLUME OF MEGA ZEN

Wide Open Spaces Creating a place for expansion and awareness

hat a year it has been for us! We’ve experienced so many wonderful things and unexpected challenges this past year that it would be impossible to share all of them here. We only hope that your year was filled with as much enlightenment and excitement as ours.

One of the most exciting (and stressful) things we experienced this year was moving our home. While we loved where we lived previously, we really felt it was time to do for ourselves what we did for our business several years ago—move out of the city and get closer to nature. So, we finally made the leap and moved to an amazing location where we can appreciate the rolling hills and wide open spaces every day. We’re also excited about the fact that our children now have lots of room to play. What was most interesting about the move was that even in the midst of packing boxes and coordinating movers, we could feel an increasing sense of expansiveness happening in our lives. It wasn’t just because we knew we were moving to the country, but because of the opportunity we finally had to throw out, donate or give away so many things we hadn’t realized we’d been hanging onto for decades. Quite often, when we purge our lives of the things we don’t really need, we experience a sense of relief and expansiveness that makes room for new things to enter. The same could be said of purging our emotional and spiritual house of the feelings, relationships and behaviors we no longer need. So for us, this move wasn’t just a physical one, but a spiritual one. It’s amazing how being in the expansiveness of nature works to open the mind in a similar way. It’s when our mind is open and free of the clutter of the past that new realizations and the answers we’ve been seeking can enter, but we have to create the space for them first. In this issue of MegaZEN, you’ll find out how to do just that with tips from Habib’s new book, The Clarity Cleanse: 12 steps to finding renewed energy, spiritual fulfillment and emotional healing. Also included you’ll find informative articles on how to avoid toxins in cosmetics, when and how to talk with children about sex, how to be an urban farmer with limited space, the danger ear buds pose for hearing loss, understanding the millennial generation, how midwives benefit birthing, maneuvering the midlife crisis, and more. As always, there is plenty of insight and inspiration provided through our Poetry Lounge and exciting updates on the outreach efforts of the Love Button Global Movement. Thank you for making this year such a blessed one for us. Our lives have become a richer and deeper experience simply because of your presence in them. As we continue on our journey, we look forward to the gifts that come from the comfort of old friends and the exciting opportunities that arise from meeting new neighbors. Love and Light in the Year Ahead,

Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami

BE H I V E OF H E A L I N G

By Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami

wanted to share with you an amazing story from Reader’s Digest that’s turned out to be one of the magazine’s most read articles in its 95-year history. Considering the pocket-sized publication reaches 10.5 million people each month, that’s saying something. What’s unique about this story is that it’s a great example of the influence of the mind on health, as well as how synchronicity lines everything up to put us in the right place at the right time.

L .I.G . H .T. A RTICLES

Acting & Illness The synchronicity of health and healing

Jim Malloy (75) was a retired engineer who often spent time as a medical actor faking various illnesses to help medical students in their studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Over the years, he’d faked all kinds of physical maladies and diseases. To him, it was a fun part-time job and an interesting pastime in his retirement. One day in February 2013, Jim took his position on the gurney and received his illness assignment, an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). In this serious condition, the main blood vessel that supplies blood to the abdomen, pelvis and legs can enlarge, swelling up for years until it bursts, often times without a single symptom. In most cases, and without preventative medicine, it’s fatal. When Ryan Jones, a third-year medical student, entered the room, Jim followed his script and complained of lightheadedness and stomach pain. When Ryan pressed down on Jim’s abdomen, he was shocked at what he found—a

M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

“If we can speak to our body through physical and emotional action to bring wellness, then it can certainly work in the reverse.”

pulsating mass. Ryan asked himself in disbelief, “Could this fake patient have a real aneurysm?” Thoroughly confused, Ryan stepped back and tried to get Jim to break character so he could tell him he thought he had a real aneurysm, but Jim wouldn’t let go of the façade. It was only after Ryan called on the assistance of his attending physician that Jim understood the seriousness of the situation. He was advised to see a cardiologist immediately. Incredibly, Jim said he felt terrific and had even seen his family physician just two weeks earlier. An ultrasound later showed that Jim did indeed have an AAA that was 6 cm in diameter and on the verge of rupture. Immediate surgery to insert a stent and deflate the aneurysm saved his life. Later that week, Jim’s wife would meet two women whose husbands died of the same condition. What’s incredible is that Jim could have received an assignment to fake any one of hundreds of illnesses he’d acted out over the years that day. If he hadn’t received the assignment of an AAA, Ryan wouldn’t have had any reason to perform that part of the physical exam, and Jim most certainly would have died in the coming days. Not only is this story an incredible example of how synchronicities can line up in our favor, but quite possibly a testament to how the mind affects the health of the body. Jim had been faking illnesses for years, and now he had one. He’d surely performed the AAA several other times in the past. If you believe that acting AS IF your desire is already manifested can actually bring it into being in a quantum universe, then it’s interesting to contemplate how this might apply to Jim’s story. If we can speak to our body through physical and emotional action to bring wellness, then it can certainly work in the reverse, as in Jim’s case.

BE H I V E OF H E A L I N G

Many years ago, while I was working at US Health Works in downtown Los Angeles, I’d seen a similar although far less serious situation play out where the mind produced a real physical condition in the body. A company was certain an employee was faking a wrist injury. I knew he wasn’t faking his condition because there was clear inflammation in the fascia of his hand. As it turned out, this patient had a seizure disorder. Closed circuit video of his work station showed that he’d actually had a mild seizure the day of the alleged injury. It was during the postictal period, the 5-30 minutes of altered consciousness immediately following a seizure, that the patient noticed something had fallen off a shelf onto his work area. He was so certain that his shaking had caused the item to fall and hit his hand that his pain began almost immediately, with inflammation that followed. This was in spite of the video of the entire incident that showed the item never made contact with his hand. So the good news was that there was no accident and yet, there was a real injury, and it all came down to the power of the mind.

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These statements made have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Our products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. All medications and nutritional supplements should only be used after you consult with your physician or other healthcare provider.

FOOD FOR

THOUGHT ALTERING BRAIN CHEMISTRY WITH NUTRITION

BE I N G C L A R I T Y

MENTA L HEA LTH

By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

or decades, the only interventions available to those with mental health problems were heavy medication and talk or shock therapies. Just over 50 years ago, Abram Hoffer, Ph.D., M.D., became one of the first physicians to suggest that biochemistry played a significant role in psychiatry and that correcting chemical imbalances in the brain for mental health patients could improve their quality of life. C ON T I N U E D. . .

M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

“Dr. Hoffer helped a significant number of patients recover from schizophrenia by working to develop treatments based on the patients’ nutritional status and individual biochemical levels.”

days of his career. EARLY INSPIR ATION

DISMISSAL & DETERMINATION

Dr. Hoffer helped a significant number of patients recover from schizophrenia by working with colleagues to develop treatments based on the patients’ nutritional status and individual biochemical levels. The treatments utilized nutritional components to restore brain chemical balance. While not rejecting the effectiveness of medication or other forms of therapy, Dr. Hoffer’s work in nutrition and brain chemistry inspired a paradigm shift in mental health services. It proved that nutritional therapy was a crucial, missing piece of the treatment puzzle, and that it was necessary for providing patients with a much-improved quality of life. As is usually the case with pioneers in a field as set in its way as medicine, Dr. Hoffer's findings were either mockingly dismissed or ignored by skeptical psychiatrists. In spite of the remarkable progress his patients were making and the reports he published in medical journals, the medical establishment continued to cling to the old ways. No one aside from his patients and research team believed that vitamins could heal serious mental conditions like schizophrenia. Even with his professional reputation at risk, Dr. Hoffer remained steadfast in his dedication to nutritional therapy for brain chemistry stabilization, not only because he knew it was effective, but because his instinct about the vital link between nutrition and mental health had been a major driving force for him since the early

BE I N G C L A R I T Y

After receiving his early education in a one-room schoolhouse in Saskatchewan, Dr. Hoffer went on to earn his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Minnesota and study for his medical degree at the University of Toronto. As a research assistant in the 1950s, Dr. Hoffer became intrigued by the circumstances that caused humans to hallucinate and interested in how brain chemistry could be stabilized. At that time, no one believed there was a cure for schizophrenia. Later on, as a team leader, Dr. Hoffer and his researchers focused on diagnosing psychosis and restoring brain chemistry through dietary changes and therapeutic doses of nutritional supplements. A large portion of Dr. Hoffer's patients got well and enjoyed a greatly improved quality of life, as long as they continued with their nutritional regimens. In his memoirs, Dr. Hoffer explained that it was the Hoffer-Osmond adrenochrome hypothesis, or the idea that dysfunctional metabolism of adrenaline can cause psychosis in some people, that first led him to consider nutritional therapy for mental illness. In vulnerable patients, adrenaline (a healthy brain chemical) can be converted into the hallucinogenic compounds, adrenochrome, and adrenolutin. In the first double-blind clinical trial ever in psychiatry, Dr. Hoffer and his partner, Dr. Osmond, found that divided doses of either niacin or niacinamide (vitamin B3, a methyl acceptor) with ascorbic acid (vitamin C, an antioxidant) consistently alleviated patients' symptoms and proved more effective than antipsychotic medications, tranquilizers, insulin comas, and metrazole therapies. Taking each patient’s individual biochemistry into account, Dr. Hoffer and Dr. Osmond customized nutritional therapeutic regimens that included

“Nobel Prize winning chemist, Linus Pauling, found Dr. Hoffer and Dr. Osmond’s 1966 book, How to Live with Schizophrenia, and became an instant proponent of orthomolecular therapy.” vitamins or vital amines, trace minerals, amino acids, antioxidants, methyl acceptors, enzyme co-factors, essential fatty acids, and precursors. As a result of these therapies, thousands of their patients became well enough to resume their jobs or complete their schooling, and get on with the rest of their lives.

A POWERFUL PARTNER

The wheel in medicine turns very slowly. Any new advancement can take several generations before it filters down to the general public as standard treatment. A new theory must be tested, then exposed to official research and clinical trials. Papers must be written and published in accredited medical journals where the theory can be challenged and investigated. And, all this must happen while the proponents of the new theory share their work at conferences around the world to enlighten the international medical community to the possibility of these new developments. Instead of waiting for the mainstream medical establishment to have a change of heart regarding brain chemistry nutritional therapy, Dr. Hoffer decided to embark on a campaign to educate the public directly by taking his discoveries to the people in the form of books. As luck would have it, Nobel Prize winning chemist, Linus Pauling, found Dr. Hoffer and Dr. Osmond’s 1966 book, How to Live with Schizophrenia, and became an instant proponent of orthomolecular therapy, or the use of vitamins and other essential nutrients to return molecular

concentrations of bio-chemicals within the body to ideal levels for optimum function. It was Pauling’s endorsement that gave Hoffer and Osmond’s work the credibility within the scientific establishment it desperately needed, and it is what started to turn the tide in their favor. In fact, it was Pauling himself who coined the term orthomolecular medicine. He believed in it so much that he came out of retirement to research it himself and remained a professional consultant until age 90. With the medical world finally paying attention, Dr. Hoffer founded the Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry (later the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine), through which he continued to educate the world about the benefits of nutritional therapy.

MENTA L HEA LTH

This wasn’t the first time researchers had used nutritional therapy to heal metabolic problems and other diseases. Vitamin C was used for scurvy (Lind, 1795), vitamin B3 for pellagra (Goldberger, 1914), and insulin for diabetes (Banting and Best, 1920). So, to Dr. Hoffer and Dr. Osmond, it seemed fair to assume that the medical establishment would be open to the reality that nutritional therapies improved brain chemistry and mental illness. However, at that time, the medical establishment couldn’t make that connection. In fact, it fiercely resisted it.

Thanks to Dr. Hoffer and Dr. Osmond’s work (and Linus Pauling’s endorsement), nutritional therapy for mental illness is now receiving a wider acceptance than it has had at any other time in history. As a result, patients have options other than pharmaceuticals, which merely numb mental functions and dull the senses, leaving one unable to enjoy life. Later in life, Dr. Hoffer directed the International Schizophrenia Foundation and the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine. Since 1971, the Orthomolecular Medicine Today conference continues to share the latest research on how nutritional therapies are changing lives around the world. Thanks to his original vision and leadership, hundreds of thousands of patients owe their recoveries to Dr. Hoffer’s work. M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

GETTING AN

EARFUL INCREASED VOLUME THROUGH EARBUDS RAISES HEARING LOSS RISK

By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

BE I N G C L A R I T Y

PA R E N T I N G

e see them everywhere. They’re in restaurants, cof fee shops, bookstores, department stores, and city parks—kids staring down, lost in their cell phones or other electronic gadgets, with earbuds jammed in their ears, completely oblivious to the world around them. Many times, the music they’re playing on their phone or MP3 player is so loud, an observer can hear it from several feet away. While much research has examined how the overuse of technology affects child brain development, a new concern is arising regarding the risks children face for premature hearing loss, particularly when using earbuds. ALL-DAY AUDIO

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since the dawn of the MP3 player back in 2001, 13% of American children between the ages of 6 and 19 have acquired some level of noise-induced hearing loss. That’s more than 5 million young people.1 According to audiologists, hearing loss in teens is about 30% higher now than it was in the 1980s and 1990s.2 Though attending rock concerts poses a great threat to premature hearing loss, the significant increase in hearing loss among today’s generation of younger people is being attributed to the daily use of earbuds with their cell phones and MP3 players. Twenty-five years ago, people used their Sony Walkman Personal Stereos for about half an hour per day, either while jogging, working out, or doing some other short-term activity. When the activity was finished, so was their listening time. They were also using headphones that went over the ears. Back then, it wasn’t as common to turn the volume up too high because the simpler technology couldn’t handle the output, and the sound would become distorted. At the same time, these devices ran on two AA carbon batteries with limited lifespans, so using them for hours on end wasn’t an option. Today, cell phones and MP3 players can last for years and have batteries that are rechargeable. Because cell phones are also computers, kids can listen to music or watch videos for hours on end while using earbuds that are inserted into the ear canal about a half inch from the eardrum. The digital technology makes sound crystal clear, so there is no real incentive to keep it low. In fact, kids have a strong tendency to turn the volume up to drown out exterior noise from things like crowds and traffic. With earbuds being so close to the hearing mechanism inside the ear, the risk of hearing damage occurring at lower levels is very real. Just by placing the source of sound closer to the eardrum, earbuds have been shown to increase volume by 9 decibels when compared to other hearing appliances.3 Based on the increase in patients audiologists are seeing, it’s been estimated that anywhere between 15% and 25% of children listen to their devices at hazardous levels. 4 C ON T I N U E D. . . M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

HOW HEARING HAPPENS

The cochlea or small snail-shaped inner ear chamber is where hearing happens. It’s lined with 16,000 tiny hair cells that vibrate at different frequencies. It’s those vibrations that get translated into nerve signals and sound perceptions. We know that loud noise damages and even kills these fragile hair cells, and once gone, they never regenerate. Hearing loss is cumulative over a lifetime, and any amount of hearing loss is irreversible. Because it comes on gradually, many people don’t notice it until they’re in their 40’s or 50’s, often experiencing the kind of hearing loss that isn’t normally seen until the 70’s. New research from Harvard Medical School’s Eaton Peabody Laboratory is now showing that the nerve synapses in the inner ear are more vulnerable to damage than the hair cells themselves. A series of experiments with young animals showed that even a single exposure to loud noise accelerates hearing loss later in life. This is mostly due to damage done to nerve synapses. In fact, a person can lose up to 90% of their cochlear hair cells and still be able to detect a tone in a quiet room. However, once background noise is introduced, hearing ability drops dramatically. So while a person’s hair cells may be largely intact, they can still experience hearing loss if the nerve synapses are damaged.5 When a nerve fiber is damaged, it never reconnects or responds to sounds. Within a few months or years, the neuron itself shrivels and disappears. Earbuds are of particular concern because they deliver stronger, more damaging sound waves straight to the cochlea, even at lower volumes.

BE I N G C L A R I T Y

Typical signs of hearing loss include ringing, roaring, hissing or buzzing sounds in the ear, difficulty understanding speech in noisy places or locations with poor acoustics, muffled sounds or a feeling of fullness in the ear, and listening to radio or TV at higher levels than in the past. Anyone experiencing these kinds of symptoms should be examined by a professional. HOW LOUD IS TOO LOUD?

According to the National Institutes of Health, long or repeated exposure to sounds at or above 85 decibels can cause hearing loss.6 To put this into perspective, normal speech registers at about 60 decibels. City traffic can reach 85 decibels, as does the volume in movie theaters, although it has peaks that are much higher. A lawnmower registers at 90 decibels, a chainsaw at 100, and a rock concert or stadium noise range from 110-120. Most MP3 players today can produce volumes up to 120 decibels. At that level, permanent hearing loss can occur in as little as 8 minutes. The louder the noise, the shorter amount of exposure is required to create permanent hearing loss. Anything under 75 decibels is considered healthy. By contrast, a noisy lunchroom full of screaming middle schoolers averages about 89 decibels.7 There’s a reason why teachers keep telling children to quiet down during lunchtime, and it’s not because they’re boring adults who don’t know how to have fun. This is about the same level of noise an MP3 player produces at just 70% volume.

SETTING HEALTHY LEVELS

The most effective way to preserve hearing is to stop using earbuds completely because they place sound too close to the inner ear. Stop using headphones, as well. If you must use headphones, choose the highest quality you can find and be sure they fit completely over the ear, so there is little temptation to turn up the volume. If someone can hear “leakage” from your headphones from several feet away, the volume is too loud. Likewise, if you can’t hear anything going on in the environment around you with your headphones on, the sound level is too high. Many cell phones and MP3 players can lock sound at lower levels. This can be a great tool to train yourself to get accustomed to lower levels and prevent children from getting into the habit of turning the volume up all the time. Regardless of where you are or what you’re doing, the general sound rule is that if you have to raise your voice to be heard, it’s too loud.

60/60 R U L E

6 0 M i n u te s p e r d ay a t 6 0 % Vo l u m e

CONSCIOUS LIFESTYLE

When using headphones, most doctors and audiologists recommend following the 60/60 rule. Headphone usage should be limited to 60 minutes per day at 60% of the maximum volume or less. Just by making these simple changes, you’ll be able to preserve your own and your child's hearing for a lifetime.

Sources (1)Niskar, Amanda Sue et al. (2001). The estimated prevalence of noise-induced hearing threshold shifts among children 6 to 19 years of age. Pediatrics, 108(1), 40-43. DOI: 10.1542/peds.108.1.40 (2)Donaldson James, Susan, “Generation Deaf: Doctors warn of dangers of earbuds," NBC News, June 8, 2015. https://nbcnews.to/2N7gi6Y (3) Ibid (4)Knox, Richard, "Kids' Use of Earbuds Worries Hearing Experts," NPR, April 26, 2007. https://n.pr/2NE0cXj (5)"Noise-Induced 'Hidden Hearing Loss' Mechanism Discovered," Press Release, Acoustical Society of America, April 30, 2014, http://bit.ly/2IfvIVR (6) “Avoid hearing loss: Check the decibels before entering a room," Fox News, June 11, 2013, https://fxn.ws/2Q8k8yq (7) Knox, Richard, “Kids’ Use of Earbuds Worries Hearing Experts”, NPR, April 26, 2007. https://n.pr/2NE0cXj

M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

URBAN HARVEST

GROWING MORE OF YOUR FOOD IN THE CITY TAKES CREATIVITY By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

hether organic food is or isn’t more nutritious than conventionally grown produce has been a topic of debate for quite some time. Even in the light of studies that clearly show that the benefits of organic food are greater, commercial food producers still insist the difference is negligible.

An analysis1 of 343 individual studies by the University of Newcastle, published in the British Journal of Nutrition2 , has shown that not only is organic food more nutritious than conventional produce, but it provides up to 60% more of specific antioxidants (polyphenolics), which protect us from chronic disease. In fact, the concentrations of these antioxidants are so much higher that eating the usual three servings of organic fruits and vegetables per day is the equivalent of consuming 1-2 extra portions of conventional produce. Organic produce contains substantially less heavy metals and is 48% less likely to contain cadmium. The largest exposure to cadmium - classified as a probable carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - for non-smokers, is through high levels in food as the result of caustic fertilizers used in mass farming operations. The study also found that pesticide residues - which accumulate in the body over time and act as neurotoxins - were four times higher in conventional produce, and that nitrate and nitrite levels were 30% and 87% lower in organic fruits and vegetables. A 2016 study, also from New Castle University, showed similar results when comparing organic and conventional meat and dairy products; organic milk and meat contain 50% more healthy, anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants.3 It’s clear that we all need to be eating more organic fruits and vegetables. For lots of people, that can be difficult because the price of organic produce is often higher, sometimes significantly so, for certain items when compared to conventional. If you live in the countryside, one of the solutions is to raise more of your own food. Even if you live in the city or suburbs, you can become an urban farmer and grow your own organic produce, which will improve your health while saving you money. It’s all about being creative with the amount of space you have.

PALLET GARDENING

A pallet is a wooden base on which large boxed items are usually stacked so they can be transported easily via forklift and moved to other locations or loaded onto trucks. Any store, such as Best Buy, Costco, Home Depot and grocery stores that receive large deliveries of items or deal with “big box” products like electronics or appliances, will generally have extra pallets they’re willing to give away, if you ask. Simply lay one or more (based on your available space) on the ground or a patio. Fill in the gaps between the planks with a good quality soil. Plant your vegetables in the rows. No tilling the ground is required, and it’s much easier than using raised beds. It also limits weed growth. At the end of the season, stack and store the pallets until next year.

VERTICAL GARDENING

Your trellis must have support. If it’s not leaning up against a wall, you’ll need to be sure it’s an A-frame style to provide proper support, balance and weight distribution as the vines bear fruit. You can plant the vines directly in the ground next to the wall where your trellis rests, in pots at the base of the trellis, or even in a small raised bed over which your A-frame is constructed. Metal A-frame trellises of varying sizes can be purchased directly from any garden center.

H EA LT H & N U TR ITION

Ordinarily, vegetables that grow on vines like cucumbers, squash, and pumpkins can take up as much as 12-24 feet as they grow along the ground. Most people don’t know you can grow them vertically and save 95% of that space. All you need is a metal or wooden grid for the vines to climb. That could be a stretch of metal fencing, a piece of wooden trellis from the home improvement store, or a wooden frame with some wire webbing you’ve stretched across yourself. Just be sure it’s sturdy and about 6 feet tall. With regard to width, each vine you plan to grow on it will need about 18 inches to fan out.

Stackable crates make a great vertical garden. Just line each crate with a plastic trash bag, and poke several holes in the bottom for drainage. Fill each with a quality soil mixture, and plant away.

Cinderblocks make for an excellent small vertical garden, if you’re really pinched for space.

Even an old dresser can provide opportunities to save space with vertical gardening.

Sources (1) Newcastle University, Press Office, “Organic vs. Non-Organic Food”, (Oct. 8, 2015), http://bit.ly/organicwins (2) Baranski, M et al. (2014). Higher antioxidant and lower cadmium concentrations and lower incidence of pesticide residues in organically grown crops: a systematic literature review and meta-analyses. Brisith Journal of Nutrition, 112(5), 794-811. (3) New Castle University, Press Office, Study finds clear differences between organic and in-organic products”, (Feb. 16, 2016), http://bit.ly/organic-meats

WHY CHOOSE ORGANIC PRODUCE OVER CONVENTIONAL? ORGANIC PRODUCE

1. Provides up to 60% more of

specific antioxidants which protect us from chronic disease

2. Contains substantially less heavy metals and is 48% less likely to contain cadmium

3. Contains 4 times less pesticide residues which accumulate in the body over time and act as neurotoxins

4. Contains 30-87% lower nitrate levels

BE I N G C L A R I T Y

NATURAL PEACE OF MIND WITH

Healing Tranquility By Be Hive of Healing

Wellbeing Without Worry Today, 1 in 10 Americans takes an antidepressant drug like Effexor, Celexa, Welbutrin or Zoloft. For middle-aged women, it’s 1 in 4. Interestingly, research published in the journal, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, showed that two thirds of people taking anti-depressants didn’t meet the criteria for a major depressive episode, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSMV).1 The mass misdiagnosis of depression and over-prescription of antidepressants is no secret in the medical community. Before taking unnecessary antidepressants that include powerful chemicals, and can cause dangerous side effects such as thoughts of suicide, consider the power of a natural approach. Consider Healing Tranquility. Also known as 5-HTP, Healing Tranquility is an amino acid that acts as a precursor in the production of serotonin, the brain chemical that provides us with a sense of contentedness and wellbeing. Studies have shown that 5-HTP can raise levels of serotonin and relieve mild to moderate depression. It’s also shown some effectiveness with pain, particularly for fibromyalgia, as well as insomnia, anxiety and appetite control. 5-HTP should never be taken with any SSRI medication. Healing Tranquility might be right for you if you’re going through a difficult but temporary experience in life or if you maintain a stressful schedule.

(1) Rabin, Roni Caryn, “A Glut of Antidepressants”, The New York Times, Aug. 12, 2013.

GET YOURS TODAY! Consider bringing some peace of mind back into your life the natural way with Healing Tranquility. BEHIVEOFHE ALING.COM/HE ALING -TR ANQ U ILIT Y These statements made have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Our products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. All medications and nutritional supplements should only be used after you consult with your physician or other healthcare provider.

TRACY ANDERSON

FIRESIDE TALK INTERVIEW WITH DR. HABIB SADEGHI

OCTOBER 2, 2017

n October 2, 2017, fitness and health expert, Tracy Anderson, sat down for the first in her new series of Fireside Talks with Dr. Habib Sadeghi to discuss the release of his second book, The Clarity Cleanse: 12 steps to finding renewed energy, spiritual fulfillment and emotional healing. Below is an excerpt from the special event held at Tracy Anderson’s Brentwood Studio in Los Angeles.

Q: I find that when people find clarity, they find relief, self-empowerment, and a great deal of healing. What made you title your next book, The Clarity Cleanse? A: There are moments in our lives when we are presented with situations that leave us dumbfounded, perplexed, completely unsure of what to do. Often, we are thrown into a panic, our days and nights spent anxiously worrying about what action to take. Maybe we just learned that our spouse has been having an affair, that our job is being terminated in an already tight job market, or that we have a life-threatening illness. Since we can’t avoid such trauma, wouldn’t it be

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of immense value if there was some way we could know the right course of action when faced with a decision we have to make and yet, simply don’t know which way to go? When I was diagnosed with cancer over twenty years ago, my first reaction was sheer terror. I felt as if I’d been handed a death sentence. That there might be a path to a robust, healthy future was the furthest thought from my mind, until a friend pointed me in a direction that simply hadn’t occurred to me. Flying in the face of pretty much everything my doctors told me I needed to do (other than the barest minimum of excising the tumor), I went in a direction that few people would think of going in at such a time. Instead of looking outward to authorities who were certain of what I should do, I looked inward to a deeper part of myself. It was from this place within that clarity came, in the process, not only freeing me of cancer, but transforming every aspect of my life. The essence of my discovery is that our core being contains all the clarity we require in any

situation that arises and threatens our peace, stability, and happiness. When we access this clarity, our fear is spontaneously ousted, replaced by an incredible sense of empowerment. That feeling of empowerment has never left me. Whatever difficult decision or trauma we may be facing, the clarity we need is there in each of us. It’s simply a matter of sweeping aside all that obscures what we already know deep within. This is why my new book is entitled, The Clarity Cleanse.

Q: Your last book, Within, was an incredible source of healing for so many people. What is one takeaway you hope people will discover from reading The Clarity Cleanse?

I’m all for the professionals who do research and are experienced in the many walks of life that affect our wellbeing. We need thorough study, double-blind trials, peer reviews, and replicable experiments. As important as these are, their purpose should be informational. In any situation, we need to be equipped with the facts as they are presently understood. What we don’t need is someone dictating to us.

I want my readers to learn to question. I want them to question the doctors, the standards established by government agencies, the pronouncements about health in the headlines, and the advice anyone offers them in any aspect of their lives. Only by questioning can we begin to take back our power from those who would rob us of it, misguidedly believing they “know best.” My readers will find specific examples of the kinds of questions we all need to be asking. They’ll see how asking the right questions has changed the course of many patients’ lives, and in no small number of cases, plucking them from the jaws of death. As they increasingly learn to tune into their own intuition, they will find that they have the ability to sift through the information society presents them, discern the facts, and make wise choices that will empower them in every dimension of their lives.

Q: What is the one thing we can do today to begin living up to our full potential? A: With the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton almost 400 years ago, the older mystical ways of viewing reality began to lose their grip on the human mind, with the result that we found ourselves increasingly inhabiting a mechanical universe. Creation was seen in terms of a clock that God wound up and that, well, had been

SPEECHES & APPEARANCES

A: The aim of The Clarity Cleanse is to help readers restore power over their lives. We live in a culture that likes to do our thinking for us. Anywhere you turn in modern society, someone is trying to tell you “the way things are” and therefore, what you need to do, how you ought to think, and the way you need to live. My own profession is particularly good at this, warning of dire consequences if we don’t heed everything they tell us.

they might be mistaken - countless people died unnecessarily. If you think this has changed, you are mistaken.

On one doctor’s website, the statement is made that a particular procedure is safe, and the correct course of action in line with all the facts, but then adds that they will follow this procedure “until the facts change.” Right there is the problem.

“Only by questioning can we begin to take back our power from those who rob us of it, misguidedly believing they ‘know best’.” In my new book, The Clarity Cleanse, I cite various cases in which physicians were certain of the science—until they weren’t. Because they had been practicing the established protocols unquestioningly—more than unquestioningly, with huge resistance to even the suggestion that

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running like clockwork from then on. Not only was the universe and the world of nature viewed in this mechanistic manner, but our bodies also came to be understood as machines. It’s of course true that there are machine-like elements to the universe, as well as the human body. Within the body are pumps, electrical circuits, and chemical exchanges, all of which function without our conscious intervention. The problem with this view of our humanity is that as our researchers have dug deeper, we have become more and more aware of the amazing complexity of both the universe and the body as a part of that universe. For a start, we now know that our bodies aren’t separate entities with distinct boundaries, but that they are particular expressions of a quantum field in which an exchange of particles and energy is occurring continuously, a quantum soup as it’s often been referred to. Instead of being the distinct individuals we imagine ourselves to be, on many different levels, we are part and parcel of the world around us, influenced and affected by the whole of reality, in countless ways. As a simple example, even our skin, which appears to form a clear boundary of who we are as a person, is constantly absorbing and giving off particles. We don’t think about the makeup we put on, the fabrics we wear, the mattress and sheets we sleep on, the furniture and flooring we are in contact with, or the liquids that touch our skin as infiltrating us through our skin and affecting our mood and health, and yet the process is going on day and night. What I’m getting to is that no part of our lives is separate from any other part. The human body is now known to be intricately connected to its environment. More than that, our physical wellbeing is powerfully affected by our mental

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state and emotions. There is no separation between our physical body and our mindset. The two are always in an ongoing exchange. Our thoughts and viewpoints, our emotions and our deeper currents of feeling, every aspect of who we are as sentient beings, affects our physical state, even as the chemistry and electrical systems of the physical body affect how we feel, often dictating our mood and consequently, our happiness. If we are to reach our potential, we must do so with our whole being. It isn’t just a matter of thinking positive thoughts or taking appropriate action. It’s drawing on the whole of who we are so that we approach everything in life holistically. This is fundamentally different from the centuries-old view of the body as a machine in a mechanical universe. What I came to see long ago is that such a holistic approach is only possible when we are grounded in our essential being, or what’s often referred to as our spirit, our soul, or our authentic self. All such terms are pointing us to the hub within us to which all the spokes of our everyday lives need to be connected and from which the energy we invest in our various projects and relationships needs to flow. The Clarity Cleanse doesn’t stop with cleansing our body of toxic wastes, nor with cleansing out false beliefs and poisonous emotions. It takes us to our essence, our core self, where we are one with the consciousness that undergirds the entire creation. Linked to the creative energy - wisdom, insight, and inspiration that birthed what one scientist referred to as “the whole she-bang” we are at last equipped to reach our potential. Find your essence, align your life with this center and begin to experience the empowered state that alone can reveal who you are in your true magnificence.

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CONFLICT TOUGH CONVERSATIONS DON’T HAVE TO DEVOLVE INTO DRAMA

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

CONFRONTATION WITHOUT

By Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami

goop intro: Disagreements are an inevitable part of life—common among lovers, friends, strangers, co-workers, Twitter followers— and not inherently bad. But sometimes the divide between individuals’ beliefs/thoughts/actions can feel oppressively large, a gap too wide to bridge or ignore. For seemingly impossible-to-navigate conflicts of every kind, we’ve long turned toward co-founders of the remarkable integrative health center Be Hive of Healing, Dr. Habib Sadeghi, and Dr. Sherry Sami—who never fail to produce unparalleled, level-headed guidance, regardless of the quagmires we throw at them. If confrontation without conflict sounds like an oxymoron—Sadeghi and Sami explain that often the people who do the best job at pissing us off are the same people who present us with the best opportunities to learn something unexpected about ourselves. The answer to why someone irritates us to no end, it turns out, could be remarkably enlightening with a slight perspective shift, whereas trying to force someone to change, or just out-and-out hating them is rarely (if ever) effective (never mind far from enlightened). While this doesn't mean we should put up with someone else's sh*t, Sadeghi and Sami’s advice changes the way we approach confrontation (or as we’ve come to fondly call it, carefrontation) to resolve many of the universal hang-ups surrounding perennially fraught relationships and difficult conversations.

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“I

f you think you are enlightened, go home for Thanksgiving,” the spiritual leader Ram Dass once said. It’s refreshing to know that even wise teachers like him aren’t above being irritated by people who know how to push his buttons. However, emotional and spiritual growth isn’t always about getting along with everyone all the time. There will always be a partner, co-worker, boss, parent, sibling, or in-law who rubs us the wrong way. The key to reducing the drama in these kinds of relationships isn’t to convince the other person that we’re right, or to change the person, but to better understand ourselves, and why we allow these situations to trigger certain emotions in us. When we understand these dynamics better, we can consciously navigate challenging relationships more effectively, with far less drama. Even confrontation doesn’t have to involve conflict. POISON FROM THE PAST

The people who irritate us have a lot in common with poison ivy (although we don't actually get a rash when we're around them—it just feels like it). When someone is exposed to poison ivy for the first time, they actually do not have any physical reaction. In fact, the vast majority of people have no idea they've even come into contact

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with the toxic plant. However, on the unseen level beneath the skin's surface, something is happening - the body is absorbing the antigen from the poison ivy, breaking it down and producing antibodies against it, which it stores in the vacuoles (tiny cavities within tissue) for later use. It's only when a person comes into contact with poison ivy a second time (and thereafter) that the typical rash and blisters appear. For the painful effects of the secondary exposure to occur, there must have been a primary exposure at some point in time, even if it isn't remembered. Our subconscious works in much the same way. When we are emotionally triggered by another person, it’s similar to the body’s physical reaction to a biological irritant to which it has been previously exposed. Our anger, irritation, resentment, or jealousy is the emotional blistering or secondary conflict that’s actually the reaction from an older, primary emotional conflict of which we’re entirely unaware, or have long forgotten. MISSING THE MARK

In medicine, there's an unfortunate and overwhelming tendency to focus on symptoms or effects, rather than the cause of illness. With the proliferation of thousands of different kinds of drugs

“When we are emotionally triggered by another person, it’s similar to the body’s physical reaction to a biological irritant to which it has been previously exposed.”

“We have to own all of our emotions and not blame our reactions on other people if we intend to improve our most difficult relationships.”

OWNING OUR EMOTIONS

Another interesting fact about poison ivy is that after the primary exposure, not everyone gets a severe rash and blistering on repeated contact. Some people do not react at all. Similarly, not everyone in the office is irritated to the same extent by that co-worker you find to be a total jerk. Why is that? There's an old saying that goes: “You spot it; you got it.” That means you don't react to something unless there's a corresponding

For example, think back to the last time you got a new car. In the months following, you may have suddenly started noticing your car everywhere you went, at stoplights, in parking lots, and on the highway. You noticed all the different colors and models whereas before you bought your new car, fifty of those cars could have driven by you completely unnoticed. What changed? Were there suddenly more of that kind of car on the road? No. You got one of those cars for yourself, it entered your consciousness, and you started noticing it everywhere. In the same way we acknowledge ourselves as the owners of our cars, we have to own all of our emotions and not blame our reactions on other people if we intend to improve our most difficult relationships. At the end of the day, no one can make us feel anything. Present feelings arise from thoughts based on our past experiences. If you notice your mother-in-law’s tendency to be controlling, and it upsets you, then perhaps her behavior might be triggering a deeper issue within you from a previous relationship that has something to do with control, freedom, or independence. This isn’t to excuse anyone’s bad behavior, but to see your reaction to this secondary conflict as an opportunity to explore a little more deeply. Your present upset is an invitation to resolve a primary conflict, so that you aren’t as triggered in your current relationship, and can deal with the person in a calm, conscious manner regardless of how they choose to behave. Eventually, as you cultivate deeper loving acceptance of this person, they will likely either change the way they behave toward you or redirect their energy toward someone else. You cultivate emotional mastery over your life through holding a more accurate understanding. How you choose to relate to yourself, inside yourself, is far more important than what is occurring outside yourself!

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

today, it's much easier (and maybe more profitable) to write someone a prescription to treat their symptoms, rather than taking the time to discover what's actually causing the symptoms and eliminate disease at its primary level. In the same way, it's very easy to mistake a person who irritates us, and the upset we feel, as our primary conflict, especially when we're triggered in a powerful way. We think that if we can get them to come over to our way of thinking, or do something we want them to do, our pain will go away - that is until we're exposed to the next romantic partner, boss, or co-worker who irritates us in the same way. With both medicine and emotions, we tend to focus solely on the secondary conflict—fighting to get what we want at the moment versus discovering what we need in the long run—so nothing actually gets solved or healed.

element of it inside of you.

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

Whenever you find yourself triggered, the most important and difficult thing to do is to refer inwardly instead of attacking outwardly. It’s to ask yourself: • Regardless of how awful this person is behaving, what does this situation have to say about me? • To the extent that this situation may be an opportunity for deeper learning, then what am I to learn from this? • How could I have drawn this person or situation into my life in service to learning and growing? • Go beyond what you want at the moment and identify the feelings the situation is bringing up for you: “Why do I feel disrespected? When have I felt unloved before? How have I or someone else taken me for granted?” Through a process known as projection, the M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

subconscious gives us a valuable tool to answer many of these questions. It causes us to project our primary unresolved conflicts outward onto other people, just like a movie projector shines an image on a screen where we can see it. The key lies in recognizing that our external or secondary conflict is an illusion, a trick of the light, and that its primary source is inside of us. For example, a wife who criticizes her husband because he never says she's beautiful almost certainly doesn't believe herself that she's beautiful. So she projects this subconscious insecurity onto her husband for external validation. Perhaps her primary conflict was based on a memory of someone once saying she'd be beautiful, "…if only she lost some weight." Now, even at a healthy weight, she still can’t see herself as beautiful. When this primary conflict is resolved, she won’t be affected by whether her husband does or doesn’t comment on her beauty because she’ll see her own beauty and be in charge of her own emotions. EMOTIONAL GROWTH FUELS ADVANCEMENT

Engaging in this way of being isn’t just important for emotional and spiritual development. Our physical advancement in life is also largely dependent on identifying and resolving the primary emotional conflicts in our lives. Otherwise, our unconscious and uncontrolled reactions and the behaviors that arise from them will hold us back. How many times does someone have to be fired or divorced or declare bankruptcy before they think: “Maybe it’s not all about everyone else. Maybe it has something to do me.” To better understand how what does or doesn't occur within ourselves affects everything in our physical world, think about physical life (seen) as moving along a horizontal X-axis and our spiritual life (unseen) rising on a vertical Y-axis. It's the cultivation of things like love, courage, trust, authenticity, and self-awareness in the unseen realm that fuels our forward momentum into a better life in the seen realm, and helps us accomplish more of what we want, including the kind of relationships we'd like to have. CONFLICTS AND HEALTH CONSEQUENCES

Success in the physical realm includes good health. Over time, the stress and negative energy of unresolved conflicts (regardless of whether or not we're conscious of them), will take their toll on our bodies. Whenever we're upset in the seen realm, you can be sure there is a corresponding action happening inside our bodies, first chemically and then physically. We recently saw a patient who was diagnosed with advanced tongue cancer. Her tumor was so large that all the other doctors she’d seen recommended having her entire tongue removed, which would have meant never speaking or swallowing again. We soon learned she had a terrible relationship with her ex-husband. He’d been verbally abusive in their marriage, during

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which she felt she had to hold her tongue most of the time. Near the end of the marriage, she’d gotten into the habit of literally biting the side of her tongue when dealing with the stress of the situation (a habit that stuck with her after their divorce). We believe that the energy from her anger and the belief that she didn’t have the right to speak up on her own behalf most likely was transferred to her nervous habit and played a role in her cancer. After working with her to discover the primary injury that caused her to silence herself, we were able to address that issue and help her deal with her ex-husband in a way that served her and improved her experience of the relationship. After several months of physical treatment and emotional work, her body responded. Her tumor shrank to the point where surgeons were finally optimistic that they could remove it without taking the tongue. She would need physical therapy afterward, but she wouldn’t be debilitated. A COMMON JOURNEY

Our own unresolved primary conflicts can have disastrous effects on our relationships (and even set

our children up for their own if we don’t learn how to parent from a conscious perspective). We see many people at our Transformational Intensive workshops (and in the couples’ version) who experience profound breakthroughs in resolving primary conflicts. The amazing thing is that even though a person may come to us to improve a particular relationship, once they understand this work, all their relationships improve— most of all, the one they have with themselves. When you have to interact with someone who pushes your emotional buttons or becomes defensive, it’s important to recognize their divine essence. All this means is that you can see them as another soul doing their best—given their consciousness at this time—to work out their own primary conflicts, most of which they’re not conscious of. Just that shift in perspective can be significant enough to cultivate some compassion and de-escalate the emotional reaction from your side. Keep in mind, they’re on the same journey of emotional maturity and spiritual development as you; they’re just taking a different route. Perception-checking goes a long way toward calming

the other person down if things get out of hand. Repeat back to the person what they said to you, so they can be reassured that you know what's important to them. Most often, all we want in the heat of the moment is to be understood. This is done by saying things like, "So that I understand, you… It sounds to me like you're saying…" Or, "What I hear you say is…" Follow this with a short paraphrase of what they've shared and leave them with an honest and heartfelt inquiry: “Is this accurate?”

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

“The essence of what we call transforming a confrontation into a carefrontation is when you can approach it with love for yourself, concern for the other person, and respect for the healing process.”

If you find that you got heated during the inquiry, after the incident, go within and ask yourself questions that can lead you to how or why you might be feeling the way you do, and what primary conflicts might be involved in your reactions. Also, consider practicing cathartic Purge Emotional Writing for 12 minutes. Keep in mind, this kind of work does not mean you must allow yourself to be verbally abused or that you can’t speak your mind. It does, however, give you a path that nurtures higher psychospiritual faculties within yourself. It’s the essence of what we call transforming a confrontation into a carefrontation—because you can approach it with love for yourself, concern for the other person, and respect for the healing process. For more health and inspirational insights from Dr. Sadeghi and Dr. Sami, visit Behiveofhealing.com to sign up for the monthly newsletter, and for daily messages of encouragement and humor, follow them on Twitter at Behiveofhealing. M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

Strong in the Weak Places The complementary nature of relationships By Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami

recent story by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) caught our attention, and we wanted to share it with you because it’s a beautiful example of teamwork and selfless service between people that carries a great lesson for how we all might conduct ourselves in the world. Jia Haxia was born blind in his left eye in northeast China 55 years ago. In the same town, Jia Wenqi was born one year after Haxia, and the two became childhood friends. At the age of 3, Wenqi suffered horrible injuries after touching a live electric cable laying on the ground and had to have both arms amputated. In spite of this tragic accident, the two boys maintained their friendship as they grew up while Wenqi learned to use his neck and shoulders to hold a plough and his feet to write letters. The local villagers convinced Wenqi’s parents to send him away to school while Haxia stayed home and eventually got married and took a job in a factory. Upon Wenqi’s return, school officials helped him find a job on the local forestry team tending fruit gardens and cultivating other vegetation. By this time, the two men had lost touch with each other. Then in 2000, a stone fragment flew into

Haxia’s right eye at the factory leaving him totally blind. Now with no sight, Haxia was completely devastated, and the fact that his wife was ill and unable to work only added to his problems. A short time later through a series of synchronistic events, Haxia and Wenqi became reacquainted again and renewed their old friendship. Because they were both passionate about the environment and understood that their disabilities limited their prospects for employment, they decided to work together to create opportunities for themselves doing something they loved. They leased an eight hectare plot of land from the government near their village and decided to plant trees with the intention of beautifying the area, preventing flooding and selling some to make an income. Each day, Haxia carries the tools, hanging on to the sleeves of Wenqi’s jacket as he leads the way. When they need to find starter clippings for new trees, it’s Wenqi who climbs on Haxia’s shoulders to reach the best ones. At first, the villagers were cynical and didn’t believe that these two lifelong friends, each with his own challenge, could fill a barren plot of land with lush trees and greenery. Now, after nearly 15 years of working together and each man being the other’s eyes and hands, they’ve planted an estimated 10,000 trees which attract nesting birds, provide some fruit and have transformed the entire look of the area. Residents that initially scoffed at their chances for success now fix their tools when they break down, water the trees and even help with weeds. Even better is the news that after further examination, Haxia has been put on the waiting list for a cornea transplant and may regain his sight in his right eye. Even so, he plans to continue doing the work he loves with the friend he loves the most as long as his age and health allow.

“We all go into relationships with emotional handicaps, but the universe has a way of leading us to the people who can alleviate those limitations, if we allow them.” This story was amazing to us not just because it’s an incredible example of sacrifice and service but also because it’s a beautiful metaphor for how we all should approach relationships. We want everything to be perfect

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balance by allowing them to stand on our shoulders while they allow us to guide them to understandings they may have been blind to previously. We all go into relationships with emotional handicaps, but the universe has a way of leading us to the people who can alleviate those limitations, if

we allow them. In turn, we can do the same for them if we resist judgment during the difficult times and understand where and how to apply the loving assistance that’s needed. Relationships require teamwork, and Haxia and Wenqui are a perfect example of what can be accomplished when two people function as one.

L .I.G . H .T. A RTICLES

in them but somehow feel there’s no contribution on our part that’s needed to make that happen. So many times we bail out on relationships because of the challenges, not realizing that we’re in the relationship in the first place because we can be strong where the other person is weak and vice versa. We can support each other and create

Healing Integrative Collaboration & Uniting Powerfully (HICUP) We offer a couples workshop called Healing Integrative Collaboration & Uniting Powerfully (H.I.C.U.P.) that teaches similar principles. Perhaps a man who’s seen as too serious by his wife provides the perfect grounding support for her because she has a tendency to react in a highly emotional manner to too many things. At the same time, he may view her high energy personality as neurotic, but her humor often breaks him out of his stoicism. So what’s initially seen as individual faults becomes the other person’s strength as he is her grounding force and she is his joy. When we see our partners as puzzle pieces rather than mirror images of ourselves, we complement each other better and accomplish greater things. CONTACT US TO LEARN MORE (818) 452-4483

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A QUESTION OF

CHARACTER WHAT IT MEANS TO HAVE INTEGRITY

By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

We are immensely grateful to our beloved teacher, Dr. Michael C. Jensen, whose brilliant lecture: “Integrity: Without It Nothing Works!” is the source of linguistic abstraction used generously for this article.

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PHILOSOPHY

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T 1

o me, integrity is a matter of a person's word, nothing more, nothing less. What you do is what you say, and what you say is what you do. For a person to have integrity, their word must be (as integrity is defined in the dictionary) whole, complete, unbroken, unimpaired, sound, in perfect condition. In the matter of integrity, the primary question is what constitutes a person's word?

FOR ME MY WORD IS:

WHAT I SAID: Whatever I said I will or will not do, I am obligated to follow through on, in the timeframe I have promised. I honor the requests of others and respond to each one in a timely fashion, explaining whether or not I can meet their needs. Any request I fail to respond to becomes my word because I have not given that person a definitive answer as to whether I can or cannot help them. I’ve left them in a position to assume that I am available to assist them, and so they’re counting on me to some degree. For example, if a friend leaves me a voice mail on Tuesday asking me to help him move house over the weekend, and it's now Friday afternoon, and I haven't responded, I've left him with the assumption that I will be available to help. In this situation, my failure to respond in a timely manner has given him my implied word that I will be showing up, therefore, I must.

WHAT I KNOW:

Whatever I know to do or know not to do, I will go about exactly as I know it is meant to be done and on time, unless I have explicitly said something to the contrary. Whatever I have committed myself to do, I will do to the very best of my knowledge and capability, and with the quality of service I would desire of anyone doing the same for me. There is no cutting corners or doing a half-baked job. The quality of my work is a direct reflection of my quality of character. There are times when patients of mine occasionally have difficulty paying for their services. In these situations, we always work something out based on the person's circumstances. I would never turn them away. In any case, it makes no difference what my arrangement is with any patient, regardless of whether they’re struggling financially or if they’ve flown in from a distant country to see me; I treat every patient with the fullest capacity of my knowledge and the greatest skill of my service.

WHAT IS EXPECTED (UNEXPRESSED REQUESTS OF ME): Whatever I am expected or requested to do or

not do by anyone with whom I desire to have a workable relationship (even when not explicitly expressed) I will do on time, unless I have clearly said something to the contrary. When I have phone consultations scheduled with colleagues or patients, I always do my best to call them at the time they are expecting. If for some unforeseen reason, I’m not able to make the call on time and wasn’t able to notify them beforehand, I always ask if the present time still works for them. If not, I’m always happy to accommodate them at their earliest convenience. This is very important not only to preserve my integrity but to ensure that my personal and professional relationships remain healthy, workable, and free of hidden resentment. If I cannot uphold my word, I do not offer excuses; I offer other options. Powerful people aren’t in the habit of explaining themselves because having integrity makes it almost entirely unnecessary to do so. They’re doers; they’re about getting it done. It’s about doing what’s expected, not making excuses. How many times do we sign our names to something without understanding what’s expected of us only to become resentful later on when we realize what we did? At the same time, I do not make blind assumptions or unexpressed expectations of others. If I assume something of someone - because they cannot read my mind - I understand that they have not given me their word. To keep my working relationships healthy and communication clear, I must change my unexpressed assumptions to explicit requests that are heard and understood. I cannot expect others to hold themselves to the same standard of integrity I demand of myself.

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“Fostering personal integrity is a psycho-spiritual evolution and is one of the most valuable ways to move life forward in all respects.”

WHAT I SAY IS SO:

Whenever I have given my word to others as to the existence of some thing, fact, or state of the world, my word includes being willing to be held accountable for such statements to the extent that others can find evidence of what I have asserted and validate it for themselves. In other words, I can’t just say things and expect people to believe them; I have to back up what I say with real proof. Whether I’m speaking with friends over dinner, counseling a patient, giving a presentation at a conference, or having an article published in a journal, my personal integrity and professional credibility rest on the fact that every claim I make is properly supported and/or provable by primary sources, citations, hyperlinks, or other means. My claims are not true simply because I said so. My word is only as good as the truth that stands behind it.

5 STANDING FOR SOMETHING:

PHILOSOPHY

What I stand for – that is, what I say my life is about and for what I can unquestionably be counted on – whether expressed as a declaration made to myself or one or more people, or what I allow people to believe I stand for, is a part of my word. I opened my medical center based on a certain spiritual philosophy and specific healing principles. That is something I stand for and believe in. Therefore, those ideals become part of my word, how I live my life and interact with others. I established Be Hive of Healing to create a space in which a healing intentional community could take root and grow. That is the purpose I have chosen for my life, and so it becomes an integral part of my integrity. I also founded the nonprofit organization, the Love Button Global Movement, to foster more loving interactions between people in the world because I believe in the power of love to heal all things. This is something else I stand for which is also an integral part of everything I say and do. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, I take a stand for love, or as I say to my patients, I choose to step into my loving. In this way, the essence of integrity is the ability to ground what we believe in principles greater than ourselves and to always live in service of those ideals. Living with integrity is a holistic way of being. Therefore, my principles cannot be compartmentalized into certain areas of my life and excluded from others. The integrity of what I stand for and what I can be unquestionably counted on permeates every part of my life.

6 MOR AL, ETHICAL, AND LEGAL STANDARDS: In addition, the moral, ethical, and legal standards which

I have not explicitly declined are a part of my word. For example, there are many therapies I provide that are not necessarily part of the American Medical Association’s recognized protocol of services. So when patients come to see me, they sign an Informed Consent statement that fully explains all of my moral, ethical, and legal liabilities, obligations, and disclosures regarding my approach to treatment. As a physician, whatever I assure my patients of regarding various interventions, outcomes, risks, and so on, means that they can assume that I’ve given my promise to uphold those standards to the extent that I am able. Similarly, I make every effort to be clear with everyone in my life about what I can do for them or what they can depend on me for, as well as what I am unable to provide. I have found living honestly and openly in this way while recognizing my limitations, is the most ethical way to build trust within relationships.

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“Anytime we lack integrity, we can be certain one of the consequences we experience will be conflict in our relationships because a lack of integrity always leads to a lack of trust.”

FOR ME, INTEGRITY IS HONORING MY WORD, AND HONORING MY WORD IS:

As soon as I become aware that I will either not be able to keep my word by meeting my obligations or not be able to do so on time: Keeping my word and keeping it on time. My word is only as good as my ability to keep it as agreed on.

a. I immediately notify everyone who will be impacted by these changes.

b. I make new arrangements as to how and when I will be able to meet my obligations in the future and notify all those involved. c. Or, in the case of not being able to meet my obligations at all, I will minimize the impact on those who are affected by my failure to keep my word either on time or entirely.

ABSENCE OF OVERSIGHT

There is no such thing as 100% integrity. We all do our best to keep to our word, but occasionally, we fail. It might help to think of integrity as a mountain with a top that we can never actually reach. We might come close at times, but we often tumble back down and have to start the climb again. This is nothing to be ashamed of; it’s simply part of human nature, but it also gives us something to aspire to. It’s part of our process of growth and self-discovery. Fostering personal integrity is essential to living a more authentic life. Now, when people ask me to do something like speak at a conference, attend their event, be on their TV show, or just come over for dinner, I have to think about it because I’m holding myself totally accountable for whatever my reply may be. In the past, I’d automatically answer yes to anything because I wanted people to like me. There were

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also times I wanted to placate someone or get them out of my hair at the moment. Then, I’d have to back out of the commitment later on because I either didn’t seriously think about what my agreement would require of me or I didn’t really want to do whatever it was in the first place. How many times in our lives have we done people we know such a disservice? It's obvious how operating in this way leads to a superficial way of living and hurts relationships because no one can depend on us. Today, we call these kinds of people flakes, and they’re unfortunately becoming all too common. Perhaps it’s the influence of internet culture where nothing is permanent, including commitments, and everything can be deleted in an instant. I recall years ago I was asked by someone to participate in a particular TV show. Of course, I gave my knee jerk agreement. Later, however, I realized that this particular

show was something I didn’t want to participate in. As soon as I reconciled with the fact that I could not do the show, I notified the producer immediately and asked her what it would take for us to be complete with my change of heart—in other words, what would it take for me to remedy any difficulties she might experience as a result of my pulling out of the show. Fortunately, I let the producer know with enough advance notice that she was able to secure another expert for the show, and our relationship wasn’t negatively affected by the experience. Too many times, we obligate ourselves to things we don't want to do because we're afraid that saying no will harm our relationship if we don't do what's being asked of us. But, the opposite is true. When we say yes when we actually mean no and then don't follow through on our commitment by flaking later on, we hurt our relationship with the other person. The truth is that they would have respected us more if we'd just honestly said no up front.

Fortunately, integrity is something everyone can cultivate to improve all areas of life. In many ways, life functions on two different planes, the physical and the spiritual or emotional. We can think of it as a graph with the horizontal X-axis being the physical progression of life and the vertical Y-axis being the spiritual evolution of life. Most of us have been led to believe that it's the physical progression of our lives along the X-axis, the acquisition of things, money and accomplishments, that fuels the upward trajectory of our spiritual/emotional progress along the Y-axis. The happier and more content we are depends on the accumulation of material things in our lives, when in fact, it’s just the opposite. It's our spiritual evolution along the Y-axis that naturally fuels our physical progression along the X-axis by bringing the things we want to us through increasing self-awareness, positive energy, and healthy relationships. Fostering personal integrity is a psycho-spiritual evolution and is one of the most valuable ways to move life forward in all respects.

PHILOSOPHY

“Integrity builds personal power and strengthens all our relationships because it shows people that we’re honest and can be depended on to be there for them no matter what.”

Integrity builds personal power and strengthens all our relationships because it shows people that we’re honest and can be depended on to be there for them no matter what. People don’t tell us who they are; they show us by their actions. We’re showing the people in our lives every day who we are and how much we value them by the amount of integrity we conduct ourselves with within those relationships.

Most of us are not taught how to foster integrity. We don’t think about what we say, the commitments we make, what they mean to others and the consequences when we don’t follow through. Anytime we lack integrity, we can be certain one of the consequences we experience will be conflict in our relationships because a lack of integrity always leads to a lack of trust. I see many clients who come to me for relationship counseling. It doesn’t matter why they’re in my office, whether it’s cheating, withholding information, not contributing equally to the relationship or something else. It always comes down to a lack of integrity, an inability to follow through completely with the obligations of the marriage contract, and you can’t make a bigger commitment than a marriage vow. If you want to know how much personal integrity you have, ask yourself what kind of spouse you are. Integrity isn’t just the wholeness of your word; it’s the center of the wholeness of a complete life. When we make it a priority to cultivate integrity in our lives, we finally understand the value of our word because the biggest commitment we make is to ourselves. M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

BE H I V E OF H E A L I N G

Exploring the Purpose of Relationships Innate Cooperation Towards Harmonious Balance is the Way of the Universe By Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami

f you look closely, it’s amazing how even the smallest part of life can mimic the form and function of the largest. For example, the human cell has a round nucleus at the center, around which move various organelles, like the mitochondria and centriole, performing their various functions and maintaining balance. In the same way the solar system, which is immeasurably larger than the cell, also has a nucleus at the center (the sun) around which all its associated parts (the planets) rotate, performing their proper functions and gravitational influences to maintain the structure and balance of our planetary environment.

For our answers, let’s go back to the cell and see how it works. When a sperm cell fertilizes an egg, the universe’s intention for its highest manifestation is a human body. The cell understands that it isn’t an island unto itself in nature, but exists as part of the greater process to produce a baby, and thus surrenders to the intention the universe has for itself in this broader plan. This shift of awareness away from the self to its connectedness to everything around it in order to fulfill a larger intention is what we call self-actualization. With this purpose in mind, the fertilized egg begins to generate other cells, which also divide and continue to do the same. Soon, the cells are specializing into brain, lung, liver and kidney cells, all branching out to create organs and organ systems that support each other. This level of function is called collaboration, as the many cells now work together to bring universal intention into reality. Eventually, the baby is born, and the cells continue to be of service to the universe’s manifestation by keeping the baby happy, healthy and developing into the greatest expression of itself.

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This kind of innate cooperation to achieve effortless balance is programmed by the universe into every part of nature, including us. Universal intention to become the highest expression of oneself is woven into the energetic fabric of every living thing. An acorn doesn’t have to struggle to become an oak tree. It simply does because it surrenders to the universe’s plan for greatness already within itself. It’s the universe’s intention that it become the broadest, strongest and tallest oak tree it is capable of being, and so it does. Likewise, the universe’s intention is that we also become the highest manifestations of ourselves and in turn, create a world that’s equally accomplished and enlightened without struggle or resistance. So if this is the intention of the universe, then why aren’t we the greatest expression of ourselves, why is the world so out of balance, and why does it seem so hard?

In the same way, each human being is a cell in the body of mankind. Therefore, in order for the universal intention of balance and peace to be achieved in the world, we too must be self-actualized. This means not identifying with our flesh as separate persons but with our spirits, and understanding that we are connected with everything and everyone around us in an endless web of energy to which we play an integral role. Secondly, we must work together through collaboration to achieve this universal goal of peace, which means putting aside selfish desires for the greater good. Finally, the actions that we take must be in service of the common goal. C ON T I N U E D. . .

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RELATIONSHIP AT THE RIGHT LEVEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The tool the universe has given us to accomplish this greater good is relationship. Nothing in creation exists in a vacuum. It’s always relating to someone or something else. So the universal conversation between objects of creation is designed to operate from the perspective of us and ours, not me and mine. What happens when a cell of the body sees itself as separate from the others, doesn’t want to collaborate for the greater good and goes off and does its own thing without regard for the consequences of its actions on the rest of the body? We call that cancer. It’s no surprise then that just as the microcosm mimics the macrocosm, we have a spiritual malignancy affecting the world today, a kind of ME-ism that’s driving far too many people, corporations, governments and so on to act in ways that prevent peace and balance from manifesting on a global scale. Most of the time, people go into a relationship preoccupied with the idea of what they can get out of it. “Will this business partnership bring me more profits?” as opposed to, “How will this new venture help me provide better service?” “Will my fiancé be able to provide me with adequate financial stability, great sex, a good sense of humor and emotional support?” as opposed to, “Does this relationship have the necessary depth for both of us to grow spiritually within it and how can I facilitate that process?” We go into relationships thinking it’s all about me and wonder why so many of them never work, the intended greater good of that relationship never getting a chance to manifest. Unfortunately, our interactions with people have become transactional instead of relational. This disconnect happens when we over identify with the physical world or as spiritual teachers call it, the superstition of materialism. If I think all I am is a separate body, then all my actions will be self-serving and about self-preservation to support only my body and my needs, even at the expense of other bodies. If, however, I identify with spirit, then I know that like waves on the ocean, my spirit is connected to all other spirits on a much deeper level. In fact, our seemingly separate lives and bodies are just temporary extensions of the One great source or Spirit. From this perspective I can see that there is no real separation, and on the spirit level—I am you, and you are me. From this level of consciousness, self-actualization, we naturally act in the good of our fellow men through collaboration and service because we finally understand we are truly One. What I do or don’t do for others, I bring the same outcome to myself. Intimacy doesn’t

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get much deeper than realizing we are each other. Therefore, if our relationship with spirit is aligned, our relationships with others will be as well because we’ll naturally act in collaborative ways that are of service not just to ourselves, but others, too. As we do, the universal intention for the highest good for ourselves and the other person(s) in our relationship will be manifested through each interaction.

“Our tough relationships are where we grow the most. The friction we experience in them comes from the character defects in our partners and the ones we exhibit to them.” Of course, this doesn’t mean all our relationships are going to be easy. Just as the cells of the body are assigned different tasks, we, as the individual cells of the body of mankind, are also being assigned by spirit to specific duties to provide optimal function and healing for the world. Some of us are directed into professions of music, art,

science, education and so on while at the same time we’re being guided into specific relationships with certain people that serve the same purposes. Just as the body is a perfect ecosystem, so is the universe, and it knows exactly what it’s doing to achieve balance when it directs you to take a specific job, marry a particular person or even walk down a certain street. This is why it isn’t necessary to pain ourselves over where we’re “supposed to be” in life or struggle with what it is we’re “supposed” to be doing. The universe has directed us to where we are in the present moment because there is work for us to be done right here, right now, in relationship through spirit. Here is exactly where we’re all supposed to be.

“Relationship isn’t something we need to struggle for. It’s our primal state of being, just like all the cells of the body working effortlessly together for a greater good.” This doesn’t mean that you’re supposed to allow yourself to be abused or remain in relationships that are unhealthy. It simply means that in order to be in the right relationship with the universe, spirit and yourself, you can’t stand in judgment of the other person because you’re not getting what you want. Relationship has a far greater purpose than that, and it requires us to be instruments of love if that purpose is to be realized for ourselves and the people we interact with for however long that may be. The purpose may be revealed after a relationship ends, but it will only come to light if we operate from the consciousness of spirit while we’re in those healing moments.

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Our tough relationships are where we grow the most. It's friction against the grinding wheel that gives a crude diamond its brilliance and beauty. The friction we experience in relationships comes from the character defects in our partners and the ones we exhibit to them. If we’re acting from spirit in a collaborative way that serves us and our partners, then we know that character defects aren’t where someone is bad; it’s where they’re

wounded. Much of the time what we see as a lack of love (rudeness, controlling behavior, etc.) is a call for love. Too often, we resist or reject others because of their wounds and forget the real purpose of relationship is for both parties to collaborate and be of service to each other’s healing and growth. If we remain focused on only our separate physical needs, then we miss that opportunity. Think back to a recent difficult moment in one of your relationships. If you could go back and act from spirit being an instrument of love, how might your choices have been different?

Relationships, whether they’re between two people or two global superpowers, don’t work when we use them for our purposes only. When we’re in it for what we can get, it doesn’t serve the whole or the greater intention the relationship exists in the first place. Relationship isn’t something we need to struggle for. It’s our primal state of being, just like all the cells of the body that are working effortlessly together for a greater good. To do the same, perhaps it would be better for us to not think of ourselves as so unique, but rather just like everyone else with our own share of wounds. At least that will help us operate from empathy. Ultimately as we heal individually through relationship, we contribute significantly to world healing. The best part is we don’t have to wait for our personal healing to occur for change to start happening on a larger scale. Just understanding that while we may be wounded, we don’t have to act from that wound in relationship creates a consciousness shift that moves our lives and the world back toward balance. M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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ARE YOU A CLEAN LIVER? THE IMPORTANCE OF LIVER DETOXIFICATION By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

FUNCTION & FAILURE

The liver is one of the hardest working organs in the body. It’s tirelessly working to detoxify the blood, produce bile that helps digest fats, breakdown hormones, and store essential vitamins and minerals like iron and vitamin A. Other essential functions include: • Processing nutrients absorbed by the intestines • Regulating blood composition to balance protein, fat, and sugar • Destroying old red blood cells • Producing chemicals to help blood clot properly • Breaking down and metabolizing medications and alcohol • Producing essential proteins and cholesterol • Removing toxins like bilirubin, ammonia, and others from the bloodstream These processes are so crucial to the body

that the liver is the only organ that can regenerate itself if damaged. That's a very convincing reason to keep the liver in tip-top shape. A typical sign of a sluggish liver is digestion problems, particularly difficulty digesting fats. Cirrhosis is a serious condition and occurs when liver tissue becomes scarred and can no longer function. Contrary to popular belief, alcoholism isn’t the only way liver damage can occur. Eating uncooked shellfish, long-term use of some medications like acetaminophen, chronic malnutrition, and exposure to chemicals can all contribute to liver damage. When enough of the liver tissue becomes scarred and non-functional, it can no longer regenerate itself, leading to liver failure and death.

H EA LT H & N U TR ITION

o matter what your health challenge may be or the healing protocol you're currently using; you'll never experience vibrant health if your liver is congested. A toxic body can’t possibly be healthy, and since the liver is the body’s largest detoxification organ, radiant health requires that it be in prime condition. Otherwise, toxins accumulate in the body, and health begins to break down. This can and does happen without a patient experiencing any specific problems with the liver. Most don't realize that by cleansing the liver, they can significantly improve or even completely eradicate physical problems that are related to toxic accumulation that they would never have associated with a sluggish liver.

Unfortunately, our modern lifestyles expose us to many environmental toxins that negatively impact liver function. Some of the risk factors connected to impaired liver function include low potassium levels, heavy alcohol use, IV drug use, exposure to industrial chemicals and environmental pollutants, obesity with a diet high in commercial oils and processed foods, high blood triglycerides, viral infections, and autoimmune diseases. Signs of impaired liver function include: • Digestion problems: bloating, gas, constipation, acid reflux or heartburn • Jaundice: yellowish tint to the skin or whites of the eyes • Inability to lose weight no matter how well you eat or exercise • High blood pressure • Moodiness or depression • Dark urine • Excessive sweating • Chronic fatigue M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

CONSISTENT CLEANSING To help cleanse your liver on a daily basis and support it in detoxifying your body more efficiently, these tips are essential.

REMOVE TOXIC FOODS FROM YOUR DIET

COFFEE ENEMAS

Eliminate all processed, fast, and convenience foods. This includes deli meats that unless specified, contain nitrates and nitrites chemicals that lengthen shelf life, inhibit bacteria growth, and preserve color. Get rid of hydrogenated oils, trans fats and inflammatory vegetable oils in favor of fats like olive oil and coconut oil. Some saturated fat with red meat or dark meat chicken is fine.

Monthly enemas stimulate bile flow and help jump-start both the gallbladder and liver. Bring 2 tablespoons of organic coffee grounds to boil in 3 cups of filtered or distilled water. Simmer for 15 minutes and let cool. Strain through cheesecloth and administer via an enema kit available from any drugstore. Try to retain the mixture for 10-15 minutes.

SUPPLEMENT DRINK R AW VEGETABLE JUICE

Sulfur-containing vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts are ideal for liver cleansing. You can add some carrots, cucumber, beets, parsley or other greens to make it appealing to you.

Milk thistle is the king of detoxifying herbs and ideal for a liver cleanse; it eliminates buildup from heavy metals and medications in the liver. Turmeric supports liver metabolism, reduces joint pain, and helps balance blood sugar. Dandelion root strengthens the immune system and is a natural diuretic, which allows the liver to release toxins more quickly.

EAT POTASSIUM-RICH FOODS

Most people donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get anywhere near the recommended 4,700mg of potassium per day. Consider these foods to cleanse the liver, lower blood pressure and support cardiovascular health: sweet potatoes, tomato sauce, green beans, spinach, blackstrap molasses, and bananas.

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EAT LIVER OR TAKE LIVER TABLETS

Grass-fed beef liver or free-range chicken livers are very rich in vitamins A and B, folic acid, choline, iron, copper, zinc, chromium, and CoQ10. Desiccated beef liver tablets are also available. Be sure theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re from organic beef.

H EA LT H & N U TR ITION

DEEPER DETOX

Several times per year, preferably with the change of seasons, consider doing a 24-hour liver cleanse to boost your body's detoxifying power. In the seven days leading up to the cleanse, eat a vegetarian diet with a strong emphasis on kale, cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, citrus fruits, asparagus, beets, and celery. Avoid all processed foods, meat, refined carbs like pasta and bread, high levels of fat, and all gluten. Be sure to drink 72oz of water per day. No alcohol, caffeine or non-necessary medications. The day of the cleanse, do not eat. 1. Dilute 100% unsweetened cranberry juice with a ratio of 3 parts water to 1 part juice, totaling 72oz of liquid in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. 2. Add one teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Reduce to simmer for 15-20 minutes. Then allow to cool. 3. Once cool, squeeze 2-3 oranges and 2-3 lemons. Add the juice to the cranberry mixture. If too tart, add a little stevia to sweeten it up. 4. While fasting, drink the full 72oz of cranberry mixture in 8oz servings throughout the day along with an additional 72oz of water. A proper liver cleanse, along with daily maintenance from eating the right foods, is your best defense against accumulating toxins from pesticides, medications, heavy metals, the remnants of cancer therapy, air pollution, household cleaners, body care and beauty products, and more. For an extremely deep cleanse, consider The Amazing Liver and Gallbladder Flush by Andreas Moritz, but be sure to consult with your doctor first.

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Seasons & Symptoms How your season of birth provides important health information

By Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami

hen it comes to understanding, maintaining or recovering our health, it’s natural to take into consideration things like lifestyle habits, diet, exercise, family health history and as we’ve stated for many years, past traumas and emotional well-being. In addition to these important factors, science continues to show that one aspect of our lives holds great influence over our health and yet, we would never think to suspect that it does. It’s the season in which we were born. A very large study of 500,000 people from the U.K. has found that certain biomarkers are “significantly associated” with season of birth to a very high degree.1 These include birth weight, rate of maturation or onset of puberty and even height in adulthood. Because of this, it’s been determined that season of birth affects childhood growth and development in important ways.

Results showed that children born in the summer (June-July-August) had higher birth weights, entered puberty or had first menstruation later and were consistently taller, especially as adults, than children born in winter months (November-December-January). Although summer babies had heavier birth weights, this did not affect their overall body mass index (BMI) later in life. Much of these results were attributed to the in-utero vitamin D the babies received from their mothers via sun exposure, particularly during the second trimester, when bones are being formed, lengthened and programmed for adult life. The influence of vitamin D on the fetus in these and other important ways was so important, the study said that its effect was “as powerful as any genetic determinant”. In

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“Everything an expectant mother is exposed to affects her baby, whether it’s diet, pollution in the environment, sun exposure and even the length of the day.” advanced educational attainment beyond high school. It’s important to remember that every person is an individual, and personal overall health is made up of a composite of many factors, including those mentioned above. Even so, whether you’re investigating the mystery of a current health challenge or just want to do your best to support your existing health as you age, looking into your season of birth as it relates to health just might provide some interesting answers and strategies.

Sources

(2) Bhutta, Z, (2013), Maternal and child nutrition; the first 1,000 days, 74th Nestle Nutrition Institute Workshop, vol. 74, 11-25, http://bit.ly/2nLq3NB

fact, in utero vitamin D exposure proved to be far more influential to a baby’s development in adulthood than even its own sun exposure in the three months after birth. Everything an expectant mother is exposed to affects her baby, whether it’s diet, pollution in the environment, sun exposure and even the length of the day. Many studies have been done regarding the “fetal origins of adult disease” hypothesis,2 how they’re related to the season of birth and their impact on health outcomes years later. Much research has been done connecting the season of birth to proclivities for immune disorders,3 cardiovascular disease, 4 Type 15 & 2 6 diabetes, lifespan7, whether you’re a morning/evening person,8 or even right or left handed.9 For example, a greater percentage of those born during autumn and the beginning of winter tend to live longer than those born during spring and summer. Interestingly, the most dramatic contrast in the U.K. study between babies born in different seasons was that of educational attainment. While it needs further study, babies born in autumn, particularly September and early October, showed a much greater degree of pursuing

(3) Disanto, G. et al, (2012), Month of birth, vitamin D and risk of immune-mediated disease: a case control study, BMC Medicine, 10(69), http://bit. ly/2MwRFEu

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(1) Day, Felix, et al, (2015), Season of birth is associated with birth weight, pubertal timing, adult body size and educational attainment: a U.K. Biobank study, Heliyon, e00031, http://bit. ly/2BlNAP1

(4) Reffelmann, T et al, (2011), Is cardiovascular mortality related to the season of birth? Evidence from more than 6million cardiovascular deaths between 1992 and 2007, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, .57, 887–888. (5) Kahn, H et al, (2009), Association of type1 diabetes with month of birth among U.S. youth: The SEARCH for diabetes in youth study, Diabetes Care 32, 2010–2015. (6) Vaiserman, A, et al. , (2009), SeasonWwWWality of birth in adult type 2 diabetic patients in three Ukrainian regions, Diabetologia, 52, 2665–2667. (7) Flouris, A, et al, (2009), Effect of seasonal programming on fetal development and longevity: Links with environmental temperature, American Journal of Human Biology, 21(2), 214-216. (8) Vicenzo, A, et al, (2009), Season of birth, gender, and social-cultural effects on sleep timing preferences in humans, Sleep, 32(3), http://bit.ly/2OOG9lp (9) Lorenzo, T. et al, (2012), Season of birth and handedness in young adults, Laterality; Asymmetries of brain, body and cognition, 17(5), 596-601.

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GENERATION

FRUSTRATION MILLENNIALS STRUGGLE IN A WORLD THATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THEM

By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

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n a way, we all become our parents. There comes a point in life when we all look back at the younger generation and think, “What’s wrong with these kids today?” Suddenly, we realize how different we are from the generation that came up after us and how our experience of the world during our youth played a big role in how we developed in such a completely different way. Naturally, this causes us to look back and romanticize our youth because well, things just aren’t the way they used to be. At the same time, this kind of reminiscing tends to cause every generation to view the one behind it as less informed, less motivated, less disciplined or lacking in other important characteristics. But is this really so? Yes, growing up during different times in history does shape us in certain ways that make one generation of people different from another, and yet we remain the same in the most fundamental aspects. Even so, someone somewhere got the bright idea to start labeling the generations, beginning with the so-called Baby Boomers and thus compartmentalizing us into groups that were more different from each other than we were similar. Naturally, this results in a lot of judgment from the current generation toward the up and comers. The fear is that they won’t be able to do things as well, aren’t as idealistic or responsible, and that the world will go to hell in a handbasket when the time comes for their generation to get into the driver’s seat. In the next five to ten years, the first wave of millennials or Generation Y, as they’re also called, will be taking a more prominent role in world affairs, and keeping with tradition, previous generations are already criticizing them before they’ve even begun. An article in TIME magazine declared, “They have trouble making decisions. They would rather hike in the Himalayas than climb the corporate ladder. They have few heroes, no anthems, no style to call their own. They crave entertainment, but their attention span is as short as one zap of a TV dial."1 While this might sound like a dead-on description of millennials, it’s actually the Baby Boomers’ criticism of Generation X, my generation, when we were in our 20’s in 1990. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Of course, this doesn’t accurately describe me or anyone I know, so perhaps we should give millennials the benefit of the doubt before we put them all in the same box. I’ve always been suspicious that maybe the real cause of a generation’s frustration with the one behind it has a bit more to do with the insecurity of losing their youth and vitality than it does with the younger generation’s lacking anything. C ON T I N U E D. . .

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“I’ve always been suspicious that maybe the real cause of a generation’s frustration with the one behind it has a bit more to do with the insecurity of losing their youth and vitality than it does with the younger generation’s lacking anything.”

INSTANT ENTITLEMENT

The whole business of labeling and critiquing generations is fairly ambiguous, as you can see from the so-called description of Generation X above. At the same time, it’s difficult to find a consistent set of years between which a certain generation was born. Where millennials are concerned, some sources say they were born in the late ‘70s to the year 2000, while others have their birth beginning in 1981 or even as late as 1984. Since generation designation is not an exact science, I’m calling the bulk of millennials anyone from age 20 to 35 at the time of this writing (2017). While millennials do have some issues that need to be addressed, these problems are by no means exclusive to their generation, particularly those issues that are connected to technology use. These problems do seem to affect them more as a whole. But by fostering a better understanding of them, we can create better working relationships that are based on collaboration rather than criticism. As a business owner who knows other business owners, I hear a lot about how millennials are hard to manage, unfocused, and self-involved with a sense of entitlement. They can’t get off their phones long enough to do their jobs and have significant attention problems. This reminds me of a story about someone I know who runs a daycare center for adults with developmental disabilities who recently hired a 21-year-old employee. After three months on the job, the unskilled employee demanded a raise because she felt she’d learned enough by then and was just as qualified in her abilities as the long-term staff members. The owner was taken aback at the employee’s inability to understand what it meant to receive rewards after investing time and service into a company, in essence, what it meant to “pay your dues” and work hard. The employee wanted her reward upfront, right now. The owner was also more than a little shocked that her employee would be so bold as to make such a demand,

BE I N G C L A R I T Y

particularly when she’d already been warned about being caught texting on her cell phone while at work four times in the last few weeks. Somehow, none of this mattered to the employee. She felt she deserved a certain compensation and demanded it without reservation. CONSEQUENCES OF EQUALITY

As a father, I understand how important it is to foster a strong sense of self-esteem in children. However, this hyper sense of entitlement that some people describe seeing in millennials seems to come from a particular form of self-esteem building that backfired on a generation of parents. The idea was to constantly tell children how “special” they were and that they could be, do or have anything they wanted just because they wanted it. Millennials were the first generation to grow up in what I call the cult of equality, a philosophy that falsely insists all human beings are the same. Therefore, millennials deserve everything anyone else has regardless of differences in talent, intellect or time invested. They were the generation where everyone got a medal just for running the race because "we're all winners." By the time they entered high school, educrats in the cult of equality had all but abandoned the Honor Roll and eliminated the long-standing tradition of honoring valedictorians at graduation. In fact, the academic ranking of students isn’t even made public at many schools now. It’s this “everybody wins/we’re-all-the-same” mentality that made millennials feel entitled. Whether it was a foot race or a final exam, there was a heavy push by adults not to make the underachievers feel bad. In the process, they devalued the accomplishments of the bright and talented kids by either giving everyone a prize or not recognizing the real winners at all. In fact, the self-esteem of children who weren’t the best performers was actually harmed by this practice

because they knew they didn’t deserve the awards they were being given. At the same time, the notion was reinforced that hard work wasn’t a part of earning something. By being deceived in this way, millennials were deprived of the most valuable growth experience in childhood and all of life, learning from failure. Many of these children never learned to improve or demand more of themselves because, in their mind, they never failed at anything. Instead of being given a learning opportunity, they were given a prize. When we deny our children the opportunity to fail, we deny them the opportunity to grow.

In spite of their perceived exceptionalism, some millennials face a rude awakening when they enter the real world and quickly find out that they’re not so special, that a promotion requires more than just personal potential, and that there’s

PHONE FIXATION

If you or someone you know is on the younger end of the millennial generation, then focusing attention may be a problem. Probably more than any other issue, professional friends tell me how difficult it is to keep millennials focused on their jobs and off their phones. In fact, when one was given a choice to stay off his phone or lose his job, he quit on the spot. I think we’ve all figured out through personal experience that cell phones are addictive. Now, research shows our fixation with our phone isn’t just in our imagination. The addiction is real because using a cell phone triggers the release of serotonin and dopamine in the brain, "feel good" chemicals that provide a sense of instant gratification, the same chemicals connected with addictions to behaviors like smoking, drinking, and gambling. When you think about how anxious you get when your phone isn’t immediately within reach, imagine how intense the feeling is for younger millennials who have no memory of what life was like without electronic screen-based technology. A study from Baylor University recently showed that female college students spend an average of 10 hours per day interacting with their cell phone, cruising shopping sites, social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter, and sending nearly 100 texts. College males spend an average of eight hours per day on their

CONSCIOUS LIFESTYLE

This phenomenon reminds me of something a man from Australia told me about years ago. When I asked him why he'd immigrated to the United States, he mentioned some reasons, but the one he was most passionate about was wanting to escape what he called the “Tall Poppy Syndrome.” According to him, Australian society had a strong tendency to praise achievers in all walks of life, but only up to a point. When a person got too successful, the tide would turn, and a backlash would erupt. The public and press as if cutting the tall poppy off to bring it down to size – would in effect say, "You can be successful, just don't be too successful." He said he came to America because he admired this country’s way of encouraging people to be the very best they could be, regardless of how they compared to others. He also appreciated the way Americans take joy in the success of high achievers who work hard, and then use those examples to inspire others and themselves to do better.

no credit for coming in last. Even though they’re the first to offer answers on the way everything should be done, they’re regularly reminded to keep their sights on what they’re doing in the grand scheme of things. These experiences are the final shattering of a self-image that was artificially created from the false idea of equality.

“When we deny our children the opportunity to fail, we deny them the opportunity to grow.”

M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

phones engaged in utilitarian and entertainment activities. Of the students in the study - all millennials - 60% admitted they were probably addicted while acknowledging the risk their addiction posed to their academic performance. Many even said they felt anxious when their phone wasn’t in sight.2 When millennials are spending more time on their phones than they are sleeping, how can they expect to get through an 8-hour workday while separated from it? THE DISPOSABLE LIFE

Of course, because of their focus on cell phones and social media, millennials have been accused of being narcissists. They’re constantly taking selfies, putting their entire lives on display on Facebook and Instagram, and thinking every person needs to know about the most insignificant minutiae of their lives. They’re the true ME generation, or more accurately, the i-generation. From Facebook “friends” and “Likes” to 140-character Tweets and Snapchat photos that self-delete in 10 seconds, millennials live in a virtual world where nothing is tangible, and everything is instantly disposable. Perhaps this is why millennials often complain about not being able to form lasting friendships or strong bonds. Although they know they can set up a date with their friends in an instant via text, they also know it can be canceled just as quickly when something better comes along in the new "hook-up culture." This access to endless options and instant gratification has led to a large number of young people who don’t understand the meaning of commitment on any level. That’s not surprising since it’s so easy to break off a long-term relationship with a text that takes three seconds to type and send. The added problem is that when real life troubles occur for millennials, they fall back on their phones for distraction and online “friends” for

support because they haven’t learned any real coping skills. Unfortunately, their virtual friends are mostly unavailable for real-life problems, but diverting their attention to technology when they’re upset is what many of them have done since adolescence because they lack resiliency. They numb their minds with more dopamine, so they don't have to deal with the problem at hand. Going on social media usually makes things worse because millennials are then inundated with images of everyone else’s lives that all look so perfect, when in reality, they’re not. Research shows that the more time someone spends online, especially on social networks, the lonelier they feel and the less life satisfaction they experience.3 Facebook, in particular, has been found to generate strong feelings of loneliness, frustration, misery, anger, and envy for nearly one-third of all users.4 Unfortunately, millennials haven’t been raised to physically engage with life as much as they’ve been trained to experience it through these kinds of filters. Most likely, the majority of people who own a smartphone experience some level of addiction, however, millennials are disproportionately affected because they’ve never known a life without one. If you can’t get through dinner without checking your phone, you have a problem. If you wake up every day and check your phone before you say good morning to your spouse and children, you have a problem. If you’re talking with someone and you break away to take a call or text that you’re not expecting, you have a problem. It’s dismissive and essentially says to the other person, “Hold on while I do something more important.” An over-stimulated mind leaves no room for new ideas to enter. It’s only when we allow our minds to wander that we make the mental space to be truly creative. That’s when imagination

“From Facebook ‘friends’ and ‘Likes’ to 140-character Tweets and Snapchat photos that self-delete in 10 seconds, millennials live in a virtual world where nothing is tangible, and everything is instantly disposable.”

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“An over-stimulated mind leaves no room for new ideas to enter. It’s only when we allow our minds to wander that we make the mental space to be truly creative. That’s when imagination and innovation happen.”

PATIENCE & PAYOFFS

Regardless of the challenges millennials might find themselves facing because of their upbringing, it’s certainly not their fault, nor are they any less capable than any previous generation that struggled to find its place in the world. At the same time, there are those who say that it’s now corporate America’s place to help millennials readjust to the working world help them find a sense of purpose in their work, understand what commitment and long-term professional investment means, discover healthy ways to cope with rejection and failure, create a healthy relationship with technology, and foster in-person bonding and proper social skills. I couldn’t disagree more. I counsel many people who struggle with the aftereffects of a childhood

that was far from ideal. The most important step toward change and growth is learning to take personal responsibility for one’s life. Companies aren’t going to coddle millennials who don’t measure up, especially when there are hundreds of their peers who don’t face such challenges waiting in line behind them to take the same job. I would advise them to learn patience. Don't quit that entry-level job just because you don't feel like you're being paid what you're worth or that you're not making an impact on the world. Invest in yourself by committing to the work. Find even the smallest amount of meaning you can in your job. Things take time, so allow yourself to experience the joy that is the journey you’re on. In ten to twenty years, you’ll be able to look at the generation behind you (whatever nonsensical label the media decides to apply to them) and view it with excitement and compassion. You’ll see yourselves in those kids and know that there’s more than a little hope for the future when the time comes to hand over the keys of the kingdom to them. After all, you didn’t do so badly yourselves.

CONSCIOUS LIFESTYLE

and innovation happen. That’s what employers want. When we learn to use technology as a tool instead of a mindless distraction, every area of life improves, beginning with our relationships. We finally understand that technology improves communication, but not connection.

Sources (1) Gross, David, Scott, Sophronia, TIME, “Proceeding with Caution: The twenty-something generation is balking at work, marriage, and baby-boomer values. Why are today’s young adults so skeptical?” July 16, 1990, https://ti.me/2QRErAC (2) Roberts, James et al. (2014). The invisible addiction: cell-phone activities and addiction among male and female college students. Journal of Behavioral Addiction, 3(4), 254-265. Doi: 10.1556/JBA.3.2014.015. (3) Stepanikova, Irena et al. (2010). Time on the internet at home, loneliness, and life satisfaction: evidence from panel time-diary data. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(3), 329-338. http://bit. ly/2CqYyBR (4) Sifferlin, Alexandra, TIME, "Why Facebook Makes You Feel Bad About Yourself," Jan. 24, 2013, http://bit.ly/2CqYyBR

M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

Forgotten Genius: Royal Raymond Rife The inventor and his invaluable contributions to imaging and medical microscopy By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

've shared much over the years about frequency, vibration and manifestation. Science has known for quite some time that all things vibrate at their own personal frequency. Certain emotions sustained over time can change our vibrational frequency and manifest in illness. Recently I read an article that explained how current research is using resonant frequency to destroy cancer cells. As exciting as that prospect is, it’s not a new approach. What surprised me most about the article was that it didn’t mention one of the greatest but long forgotten scientists of the 20th century, who many believe cured cancer by the same method 83 years ago. As a scientist, inventor, and engineer, particularly in imaging and medical microscopy, Royal Raymond Rife was a genius. He was to medical optics what Nikola Tesla was to physics. In 1913, industrial tycoon Henry Timken of the Timken Roller Bearing Company in Canton, Ohio, sought Rife’s help to solve a manufacturing problem. The

solution was a scanning machine that could evaluate the quality of the steel used in the company’s roller bearings before going into production. The scanner improved the quality of the company’s products and streamlined production to such a degree that Timken was overjoyed. When he learned that Rife’s passion was medical imaging, Timken gave him his full financial support and set him up at the family’s estate in San Diego to create his personal lab. No expense was too great and nothing was held back. Rife’s previous work had led him to believe that microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, and parasites) were at the root of all disease. To prove his theory, he had to see these pathogens in their live state during his experiments, some of which were so small, particularly viruses, that no imaging equipment existed that could come close to viewing them. That wasn’t a stumbling block to Rife. As a mechanical engineer and microscopy expert, he built a microscope that could magnify 60,000 times, and the superior magnification was equaled by its resolution. The microorganisms Rife was viewing were so infinitesimally small that the atoms in the chemical stain normally used to expose microorganisms would have obscured them. Instead Rife’s microscope used monochromatic light that caused the organism to fluoresce. Rife could identify the virus he was observing by the color it refracted. Years later in 1944, both the Journal of the Franklin Institute for Scientific and Mechanical Arts and The Smithsonian featured the Rife Universal Microscope alongside the newly created electron microscope in articles on emerging technology in optics. In The Smithsonian article entitled “The New Microscopes,” three micrographs from the Rife Universal Microscope were printed. The resolution of those images was unmatched by any existing technology, including the electron microscope. In fact they’re still unmatched even by today’s technology. What’s more, those images were taken ten years prior by Rife in 1934.

“Rife discovered that a simple electromagnetic wave wasn’t enough to destroy a microorganism. Instead, he found a radio frequency wave was readily accepted by the body if it was emitted by a gas within a glass tube.”

BE H I V E OF H E A L I N G

Over the course of 20 years, Rife would build five of his microscopes, some requested by the most prestigious research scientists in the world. The Rife Universal Microscope created a paradigm shift in pathology and microbiology research because much of what his device could do is still considered impossible today. But the biggest change was yet to come. Knowing everything vibrated at its own frequency, Rife believed that if he could discover the vibrational frequencies at which disease-causing microorganisms vibrated, then he could bombard them with that frequency until they shook so hard they exploded, the same way an opera singer matches the frequency of a wine

L .I.G . H .T. A RTICLES

The other astounding feature of the Rife Universal Microscope was that viruses could be viewed in their live state, like a movie, whereas the electron microscope could only view viruses in still images, like photos. When studying any organism, observing how it moves and behaves in real time provides much more valuable information than viewing it as a static image.

glass with her voice and shatters it. Rife discovered that a simple electromagnetic wave wasn’t enough to destroy a microorganism. Instead, he found a radio frequency wave was readily accepted by the body if it was emitted by a gas within a glass tube. This allowed the frequency wave to penetrate deeply into the body with scalpel-like precision. Because the wave was precisely tuned to the frequency of the microorganism, only the pathogen was affected, leaving the surrounding tissue unharmed. R ife considered a disease cured when he could destroy a microorganism ten consecutive times using what he called its Mortal Oscillatory Rate (MOR). His surviving records show he found the MOR for 24 microorganisms including anthrax, cholera, tetanus, B. coli, influenza, spinal meningitis, tuberculosis, pneumonia, syphilis, gonorrhea, leprosy, streptococcus, conjunctivitis, bubonic plague, staphylococcus, diphtheria, and typhoid.

“It’s exciting and enraging to think that cancer, along with many other diseases, was cured 83 years ago, and yet half a million people die from malignancies every year.”

By now Rife’s accomplishments were attracting a lot of attention from the press and he was working M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

with the most respected medical experts of the day. These included Dr. E. C. Rosenow, bacteriologist and head of the pathology department at the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Arthur Kendall, bacteriologist at Northwestern University, Dr. Milbank Johnson of the University of Southern California (USC) and head of the Medical Society of California, Lee De Forrest, technology scientist, and William D. Coolidge, physicist. Unfortunately Rife was also attracting a lot of negative press, mainly from the medical establishment and Harvard University. To prove his detractors wrong, he, along with Dr. Rosenow, invited several of Rife’s most prestigious but severest critics to a demonstration where he destroyed the poliomyelitis virus with its MOR in 1932, twenty years before the vaccine was invented and thirty years before it became available to the public. Hidden beneath his critics’ astonishment at what they’d seen was panic. They knew Rife’s microscope and beam-ray technology would mean the loss of billions of dollars to hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and research institutes, not to mention the overnight elimination of entire fields of medical science and research, as well as the discrediting of thousands of careers of the most highly respected university and medical center physicians, scientists and administrators. Just days after the demonstration, Dr. Rosenow was fired from his position at the Mayo Clinic, and the fix was in to bury Rife’s research. Uneasy about Dr. Rosenow’s fate and what might be brewing for him behind the scenes, Rife pressed on. He knew a microorganism was at the root of cancer and was determined to find it. That same year, he discovered a virus in a breast tumor that he called the BX virus. Even more, he found the BX virus to be pleomorphic, meaning that it changed form based on its terrain. He discovered its MOR and was able to destroy it. Never having used his beam ray on a living creature, Rife introduced the BX virus into rats. Sure enough, they developed huge tumors. Using his beam ray to expose the tumors to their MOR, Rife was able to completely heal the rats. Seeing these incredible results, Dr. Johnson from USC insisted that it was time to try the beam ray on human patients. Rife was apprehensive, but insisted that if they were to have human trials, a research committee comprised of physicians at the top of the most prestigious medical associations had to be part of the proceedings. Dr. Johnson agreed and pulled a committee together that even included Dr. Alvin Ford, President of the American Association of Pathologists, a member Rife specifically requested.

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The trials included 16 terminally ill patients with various cancers and were conducted at the Ella Scripps mansion and estate in La Jolla, CA in 1934. In just 70 days, the committee declared the first 14 patients cured of their cancer. The remaining two were declared cured three weeks later. Incredibly, the patients only required two 3-minute sessions per week to achieve total recovery. Rife found that more-frequent sessions didn’t allow the lymphatic system enough time to take up the released toxins from the destroyed virus and remove them from the body. Later that year, a black tie banquet was held to honor Rife and “Celebrate the End of All Disease.” Less than 15 years later, however, none of the people at that dinner would even admit to knowing Rife, who would be left in poverty with his career ruined. His five microscopes would be confiscated along with the majority of his records and the two known beam-ray machines in existence. Today scientists are still struggling to recreate Rife’s technology from the remnants of what wasn’t destroyed of his writings. It’s exciting and enraging to think that cancer, along with many other diseases, was cured 83 years ago, and yet half a million people die from malignancies every year. As an institution mired in politics and money, the medical establishment seems to be the worst at killing its prophets and saints. Hopefully this new generation of courageous scientists will be able to put together the pieces from an unsung genius and recreate the “end of all disease” in his memory.

To get the full story on Royal Raymond Rife and his incredible discoveries, I recommend the Royal Rife Documentary on YouTube. It contains original audio recordings of Rife and his supporting physicians that shed fascinating light on his work and what was happening at the time. You’ll see film footage of the beam ray in action as it destroys microorganisms with frequency waves. You’ll also find out how Rife’s downfall was orchestrated and what’s being done now to recreate his work. If you’re a reader, check out the book The Cancer Cure That Worked, by Barry Lynes.

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PRESCR

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SECOND OPINION

RIPTION FOR PROFIT HOW THE OXYCONTIN EPIDEMIC MADE BILLIONS FOR ONE FAMILY WHILE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS SUFFERED By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

e’ve all heard the stories about the corruption that goes on behind the scenes in the pharmaceutical industry or big pharma, as many call it. When there are long lists of competing medications doctors can prescribe from various drug makers, pharmaceutical companies have been known to go to great lengths, legal and illegal, to make sure it's their products that are being promoted to patients, especially when billions of dollars are at stake. Financial kickbacks, sending doctors on luxury vacations, and funding their own studies that show their products are “safe and effective”, are just a few of the tactics pharmaceutical companies have been known to use to ensure a prescription for their product ends up in the patient’s hand. The fevered selling of drugs by big pharma to doctors doesn’t always take into account the patients who can end up with medications that aren’t ideal for their conditions, or even worse, destroy their health and ruin their lives. No class of drugs runs a higher risk of being rushed into the market and harming patients in the process than pain relievers. It was only in 2004 that Merck & Co. was forced to withdraw Vioxx from the market, a drug developed to treat acute pain in osteoarthritis and other conditions. In the five short years Vioxx was available, it was found to have been responsible for up to 140,000 heart attacks in patients who took it.1 As patient death rates climbed and lawsuits mounted, patient advocacy groups begged the FDA to remove Vioxx from the market, but not before Merck & Co. made billions on the drug - $2.5 billion alone in the last year it was available.2 Today, America finds itself in the throes of another national health emergency caused by a pain reliever. This time it’s the opioid OxyContin and the tens of thousands of patients who have become tragically addicted to the drug and have even died from overdoses in the last 20 years.

PHANTOM PHILANTHROPISTS

What most people don’t realize is that unlike other drug companies that are publicly traded and manufacture similar products, Purdue Pharmaceutical, which holds the exclusive rights to be the only producer of the opioid painkiller, OxyContin, is privately held and owned by just one family. Although the reclusive Sackler family prefers to keep their association with Purdue a secret, the family, with assets worth over $13 billion, are known as high-powered philanthropists. They have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to universities and art museums for more than two generations. The Sackler name appears on galleries and wings at the Smithsonian museum in Washington D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Harvard University, the Guggenheim Museum, the Louvre in Paris, the Royal Academy in London, and Peking University, just to name a few. Thousands of students receive their degrees each year from university schools that bear the Sackler name, which also graces various institutes at Cornell, Columbia, McGill, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sussex and King’s College London, most of which are dedicated to psychobiology and early childhood development. What nearly all the recipients of the Sackler family largess don’t realize is that the billions they collectively receive from their benefactor is a direct result of their massive success in monopolizing production of the highly-addictive opioid painkiller, OxyContin, and the illegal marketing practices that made it the go-to drug of choice prescribed by doctors for pain management for more than 20 years. The tragic result has been an epidemic of opioid addiction across America unlike any other health crisis previously seen, with hundreds of thousands dying of overdoses in the last two decades. As part of the Commission on Combating Drug

“Today, America finds itself in the throes of another national health emergency caused by a pain reliever. This time it’s the opioid OxyContin and the tens of thousands of patients who have become tragically addicted to the drug and have even died from overdoses in the last 20 years.”

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Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, President Trump stated that as of 2016, more than two million Americans had an addiction to prescription or illicit opioids,3 while the National Institutes of Health documented more than 64,000 deaths from drugs that same year, with opioids seeing the sharpest increase.4 Since 2000, more than 300,000 Americans have died from opioid overdoses, with two-thirds of all drug-related deaths in 2015 involving opioids. Over the last 20 years, the opioid crisis has made drug overdoses the leading cause of death in the U.S., far outpacing total deaths from car accidents or gun violence,5 costing the U.S. healthcare system nearly $80 billion per year.6 Even as the nation continues to reel from the consequences of the opioid epidemic reaching from the cities through the heartland, the Sackler family via Purdue Pharma continues to profit handsomely from their exclusive production of OxyContin, taking in $700 million domestically and $1.5 billion in sales through foreign companies in 2016.7

A DOSE OF DECEPTION

In 1952, three Sackler brothers, Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond, all psychiatrists from Flatbush, Brooklyn, purchased Purdue, which at the time was a small struggling New York drug manufacturer making products like earwax remover and laxatives. By the 1960s, Arthur was contracted by Roche, another drug maker, to develop an advertising strategy for its new antianxiety medication, Valium. The problem was that the effects of Valium were virtually no different from Roche’s other tranquilizer, Librium. Arthur’s solution was to outrageously and arbitrarily expand the range of conditions for which Valium was allegedly effective. While Librium was sold as a basic treatment for generalized anxiety, Valium was marketed as a specialized medication to treat “psychic tension,” a fictional term cooked up by Arthur that was subsequently claimed to be the root cause of everything from heartburn and gastrointestinal problems to insomnia, and restless leg syndrome.

Raymond and Beverly Sackler (2004)

“Even as the nation continues to reel from the consequences of the opioid epidemic reaching from the cities through the heartland, the Sackler family via Purdue Pharma continues to profit handsomely from their exclusive production of OxyContin, taking in $700 million domestically and $1.5 billion in sales through foreign companies in 2016.”

Who is this elusive family that is rarely seen but whose name appears everywhere in the elite worlds of fine art and Ivy League academics, and how did they become so successful marketing a product that would become the biggest catastrophe in modern medicine?

SECOND OPINION

The campaign was such a success that for several years, Valium was America’s most widely prescribed medication with over $100 million in sales. Because Arthur’s compensation depended on the volume of pills sold, truth wasn’t part of the prescription, and he became extremely wealthy in the process. Because of the historic sales resulting from this deception, Arthur would later become one of the first inductees into the Medical Advertising Hall of Fame. Yes, there is such a thing… if you can believe it. UNHEALTHY ALLIANCE

Not long after the success of Valium, Arthur had an epiphany. He intuited that print ads in medical journals could have a revolutionary effect on pharmaceutical sales, especially where it involved the so-called miracle drugs of the time like steroids, antibiotics, antihistamines, and psychotropics. Soon he’d convinced one of the most respected medical journals in the U.S., The Journal of the American Medical Association, to include a color advertorial brochure for drugs within its pages. From then on, the relationship between previously objective medical research and pharmaceutical corporations was compromised. The Sackler brothers were originally part of a millionaire clan, but it was their venture into painkillers that catapulted them into billionaire status. In 1972, Cicely Saunders, a hospice care physician, approached Napp Pharmaceutical, Purdue’s U.K. subsidiary, with the idea of creating a time-released morphine pill so cancer patients could sleep throughout the night without an IV. At the time, doctors were very reluctant to treat patients with strong pain medications of any M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

kind, especially opioids, as increasing numbers of U.S. soldiers were coming back from Vietnam with debilitating heroin addictions. It was argued that addiction wouldn’t be a problem for terminal cancer patients in their last weeks of life. By 1981, Napp had introduced a slow-release morphine pill in the U.K. with what it called the “Contin” system, and by 1987 Purdue brought the drug to the U.S. It was originally called MS Contin.

“It was Arthur Sackler who broadened the usage claims for OxyContin and branded it as the painkiller ‘to start with and to stay with.’” To condition the American public for the debut of OxyContin and to diffuse well-founded fears among reluctant doctors and skittish patients that opioids were dangerously addictive, two physicians from Memorial Sloan Kettering hospital in New York published an article in 1986 declaring long-term opioid use safe in people with no history of drug abuse. The “study” involved just 38 participants. Opium advocates both inside Purdue and outside the corporation were working overtime to neutralize what it called “opiophobia” among doctors and patients. At one point, a letter to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine published in 1980 was dug out of the archives and misconstrued to suggest that (using a highly unrepresentative cohort) the addiction risk of long-term opioid use was less than 1%. Although the author of the original letter disavowed this assertion, it was too late; the article that misrepresented it went on to become cited in more than 600 medical journals. NEW DRUG, OLD TRICKS

OxyContin quickly became the gold standard

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for pain relief in cancer treatment, but Purdue was not satisfied with serving a niche market and sought to vastly expand its profits by expanding the conditions for which its drug could be used in much the same way it did with Valium. The company continued to fund its own corroborating research and paid “experts” to regularly make the case in the media that fears of opioid addiction were overblown. In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s chronic pain management was becoming a quasi-specialty when Purdue started advocating OxyContin for all kinds of non-cancer conditions such as back pain and neuropathy. It was Arthur Sackler who broadened the usage claims for OxyContin and branded it as the painkiller “to start with and to stay with." By the end of the ‘90s, opioid advocates all over the U.S. were supported by millions of dollars from Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies that had organized themselves into advocacy groups with names like the American Pain Society, American Academy of Pain Medicine, and even Purdue’s own Partners in Pain. Eventually, critics accused these organizations of being nothing more than front groups for the pharmaceutical corporations. One of their objectives was to pressure health regulators into making pain the “fifth vital sign” thereby increasing a patient’s chances of being prescribed pain medication. It would later be revealed through internal documents that Purdue's ambition was to "attach an emotional aspect to non-cancer pain" so doctors would feel pressure to "treat it more seriously and aggressively." Purdue rebranded pain relief as a sacred right, not just for the terminally ill, but for all patients and by any means necessary. MONEY & MISINFORMATION

Purdue’s high-cost promotion strategy also included kickbacks (technically legal) to every part of the distribution chain. Wholesalers were paid for keeping OxyContin off insurance preauthorization lists. Pharmacists received refunds for their initial orders. Patients got 30-day starter coupons. Compliant researchers got huge grants. Medical journals willing to push OxyContin got millions in advertising. In promoting OxyContin to doctors, sales reps would later admit to paying for physicians to attend seminars that were little more than golfing vacation trips to Pebble Beach or booking them into Purdue's lucrative speaker's bureau where they would attend hastily organized, high-end dinners, speak for ten minutes then collect $500. Big pharma buying influence with physicians this way to push their drugs on patients has been an open secret in the medical community

“Purdue rebranded pain relief as a sacred right, not just for the terminally ill, but for all patients and by any means necessary.”

some confusion, as many people were calling OxyContin oxycodeine instead of oxycodone, the active ingredient in OxyContin, which is a chemical cousin to morphine and heroin. Codeine is a very weak, low-risk painkiller, so Purdue capitalized on the public’s confusion and made no effort to correct the misperception. Although oxycodone is 50% stronger than morphine, doctors were led to believe it was less powerful because it was widely known as one of the active ingredients in Percocet, a weak opioid and acetaminophen combination that doctors had already been prescribing for injuries. Every effort was made to remove the mental connection between morphine and OxyContin. Ultimately, it wasn’t OxyContin that was the foundation of the Sackler fortune as much as the relentless and pervasive advertising and misinformation campaign that surrounded it.

While this questionable sales approach isn’t unique in the pharmaceutical industry, it was unprecedented in the marketing of a Schedule II narcotic and what many consider among the most dangerous products ever sold on a mass scale. Of course, congressmen on key committees received campaign donations from both Purdue and the Sackler family.

“Between 1996 and 2001, the number of OxyContin prescriptions in the U.S. exploded from 300,000 to nearly 6 million, as sales passed the $1 billion mark. It was then that the first signs of an addiction epidemic became apparent.”

Purdue’s marketing also benefited from

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SECOND OPINION

for decades. While legal, no one wants to talk about the ethics violations involved in such a practice. I got a hard lesson in playing the game with big pharma early in my career. I was working in Florida under the supervision of a directing physician who oversaw a chain of nursing homes. In geriatric care, the over-prescription of medication to patients who are often rarely aware of what or how many pills they're taking is a widespread problem. In typical form, my director went to several conferences in exotic locations and speaking engagements hosted by various pharmaceutical companies during the year. Before one trip, he asked me to cover for him. While he was out of town, I was stunned to find that many of the elderly patients were taking up to 23 different medications per day. I immediately issued orders to start weaning those patients off everything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Needless to say, when my director returned he wasn’t happy, and that was the last time I was ever asked to cover for him.

ADDICTION ALARM

Between 1996 and 2001, the number of OxyContin prescriptions in the U.S. exploded from 300,000 to nearly 6 million, as sales passed the $1 billion mark. It was then that the first signs of an addiction epidemic became apparent. Millions of patients who saw the drug as vital for their pain were so hooked that they were experiencing withdrawal symptoms between doses. It wasn’t just that doctors were writing so many prescriptions for OxyContin, but that so many of them were for extraordinarily high doses. A single dose of Percocet contains between 2.5mg and 10mg of oxycodone. At the height of its usage, OxyContin came in 10, 20, 30, 40 and 80mg formulations. For a time, it even came in a 160mg dosage. By 2003, OxyContin sales hit $1.6 billion. At its peak in 2012, doctors wrote more than 282 million prescriptions for opioid painkillers including OxyContin, Vicodin, and Percocet. It’s now estimated that since 1995, OxyContin sales have generated over $35 billion in profits for Purdue.8 Today, Forbes estimates the Sackler family wealth at $14 billion, which is shared by just twenty heirs. During the early 2000s as the profits poured in by the billions, no attempt was made to keep OxyContin out of the hands of the public or even regulate its distribution to only those who absolutely needed it. Besides the lies about it not being addictive, the theory was that existing drug addicts would shy away from a time-released narcotic, preferring a quick hit instead. It didn’t take long for drug addicts to realize that OxyContin packed an enormous amount of narcotic into a single pill, and figure out how to circumvent its time-release mechanism. All they had to do was crush the pill and snort it

to receive the full payload. Of course, Purdue already knew this because OxyContin came with a warning on the packaging that stated broken pills could subject patients to potentially fatal overdoses. Fortunately for Purdue, a “reduced abuse liability” claim in the fine print provided it and prescribing physicians with the right amount of immunity to keep OxyContin sales increasing year after year. ASTONISHING ADMISSIONS

As the 2000s pressed on and more unsuspecting patients saw their lives ruined by addiction, dozens of class action lawsuits were filed against Purdue. People who had once lived normal lives were scrounging the streets for heroin to buy after their OxyContin prescriptions ran out or they could no longer afford them. Families ended up destroyed and financially devastated by massive drug habits, while others saw loved ones lost to overdoses. At that time, Purdue was willing to go to great lengths to keep Richard Sackler, the family’s surviving patriarch, from testifying under oath, to the degree that the company settled more than $20 million in lawsuits out of court. By 2007 under federal charges, Purdue pled guilty to criminally “misbranding” OxyContin and intentionally exploiting doctors’ misconceptions about its strength. The company wasn’t merely guilty of failing to correct misperceptions it knew were taking place, but was willfully promoting OxyContin as less addictive than other opioids when it knew those claims were false. In court documents, the company said it was “well aware of the incorrect view held by many physicians that oxycodone was weaker than morphine” and “did not want to do anything to make physicians

“Over the last 20 years, the opioid crisis has made drug overdoses the leading cause of death in the U.S., far outpacing total deaths from car accidents or gun violence, costing the U.S. healthcare system nearly $80 billion per year.”

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think that oxycodone was stronger or equal to morphine or to take any steps. . . that would affect the unique position that OxyContin held among physicians.” In this deception, Purdue got a lot of help from the FDA which allowed it to include the claim on the drug’s insert that read: “Delayed absorption, as provided by OxyContin tablets, is believed to reduce the abuse liability of a drug.” This claim that was so crucial to the astronomical sales of OxyContin would never be approved again for any other opioid. The official felony conviction for Purdue was for "misbranding a drug with intent to defraud or mislead." The company was fined $600 million while its three top executives, the medical director, general counsel, and president had to pay an additional $34.5 million out of their own pockets and perform 400 hours of community service. By this time, none of the Sacklers were running the company on a daily basis. It was the harshest judgment against any pharmaceutical company in history.

a coincidence that just as Purdue was making this announcement, the patent on OxyContin was set to expire. Always the marketing trickster, Purdue argued that OxyContin was so prone to abuse that generic manufacturers should not be allowed to copy it. Incredibly on April 16, 2013, the very day the patent for OxyContin was set to expire, the FDA agreed with Purdue and declared no generic versions of OxyContin could be sold, thus securing several more years of exclusive production and profit for Purdue of their drug that ruined hundreds of thousands of lives. Conveniently, the Sacklers emerged from the whole disaster largely unscathed. At the time of the federal charges, they had long abandoned any leadership roles within Purdue and hadn’t been involved in daily operations since 2003, allowing others to have their reputations ruined in the debacle they could see coming years in advance. What’s more, a sweeping non-prosecution agreement was part of the 2007 federal settlement which limits any new litigation after that year. EMPIRE OF PAIN

In 2010, Purdue finally admitted that OxyContin was highly addictive and released a new formulation that was allegedly harder to snort or inject. Not one to waste a good tragedy, Purdue quickly seized the moment to enact a little damage control by rebranding itself the industry leader in abuse-deterrent technology. It’s also not

According to statistics from IMS Health, amid increasing scrutiny, prescriptions for all opioid painkillers have dropped 12% since OxyContin’s peak in 2012. OxyContin saw a drop of 17%.9 In the U.S., the sun is now slowly setting on Purdue’s premier painkiller, however, the company is gearing up to expand sales of

SECOND OPINION

EVADING ACCOUNTABILITY

“It’s now estimated that since 1995, OxyContin sales have generated over $35 billion in profits for Purdue. Today, Forbes estimates the Sackler family wealth at $14 billion, which is shared by just twenty heirs.”

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OxyContin in foreign markets such as Mexico, Brazil, and China. According to the Los Angeles Times, Mundipharma, a Sackler-owned company, is already driving a public relations campaign in those countries about the “silent epidemic of pain” with press releases claiming nearly 50% of the entire population suffers from chronic pain.10 In May 2017, U.S. lawmakers in Congress sent a letter to the World Health Organization warning that Sackler-owned companies were preparing to prey on foreign countries with a flood of legal narcotics. They described how Purdue “devastated American communities” with addiction and overdose deaths, and called Purdue’s attempt to sell OxyContin abroad “deceptive and reckless”.11 In 2016, the CDC issued an official warning about opioids and stated that there was no good evidence that they were effective for the treatment of pain beyond six weeks. It also acknowledged the abundant negative effects from long-term use.12 The full impact of the Sackler family’s legacy and OxyContin on the U.S. won’t be known for

decades. In the meantime, the last of the original Sackler brothers, Raymond, died in July 2017 at the age of 97. Of course by that time, he’d already won a British knighthood, been made an officer of France’s Légion d’Honneur, received the highest honor of the royal house of the Netherlands, and been awarded an honorary doctorate from Tufts University, presented to him personally by then president, Anthony Monaco, after making a significant donation to the school. To a remarkable degree, the family that profited immeasurably from the deception and tragedy they knowingly wrought upon Americans continues to keep themselves behind the scenes and entirely disassociated from the controversy caused by OxyContin. One only wonders what would result if the board members and administrators at the world’s leading universities and cultural institutions, as well as various heads of state, knew the source of the gifts they were receiving was an empire built upon pain of the Sacklers’ own making. *Other Sources13,14

Sources (1) Bhattacharya, Shaoni, “Up to 140,000 Heart Attacks Linked to Vioxx”, New Scientist, (January 25, 2005), http://bit.ly/2ISYVGu (2) “Merck Sees Slightly Higher Earnings in 2007”, The New York Times, (December 7, 2006), https:// nyti.ms/2RJDVG1 (3) Press release, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “President Donald J. Trump is Taking Action on Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis,” (October 26, 2017). http://bit.ly/2IUjTo6 (4) National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Overdose Death Rates, (revised, September 2017), http://bit.ly/2pO5uRP (5) Press release, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “President Donald J. Trump is Taking Action on Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis,” (October 26, 2017). http://bit.ly/2IUjTo6 (6) Curtis, Florence et al. (2016). The economic burden of prescription opioid overdose, abuse, and dependence in the united states, 2013. Medical Care, 54(10), 901. DOI: 10.1097/MLR.0000000000000625 (7) Peterson-Whithorn, Chase, "Fortune of Family Behind OxyContin Drops Amid Declining Prescriptions," Forbes, (June 29, 2016), http://bit.ly/2pPsIab (8) Radden Keefe, Patrick, "The Family that Built an Empire of Pain," The New Yorker, (October 30, 2017), http://bit.ly/2CcIqU5 (9) Goodnough, Abby, "Opioid Prescriptions Drop for First Time in Two Decades," The New York Times, (May 20, 2016), https://nyti.ms/2ITbH7F (10) Ryan, Harriet, "OxyContin Goes Global—We're Only Just Getting Started," Los Angeles Times, (December 18, 2016), https://lat.ms/2EfkP7R (11) Ibid. (12) Dowell, Deborah et al. (2016). CDC guideline for prescribing opioids for chronic pain—United States, 2016. Journal of the American Medical Association, 315(15), 1624-1645. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.1464. (13) Glazek, Christopher, "The Secretive Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis," Esquire, (October 16, 2017), http://bit.ly/2yzvl44 (14) Durden, Tyler, “OxyContin Nation: Meet the billionaire family who helped spark America's opioid crisis," ZeroHedge, (October 28, 2017), http://bit.ly/2Eiriz6

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Comprehensive Cancer Consultation (C3) When you’re facing cancer, choosing the right treatment strategy can be overwhelming. Everyone seems to be telling you what to do, but are those your only options? Time and money are extremely important in cancer therapy, which can be very costly, so it’s important to make the right decision the first time. What are the most current interventions for your cancer? Are they right for you? Which ones don’t work? More importantly, which ones do? Fortunately, Dr. Sadeghi provides three types of in-depth consultation services that take all the guesswork and stress out of designing the right plan of care for you.

Comprehensive Cancer Report Dr. Sadeghi provides you with a complete written report detailing the latest information and evidence-based research regarding the most effective conventional, integrative, alternative and emerging therapies for your particular type of cancer. Exhaustive investigative efforts have been made to discover which interventions hold the most promise, which ones don’t, what doctors are providing them and at which facilities across the world. With this easy-to-read, in-depth report you’ll be able to clearly understand all your options and make fully informed decisions to individualize your treatment and maximize your potential for recovery. You’ll also receive a detailed explanation of the most powerful dietary strategies to help prevent, suppress, and decrease the aggressiveness of your cancer while stimulating the immune system. At the same time, you’ll be saving thousands of hours of research time and stress that would be much better spent in healing activities that bring you joy and peace of mind.

Phone Consultation Adding another level of personalization to your healing experience, Dr. Sadeghi offers one-hour phone consultations to provide a full breakdown of all the options available to you based on your present condition. You’ll have the freedom to ask any questions you might have, while Dr. Sadeghi offers his honest and unbiased assessment of which therapies will most likely achieve the best response from your body. As Dr. Sadeghi helps you narrow down your treatment choices across the conventional, integrative, and alternative spectrum, you can take advantage of his wealth of knowledge as a cancer survivor himself of more than 20 years. He’ll be happy to provide you with insights from his own healing journey. Talking to a physician who has been where you are makes all the difference when making some of the most important decisions of your life. Phone consultations are provided as a separate service and do not require the purchase of a Comprehensive Cancer Report. You may have family members and even your doctors on the call, if you can manage it.

Ongoing Personalized Consultation Now you can have the best of both worlds by bringing Dr. Sadeghi onto your medical team as a regular consultant. Throughout your plan of care, he’ll be reviewing your records, charting your progress, and making various recommendations during ongoing consultations with you and your doctors. With Dr. Sadeghi’s extensive wealth of knowledge in cancer diagnosis and treatment, as well as osteopathy, homeopathy, Chinese medicine, German new medicine, anthroposophical medicine, nutritional medicine, Ayurveda, bio-energetics, and more, you’ll be empowering your healing strategy in ways that aren’t available at the most prestigious cancer institutes the world over. Please contact our office for fee structure.

M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L TO LEARN MORE CALL (818) 452-4483 OR VISIT BEHIVEOFHEALING.COM/C3

Truth or Consequences Honoring relationships through honesty By Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami

ecause love is an integral part of healing both body and mind, we speak quite a bit to patients about what love is and what it means to be in our loving as we go through the challenges of daily life. When patients ask us what it means to really love, we always begin our explanation with this quote from American poet, Adrienne Cecile Rich:

At the same time, we must also be vulnerable enough to receive the truth in a non-judgmental way as shared with us by those we trust, as well. As Ms. Rich states, most of us have few people that we can really trust and count on to go the distance with us and do the work that real love requires to build the kind of honorable relationships that make our lives more fulfilling.

“An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.”

“A key point of a carefrontation is to always come from the perspective of truthfulness presented in a compassionate or neutral way.”

According to Ms. Rich, love isn’t a static situation where we either love someone or we don’t. It’s a process, a way of being in the world where we interact with others and ourselves in an honorable way. The core of this way of life is truth. It’s been said that we can never love another person more than when we tell them the truth. With truthfulness comes increased trust and a deepening sense of security that allows us to be more vulnerable and open with others.

BE H I V E OF H E A L I N G

Some people seem to think that living in a loving way means being nice to people all the time and not upsetting anyone. That’s not true at all. People create a lot of problems for themselves and in their relationships by being nice in order to avoid conflict. That only allows problems to fester and build up pressure over time for a bigger blow up at some point in the future. Co-dependency is a classic situation where terminal niceness often ends up damaging both parties of a relationship in serious ways.

“We cannot live a loving and authentic life without the ability to tell the truth because being truthful is at the heart of any healthy relationship we intend to have with ourselves and others.”

We recently presented a series of workshops on relationship management and conflict resolution for the staff of goop, Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand, in Los Angeles. During those sessions, an attendee said that she couldn’t see how a person could be loving and yet, still be able to confront a co-worker, family member, or romantic partner about a serious issue. She didn’t realize that being loving doesn’t mean being disempowered or passive, and that there is a significant difference between a confrontation and what we call a carefrontation. Just last month, goop launched its companion print magazine. In the premier issue, an article titled “Carefrontation Nation” featured some exciting breakthroughs from those workshops along with the principles and process of having a carefrontation instead of a confrontation as a way of honoring our various relationships. A carefrontation isn’t about creating drama or being unloving. It’s about being clear, open and respectful in the process of telling the truth to others we are in relationship with in order to improve our quality of life and understanding of each other. It’s the method by which we can

If you have a problem with a co-worker, the most loving thing you can do is address that issue in a neutral way that puts resolution above winning or being right, and takes the other person’s sensitivities into account. When we present our concerns in this context, it’s the beginning of shifting from confrontation to carefrontation. The point is to always come from the perspective of truthfulness presented in a compassionate or neutral way. Owning our truth and sharing it with others doesn’t always mean the other person won’t become upset, but when presented in the context of a carefrontation where the other party can feel our simultaneous concern for their needs while expressing our own, we significantly reduce the possibility of escalating the situation. Too often, we avoid telling others the truth because we mistakenly think our only option is a confrontation or that sparing them the upset of what we need to share is the more loving choice. Neither of these is true. When we understand how to conduct a proper carefrontation, confrontations become almost non-existent in our relationships because we can remain conscious and in control of ourselves, even in the midst of disagreement. In reality, avoiding telling someone the truth of how we feel is often a self-serving act and has little to do with concern for the other person’s feelings. Most of the time, when we think we’re sparing the other person the pain of the upset they’ll experience by knowing how we feel, we’re subconsciously doing so to avoid the upset we’ll feel that comes from upsetting another person, especially when it’s someone we care about. So being dishonest or withholding in any way is really self-serving and about protecting ourselves, not someone else.

L .I.G . H .T. A RTICLES

HAVING A CAREFRONTATION

open ourselves up to being more loving, especially in the times and with the people where it’s most difficult, in order to take relationships and our awareness in them to a new level.

This happens quite often in romantic relationships where one person is strung along because their partner is afraid to break up with them, hurt their feelings or just be alone. In these situations, we must love the other person enough to tell them the truth so that they can move forward to a relationship that’s fulfilling in the ways they deserve. Unfortunately, in our couples counseling, we’ve seen people waste 20 or more years this way because they don’t understand the connection between love and truth or how to conduct themselves in all their relationships as an ongoing conversation of loving. We cannot live a loving and authentic life without the ability to tell the truth because being truthful is at the heart of any healthy relationship we intend to have with ourselves and others.

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A PROBLEMATIC APPROACH EMOTIONAL ADULTHOOD IS THE KEY TO PROBLEM-SOLVING & RESILIENCY By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

y birthday is in April, but my wife, Sherry, and I celebrate my second birthday each year on February 10th or what we call the Day of Life, the day that marks another year of my victory over cancer. This year makes 20 years. An integral part of my long-term survival has been understanding how to relate to the problem of having cancer by practicing acceptance without trying to control the situation. I have had to learn what it means to trust in the greater process of life, without grasping for specific answers or wanting everything fixed immediately.

Our states of mind don’t always coincide with the biological phase of life we’re in. That’s when we get into trouble and have difficulty solving our problems, or make them worse. While that isn’t necessarily a good thing, it’s important to know that the four basic cultural states of being are normative terms, which means none of them are bad or wrong. However, becoming aware of how you’re approaching life’s problems can go a long way toward solving them if what you’re currently doing isn’t working.

To celebrate my 20-year milestone, Sherry and I went to dinner at a restaurant called Opaque in Santa Monica. It's located at 2020 Wilshire Blvd. and its entire staff is blind. After removing our watches and turning off our phones, Sherry placed her hand on the shoulder of our waiter, Michael, while I did the same to Sherry. We were then led into a pitch-black, windowless room. In the first minute or so, I nearly had a panic attack because I couldn't orient myself to my surroundings. I kept opening and closing my eyes to remind myself that my eyes were, in fact, open even though I could see nothing.

In infancy, we exist in a mostly parasitic symbiosis with others where we tend to take far more than we give back, if we give back anything at all. Life is all about us, our needs, and what makes us happy in the moment. Others are not a consideration because we operate entirely on

Once seated, I was able to accept my situation. At that point, an amazing thing happened. My other senses became heightened to help me navigate my way through the darkness. The food smelled more vibrant and tasted much richer. As I reached for things across the table, I could tell that even my sense of touch was sharper. This is what it means to have an adult, problemsolving consciousness. When something we rely on is suddenly gone, other senses sharpen and a new awareness develops to help guide us. But this can only happen if we're able to exercise personal responsibility and accept our present circumstances. SYMBIOTIC STATES

The quality of our life experiences is heavily dependent on the quality of our relationships. As a result of our experiences (mostly from early life), we adopt a state of mind that manifests as a way of being, that in turn, determines how we interact with the world and others. This becomes a template for how we approach obstacles. Our cultural states of mind mimic the four stages of human physical development: infancy, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. Our cultural states of mind are symbiotic states of being - how we relate to or work with those around us. Sym means together, while biosis means life. Two lives that come together to relate to each other in some way that affects their existence is a symbiotic constellation.

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ONE WAY, MY WAY

“Many times, we'll avoid the parts of a situation we don't like by projecting them outward onto others through blaming and judgment, utterly oblivious to how we helped create our problem, just like an infant."

“In any problem situation, the most empowering choice is always to accept what is. That doesn’t mean approving of what is happening or blaming anyone involved. It simply means allowing the situation to be.”

MANIPULATIVE MANEUVERS

It’s not necessary to throw tantrums over problems to be an adult caught in parasitic symbiosis with others. While that can be the typical reaction for many, this state can manifest itself in many different ways. One of the classic characteristics is avoidance, not wanting to deal with the unpleasant parts of a situation. It’s like wanting a juicy piece of watermelon, but without the seeds. The situation isn't exactly to our liking, so we push the whole thing away. Many times, we'll avoid the parts of a situation we don't like by projecting them outward onto others through blaming and judgment, utterly oblivious to how we helped create our problem, just like an infant. While children will cry to get their way or motivate others to solve their problems for them, adults in parasitic symbiosis usually take a subtler approach. They often resort to various forms of control, either overt or covert. The controlling personality needs things their way, and like an infant, usually doesn't consider anyone else's needs. Because we're talking about a state of being through which we approach life, the odds are quite good that a controlling boss is very likely a controlling spouse and parent. This attitude isn't likely to help solve family problems or improve those relationships. How we do one thing is how we do everything. Our response is only a matter of degrees depending on the situation.

He had no idea what she wanted to discuss, as he had no desire to rekindle the relationship, and knew she felt the same way. Within minutes of meeting, she flew into a rage, accusing him of making her feel uncomfortable and trying to steal her friends. It's a good thing he was speechless because he couldn't get a word in edgewise. At the height of her upset, she burst into tears, insisting that he give up the group and his newly budding friendships so that she wouldn't feel threatened. As far as she was concerned, the group was her territory, her sandbox, and he couldn't play in it. She was taking all her toys and going home. Because she was making a huge scene and attracting attention from others in the park, he agreed to stop going to the group. He would have done anything to make her stop the hysterics, but then that was her idea all along. Naturally, I wasn’t happy with how he allowed her to manipulate him, but controllers always need people who are willing to be controlled. In allowing others to control us, we aren’t helping them, we are enabling them.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

the pleasure principle. We deal only with the things we like. The things we don't like, we push away. A consciousness stuck in parasitic symbiosis hasn't matured or become self-sufficient. It's based mainly on feelings and hyper-emotionality. In the infant’s mind, a desire arises that triggers an emotion, but there is no real cognition happening. Whether or not the child gets what it wants determines its emotional state because it has no capacity to self-regulate.

The manipulative personality uses a different kind of control. It can use physical threats, money, sexuality, feigned helplessness, co-dependence, and other mechanisms to take advantage of others and get what it wants. I know a man who had been attending monthly gatherings of a social group for professionals for about five months. The group had about 200 members, and he’d made some pretty solid friendships during that time. While wandering through the crowd one evening, he ran straight into a woman he’d dated for less than a year. Nearly 18 months had passed since their amicable breakup. Apparently, she’d been part of the group for several years. Surprised to see each other, they had a congenial 45-minute chat before going their separate ways. He thought nothing else of the interaction until he received a text from her later that night, asking to speak with him during the week. They decided to meet in a local park.

Other manifestations of parasitic symbiosis and/or infant consciousness include insecure M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

and needy personalities. These people want others to solve their problems for them, or tell them what to do. A lot of people who regularly see psychics are like this. They want others to pick the seeds out of the watermelon so they can enjoy it. Unfortunately, this prevents them from having a whole experience and gaining the benefit of learning from it. GO AHEAD. MAKE ME.

Adolescence and the teenage years are all about breaking out and finding our own identity. For good or ill, we accomplish much of this self-determination by finding out who we’re not, what we don’t like, and what we’re not about. Most of these realizations come from the unhealthy practice of comparing ourselves to and competing with others in what I call competitive symbiosis. This creates a negative constellation of againstness, an aggressive or rebellious consciousness that can be as stubborn as it is selfish. At the same time, the hormones of puberty are affecting our cognition skills to such a degree that our thoughts tend to be a bit chaotic and disorganized, sometimes generating dramatic emotional fluctuations. We’ve got desire and emotion tied to ungrounded cognition. When it comes to problem-solving, those stuck in competitive symbiosis with others are clueless about compromise. They give a big middle finger to the problem. Whatever’s being asked of them, they're just not going to do. They totally disregard the circumstances and flout authority. In their minds, they’re saying, “Make me. Go ahead and make me.” Does this remind you of a teenager? Although it is a slightly different approach, denial works the same way. It's a flat-out refusal to even acknowledge a

“People with insecure and needy personalities want others to solve their problems for them, or tell them what to do....They want others to pick the seeds out of the watermelon so they can enjoy it. Unfortunately, this prevents them from having a whole experience and gaining the benefit of learning from it.”

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problem or take part in finding the solution. It’s a blinding inability to take any personal responsibility for the situation. A good example of this is an ex-spouse who, though he doesn’t like the terms of his divorce agreement, makes no effort to compromise but instead simply refuses to comply with the terms. This is the level of consciousness that does the most to compound its existing problems because so much spite and self-righteous pride are involved. As in the teen years, all that fiery, misdirected energy, coupled with unfocused awareness lead us to make unwise decisions and create more problems for ourselves. POISONOUS PASSIVITY

The old age problem-solving consciousness or commensal symbiosis mirrors an elderly person’s physiology quite well, though there are many young people with this kind of mindset. Its key characteristic is passivity. While it’s aware there is a problem, it can’t muster the energy to address it because it’s simply overwhelmed by the circumstances. There tends to be a significant amount of resignation and the belief that making an effort won’t matter anyway. It’s rooted in resignation and a false sense of powerlessness. Though old age consciousness knows a solution would likely improve the situation, there is little drive to find one because, like an elderly person, it enjoys its routine, the familiar. As such, it will resist initiating change, even though it knows that change would be good. Change, however, would shake up life, so there’s just no engagement with the problem. The procrastinator is the classic example of the commensal problem-solver. They keep kicking the can down the road and complaining about it, while everything stays the same.

This also includes the unmotivated and fatalistic personality who feels it has no real power to effect change in life, and so to avoid taking action and keep itself disempowered, it uses the idea that God will somehow take care of everything. Worrying is also indicative of old age problem-solving consciousness. Fear paralyzes the person from moving forward in any way as they become entangled in all the "what ifs" of the situation. This level of consciousness obscures clarity and drains decision-making power. In this case, the elderly person would be staring at the watermelon, seeds and all, and not know what to do with it or even how to feed himself. EMOTIONAL ADULTHOOD

In any problem situation, the most empowering choice is always to accept what is. That doesn’t mean approving of what is happening or blaming anyone involved. It simply means allowing the situation to be. That is the first spiritual law, acceptance of what is, not forever, but right now. It’s surrendering to the moment, not resignation. Author John Keats described this highly coherent mind/body state as negative capability, the ability to be okay with things not being okay. I call it clarity - the peace you create and exist within. In other words, you are in the eye of the storm where all is still and quiet while the storm whirls around you. It’s within this mental space, free of the noise and clutter, that you can see your life clearly for the first time, understand why it is the way it is, and take conscious action to change things. I discuss this process in my book, The Clarity Cleanse: 12 steps to finding renewed energy, spiritual fulfillment, and emotional healing. From this higher state of consciousness, we can access our imaginations and like artists, find more creative, efficient ways to deal with obstacles. If we cannot master acceptance of every situation in our lives, we will not mature consciously at the same rate at which we will grow physically. Our bodies and minds will be at two different places along the growth scale, creating incongruity and more problems in our lives. If we think of a human growth chart as having an X and Y axis, our forward life progress is represented by the horizontal X axis and is directly proportional to our spiritual evolution which is represented by the vertical Y axis. So it will serve

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Naturally, we all want to find solutions to our problems, but that requires dealing with them like adults and from an adult problem-solving consciousness or with mutualistic symbiosis. This mindset is based on accepting the wholeness of the experience and working together with all the people and circumstances involved to find a solution. It’s about taking the seeds with the watermelon and knowing it’s not possible to have one without the other. When we deal with the seeds of the situation, the gift it brings, or the lesson we learn, is all the sweeter because we have taken the time to work through everything instead of running away from it, just staring at it, or insisting that the circumstances change to be exactly what we want. In mutualistic symbiosis, there is the desire to create change, fueled by emotion and guided by a clarified cognition, which show us how to approach the situation. It takes all the variables in the situation and integrates them into a whole experience. It then provides the

peace of mind that ensures us every aspect of the problem will work to our benefit, even if we cannot see how that might be in the present moment.

“It’s about taking the seeds with the watermelon and knowing it’s not possible to have one without the other. When we deal with the seeds of the situation, the gift it brings, or the lesson we learn, is all the sweeter because we have taken the time to work through everything instead of running away from it, just staring at it, or insisting that the circumstances change to be exactly what we want.”

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“Personal success isn’t dependent on how hard the wind blows during the storms of life, but whether or not you’ve learned how to bend with the breeze. That’s what it means to be an emotional grown-up.”

you to be less wrapped up in the temporary physical details of a problem, and more attuned to the deeper meaning it has for you. What can you learn from it, and how will you choose to respond to it? This is how we develop higher consciousness. MAKING MOUNTAINS FROM MOLEHILLS

In the right frame of mind, we can consciously choose how to handle even the most volatile situations because we have learned how to reflect and act in response. When we react unconsciously, we only add to and potentially escalate or complicate the situation. A friend recently told me that he and his wife were invited to another friend’s home for a barbeque. After having some of the host’s potato salad, my friend got violently ill, and had to be rushed to the emergency room where he was administered an IV with some medication. As it turns out, his wife ate the same amount of the same potato salad at the same time and wasn't affected at all. My friend was stunned. The interesting thing about microbes is that they need the right terrain inside a person’s body to take hold and make them sick. In the same way, when every little thing upsets us, we develop a weak psycho-spiritual terrain, a condition that allows problems to take hold and throw us into reactionary mode. We’ve got a low buffering capacity for problem tolerance. We all know people who have a very short fuse and are always making mountains out of molehills, as they say, and others who are much slower to anger and less likely to be afflicted by anxiety. They have different psycho-spiritual terrains and buffering capacities. I later found out from my friend's wife that he had depleted much of his physical buffering capacity by working long hours for months on a special high-pressure work project. Nothing

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suppresses immunity like stress. He altered his terrain, and that’s why he got sick. Low tolerance for problems generates long-term chronic stress which is a major factor in many disease processes. LEARNING HOW TO LEARN

Growing up isn’t easy, and becoming a spiritual adult is an inside job. It could be said that working through each problem, depending on the seriousness of the issue, bears some resemblance to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' five stages of grief that begin with denial and move through anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance. The sooner we can get to acceptance during the difficult times of life, the quicker we'll find better solutions and the more progress we'll make because we're learning how to learn from our problems. That's the essence of life. It's why we're here, and we have all the tools we need to do just that. You can explore those tools in The Clarity Cleanse and our free monthly newsletter. Signing up for the monthly newsletter gets you a free audio meditation to start you on your journey. Listening to your choice of words when dealing with a problem can be a good way to determine where you are on this emotional development scale. Checking in with what you’re feeling can provide equally important information. Do you feel furious, frustrated, resistant, helpless, hopeless, or something else? This kind of self-awareness can support you in making better choices when dealing with problems, and it can ultimately provide you with a greater resiliency throughout life. Personal success isn’t dependent on how hard the wind blows during the storms of life, but whether or not you’ve learned how to bend with the breeze. That’s what it means to be an emotional grown-up.

SEX TALK AND TIMING

HOW AND WHEN TO DISCUSS SEX WITH CHILDREN

By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

e’ve seen it many times on TV and in films—nervous parents gathering their children together, palms sweating, hearts racing, as they stumble over their words to give them the sex talk about where babies come from. The whole time the parents are thinking, “What if we tell them too much? Will this destroy their innocence? What if they ask about what we do?” Of course, the humor always arises from the discovery that the kids already know everything their parents are about to tell them and are completely blasé about it. What’s not funny is that children today are apt to learn about sex at much younger ages than their parents did, and from sources that are largely out of their parents’ control, and that don’t put sex in the proper context. From cable TV and films to the internet and more mature kids at school, children are regularly exposed to sex in a way that presents it as a freak show rather than a beautiful and sacred act of bonding. Public schools try to correct some of this misinformation through health class and sex education, however, the best place for children to learn about sex is at home, from their parents, who understand their sensitivities and needs. Even so, most parents think their children don't want to hear from them about sex, but the opposite is true. The 2016 Parent Power Survey conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found that 52% of children between 12 and 15 said their parents had the most influence on them when it came to sex. In contrast, when parents were asked, 60% thought their children's friends held more influence in sexual matters than they did. In reality, only 17% of children said they valued their friends' opinions about sex above their parents'. While 28% of teens between 16 and 19 said they valued their friends’ ideas on sex more, a slight majority of 32% said their parents had a bigger influence on them.1

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TALKING POINTS Anyone can teach the biological facts of reproduction, but only parents are in a position to put this information in a context that best suits their family’s spiritual principles. Although there is no standardized approach as to how and when to share information about sex with children, it helps to keep a few things in mind.

1. TALKING TO CHILDREN ABOUT SEX DOES NOT HARM THEIR INNOCENCE.

Innocence is a function of attitude, not information. Children who understand that the purpose of sex is to express love and create life maintain a healthy view of sex and thus, retain their innocence. Without this understanding, children may be exposed to sex in a way that’s abusive or degrading, negatively impacting their view of sex and themselves. 2. IF YOU FEEL OVERLY NERVOUS OR INHIBITED WHEN TALKING TO YOUR CHILD ABOUT SEX, YOU MIGHT WANT TO REVIEW YOUR ATTITUDES ABOUT SEX.

Perhaps past experiences have caused you to feel that sex is bad, dirty or shameful. It’s very important to become conscious of these feelings before they’re unconsciously passed on to your children. Recognize that this is an issue for you that may require work with a therapist to begin your healing process. 3. DON’T WAIT TO SHARE EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT SEX WITH YOUR CHILD IN A SINGLE

them with too much information. Facts about sex should be shared gradually with increasing detail over several years, according to what information is age-appropriate. This approach works when sharing any information with your child as he or she grows, whether it be about handling money, relationships, spiritual values, or anything else. "The talk" is really a series of talks that should begin at a fairly young age.

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TALK. Doing so risks waiting until your child has already been influenced by others, or overwhelming

4. GIVE INFORMATION ON A NEED-TO-KNOW BASIS.

If your five-year-old wants to know how Aunt Susan's baby is going to get out of her belly, he or she doesn't need to know how it got there. You don't need to provide that much detail at that time. However, if you haven't had any conversations about sex with your ten-year-old, then it's time for you to start. 5. ALWAYS ADMIT WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW.

If you can’t answer a child’s question, admit that you don’t have the information but will look into it and get back to him or her. Children will respect you more if you are honest and candid in the moment, than they will if they find out later that you misled them.

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WHAT AND WHEN All children are different. Some are ready for more complex information at younger ages, while others are not. What follows is a general explanation of what children can understand at specific ages, and when and how it can be discussed.

AGES 2-3 The right words for genitals, such as penis and vagina. AGES 3-4 The general place a baby comes from. “Mommy has a uterus inside

her tummy. That’s where you lived until you were big enough to be born.”

AGES 4-5 How a baby is born. “When you were ready to be born, the uterus

pushed you out through mommy’s vagina.”

AGES 5-6 A basic idea of how babies are made. “Mommy and Daddy made

you.” If the child needs more detail, “A tiny cell inside Daddy called a sperm joined with a tiny cell inside Mommy called an egg.”

AGES 6-7 A simple understanding of intercourse. “God/Nature created the

male and female bodies to fit together like puzzle pieces. When the penis and vagina fit together, a sperm cell from Daddy swims up to meet the egg cell inside Mommy and make the baby.” You can also add, “This is one of the ways mommies and daddies show love for each other.”

AGES 8-9 Sex is important and should be experienced in the right context. By

this age, children can handle more direct and/or abstract conversations about sex. “Remember when we talked about sex being part of a loving relationship? When someone is forced to have sex when they don’t want to, it’s called rape, and that’s wrong.”

AGES 9-11 The changes that happen with puberty. Also be prepared to discuss

sexual topics your child sees in the news, as well as things like nocturnal emissions, masturbation, and menstruation.

AGES 12+ Your child is starting to form his or her own ideas about sex. Check

in every so often to put the information he or she is getting into the right context. Be careful not to come off as intrusive. As your children get older, you’ll want to shift the conversation to focus more on what they’re feeling inside and how it generally drives what they’re doing on the outside. Keep children aware of the fact that the sexual images they see in the media aren't real, particularly with regard to how young women are presented. This can help foster a positive relationship between young girls and their bodies.

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AVOIDING EARLY ERRORS

Long before children are aware of what sex is, they love to explore their bodies. Never shame a child who is touching his or her genitals. Even if they cannot talk yet, they will receive the negative energy of your shaming actions and tone, and relate it to their sex organs, and later, to their sexuality. Children explore their genitals largely out of curiosity and a need for comfort. Children do, however, tend to touch themselves in public and at other inappropriate times. All you need to say is, "I know you enjoy that, but it's something we do at home in private."

At various ages, books can be a great tool to support what you’ve

shared with your child along the way. Be sure to research some and ask friends for recommendations so that you’ll have them ready when your children begin asking certain questions. When you pre-plan and start early enough, you can put sex into the proper context for your children in a way that not only preserves its beauty and sacredness but helps them continue to confide in you as they grow. Because they've grown up anchored in your values, you can have peace of mind knowing that they'll make the right decisions in difficult situations, and you can feel confident that they'll come to you when they need guidance.

“When you pre-plan and start early enough, you can put sex into the proper context for your children in a way that not only preserves its beauty and sacredness but helps them continue to confide in you as they grow.”

PA R E N T I N G

Internet statistics show that 70% of children between 7 and 18 have stumbled onto pornography online. If you catch your child on a pornographic site or find out that he or she has visited one, try not to get angry. Counteract what he or she has seen by putting sex back in the proper context and stressing that such sites are for adults. Explain that while you don’t approve of pornography, you’re not judging him or her for viewing it. Always keep family security settings in place on your children’s and home internet devices.

Sources (1) National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, Survey Says (2016) Parent Power, Washington D.C. , http://bit.ly/parentpower16 (2) GuardChild, “Protecting Children in the Digital Age," Internet Statistics. http://www.guardchild.com/statistics/.

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Crisis and Consciousness How we misidentify with our problems By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

here’s a saying in self-improvement circles that goes something like, “What you think of me is none of my business.” It serves as a reminder that on our path of spiritual growth throughout life, we shouldn’t be looking to people and things in the external world to validate our sense of worth and who we are. Our life experience is created largely from the emotions and choices that arise out of what we think of ourselves. If that idea or image is based heavily on the opinions of others or the outcome of certain situations, then we disempower ourselves to a great degree and give up our ability to consciously create our lives to other forces that we allow to control us. I always thought my self-image was secure from outside influence until I was recently challenged by just such a situation. I had completed the final edit of my most recent book, The Clarity Cleanse: 12 steps to finding renewed energy, spiritual fulfillment and emotional healing, and was seeking endorsements from people I knew that the publisher could use in marketing and to print on the back cover. Amid the glowing recommendations of friends and business associates, I was shocked at one endorsement in particular. It referred to me and the book in such bland terms that it rendered it basically useless, just empty calories and generic description that could have been applied to anyone else. What made matters worse was that it came from someone I’d mentored for years and with whom I’d assumed I had a strong relationship.

“At alternating moments during the test, he asked me to think about something I loved, such as my children, and then switch to focusing on my feelings of betrayal and anger. The results showed that my emotional upset activated the same parts of the brain that deal with the fight-orflight mechanism.” I immediately became upset feeling betrayed, neglected and insulted. At times, I was overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy. This was a person of great standing in their profession, and their opinion of me mattered a great deal. Initially, I didn’t realize how much their opinion of me influenced what I thought of myself. In the following days, I struggled with my consuming emotions and how I might respond to this person. It was on a hiking trip where I was sharing my feelings with a doctor friend when he suggested that I come to his office for a functional MRI scan. He said it would be interesting to see which parts of my brain were most active during my upset and that it might give us some insight as to how I could better deal with the situation. At alternating moments during the test, he asked me to think about something I loved, such as my children, and then switch to focusing on my feelings C ON T I N U E D. . .

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L .I.G . H .T. A RTICLES

M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

of betrayal and anger. The results showed that my emotional upset activated the same parts of the brain that deal with the fight-or-flight mechanism. For days on end, I had been putting myself through the same emotional and physical rigors as if I was being chased by someone with a knife! Looking at those contrasting brain images was a wake-up call for me. I knew I had to create clarity for myself about the situation by engaging in the 12 steps I’d just written about in my new book and had used for more than 20 years to cope with and process many other challenges in my life. It’s strange how things we haven’t thought about in years, memories we long thought we’d forgotten, can pop back into our minds at random times. That’s exactly what happened to me on the drive home from my friend’s office. Suddenly, I was recalling visiting my aunt who lived in a small rural village. On that occasion, I vividly remembered seeing her pick up her live chickens, one at a time, and rub pepper on their feathered breasts. The whole scene looked preposterous to me, as the chickens squawked, fought and tried to break free of my aunt’s grip. I asked her why she was seasoning chickens that were still alive, and she laughed. She replied that the pepper had properties that agitated the chickens and raised their libido so they’d be more willing to allow the rooster to fertilize their eggs. As a result, she’d get more chicks that season.

“Challenges are something we have, not what we are. Making that distinction is crucial to creating clarity in the midst of our problems.” I couldn’t help but make the connection how, like the chickens, I was allowing an exogenous stimulus, or an influence outside of myself, to get me all peppered up and agitated too. While I couldn’t control everything that was going on outside myself, I knew I could control my reaction to it. To find peace, I had to create a situation where I was able to contain the painful experience I was having, to allow myself the dignity of my own emotional process to go through it, without attaching my identity or self-worth to the situation at the same time. I had to be able to have the experience without becoming the experience itself or losing myself inside of it. It was important to remind myself that although this situation was happening to me, it wasn’t me, nor did it have anything to do with any part of who I was or knew myself to be. It’s so easy to lose ourselves in the emotions

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of our problems and misidentify with them. Challenges are something we have, not what we are. Making that distinction is crucial to creating clarity in the midst of our problems, but it can be a difficult task when our language and culture often lend themselves to confusing the issue. In many languages, the syntax of having something versus being something is much more distinct than it is in English. For example, in Spanish “Tengo hambre” means, “I’m hungry”, but the literal translation is, “I have hunger”. In English, we say, “I am hungry”. This is a small but important distinction that subconsciously programs us to take on our experiences in such a way that we perceive them as part of who we are. We cannot differentiate between ourselves and the event. This becomes even more significant when we think of contrasting statements such as I have sadness or I am sadness; I have rejection or I am rejection. Because we often don’t have the language to express our emotional situation accurately, we misidentify with it and can’t process it properly. The biggest problem with misidentifying with our problems and seeing them as who we are instead of a separate situation that we have for the moment is that it places us in an emotional holding pattern. We get so stuck on the same thoughts that generate the same emotions that we become addicted to that which drive the same behaviors and choices. It locks us into a negative emotional set point or attitude that becomes our new normal, and we don’t even realize it. Like an airplane that keeps circling the airport and can’t land, we can’t come down from our charged emotional state to create a space for

clarity where resolution can begin. Instead, we set up a viscous cycle that keeps us running in circles, unconsciously perpetuating the same kinds of problems that never allow our lives to get any better or move forward.

“In many cases, these unresolved emotional issues consume us physically too, altering our body chemistry to create a pre-critical terrain that makes us vulnerable to diseases like cancer and autoimmune issues.”

The Persian poet, Rumi, wrote a piece called “The Guest House.” In it, he talks about how various situations and their related emotions will

“Creating clarity in the midst of crisis is about learning to break emotional holding patterns and make the mental space necessary for real thinking, realizing, healing and living to occur within it.”

This is why I chose the picture of an empty cup for the cover of The Clarity Cleanse. Achieving clarity in the midst of a crisis requires becoming a holding space that can contain the problem while not entangling its identity with it. The cup holds the tea but is not the tea itself. It’s only from this perspective that we can begin the necessary work of resolving the matter at hand. With regard to the book endorsement that had disappointed me, part of my healing involved contacting my friend and sharing my feelings. I mentioned that I would not be forwarding it to the publisher because I felt it had no bearing on me or any part of my work. It was essential for me to make this distinction and to speak my truth in this way during our conversation.

L .I.G . H .T. A RTICLES

Of course, the danger of going in circles is that just like an airplane that’s caught in a holding pattern with no opportunity to get grounded, the fuel eventually gets used up and it comes crashing down to earth. In the same way, the unchecked avalanche of thoughts and emotions that come with some of life’s problems will use us up, too. Before we know it, we’re looking back on decades that have been consumed by our sorrow, resentment, shame, guilt or addiction that’s prevented us from really being able to engage in life. In many cases, these unresolved emotional issues consume us physically too, altering our body chemistry to create a pre-critical terrain that makes us vulnerable to diseases like cancer and autoimmune issues.

come to visit us throughout life like joy, anger, resentment and sadness. Our job is to welcome them in as they arrive, resisting none, because while one rests in the bedroom, another is already coming down the sidewalk, ready to replace him so we can visit over cake and coffee in the living room. We would never confuse ourselves with our friends and family members that come to visit us in our real homes. Why then would we misidentify with the thoughts and feelings that arise from our troubles that come to visit us in our psycho-spiritual guest house, our consciousness? In reality, we are neither the situation nor the thoughts and feelings that arise from them, but the house or space that welcomes them in to stay for a short time until the next visitor arrives when our circumstances change yet again.

Creating clarity in the midst of crisis is about learning to break emotional holding patterns and make the mental space necessary for real thinking, realizing, healing and living to occur within it. No one taught me the process contained in The Clarity Cleanse. Its principles and techniques grew organically out of my own struggle as a way to cope with and understand the significant challenges that have occurred throughout my life. I certainly couldn’t have made it through those times if I’d allowed every crisis that came along to pepper me up and leave me in an unconscious, agitated state of mind. In fact, some of them would have sent me to an early grave. In the coming new year, let us set ourselves free from the constant resolutions we make to lose weight, make more money or anything else that acts as a distraction from resolving the deeper issues in our lives that prevent us from moving forward. Let us commit to achieving clarity in a way that gives us a greater understanding of ourselves and command over our lives so that we can contain both the joys and sorrows of 2018 in equal measure and be blessed by all of them. M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

THE CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION THE KEY TO HEALING THE BIGGEST CHRONIC DISEASES OF OUR TIME By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

recently had the pleasure of attending goop’s first annual health and wellbeing conference In goop Health - in Los Angeles. Not only was I honored to participate in the event with so many distinguished speakers, but I can’t remember a time when I’ve had such a positive response to one of my presentations. As a healthcare professional, it’s important to me that my words reach an audience with a clear message that includes action points they can immediately use to improve the quality of their lives. Whether or not I’m able to meet this intention largely depends on the organization for which I’m speaking. At the goop conference, interaction with attendees flowed in such an intimate and organic way that many people approached me to thank me immediately after my presentation. Since then, I’ve received many emails expressing gratitude and asking if my presentation is available for attendees to send to friends. This is a condensed version of my presentation, which I hope will help many others on their healing journey, as it continues to be shared.

the accepted lines can mean the loss of one’s reputation or career and even imprisonment. Still, it’s a path that must be tread if humanity and medicine are to progress. Ignaz Semmelweis, a 19th-century physician, was just such a person. He firmly believed that washing hands before surgeries and delivering babies could greatly reduce patient deaths from infection. At first, he was mercilessly humiliated by the medical establishment for something we think is quite obvious. We all know how the story turned out; today, the largest university in Hungary is named after him.

ESSENTIAL EVOLUTION

While modern medicine has its benefits, it’s obvious to most people that it has its limits, as well. For all its advanced technology and billions of dollars poured into research every year, modern medicine is largely ineffective when it comes curing chronic diseases like cancer and neuro-degenerative disorders like Parkinson’s disease, or any disease for that matter. While diagnostics have gotten much better over the last 60 years or so, how we end up treating the diseases we diagnose has not. Three generations ago, who would have thought that in the year 2017 we’d still be treating cancer with chemotherapy, an intervention that can be as damaging to health as its success rates are slim. At this point, it’s clear that if healthcare is to avoid stagnation and evolve to meet the challenges of the future (and the diseases we’ve been dealing with for more than a century), we simply must start to think about disease differently. We must reframe our understanding of everything from what disease is and why it occurs to how we interact with it. We have no choice. We must find another way of approaching disease beyond surgery and drugs, or our children’s children will find themselves facing the same chronic killers of their great-great grandparents. Of course, this requires going against nearly every institutionalized and established idea we have about biology and medicine. It means questioning the unquestionable sacred cows of modern medicine and risking being called a nutcase and quack. It means being a trailblazer in a profession where stepping even slightly outside

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“Each one of us lives within our energetic frequency which is self-generated by our thoughts and feelings. It’s this frequency that permeates every cell of the body and plays a major role in its physical expression, whether that be health, disease or something in between.” INVISIBLE INFLUENCE

Just as Dr. Semmelweis instinctively knew there was an unseen factor causing illness and death for patients (in his case, bacteria), today there

is an equally powerful and invisible force at play in chronic illness that has yet to be recognized and incorporated into treatment. That force is consciousness.

It’s by accessing this unseen energy through our thoughts and then charging it in either a positive or negative way based on our feelings, that we guide our cells to build themselves in healthy or diseased ways. The idea that we build our bodies and create our state of health or illness from unseen energy might seem impossible at first until we realize that creating physical matter from unseen energy happens all around us every day. A seed placed in the earth absorbs water, germinates and then sprouts. The sprout needs nothing but invisible energy from the sun to conduct photosynthesis in which carbon dioxide, also invisible, is utilized to build its thin, fragile body into a massive tree. In fact, the trunk and leaves of a tree contain very little of the trace minerals from the soil in which it’s rooted. A tree literally creates its physical body out of thin air, the unseen energetic forces that we know exist and yet cannot experience with our senses. In very much the same way, we create our physical bodies from the invisible energy of the field.

“A tree literally creates its physical body out of thin air, the unseen energetic forces that we know exist and yet cannot experience with our senses.”

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SPEECHES & APPEARANCES

Human consciousness varies from person to person and is made up of the thoughts and feelings, both conscious and subconscious, that we experience about everything, from our jobs, relationships and the world around us, to how we feel about ourselves. Each one of us lives within our own energetic frequency which is self-generated by our individual thoughts and feelings. It’s this frequency that permeates every cell of the body and plays a major role in its physical expression, whether that be health, disease or something in between. At the same time, our personal frequencies are interacting with the energetic frequencies of other people and even the earth to create the collective energetic frequency of the planet in which all living things exist. It’s this collective energy of the universe that we all draw from and interact with that I call the field. Like fish in the sea, consciousness moves in, around and through us, impacting our lives every day. Not only do we interact with it,

but we simultaneously create it individually and collectively.

SOLUTIONS OR SYMPTOM MANAGEMENT

So when someone gets a medical diagnosis that says they have disease X, that the survival statistics are Y, and the best treatment is Z, we’re dealing only in the concrete world of physical matter, the world of effects that was given rise to by the elements of the unseen world, namely the energy of the field. It stands to reason then that if we are to truly heal disease, we must look beyond matter, beyond individual parts, to the world of energy that created a negative frequency that eventually manifested itself as disease in physical form. The current medical model is trapped in the concrete world, the world of effects, and doesn’t realize there is an entire unseen world of energy that creates everything we see. This leaves even the world’s greatest researchers chasing red

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herrings thinking they’re going to find the cause for physical disease in the physical world when it’s just the opposite. Their approach is reductive to the extent that it breaks the human body down into thousands of separate parts, into the tiniest physical components like molecules and atoms. Still, they have not found the cause for disease in the physical world, and they never will, because it's not there. In the same way, we can dissect a bird into the smallest components that make up its physical body and never be able to see the forces that make it fly. Certain physical symptoms and issues and lasting healing (not symptom management) require a shift in perspective. We must shift away from being preoccupied with the concrete aspects of disease in order to recognize the abstract or larger forces at work underlying the whole process. Instead of just looking for what pill or

procedure can address a physical problem, it’s time to ask, “What is my body trying to say to me through this experience? What is it in my emotional world that might be manifesting as this disease in my physical world? What is there that I can address in my energetic or emotional body to support the interventions my doctor is implementing in my physical body?” When it comes to healing, the person who has the disease is far more important than the disease itself. Every person's energetic frequency is unique and manifests in their body in its own

way based on their history, relationships, and emotional state. So it’s not about being diagnosed with cancer and getting the same treatment everyone else gets, and expecting it to work differently for you. It’s about discovering why cancer manifested in you. What part of your body is affected by the cancer? How did your state of consciousness or personal energetic frequency play a role in manifesting it? How can doing the work required to heal your body by healing your unresolved (and often unconscious) emotional issues help to create your personal cure?

SPEECHES & APPEARANCES

Because thoughts generate emotions that alter our personal energy, what we think is crucial to healing and maintaining good health. This is why imagination is just as important, if not more so than any procedure you can undergo or pill you can take. It’s the unseen world of energy and emotion that creates the physical, and never the other way around.

Paracelsus, who is revered in modern medicine and considered the Father of Toxicology, said, “The spirit is the master, imagination the tool, and the body the plastic material. The power of the imagination is a great factor in medicine. It may produce diseases in man and animal, and it may cure them… ills of the body may be cured by physical remedies or by the power of the spirit acting through the soul."

There is a way of living and being where we can consciously create what we find in our lives, including our health. Because of this, we can rebuild our bodies with the energy of thoughts and emotions by interacting with the larger energy field around us, just as a sprout transforms its body into a tree from nothing more than the unseen energies around it.

How many modern doctors can you imagine saying that to a patient in their examining room and yet, much of modern medical theory is based on the ideas of Paracelsus. Perhaps using imagination, emotion, and energy to heal isn't so crazy after all. In fact, there is no drug in existence that can compete with the healing power of imagination and the energy it produces.

CREATING HEALTH CONSCIOUSLY

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RHYTHM OF REJUVENATION

Just as the seed of a maple tree must break down and break open underground before it begins to rebuild itself in a new form with the invisible energies around it, so too must everything in life go through a similar process of breakdown before it can be reborn or renewed. The constant breakdown and build-up of energy into new physical forms is what’s called the cosmic flow or rhythm of life. The body is doing it in thousands of different ways every minute. In one example, it breaks down the protein we eat into polypeptides, then into amino acids, then reconstructs them into amino acids once again, back to polypeptides, then into the various tissues the body needs. Sickness is one part of how this dynamic process plays out in our lives. It’s catabolic; it breaks our physical structure down in ways that require our attention. If we’re conscious and understand how to ask ourselves the right questions, we can continue to break down what the physical disease has to say about our emotional dis-ease and why it’s manifesting in our body in such a way. It’s with these answers that we can then do the necessary emotional healing work to recover, not just physically, but to build our lives back up into a state of self-awareness and quality of life that we didn’t have before we got sick. Because we’ve healed emotionally as well as physically, we can have confidence that we won’t be susceptible to the illness again because we’re no longer entertaining the thoughts that produced the corresponding energy that manifested in physical form.

This is what it means to work with the cosmic flow of energy and its alternating rhythm of catabolic and anabolic phases to constantly renew life into better and stronger forms. It’s how we process, grow and heal from our experiences or what I call the metabolism of life. When we run to the doctor looking for a quick fix for illness, we ignore this natural process of growth and the greatest healing power at our disposal. The bulk of the healing work lies with the patient; it’s the doctor’s effort that supports the patient’s work, and not the other way around. When we turn over all responsibility for our health to the doctor, we’re not in sync with the cosmic flow of healing energy. We get stuck in the catabolic phase because we’re not doing the work to discover the tools we need to initiate the anabolic phase to build ourselves back up again. It’s when we get stuck in the catabolic phase that things just continue to break down until we lose our battle with disease altogether. CONSCIOUSNESS AS CATALYST

The way I have chosen to simultaneously treat a patient's mind and body is through a process I created called Integrative Psycho-Synthesis (IPS). Through one-on-one exploration and prescribed exercises, I assist patients in recognizing and resolving emotional issues that are many decades old or even long forgotten, and are contributing significantly to their disease process. The patient works with the energy within himself and the larger field to alter his pattern of thoughts and emotions to generate a new frequency that is supportive of healing and initiates the anabolic process of rejuvenation. In a very real sense, IPS is the photosynthesis of human consciousness, where we draw what we need to renew ourselves from the invisible energy within and around us. This is much more than just visualizing a healthy body. It’s about recognizing and releasing a way of thinking and being that has not only become detrimental but unconsciously addictive. Many of my patients have illnesses that are connected to emotional issues relating to past or present intimate relationships. In these cases, we also work through a process I developed called Conscious Completion.

“The constant breakdown and build-up of energy into new physical forms is what’s called the cosmic flow or rhythm of life. The body is doing it in thousands of different ways every minute.”

BE I N G C L A R I T Y

This intervention deals specifically with taking personal responsibility within romantic relationships, healing associated wounds, understanding what forgiveness is, moving forward with a sense of completeness and recognizing how, in a non-judgmental way, the experience was necessary for personal growth, for both parties. I can’t tell you how many seriously ill patients I’ve seen over my career who have had deep-seated, unresolved issues with partners from which they were divorced or separated, sometimes for decades. Because we all project our energy into the world and affect other people as their energy affects us like spiritual Wi-Fi, we also examine relationships with family, co-workers, and anyone the patient interacts with on a regular basis. Many of these psycho-spiritual interventions are covered in my book, The Clarity Cleanse: 12 steps to finding renewed

energy, spiritual fulfillment, and emotional healing. Because each person’s life circumstances are different, what’s more important than the fact that they got cancer or some other disease, is why they got cancer. In the future of medicine, the personal context that surrounds an illness will be just as important, if not more so in the healing process than treating the physical aspects of the disease itself. Context is far more important than content when it comes to health. So while it can be very scary to get a serious diagnosis, I do my best to help my patients focus on doing the deeper work, rather than focusing on the physical details of their illness. How we choose to relate to the issue of disease is the real issue for both doctor and patient, and it’s only by working together in this way that we’ll finally defeat the most serious diseases of our time.

SPEECHES & APPEARANCES

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BE I N G C L A R I T Y

By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

ext to antibiotics, it seems that the most common and largely unnecessary prescription doctors write today is for some kind of corticosteroid. This is because corticosteroids seem to work, at least temporarily, to alleviate the symptoms of so many kinds of conditions. These days, almost everyone knows someone who is taking a steroid for one reason or another. It’s also common to hear about professional athletes getting regular cortisone injections for injuries. Because corticosteroids seem to be everywhere in this way, it can lead to a false sense of security in the mind of the patient, who assumes these medications are safe because almost everyone is taking them when in fact they come with serious side effects no one talks about, especially doctors. SUDDEN & SEVERE

Corticosteroids, including cortisone, hydrocortisone, and prednisone, mimic the effects of hormones produced in the adrenal glands, which sit on top of the kidneys. When prescribed in doses that exceed the body's usual levels, corticosteroids suppress inflammation. They're regularly prescribed for conditions such as arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and allergies. Because they suppress the immune system, they’re also prescribed for organ transplant patients to lower rejection rates, and for autoimmune diseases such as lupus. In these situations, and in the case of Addison’s disease, where the adrenal glands produce almost no corticosteroids on their own, these medications can be life-saving. The problem occurs when corticosteroids are prescribed too casually, especially during cold and flu season, leaving trusting patients incapacitated by serious side effects that they, and most likely their physician or emergency room doctor, know nothing about.

SECOND OPINION

PRESCRIBING CAUTION

SERIOUS SIDE EFFECTS QUESTION CONVENIENCE OF CORTICOSTEROID PRESCRIPTIONS

Corticosteroids can be taken by mouth (capsules, tablets or syrups), through an inhaler or intranasal spray, topically in creams, or by injection. One of the biggest issues with corticosteroids is that their side effects can come on suddenly and severely, leaving patients in a great amount of physical and emotional distress. More often than not, their doctors insist that what they’re experiencing isn’t from the medication - which is untrue - because M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

most doctors haven’t a clue as to how serious these side effects can be. They can include: elevated eye pressure and glaucoma, high blood pressure with extreme headache, insomnia, night sweats, muscle weakness in the limbs, face flushing, acne, fluid retention, swelling in the lower legs, and weight gain, particularly in the abdomen, face and neck. MIND MANIPULATION

Perhaps most disturbing are the psychological side effects that often include significant anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and erratic behavior from what’s known as steroid psychosis. I was recently reading posts on a patient message board online where one woman recalled how her husband found her in the middle of the night tearing the wallpaper off their dining room walls, while she was taking prednisone. She had no memory of the experience. Another woman spoke of compulsively obsessing over scissors, knives, and any sharp object. Others told heart-wrenching tales of being trapped in deep depressions they knew were not coming from their own perceptions, but were medicationinduced, as they’d previously been well-adjusted, upbeat people. I’ve seen this drastic steroid-based mood change in people, and it's startling. Naturally, in such a situation, suicide is a real risk regardless of whether the patient would have normally contemplated such a thing or not. The psychological shift is that significant. When most people take a prescription, they almost never read the insert that comes with it from the pharmacy. Much of the time, people feel fine taking prescription medication and don’t experience serious side effects, so they assume others will affect them the same way. This isn’t so with corticosteroids, which should never be approached casually. In fact, side effects are highly common among patients, more so than other medications, and often affect the same patient differently from one prescription to another. A person might have taken regular prednisone prescriptions or had periodic cortisone injections in the past with no side effect and then have a significant reaction to one in the future. This isn’t about being allergic to a particular medication, but about whether and how it will affect a patient. Corticosteroid side effects are far more unpredictable than that and happen more frequently. In fact, the message board I was on had over 800 entries in which patients shared their difficult and sometimes frightening experiences with corticosteroids. LONG-TERM LIABILITIES

Corticosteroid effects can last for days or weeks, even after discontinuing the medication. The

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“With regard to cortisone injections for things like arthritis or tendonitis, doctors make the mistake of telling patients that side effects will be minimal or non-existent because the injection is localized to the problem area. This is not correct.”

most serious side effects seem to come from corticosteroids taken orally. This is because the medication must pass through the digestive system and thus exposes the entire body to its effects. Side effects can be slightly less, but still serious, when taken via injection or an inhaler. In these cases, the medication is administered directly to the area where it’s needed, and the rest of the body doesn’t receive as much exposure. Even so, side effects from inhalers and injections are very common, as well. With regard to cortisone injections for things like arthritis or tendonitis, doctors make the mistake of telling patients that side effects will be minimal or non-existent because the injection is localized to the problem area. This is not correct. Even in localized injections, a certain percentage of the corticosteroid usually escapes into the body, resulting in side effects.

In some situations, patients have to take corticosteroids long-term. It’s very important to understand whether the medication is absolutely necessary in these situations, because long-term corticosteroid use comes with even more serious side effects, most of which are permanent. These include cataracts, high blood sugar that triggers diabetes, increased infections because of suppressed immunity, permanent suppression of adrenal gland function, and bone degeneration (osteoporosis) with frequent fractures. I know of a woman who was on prednisone inhalers for years until she wound up having to have a full hip replacement while still in her 40’s. The former dancer’s surgeon told her straight out that it was the corticosteroids that slowly destroyed her hip. Looking back to those early years, she always spoke with a hoarse voice, which is also one of the side effects of long-term, inhaler-based corticosteroids. CAUTION OVER CONVENIENCE

SECOND OPINION

In most cases, corticosteroids should never be prescribed unless it's a life-threatening situation, a serious illness is involved, or all other interventions have failed. To try to lessen the impact of side effects, patients should consider lower doses or intermittent dosing. Switching to a non-oral form of corticosteroid can sometimes reduce exposure to the rest of the body and help decrease overall side effects. Everyone should be eating a low inflammatory diet free of sugars and starches, which will reduce disease risk, systemic inflammation and much of the need for corticosteroid medications. Finally, be careful when discontinuing a corticosteroid, especially one taken for a long period of time. Becoming dependent on the medication, the body’s adrenal glands will atrophy and produce less of their own natural steroid hormones. To give the adrenal glands time to recover this function and rebuild, the dosage should be reduced gradually. If reduced too quickly or stopped altogether, patients may experience significant side effects of adrenal fatigue such as body aches, lightheadedness, and fatigue. No medication should be taken casually, even if it has been prescribed for you before. Do your own research, read medication inserts, and remember that you are your own best healthcare advocate. Don’t assume your doctor’s knowledge is up-to-date on everything. Just because a medication is available doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe, or safe for you. They all have side effects. So educate yourself and work with your doctor to make the best choice, rather than the most convenient one, for you. M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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CULTURE CLASH HOW WE CAN END THE CULTURE WAR IN AMERICA By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

hen you visit another country, start a new job, enter a party or walk into a room, there is a definite vibe or energy in the atmosphere that lets you know right away whether you belong there. Either it feels right, or it doesn't. This energy is real, and it affects everything from our livelihood to our relationships, and is based on how well we synchronize with others. The most important aspect of this interplay of energies is that while it’s determining the quality of our individual lives, it’s simultaneously creating the collective quality of the life we all share on the planet. SIMILARITY & SYNERGY

When a group of people comes together with a common intention, each person’s energy syncs up beautifully, and they can accomplish their goal with relative ease. They all know why they’ve come together and what their part is, and go about executing it to its logical conclusion. In the process, each person’s job becomes a little easier because they’re all equally invested in the same goal. They’ve put their common need above any individual differences and, in doing so, accomplish twice as much in half the time, to everyone’s benefit. This doesn’t mean their work is completely problem-free; it simply means that they achieve their goals most of the time because they’ve made a conscious choice to be motivated by something greater than themselves. It’s the perfect example of teamwork. When people come together to form a team or even a society, if they truly share a similar intention, their frequencies don't just combine but magnify each other and exponentially strengthen their ability to achieve

their goal. When the positive energy among people reaches a certain level, it becomes contagious. It instantly elevates the energy of anyone entering the group and can even be so strong that it can draw people into it from outside the group, like the vortex of a tornado. We’ve all been a part of groups that are so positive and uplifting that the energy of them just sweeps us up. This is a phenomenon known as sympathetic overtone or sympathetic resonance. The vibrations caused by hitting any key on a piano will cause another piano in the same room to vibrate at the same note or frequency. This happens between other stringed instruments and even works with a tuning fork. When two or more similar energies come together to create a third wave or level of consciousness in human beings, we call this synergy. A LOSING STR ATEGY

The collective culture of a country creates its own sympathetic overtone which determines its state of being and drives its function, or too often, dysfunction. As easy as it is to be drawn into and uplifted by the positive energy of certain groups, it's equally easy to be sucked into a group's vortex of negative energy and be dragged down by it. Collectively speaking, it’s even easier still to degrade the cultural tone and quality of a country when there are a variety of these kinds of groups competing for attention. It seems you can’t turn on the TV these days without violent protest groups somewhere in the country wreaking havoc on their local communities. All the while, their angry and belligerent activists claiming their alleged misfortunes entitle them to

benefits of one kind or another, regardless of the legitimacy of their claims or how remote in history the offending incident might be. A group of college students invade their administration building refusing to leave until their list of demands is met. Another group of protesters storm their local statehouse making threats and interrupting a legislative session, while in Washington DC, thousands of protesters on the National Mall seethe with discontent over their own self-proclaimed disadvantages. These kinds of uprisings have become so common today that groups like these have been given the name, "crybullies." These are people who while claiming to have been socially disadvantaged in some way use their perceived victim status to extort their demands from the local community or country at large. Unfortunately, the progressive fragmentation of our society into even more of these niche-based groups, each fighting the establishment and each other while jockeying for their "rights," began building momentum 40 years ago and is now reaching critical mass. Unbeknownst to these people and regardless of how sincere or misguided their intentions might be, the grievance industry, as it has been called, is largely orchestrated and overseen by broader special interests that regularly play these groups against each other for their own financial and political gain. In the meantime, the media’s nonstop coverage of this whole circus further polarizes the public watching it. This causes the people caught up in the drama to pick a side, thus allowing them to be sucked into the negative energy vortex of the group that supports their personal interests while opposing someone else’s. What we’re left with is a bunch of groups all pulling in different directions for their own self-interest instead of the larger, common good. Art imitates life, but so do sports, and any team that employs that kind of divisive strategy will lose every time. No exceptions. In fact, it was the American author, Will Durant, who said that a great civilization can never be conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. At present, there is too much frequency interference in America. There are too many special interest groups that see each other as the enemy, and they have significantly weakened the national cohesion of the country. We’ve lost sight of the big picture, the larger concepts that matter to all of us, while we create social gridlock over the finer details, holding the country hostage and in the process accomplishing nothing and not moving forward. Throughout history, there are countless examples of this very same kind of angst-ridden social and stagnant

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political environment, and as history has shown us, it has created a climate ripe for revolution that never ends well. FR AGMENTATION NATION

The same dynamic occurs in the human body. A body doesn’t become susceptible to external pathogens and microbes until the person inhabiting that body has done enough internal damage to wear the immune system down, making it unable to withstand an attack. The damage is cumulative over time, and comes about through poor diet, smoking, alcohol, drugs, lack of exercise and sleep, and so on. In the same way, the internal damage to America’s cohesion has also been cumulative over generations through its own series of bad choices. Much of this has been the result of various groups demanding what they want from the country for their personal benefit rather than determining what they can give the country for the benefit of the greater good. President John F. Kennedy, who said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” would likely be shocked by the fragmented, entitled mindset of Americans today. There are too many people willing to take without giving back. In the 19th century, French philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, visited the young America and was stunned by what he saw. He discovered a nation full of hardy, ambitious settlers who were creating endless opportunities for themselves and becoming great successes through entrepreneurial endeavors. As a result, the country as a whole was largely prosperous and successful. What amazed him the most was the fact that Americans overwhelmingly inhabited a common spirit. Their personal success would not come at the expense of their national success. In working

“A country is like the human body, and every citizen is like an individual cell. In the body, when cells go rogue, pay no attention to the needs of their surroundings and begin taking without giving anything back, we call them cancer cells.”

THE THIRD WAY

A country is like the human body, and every citizen is like an individual cell. In the body, when cells go rogue, pay no attention to the needs of their surroundings and begin taking without giving anything back, we call them cancer cells. Cancer cells suck up glucose because they can’t produce it on their own. They’re entirely dependent on their surroundings and will continue to selfishly consume until they destroy their entire environment and themselves along with it. Similarly, America is in stage IV of the same disease process with its insatiable self-interest groups. When cohesion occurs on the physical level, and all systems are working toward mutual support, it leads to the state we call healing. How can we accomplish this on a national level? How can we begin to tune into each other and start to develop a common resonance that benefits us both as a country and as individuals? Total collectivism with the loss of individuality only leads to the gray tyranny of communism, while selfish hyperindividualism results in hedonism. There has to be a middle path, a third way, and indeed there is. It’s what made America great in the first place. To change things, we have to evaluate our present culture. On the court, basketball players

CHOOSING CHANGE

Changing culture is a lot like making yogurt. New, healthy bacterial cultures must be introduced into pasteurized milk for the biological environment to change. In the same way, we must become the new cultures, the new influence that enculturates our communities and helps others attune to our sympathetic resonance. To do that, we must first be the change we want to see in the world. That’s when our new positive energy will start to harmonize others with us, and change can begin. That’s not to say that making this choice is easy in a polarized world, but it is, in fact, a conscious choice one must make every day.

SOCIAL COMMENTARY

toward their personal goals, they were mindful of the larger, common goal, knowing that without national success, individual success wouldn’t be possible. In pursuit of their personal goals, they never inhabited an isolating or selfish sense of individuality but remained conscious of the national spirit that bound them to the welfare of all other Americans, and thus made their choices accordingly. What would de Tocqueville say if he landed on our shores today?

must constantly re-evaluate what action is best for them to take based on their present position, while also being conscious of how that action or choice serves the team as a whole. They have but a split second to make these kinds of decisions over and over again. This is what it means to create synergy between the self and the group, to act independently but also in concert with others toward a common goal. It means asking oneself, “If I make this choice, how will it create a larger benefit for others and not just myself?” It’s understanding that it is impossible for the individual to win if the team loses. It means making decisions that will result in the highest good for all concerned, and while that includes you, it doesn't mean you exclusively.

As a cell of society, the smallest unit of a civilization, we focus on changing ourselves first - how we choose to see and react to the world around us. Then, we expand our efforts to our families and eventually our friends, co-workers, and so on. By always being mindful of the kind of culture we want to create in all our interactions, we become conscious creators and change the world in real time, as we inhabit it. We create an upward spiral of positive energy, a movement that perpetuates itself with every life we touch, and in the process, we progressively replace our culture clash with cultural cohesion. M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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NATURE THAT

NURTURES CREATING A HEALING GARDEN AT HOME

By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

rom the Japanese Zen garden to the monastic cloister garden, nature has been used for healing since ancient times. Aside from medicinal plants and herbs, just physically being in nature has been shown to initiate specific healing processes in the body. One of the primary reasons I moved my medical center away from the dissonant energy of Los Angeles and into the countryside was to make it easier for my patients to access the healing power of nature. One way I’ve done this is by creating a healing garden that encompasses the entire front entry of my medical center. Sitting among the decorative grasses, succulents, and inspirational sculpture, patients have an opportunity to quiet the mind and allow the intelligence of their bodies to go about their natural healing processes without the interference of mental noise. It also provides time to reflect on personal issues and create the mental space for new realizations to come forward. In today’s hectic world, it can be difficult to find a place where one can properly connect with nature in a healing way. It isn’t practical to visit a botanical garden on a regular basis, and even walking out into the backyard sometimes just isn’t enough to gain the healing benefits of nature. It helps to have a dedicated space that both the mind and body can relate to healing, and that is easily

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accessible on a regular basis. Healing is both a physical and mental process, and the subliminal cues the mind receives from regularly visiting a garden that’s been designed for rejuvenation can have powerful effects. With this in mind, it might be a good idea to take a corner of the backyard and design it as your own personal healing garden, created specifically for rejuvenation and meditation. If you live in the city, you can accomplish the same thing by dedicating a portion of a patio or balcony for the same purpose, but with potted plants.

“Healing is both a physical and mental process, and the subliminal cues the mind receives from regularly visiting a garden that’s been designed for rejuvenation can have powerful effects.”

GARDEN CREATION TIPS Regardless of its location or how large or small your design may be, there are several things you'll want to keep in mind when creating your healing garden.

SEASONS:

SENSES:

Choose plants that engage all the senses with a variety of textures, colors, fragrances, and sounds.

TEXTURE: Add visual variety with plants of varying textures. A sensory rich garden includes plants with textures that are smooth, rough, ruffled, fuzzy, or lacey.

CONSCIOUS LIFESTYLE

Select a variety of seasonal plants and flowers so you can enjoy the garden through the full cycle of nature.

COLOR: Used as a visual stimulus, color is important for creating or

drawing attention to focal points and accenting other areas. Warm colors like red, orange, and yellow enliven and excite the senses, while cool colors like blue, purple, and white have a calming effect. All colors can be used, just be sure to avoid clashes in a single area, as that causes visual stress.

SCENT: Fragrance has a powerful healing effect on the body. Place

fragrant plants and flowers along walking paths and next to seating areas to get the most enjoyment from them. Planting jasmine next to a glider, or a creeping herb like thyme between walking stones so it releases scent when it's walked on, are good ways to add aroma. Incense burners and garden torches infused with scented oils are also good choices. C ON T I N U E D. . .

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TOUCH: We have more nerve endings in our hands than anywhere

else in the body. Choose plants that can easily be handled and provide a variety of sensations that are soft, fuzzy, springy, rough, or prickly. Geraniums with their hardy stalks and broad fuzzy leaves can be a good choice.

TASTE: Many people include edible items. Don’t be afraid to include

berry bushes, vegetables, herbs or even a small fruit tree.

SOUND:

The healing vibration of sound animates a garden like nothing else and deepens the experience. Bamboo knocks together when the wind blows, tall grasses will rustle when touched, palm fronds sway, and even seed pods will make rattling sounds. Chimes are very calming, as can be running water from a small fountain or even raindrops falling into a modest gazing pool.

ANIMALS:

Attracting animals can provide additional color and sound. Consider birdhouses, birdbaths, hummingbird feeders, and berry-producing shrubs. Planting coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) and butterfly flowers (Aesclepias tuberosa) will encourage butterflies to visit.

SHADE: Be

sure to provide yourself with adequate shade by using strategically placed plants, fences, walls or even a trellis with climbing vines and flowers.

SEATING: Have a dedicated bench or chair with a full back where you can sit and enjoy the beauty.

LIGHT: Consider accenting the garden with solar-powered lights so

that it can be enjoyed at night and you don’t have to worry about getting access to electricity. If electrical access isn’t a problem, think about stretching a string or two of white lights across a trellis, tree branches or tall shrubs.

SCULPTURE: Use

sculpture that uplifts you to create focal points in the garden or use as the centerpiece for a meditation altar.

HELP: Consult your local landscape or gardening business to make

the best choices.

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RETIRING FROM

RETIREMENT FINDING YOUR SECOND PURPOSE IN LIFE

By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

f you’re like most people in midlife, you’re probably thinking much more about retirement. Did you put enough money aside and in the right places? Are you using the best advisors? Did you account for the cost of unexpected life events? Will the money last, or will you outlive your nest egg? Financial security is crucial, especially later in life, and you'll probably spend at least the next ten or 15 years asking yourself these questions more often as you hover over your calculator, spreadsheets, and financial statements. For lots of people, this hyper-focus on planning for retirement security completely distracts them from what they’ll actually do with their lives once they are retired. When we’re in our 40’s, many of us fantasize about retirement when it’s still 20-25 years off. We imagine how great it will be to travel and spend all our waking hours in leisurely activities. It seems like paradise, and we just can’t wait for it. Then it arrives, and we realize that we can only play so many rounds of golf and take so many cruise ship vacations before life starts to feel pretty empty. What happened? As human beings, there's an intrinsic part of our nature that needs to hold on to values that are greater than ourselves to have a happy life. We need to feel that whatever we're doing is contributing to life in a positive way, regardless of how big or small it might

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be. So, no matter how fun a life filled with idle amusements or entertainment for our own sake might seem, it doesn’t necessarily make the world a better place. That’s the void we feel in traditional retirement. Life loses its meaning or more importantly, we lose our sense of purpose. PURPOSE IN PERSPECTIVE

Between ages 30 and 60, we tend to derive a sense of purpose from our jobs. No matter what we do, most of us can see how some element of our work helps people either directly or indirectly. On some level, that makes us feel valued and needed. At the same time, we gain a sense of purpose raising a family and offering guidance to children as they grow. Eventually, the kids grow up and move away, and our careers come to an end. Then, we find ourselves asking, “Now what?”, and it can be tough finding a new purpose outside of family and work roles. Much of that has to do with how we define the word purpose. For lots of people, it carries the idea of something almost divinely inspired that possesses a person with such passion that they change the world in profound ways by doing it. That can be one way to live a purposeful life, but it’s not how it happens for the majority of us. When we ask, "What's my life purpose?", we're really asking, "What

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“People without a purpose tend to live shorter lives because it seems having a purpose is connected to the will to live.”

can I do with my life that's important?" From that perspective, it's much easier to come up with ideas of how we can make a difference in our corner of the world and, no, it's not to become the go-to babysitter for the grandkids. This need to have a purpose is so important, especially as we age in a world that obsesses over youth and tends to write off the elderly, that research has found the leading cause of death after retirement is retirement. In 2005, the petroleum giant, Shell Corporation, conducted a large-scale study of its past employee population and found a correlation between the age of retirement and age of death. Results showed that people who retired at 55 were 89% more likely to die in the first 10 years after retirement than those who retired at 65. The people who retired at 55 and lived to be at least 65 still died sooner than the group that worked a decade longer and were 10 years older. Even after adjusting for sex and socioeconomic status, those who retired at 55 still had almost double the mortality risk of those who worked into their 60’s.2 Some have speculated that work provides us with a sense of purpose and that early retirement leaves us not knowing what to do with all our downtime. People without a purpose tend to live shorter lives because it seems having a purpose is connected to the will to live. In his The Blue Zones longevity study for National Geographic, Dan Buettner found that people who have a clear sense of purpose and can articulate it live on average seven years longer than those who don’t.3 RETIRING FROM RETIREMENT

So if you’ve retired early, perhaps the best life insurance you can get is to retire from your retirement and re-engage yourself in life with a new purpose. If you’re lucky enough to absolutely love your current job, then you're already living your purpose, and maybe retirement isn't even an option. When you love what you do for a living that much, then you never really work a day in

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your life because it’s passion that gets you out of bed in the morning instead of an alarm clock. Many people in this position don’t even think about retiring, and they plan to keep doing what they’re doing until they either die or physically can’t do it anymore. I have to believe that it wasn’t just his excellent health but his passion for health and exercise that kept fitness icon, Jack LaLanne, working into his 90’s. He always used to say, “I can’t die. It would ruin my image.”4 Even if you don’t feel like your current life serves a purpose that’s meaningful for you now, you can do a little soul searching and incorporate certain things that are important to you into your life today and then commit to making them a larger part of your life after you retire from your existing position. Most people don’t know where to begin with this kind of work, but the key is to explore a lot of different activities. This is a trial and error process. You won't know how you feel doing something until you're doing it. Passion is the result of action, not the cause of it. So let’s see if we can get your creative wheels turning to add some more passion and purpose to your life. LIVING ON PURPOSE

In finding a new purpose, you should be able to articulate it clearly by answering three basic questions: • What do I want to do? • Who do I want to help? • How will my actions create value for them?

HERE ARE MY RESPONSES: • I want to help people heal and understand the mind-body connection to their health. • I want to help people of all ages. • My actions will give people a greater sense of independence and control over their health by providing them with the physical and emotional tools they need to prevent disease and create more fulfilling lives. You’ll get a better head start by answering the

first question with action words such as, I want to: encourage, share, create, empower, produce, motivate, guide, heal, educate… and so on. Don’t worry if you can’t come up with specific answers right now. Below is a list of additional questions and suggestions to get your mental wheels turning in the direction of things that are important and meaningful for you. As you read them, take notes about whatever comes to mind for you, then go back and see if you can answer the three main questions that define your purpose.

else to offer the world. We’re all created with multiple talents and abilities, and it’s only through some soul searching and trial and error in the real world that we can discover our hidden passions. Once you find them, it becomes easier to navigate life because you can gauge whether your choices are in line with your passion or not. From there, life gains more momentum and less resistance because you’re more in tune with who you really are and living life on purpose.

• When were you the happiest in life? What were you doing then?

Sources

• What did you love to do when you were a kid? What about now?

(1) Sagiv, L. , & Schwartz, S. H. (2000). Value priorities and subjective well-being: direct relations and congruity effects. European Journal of Social Psychology, 30(2), 177–198

• What were you last doing when you completely lost track of time, so much so that maybe you forgot to eat or even go to the bathroom? • What talents or skills come easily for you? • In what ways do people regularly seek your help? • Who do you admire? What are the qualities of those people? • What are your deepest values? • If time and money were no object, what would you be doing? • What are the causes you believe in the most? • Ask friends what your strengths are. Redefining your purpose in midlife or after retirement doesn’t have to include a dramatic change in your life. Yes, it can be something as big as starting your own business after working for others for years, but it’s really about the amount of passion you have for what you’re doing rather than the scope and size of the actual activity—so don’t psych yourself out before you begin. Maybe you have excellent empathic and compassionate qualities, and you'd like to express that side of yourself by volunteering or picking up a part-time post-retirement job working with the elderly or handicapped children. It’s all about how what you’re doing makes you feel and what it means to you. Remember to explore your creative side, too. Creative expression has a unique power to increase happiness and quality of life, which always supports better health. Of course, knowing what you don't want in your life can also help bring you closer to fine-tuning your new purpose. Keep in mind that you may have more than one purpose. Lots of people get caught in the trap of thinking that because their passion to do one particular thing is so strong that they have nothing to offer in other areas. You may deeply feel that you were meant to play major league baseball or become a famous performer even though you ended up working in some other field, having to let go of the dreams of your earlier life. This doesn’t mean you have nothing

(3) Buettner, Dan. (2008). The blue zones: lessons for living longer from people who've lived the longest. Washington D.C.: National geographic society (4) Goldstein, Richard (January 24, 2011). "Jack LaLanne, Father of Fitness Movement, Dies at 96". The New York Times

HELPFUL TOOL

• When were you most proud of yourself?

(2) Tasi, Shan et al. (2005). Age at retirement and long-term survival of an industrial population: prospective cohort study. British Medical Journal. , 331(995), published online: doi: http://bit.ly/2xWQftl

Here’s another way to explore finding a new purpose. Divide a sheet of paper into three columns. In the first, list all the things you love to do. In the second, list all the things you’re good at. In the third, list all the people (either specific persons or groups/types of people) you enjoy being around. Look for commonalities between entries in all three of the columns that might point you in the right direction. Once you find a new purpose, remember to act on it and incorporate it into your life as much as possible. After retirement, be sure to make it a larger priority in your life.

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MAN OR MARIONETTE? PINOCCHIO AND THE METAMORPHOSIS OF MANHOOD

By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

veryone has a favorite fairy tale from childhood. What most people don’t realize is that fairy tales aren’t really for children. In essence, fairy tales are morality tales, stories created to teach us proper ethics and judgment to help us navigate the tough choices in life. Beneath the excitement of rescuing the princess or outsmarting the wicked witch is a subtext that’s meant to show us how to live, if not a happily ever after life, at least a more satisfying one. The moral of almost every story tells us that we can only live a more satisfying life by becoming the hero of our own story and slaying our inner dragons. SUBCONSCIOUS STRUGGLE

Since it was published in 1883, The Adventures of Pinocchio, by Italian writer, Carlo Collodi, has become one of the most widely read, adapted, and produced fairy tales of all. This is likely because the character of Pinocchio represents the archetype of the classic hero who experiences a metamorphosis and rebirth as a result of overcoming various internal and external challenges. Whether we know it or not, adults and children alike have been drawn to the story of Pinocchio for 134 years because we subconsciously understand that the struggle of the wooden marionette to break free of his tethers and become his own person is our life struggle, as well. In short, Pinocchio is carved from wood by his maker and “father”, Geppetto. Once brought to life by a fairy, Pinocchio is particularly precocious and ill-behaved, with Collodi describing him as a “rascal,” “imp,” “disgrace,” “ragamuffin,” and “confirmed rogue.” Geppetto, even calls him a ”wretched boy.” Part of Pinocchio’s bad behavior is his penchant for lying, which causes his nose to grow a bit longer

with each untruth. He eventually runs away with his human companion Romeo or Candlewick (Jiminy Cricket in the Disney film) to the Land of Toys (Pleasure Island). Once there, more mischief leads to Pinocchio becoming a donkey, joining a circus, and eventually becoming a marionette again, controlled by a vicious master. After escaping the island, Pinocchio discovers his father, Geppetto, is trapped inside the belly of The Terrible Dogfish (a whale in the Disney film), and that he must dive into the deep blue sea to save him. In return for his bravery and for acting responsibly, the fairy transforms Pinocchio into a real boy who commits to focusing on the virtues of hard work, good behavior and studying. LIES, LIBIDO & LEVER AGE

Through my professional mentorship services, I’ve worked with men from all walks of life. It doesn’t matter how powerful or wealthy a client happens to be, the struggle to find peace and satisfaction within himself and in an intimate relationship is a common challenge. In these cases, I always share the deeper lessons of Pinocchio, which can teach us how men lie to themselves and hold their lives back. In a Freudian sense, one might say that Pinocchio’s nose is symbolic of a man’s penis, and in order to achieve an erection and get what he wants from women, he’s got to lie his way into bed with them. Men of great influence are often womanizers who leverage their status to get what they want, including sex. I’ve worked with rock stars who are surrounded by an entourage that never says no to them, and hundreds of gorgeous women ready to give them exactly what they want. In a very real way, these men live their lives on Pleasure Island in a world of

on-demand instant gratification. The problem is that not only are these pleasures superficial and fleeting but by making such base choices, a man never really matures and ends up making an ass out of himself, just as Pinocchio did. What’s worse is that without a proper role model to follow, any children involved usually end up making the same damaging choices as their father, trading on the cachet of their name and affluence simply because they can. This is a social disease I call affluenza. DISTR ACTION & DISSIPATION

When a man uses a woman simply for physical pleasure, and he's not in his loving at that moment, his actions are indeed based on a lie. Does this mean he has to be in love with the woman or have made a serious commitment to her? Not necessarily, but when sex becomes a means to an end rather than an opportunity to really connect with another human being, we lie to ourselves and our sexual partners. We’ve convinced ourselves that what we’re giving and getting in that moment will be enough to really satisfy us when we know it won’t be. Every time we have sex with another human being, we give a little bit of our soul away. Over time and after enough partners, when we’ve traded away enough of our ability to spiritually connect with others, we can have sex with almost no emotional involvement at all. The result is an internal emptiness, a kind of dissociation from ourselves and others that leaves us starving for a true primal connection at the soul level that we then try to fill up with more meaningless sex, money, drugs, or something else. Pinocchio is the archetype of every man because his goal is to become a real person, just as ours is to reach self-actualization, to find out who we really are. To do that, men have to be willing to leave Pleasure Island and face their bigger challenges. For men who have access to nonstop pleasure - whether that be sex, money, sports, gambling, pornography or video games - to be able to walk away, requires living consciously. It means having an inner emotional valence that allows us to honor ourselves and others by understanding what our deeper needs are and choosing to pursue those for the sake of personal growth. This means giving up the pursuit of instant gratification. If, on the other hand, a man allows himself to be driven by shallow sexual urges with no thought to himself or those he participates with, he becomes nothing more than a puppet at the service of his unconscious impulses. He never acts consciously, but only reacts unconsciously to the stimuli around him, pulled by the strings of his vices. He’ll never learn to live consciously and become a real person, his own man, apart from external influences. Years ago, I was

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contracted by the Florida Boxing Commission to be the on-site physician of the Ultimate Fighting Championships. I had the opportunity to see how men could also use violence to fill the same kind of inner void.

“As a physician, I strongly believe in the mind-body connection, and tell my patients that disease in the body is an echo of dis-ease in the spirit, a symptom of not living authentically that has manifested to draw their attention to certain life changes that need to be made.”

SELFISH SABOTAGE

The essence of narcissism is having an ideal fantasy of ourselves that doesn’t match reality. Rather than face the truth, we overcompensate in some way for that deficit. This is the case with many otherwise successful men. They lie to themselves saying they’re all this or that when they aren’t. They become like Pinocchio singing “I Got No Strings” when, in fact, their choices and actions are being choreographed by their subconscious puppet master. Throughout my life, I’ve observed that the smartest and kindest people have always been the humblest. I tell the men I mentor that the most productive tree is the one that bears the most fruit, its branches so heavy that it bends down to share its gifts with others. In contrast, a tree that stands up proud and straight produces no fruit because it has nothing to offer. A man using the blessings life has given him to manipulate others makes him a barren tree with nothing of substance to give to others. With great abundance comes great responsibility, and it requires humility to be of service to others in such a selfless way. KEEPING COMPANY

In contrast, the character acting as Pinocchio’s conscience, who’s always trying to get him back on the path to self-realization, is an insect that’s as tiny as his voice is quiet, Jiminy Cricket. Similarly, our guiding intuition has a voice that speaks in a whisper, as well. When temptations are screaming for us to jump right into self-indulgence, we must be able to create stillness within ourselves and hear the voice that supports our greatest good. This requires the ability to view one’s life with clarity. I tell my clients that clarity is a mountain with no top. We can never have enough clarity in life because as soon as we think we’ve "made it," there's another challenge for us to face and more to learn about ourselves. As we continue

As a physician, I see many patients who suffer from a variety of illnesses. I strongly believe in the mind-body connection, and so I tell all my patients that disease in the body is an echo of dis-ease in the spirit, a symptom of not living authentically that has manifested to draw their attention to certain life changes that need to be made. I share this healing protocol in my book, The Clarity Cleanse. I explain to my patients the importance of releasing themselves from the bondage of their strings of misperception, so they can wake from their puppet phase, just as Pinocchio did, into conscious living beings. This requires that they be able to identify and act on their internal guidance, as well as re-evaluate all personal relationships. SAVING THE SELF

The only way to fully realize who we are meant to be is to stop distracting ourselves with pleasure seeking and face the challenges of our lives. After all, it’s mostly what we learn through our challenges that contributes to our growth. This means looking more deeply into our problems, not running away from them. When Pinocchio realizes he has to leave Pleasure Island, he returns home to find that his father Geppetto is not there. It’s through the blue fairy that he discovers that Geppetto is trapped inside the belly of a whale at the bottom of the ocean. In most folk tales, the main character must take a risk and venture into the unknown like a deep cave, a treacherous mountaintop or a dark woods to achieve his goal of personal transformation. It’s the symbolic dark night of the soul. In the same way, Pinocchio makes the crucial decision to accept the weight of his situation, and ties a large rock to a rope around his waist that will carry him to the deepest, darkest parts of his greatest fears, which are waiting for him at the bottom of the sea.

PHILOSOPHY

The success of a man’s spiritual journey depends a lot on the company he keeps and how the men around him influence his choices. This can be particularly difficult for men employed in male-dominated professions such as sports, the military or construction. The evil and deceitful characters of the cat and fox in Pinocchio almost lead to his undoing. The fact that they're much larger than he, symbolizes how powerful the temptation to seek mindless pleasure can be if we’re not aware of the company we’re keeping. Interestingly, Collodi originally wrote Pinocchio as a tragedy with the puppet being hanged from an oak tree by the fox and cat - a cautionary tale of what can happen if we give ourselves completely over to bad influences. Luckily, he opted for a more positive and hopeful tale.

to climb, however, we get an increasingly better view of our lives that allows us to see more of it in a clearer way, giving us the information we need to make choices that serve us better. Still, we never reach the top of the mountain because that is the journey of life.

Like Odysseus, Pinocchio descends into his personal hell because his father is suffering the part of himself who knows him best and whom he has disowned. In facing the challenge to right his previous wrongs, he’s the Prodigal Son coming home. In the same way, we too rescue the alienated parts of ourselves when we have the courage to face our greatest fears and become more of who we were meant to be. This is the only way a spirited brat like Pinocchio or any boy can become a real man, and yet most men never M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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take the journey, regardless of how powerful or wealthy they are. In describing this timeless quest, psychologist, Wilhelm Reich said: “…the great man was once a very little man, but he developed one important quality: he recognized the smallness and narrowness of his thoughts and actions. Under the pressure of some task that meant a great deal to him, he learned to see how his smallness, his pettiness endangered his happiness. In other words, a great man knows when and in what way he is a little man. A little man does not know he is little and is afraid to know. He hides his pettiness and narrowness behind illusions of strength and greatness, someone else's strength and greatness…”

WHOLENESS EVER AFTER

When we reconnect with those parts of ourselves we’ve lost, as Pinocchio did with rescuing Geppetto, we become whole. Only then can we truly pursue the ideals that make for a full and meaningful life. For a man, that means being conscious enough of one’s motivations to shift from the pleasure-seeking principle to the reality principle. It requires a libido that’s sublimated into his loving, that doesn’t isolate him from women, but rather, brings him into a better union with them and himself. Every father should set a good example for his son by elevating his sexuality beyond instant gratification to a state where his physical hunger and emotional vulnerability can converge at the level of the heart. This will lead to a deeper experience for both him and his partner because our emotional growth will always be measured by our ability to love. That’s the path we’re all looking for that leads to our happy ending.

“When we reconnect with those parts of ourselves we’ve lost, as Pinocchio did with rescuing Geppetto, we become whole. Only then can we truly pursue the ideals that make for a full and meaningful life.”

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STAYING POWER

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WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO STAY CONNECTED TO FAMILY & FRIENDS AS WE AGE By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

uman beings are social creatures by nature. As important as it is to have our alone time to unwind and de-stress, it’s equally important to health and longevity to remain socially connected. This becomes more challenging as we age. In our early years, it’s easy to take relationships for granted because people are all around us. In high school and college, we’ve got nothing better to do outside of school but hang out with our friends. By the time work and marriage come along, it becomes more difficult to make time for friends as other obligations demand more of our time, and some of the people we used to know start to fade out of our lives. Soon, children and all the responsibilities that go with them come along and before you know it, 20 years have passed without so much as sending your old friends a Christmas card. As the mounting responsibilities of life carry us away, it’s easy for friends to become strangers. C ON T I N U E D. . .

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“Just like an intimate relationship, friendships also require time and attention if they’re to last a lifetime.”

UNEXPECTEDLY ALONE

Like anything, we don’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone, and we usually don’t notice it until our friendships have slipped away. Just like an intimate relationship, friendships also require time and attention if they’re to last a lifetime. Naturally, a spouse needs to be the primary relationship in a marriage, but it should never be to the exclusion of your friends. In fact, it's important for both spouses to maintain friends and interests outside of their marriage for their relationship to remain healthy and strong. As we age and our circle of friends gets progressively smaller, the tendency is for spouses to spend more and more time with each other, especially after children grow up and leave home. Once again, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when spouses become the whole world to each other, a sudden life change like death or divorce can leave a person utterly alone. Unfortunately, these kinds of scenarios are becoming much more common with the rise in middle age divorce. In 1990, the divorce rate for couples 50 and older was 1 in 10. By 2010, it was 1 in 4. Although the divorce rate for the general public has been steadily falling over the last 30 years, it has doubled for couples in their 50’s and 60’s.1 According to a national study by AARP, in 66% of the cases, it’s the wife who initiates the midlife divorce. The men were more likely to be caught off guard with 26% saying

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they never saw it coming.2 If you’ve maintained friendships and interests of your own, they’ll be an invaluable support structure to keep you plugged into life if death or divorce should blindside you after 20 or more years of marriage. EMOTIONAL NUTRITION

Relationships are to humans as water is to fish. We’re swimming around all day long in them, going in and out of personal, professional and casual relationships and yet never realizing how vital they are to our health and survival. The sense of safety and support we receive in relationships fills a very primal need within us to relate and belong. This drive helps us find our identity, define our purpose and say, “This is where I belong and what I’m about.” The trust, listening, advice, humor, help, and company we get from our friends do more than make us feel good. They create a cascade of hormonal and chemical changes in the body that support our health and longevity. In a way, you could say that relationships provide a kind of emotional nutrition that’s every bit as important to health and healing, if not more so, than any food item. I remember in 1989 after Romania overthrew their communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, the stories that hit the press about thousands of children suffering in government-run orphanages. Many of them had been given food, shelter, and clothing, but absolutely no time or physical attention. Because these children were never touched, nurtured or interacted with on any social level, they developed permanent psychological and neurological handicaps. Science has known for some time that children who do not receive proper love, nurturing and human interaction can also develop a condition called failure to thrive syndrome, even though all their basic physical needs for survival are met. While nothing appears to be physically wrong with the child, it gradually begins to lose weight and eventually passes on. The fact is that human interaction, particularly emotional contact, is like an essential vitamin, an x-factor that we can’t do without if we intend not just to survive, but thrive. LONELINESS LIABILITIES

Men are at a particular disadvantage when it comes to staying connected because they’re not naturally as social as women. A middle-aged man who's divorced and no longer keeps in touch with old co-workers because he's now retired will have a harder time making new connections than a woman in the same position. Men are more solitary by nature. When they do get together, they usually

talk about work, sports, and politics, but rarely about how they feel. By contrast, women make use of friendship in a completely different way and can make friends out of strangers more easily. That’s not to say that women don’t suffer loneliness, just that men usually have a tougher time overcoming it. This may be part of the reason why men are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than women, and that the largest increase in suicides has been seen by men in their 50’s, jumping 50% in 2013 to 30 in 100,000.3 Yes, loneliness hurts. There’s a reason why communities like the Amish and Quakers used shunning as a form of punishment. As if being in prison isn’t bad enough, there’s an even worse punishment than that—solitary confinement. Being cut off from people hurts, but how much? It turns out that loneliness sets off the same stress signaling as the fight-or-flight response and is a significant risk factor for mortality that science is just beginning to understand.

It’s important not to confuse loneliness with depression, which has its own health hazards. Depression is usually linked with a lack of enjoyment, energy, and motivation about life, while loneliness is most often felt by people who function just fine in society but often feel empty, desolate or without purpose inside. Overall, these people not only have a 45% increased risk of death but a 59% greater risk of physical decline.7 Here are a few more things to think about: • People with low quality or quantity of social relationships consistently experience higher rates of cardiovascular disease, recurrent myocardial infarction, atherosclerosis, autonomic dysregulation, high blood pressure, cancer, delayed cancer recovery and slower wound healing.8 • Poor relationships and/or social isolation are often associated with inflammatory biomarkers and impaired immune function.9 • Adults with coronary artery disease are 2.4 times more likely to die of a cardiac event if they don’t have adequate supportive relationships.10 • Statistically speaking, healthy relationships are as beneficial to health and longevity as quitting smoking and exceed the benefits of exercise.11 MARRIAGE MATTERS

CONSCIOUS LIFESTYLE

The Chicago Health, Aging and Social Relations study of adults between ages 50 and 68 showed that those who considered themselves lonely experienced a lower immune response to bacteria and viruses with an altered production of white blood cells and higher inflammation than those who were socially connected.4 A longitudinal study following 7,000 California residents over nine years showed that those who were the most isolated with the fewest social ties were more than twice as likely to die over a given time period. This increased risk held even when adjusted for things like smoking, obesity and alcohol use.5 Another study from Brigham Young University found that on the cellular level, isolation does more damage to overall health than not exercising and is twice as harmful as obesity. On the upside, the support of family, friends, and neighbors improves life expectancy across the age spectrum and continues

to increase as we get older, boosting our chances of living to a ripe old age by 50%.6

Although lots of older husbands might not want to admit it, they owe much of their longevity to their wives. Studies consistently show married men enjoy better health and live longer than those who are divorced, widowed or never married. In fact, married men in their 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s experience

“A longitudinal study following 7,000 California residents over nine years showed that those who were the most isolated with the fewest social ties were more than twice as likely to die over a given time period.”

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much lower mortality than those without life partners. If a man is not married, by age 50, he can expect his health to deteriorate much faster than his married friends. The good news is that getting married or remarried in midlife and beyond can significantly improve health and longevity, eventually matching those of men who remained married their entire adult lives.12

in chat rooms, online communities and addictive social networks like Facebook tend to keep people stuck in their houses for hours on end, which only breeds more isolation. Besides, when was the last time one of your virtual friends showed up to help you move house, drive you to the airport, help paint your living room or give you their real shoulder to cry on?

Married men are also 46% less likely to die of heart disease than single men even after accounting for diabetes, blood pressure, smoking, cholesterol levels and obesity.13 Both men and women who never marry are more than twice as likely to die early than those in long-term happy marriages.14

With regard to your intimate relationship, I would also suggest minimizing communication through texts and emails. There’s something to be said about being affected by the contagious laughter of the person you love the most because you took the time to tell your funny story in person or at least through a phone call rather than texting it. In the world of electronic communication, a text is the equivalent of a Post-It note, and is another way of saying, “I’m sending you this message because I was too busy to, well… speak.” It's dismissive and eliminates many opportunities for us to connect with our partners on a human level that can continue to strengthen our relationships. Oxford University recently found that as couples increased electronic communication between each other, marital satisfaction decreased.15 It’s fine to use technology to communicate things like, I’m running 15 minutes late but not, I love you or I’m sorry. Just remember that technology transfers information, not emotion.

This isn’t to suggest you should stay in a miserable marriage. The stress would tear down your health and defeat the purpose. You also don’t have to live alone to feel lonely. The point is there’s nothing quite like a loving, intimate companion to keep us energized, alive and engaged in life separately, as well as together.

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP

“One of the most common reactions to loneliness, especially in the Information Age, is to fill the void left by long lost friends with virtual friends online.” INTERNET ESCAPE

One of the most common reactions to loneliness, especially in the Information Age, is to fill the void left by long lost friends with virtual friends online. Going back to the story of the children in the Romanian orphanages, it’s very clear that it’s the energy and interaction we get from being in the physical presence of those we love that keeps us healthy and happy. There’s a real tangible element that feeds our souls in the moments we’re together that doesn’t transfer through an electronic filter. It's also counterproductive because participating

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We tend to take on the energy of those around us. Birds of a feather flock together. As you reach out to make new social connections, you might want to consider occasionally hanging out with people who are younger than you. When we’re around people who are younger and more exuberant, we respond to this energy and think of ourselves as younger too. Try to put yourself in the company of people who think young and don’t focus on their misfortunes or ailments. We’ve all heard it said that age is just a number, or you’re only as old as you think you are. Well, the people we surround ourselves with have a lot to do with that. Staying connected with people who think young and fill your life with love, joy, and laughter keep you plugged into the life force energy that every cell in your body needs to thrive. Not only will your body respond in kind with better health, but your soul will never go hungry a day in your life. It’s also important to understand the value of maintaining friendships we’ve had for decades because those are the people who really know us. When we’re in their company, we don’t need to explain anything. They just “get” us. As the adage goes, Make new friends, but keep the old, for one is silver; the other gold.

HELPFUL TIPS

Consider these tips to create or expand a social circle for yourself: TOUCH BASE: If you've got an old acquaintance

that you haven't made contact with in the last year or so, reach out and see if you can set up a time to get together to reignite your friendship. Do your best to nurture the relationships with the people who’ve known you the longest. There’s much to be said about old friends who know us so well not much needs explaining anymore. VOLUNTEER: Find a cause that’s important to

you and sign up to volunteer. Not only will you be doing a good deed, but you'll also have the opportunity to meet people who care about the same issue(s) you do. TAKE A CL ASS OR JOIN A CLUB:

WALK A DOG: If you have a dog, take it to the

park for a walk. Dog owners love to talk about their pets, and you’ll find plenty of people to interact with along the way. JOIN A SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY: Spiritual and

church-going people are very social and do lots of activities outside of their regular services. Find one that fits with your philosophy. Some of the health benefits enjoyed by spiritual people have been attributed to the social support people feel in these groups.

(1) Brown, S. L. , & Lin, I. F. (2012). The gray divorce revolution: Rising divorce among middle-aged and older adults, 1990 2010. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 67B, 731-741. (2) Montenegro, Xenia. (2004). The divorce experience: a study of divorce at midlife and beyond. AARP the magazine. Washington D.C.: AARP. (3) Parker-Pope, Tara. (May 2, 2013). Suicide rates rise sharply in U.S. The New York Times. (4) Cole, Steven et al. (2015). Myeloid differentiation architecture of leukocyte transcriptome dynamics in perceived social isolation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. , 112(49), 15142-15147. (5) Berkman, L.F. , & Syme, S.L. (1979). Social networks, host resistance, and mortality: A nine-year follow-up study of Alameda County residents. American Journal of Epidemiology, 109(2): 186-204. (6) Holt-lunstad, Julianne, et al. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review. PLoS. , 7(7), DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316. (7) Perissinotto, Carla et al. (2012). Loneliness in older persons: a predictor of functional decline and death. Archives of Internal Medicine. , 172(14), 1078-1083. (8) 4Umberson, Debra. Monetz, Jeniffer. (2010). Social relationships and health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior. , 51(1), S55-S66. (9) Ibid. (10) Ibid. (11) House, J et al. (1988). Social relationships and health. Science. , 241(4865), 540-545. (12) Lillard, Lee. Panis, Constantin. (1996). Marital status and mortality: the role of health. Demography. , 33(3), 313-327.

ASSOCIATION:

(13) Eaker, E et al. (2007). Marital status, marital strain, and risk of coronary heart disease or total mortality: the framingham offspring study. . Psychosomatic Medicine. , 69(6), 509-513.

GET CULTURED:

(14) Siegler, I et al. (2013). Consistency and timing of marital transitions and survival during midlife: the role of personality and health risk behaviors. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. , 45(3), 338-347.

CONNECT

WITH

YO U R

ALUMNI

There are lots of activities to be involved in here, and sharing the same school already gives you an open door to start conversations with others. Attend gallery openings, lectures, or fundraisers at organizations that interest you. These events draw large crowds and provide more opportunities to meet like-minded people.

CONSCIOUS LIFESTYLE

Find an activity you’ve always wanted to learn how to do and get into a class that teaches it. It’s less scary to meet new people when you have something in common, which makes it easier to talk to other students in class about what you already love to do. MeetUp.com is a great place to find groups in your area.

Sources

(15) Social Media Study Finds Link Between Media Use And Relationship Satisfaction, The Huffington Post, (April 15, 2013), http:// bit.ly/2y1vJIk.

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SPREADS ITS WINGS LOVE BUTTON GLOBAL MOVEMENT UPDATES

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ime flies when you're spreading Love and we've been busy this year working with our amabassadors, donors, supporters and volunteers, to create and move forward with some great new outreach programs and humanitarian activities. We're excited to highlight and share some of the key events and campaigns for the Love movement.

GIFT BASKET GIVEAWAY More than 100 people converged on the offices of Be Hive of Healing in November to take part in the Love Button Global Movementâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gift basket giveaway. Coming from as far as Palm Springs and Indio, volunteers helped assemble more than 300 gift baskets containing blankets, T-shirts, books, personal care products, and other items. Carpooling from the Be Hive offices, volunteers packed up the baskets and made their way to the Skid Row section of downtown Los Angeles, where the poorest residents of the city live and sleep on the streets. With lots of love (and Love Buttons in hand), the volunteers set out to distribute all their baskets. It was important to reach out to the homeless community with these essential items, particularly in late fall, as the weather turns colder at night. The volunteers were overwhelmed by the expressions of gratitude they experienced from their recipients and felt at the end of the day that the greater gift had been given to them.

PA R E N T I N G

P h o t o s : Ko u r o s h M . K h a j a v i w w w. l e i c a - m a n .c o m

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COLEMAN BARKS RETURNS FOR LOVE BUTTON SUMMER FUNDRAISER In May, the Love Button Global Movement held its annual fundraiser hosted by Chris Martin of Coldplay. More than 300 people gathered to celebrate the past accomplishments of Love Button, and pledge their support for the exciting projects that are planned for the future. In addition to fabulous food and some outstanding entertainment arranged by Martin, guests were treated to the rare pleasure of poetry recitation by Coleman Barks, the worldwide literary authority on the works of ancient Sufi poet and mystic, Rumi. For more than 40 years, Barks’ interpretations of Rumi’s works have been considered to be the best and the catalyst for making him one of the most widely read poets in the western world. Barks last attended a Love Button fundraiser in 2015 and rarely makes public appearances today. His dedication to Love Button, however, couldn’t keep him home, and we were thrilled to have him back again.

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PA R E N T I N G

P h o t o s : Ko u r o s h M . K h a j a v i w w w. l e i c a - m a n .c o m

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LOVE BUTTON GLOBAL MOVEMENT FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN

#GiveLoveCampaign

LOVE BUTTON GLOBAL MOVEMENT LAUNCHES NEW EDUCATIONAL, HUMANITARIAN, AND INTEGRATIVE HEALTH PROGRAMS AND PRESENTS THE #GIVELOVECAMPAIGN, A FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN, AT THE INTERNATIONAL NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION’S ANNUAL RETREAT IN LOS ANGELES The Love Button Global Movement announced an ambitious vision to launch new educational, humanitarian, and integrative health programs. Love Button set this intention at the nonprofit organization’s retreat in Los Angeles that was attended by its supporters. An appeal was made to put love into action by supporting the #GiveLoveCampaign, which funds Love Button programming and outreach, including youth programs to end shaming and bullying in schools, training compassionate physicians of tomorrow, and global humanitarian programs.

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THE #GIVELOVECAMPAIGN IS REQUESTING DONATIONS TO FUND THESE PROGRAMS:

PA R E N T I N G

TO DONATE & SUPPORT THESE PROGRAMS PLEASE VISIT:

https://www.lovebutton.org/givelovecampaign

Donations are tax deductible as allowed by law and fuel Love Buttonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s critical programs, uplifting our human family. The world needs the healing power that love gives. Donations also support Love Buttonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s outreach efforts and allow the organization to distribute buttons to students, schools, charities and its partner humanitarian organizations. Love Button shares buttons with communities impacted by tragedies to promote healing, including at Parkland, Florida, following the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas. In addition, Love Button distributes buttons through its Dandelion Initiative, which spreads love across the globe like the spores of the dandelion. The loving power of the button is intense and serves as a visible reminder to #pauseandlove. Love Button is promoting loving action in our daily lives and is committed to changing the world one button at a time.

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D I S P L A Y

Y O U R

W I T H

P R AY E R F LAG

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NOW AVAILABLE IN 2 SIZES Show your dedication to changing the world with love by proudly displaying a Love Button Prayer Flag. Modeled after the ancient Tibetan prayer flags used by Shamanistic Bonpo priests in healing ceremonies, these prayer flags have been created to spread the healing energy of love in the same powerful way. The Tibetan word for prayer flag is Dar Cho, which means Dar, to increase life, fortune, health and wealth, to Cho or all sentient beings. The power of these ancient flags came from the blessings provided by the Bonpo priests whose title means, those who recite magical formulas. Coupled with the natural energy of the wind, it was believed that the prayers and blessings contained within the flag would then be scattered on the breeze to bring harmony, happiness and good fortune to all living beings in the local vicinity, and even around the world. lovebutton.org/shop

PA R E N T I N G

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Change is a Choice Setting a new life course By Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami

t seems hard to believe, but this month marks the three-year anniversary that Be Hive of Healing Integrative Medical and Dental Center moved to our location in Agoura Hills. We took a lot of risks, and there certainly were sacrifices involved, but the result has been even better than we originally imagined. One of our most important objectives of the move was to expand our mission beyond providing comprehensive integrative healthcare to also create a healing intentional community from our patients, friends, employees and business associates that could affect real change in our world. For us, the key to creating that kind of proactive community is education, and we’ve been doing our best to bring you the most important information on health and healing through platforms such as our monthly newsletter, The L.I.G.H.T., our annual wellbeing journal, MegaZEN, occasional wellness workshops and our grassroots nonprofit organization, the Love Button Global Movement. With all this valuable information available, the success of our healing intentional community now hinges on what you do with it. Do you apply it to your life to make things better, or do you share it with others so they might find healing in a way that’s important to them? Much of the work we do is in service of waking people up from their healthcare trance and setting them on a new course to a quality of life they couldn’t have imagined was possible. Yes, we know eating organic is better, that

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“It can be difficult to change course, especially when we’ve been moving in one direction for so long, but the price of not doing so means to be frozen inside a life that’s limiting in more ways than one.”

It’s easy, however, to get locked into our routines. Even though we know something is good for us, it can be difficult to add it into our daily lives simply because it’s new and interferes with the sense of familiarity we have with the flow of our day. Change, even for the better, can be hard, but it is still change that must be made if we intend to reach our full health potential. Lake Natron in Tanzania holds an interesting lesson in the consequences of being locked into a routine and not being able to change course. The water in Lake Natron is highly caustic with a pH between 9 and 10.5. A nearby volcano, Ol Doinyo, produces pulverized magmatic limestone from ash clouds that is carried down into the lake by rain waters. These ashy runoffs and the high alkalinity make the water so dangerous that it can easily strip the paint off a metal plate in minutes. Quite often, birds, bats and insects

find they cannot traverse the 12×30 mile lake and instead of changing course, plunge into it. Once immersed in the ashy, alkaline waters, the magmatic limestone coats their bodies and immediately begins to harden, preserving them right down to the most minute details of their feathers and beaks to look as if they had been created from a concrete mold. When the temperature rises and lake waters recede, hundreds of these “petrified” birds, bats and insects can be found washed up near the original water’s edge. It can be difficult to change course, especially when we’ve been moving in one direction for so long, but the price of not doing so means to be frozen inside a life that’s limiting in more ways than one. As a healing intentional community, we’re here to help each other make those kinds of necessary changes and provide the proper support to ensure we’re successful. Now more than ever, it seems we face the most serious challenges to our health and wellbeing from toxins in our environment, food, health and beauty products, pharmaceuticals and even our water. We’re here to wake up the masses to these problems and show them they’re not powerless. Radiant health is still attainable, but it is a choice, and that choice begins with education. Share one of our newsletters or a previous issue of MegaZEN with someone today and become part of our healing intentional community. It just might hold the healing information they’ve been waiting for that will change their life.

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we should be meditating at least once per day, GMOs are dangerous and that we really need to improve our relationships through forgiveness and such, but do we act on this information and really do these things? As a healing, intentional community, the way we live our lives is the lesson we teach, and that is the best way to educate others—when they approach us and say, “You look fantastic, and your energy and outlook on life are just amazing. What are you doing?” That’s how we can expand our community and heal the world, one person at a time.

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THE UGLY SIDE OF

BEAUTY PRODUCTS AVOIDING TOXINS IN COSMETICS

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By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

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hen it comes to what we put in our bodies, the food industry is slowly getting better at letting consumers know exactly what they’re eating. With federal and independent organic certifications, as well as the Non-GMO Verified seal of approval, we can make better-educated choices about what we eat with regard to our health. In contrast, we know very little about the ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products, manufactured by an industry that's virtually regulation-free and allowed to police itself. Why should this matter? Because the skin is the body’s largest organ and an excellent drug delivery system. Anything we put on our skin has a high propensity for ending up in the bloodstream through absorption. As such, it’s often been said, and rightly so, that you shouldn’t put anything on your body that you wouldn’t be comfortable eating, and yet every day millions of people do so with personal care products about which we know almost nothing. ABSENCE OF OVERSIGHT

T he average A merican woman uses approximately 12 personal care products a day that contain 168 different chemicals. While men don’t use as many different products, they’re still exposing themselves to about 85 industrial chemicals per day.1 Because of this, the word cosmetics as it is used here will refer not only to makeup but shampoos, lotions, soaps, colognes, deodorants, hair care products and anything else we put on our bodies. About 13,000 different chemicals are used in cosmetics, but only about 10% have ever been tested for safety. While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the authority to regulate harmful chemicals in cosmetics, it almost never does, nor does it require cosmetics manufacturers to use any specific tests to demonstrate the safety of cosmetics or their ingredients. All that exists is an ethical

responsibility for manufacturers to police themselves and ensure the safety of their products. Because of this, thousands of cosmetic products come to market every year without any type of independent testing or approval whatsoever. It’s only after a cosmetic product has been deemed harmful, adulterated or misbranded that the FDA can take regulatory action, but by that time, it's already affected millions of people. Until then, a product or ingredient is automatically considered GRAS or generally regarded as safe by the FDA. This seems to be putting the cart before the horse in a very dangerous way. Even so, the agency’s own guidelines state: “Under the law, cosmetic products and ingredients do not need FDA premarket approval, with the exception of color additives… However, FDA can pursue enforcement action against products on the market that are not in compliance with the law…” but “…neither the law nor FDA regulations require specific tests to demonstrate the safety of individual products or ingredients…” and, "…the law also does not require cosmetic companies to share their safety information with FDA.”2 The relatively simple regulations that do exist for cosmetic manufacturers require that they list all ingredients, beginning with the highest content ingredient and ending with the least. However, they only have to list the ingredients first that make up 1% or more of the product. After those ingredients, the rest can follow in any order, and they’re not required to list the ingredient percentages anyway. An additional problem is that your product may not contain enough of the effective ingredient for it to perform the way you’re expecting it to, but you’ll have no way of knowing that before you buy it.

“About 13,000 different chemicals are used in cosmetics, but only about 10% have ever been tested for safety. While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the authority to regulate harmful chemicals in cosmetics, it almost never does, nor does it require cosmetics manufacturers to use any specific tests to demonstrate the safety of cosmetics or their ingredients.”

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“Heavy metals are some of the most powerful neurotoxins in existence and play a significant role in many neurodegenerative diseases. In fact, there are no safe levels of heavy metals like mercury and aluminum in the body, and yet, they're abundant in cosmetics."

LONG-TERM LIABILITIES

What we do know, however, is cause for alarm. A research study of 31,000 women found 111 man-made chemicals in blood and urine samples, including phthalates and a host of other endocrine disruptors including industrial coolants, pesticides, and combustion byproducts. Women with higher levels were six times more likely to be menopausal and found to experience menopause up to four years earlier than non-exposed women.5 In another lab analysis, EWG discovered 37 nail polishes made by 22 different companies contained dibutyl phthalate (DBP), a chemical that increases flexibility and shine, known to cause lifelong reproductive impairments and birth defects in animals, particularly males, leading to damage of the testes, prostate gland, penis, epididymis and seminal vesicles.6 In a small test sample performed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), DBP was found

HEAV Y METAL MATTERS

Heavy metals are some of the most powerful neurotoxins in existence and play a significant role in many neurodegenerative diseases. In fact, there are no safe levels of heavy metals like mercury and aluminum in the body, and yet, they're abundant in cosmetics. In a report titled, Heavy Metal Hazard: The health risks of hidden heavy metals in face makeup by independent consumer agency, Environmental Defense, 49 different makeup items were tested including foundations, concealers, powders, blushes, mascaras, eyeliners, eyeshadows, lipsticks and lip glosses. Results showed the following percentage of products contained heavy metals: lead (96%), beryllium (90%), thallium (61%), cadmium (51%) and arsenic (20%).8 A 2013 study at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, tested 32 lipsticks and lip glosses and found lead in 24 of them, including other toxic heavy metals like cadmium, aluminum, and nickel.9 One can argue the percentage is small, but if you count up the number of days in a lifetime you’ve worn lipstick and then consider these products have moisturizers designed to penetrate the skin; it becomes a concern—not to mention the fact that anyone who kisses a woman wearing lipstick or makeup always ingests a portion of the products, as do the women who wear them. Back in 2007, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics did its own study10 that revealed similar results for heavy metals, and the FDA followed with its own research in 2010.11 Believe it or not, the FDA actually has an acceptable level of lead in candy, and the levels in lipsticks can be 10 times higher than that. M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

SECOND OPINION

Because of lack of testing and full ingredient disclosure on labels, consumers waste billions of dollars every year on cosmetics that don’t work. Far worse are the toxins their bodies are accumulating over a lifetime from the products that do. When the consumer advocacy agency, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) tested the blood and urine of teenagers, who use an average of 17 cosmetic products per day, they found 16 different chemicals known to disrupt hormonal balance, including parabens and phthalates.3 The biggest concern is the cumulative, long-term consequences from exposure to these chemicals over a lifetime. Regarding that risk, EWG vice president of government affairs, Scott Farber, stated, “We can’t know for sure because they haven’t been subjected to any kind of review by a third party.”4

in the bodies of all 289 people tested, with the highest levels in women of childbearing age.7

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ULTIMATE OFFENDERS Cosmetics contain many toxic ingredients; however, this is just a very short list of the worst of the worst. PARABENS: An additive used to prevent the growth of bacteria in products. Originally an industrial

solvent, it mimics estrogen in the body12 which creates hormonal imbalance and cancer concerns, as parabens are found in virtually all breast tumors.13 Among other problems, the evidence clearly shows that parabens enter the body through skin absorption14 and that they cause DNA damage to sperm cells.15 Parabens are found in shampoos, conditioners, moisturizers, sexual lubricants, makeup, toothpaste, shaving gel, and sunscreens. Look for any ingredient with “paraben” as the suffix. PHTHALATES:

Acting as plasticizers, phthalates keep nail polish from becoming brittle and are found in virtually every product that contains synthetic fragrance. If an ingredient label simply lists "fragrance," it's from phthalates. Known endocrine disruptors, they have anti-androgenic effects (work to block male sex hormones),16 affect male sexual development of the fetus17 and have been linked to “less male-typical play behavior in boys”.18 They’ve also been linked to ADHD,19 thyroid dysfunction,20 decreased motor/mental development in children 21 and breast cancer.22 Interestingly, the breast milk of American women has shown levels of fragrance toxins five times higher than that of German or Danish women.23 It’s found in makeup, hairspray, nail polish, deodorant, laundry detergent, cologne, perfume, and any product that contains fragrance. Look for the suffix "phthalate," as well as the abbreviations DBP, DEP, BzBP or any word beginning in "phth." UV FILTERS:

Chemicals like benzophenone and oxybenzone are commonly used for their ability to block out ultraviolet rays from the sun; however, they’re powerful endocrine disruptors and have been found to disrupt thyroid hormone production.24 Octyl-methoxycinnamate has powerful estrogenic effects making it a cancer risk,25 particularly because UV blocking chemicals are designed to be absorbed into the skin. To top it all off, research shows they’re not even effective against the development of melanoma.26 Stick with a broad-rim hat and sunglasses, instead. UV filters are found in all sunscreens and any product that contains UV protection, which includes a broad range of foundations. Other common names include para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA), 3 benzylidene camphor (3-BC) and 4 methyl-benzylidene camphor (4-BC). SODIUM L AURYL SULFATE:

Sometimes listed as sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLS, SLES), this industrial degreaser is used to make products foamy and lather nicely. It’s often contaminated with measurable amounts of carcinogen, ethylene oxide, a chemical added to make other chemicals less harsh. During the process, a highly toxic byproduct, 1,4-dioxane is created but never appears on labels because it’s not an actual ingredient. Among other dangers, ethylene oxide and 1,4-dioxane are known to damage the nervous system 27 and interfere with fetal development.28 The EWG found that 1,4-dioxane exists in nearly 50% of all cosmetic products.29 It’s commonly found in liquid soap, bubble bath, body wash, hair relaxers, facial cleansers, toothpaste, and anything that foams. Sometimes listed as sodium laureth sulfate, you should also look for PEG compounds and chemical names using xynol, ceteareth, oleth or eth. FORMALDEHYDE: Some cosmetics are formulated to react with water in their containers to produce

measurable amounts of formaldehyde, which acts as a preservative. The problem is that formaldehyde is a potent toxin and allergen, and the World Health Organization, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and International Agency for Research on Cancer consider it carcinogenic.30 Banned in Europe, formaldehyde, and formaldehyde releasing agents are found most commonly in hair dye, eyelash adhesive, shampoo, and hair straighteners. Look for DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, diazolidinyl urea, and quaternium-15.

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ANSWERS & ALTERNATIVES In 2015 with the assistance of the EWG, the Personal Care Products Safety Act was introduced in Congress to create more FDA oversight of the cosmetics industry and by extension, safer products. The bill would require cosmetic companies to register with the FDA and submit cosmetic statements that include specific percentages of each ingredient for every product. Company registration fees would be based on annual gross sales and restricted to funding cosmetic safety activities only. If there is reasonable evidence a cosmetic may be harmful, its distribution may be discontinued by a suspension of the ingredient statement or even suspending the company’s registration. The FDA would also be required to review at least five cosmetic ingredients per year and establish conditions for their safe usage, such as limiting an ingredient’s percentage or requiring a warning label on the product. A cosmetic could not be sold if it contains an ingredient that is not safe, not safe under the recommended conditions of use, or not safe in the amount present in the cosmetic. Manufacturers would also be required to report any adverse health events associated with their products to the FDA.31 As of this writing, only preliminary hearings have been held on the legislation. Getting cosmetic manufacturers, a $64 billion industry,32 to support more regulation isn't going to be easy. In the meantime, there are some good resources you can use to evaluate the ingredients of your cosmetics, as well as new lines of healthy and organic products you might want to consider trying: EWG SKIN DEEP COSMETICS DATABASE: Search your current products in a database of over

66,000 cosmetics for details on levels of toxic ingredients. Also provides over 900 products free of harmful chemicals earing the EWG Verified seal. system using antioxidants preserves products, so no parabens necessary. BITE BEAUTY:

Lipsticks and other lip products you can eat, using ingredients like argan oil and Manuka honey without parabens, synthetic fragrances or phthalates.

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Argan oil-based makeup with other food-grade ingredients.

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Perfume and deodorant made with organic scents, free of synthetic fragrance and aluminum. PACIFICA BEAUTY: Makeup, perfume, skin and body care products free of parabens, phthalates,

sulfates and petroleum products. WELEDA:

Face, body and oral care products made from medicinal plants.

DR. BRONNER’S:

Excellent hand and body soaps made from organic oils.

PRIMAL LIFE ORGANICS: ACURE:

Organic makeup, skincare, and oral products.

Organic hair care line.

YAROK HAIR:

shampoos, conditioners and styling products free of harmful chemicals.

OM4MEN: Specializes in personal care products for men including skin care, shaving cream,

and more. NATURE’S GATE: SUNSCREENS:

Toothpaste free of fluoride, parabens, sulfates and synthetic flavor.

Badger Balm, Raw Elements Eco and Kabana Skin Care.

When it comes to natural beauty that provides a vibrant, healthy glow and skin tone, nothing you put on your body will ever be as effective as what you put in your body. So, let your beauty regimen begin with an organic diet based on whole foods, lots of water and exercise. Then by choosing better products, you’ll be accenting your health, as well as your beauty.

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Sources (1) Lupkin, Sydney, “Women Put an Average of 168 Chemicals on Their Bodies Each Day, Consumer Group Says”, ABC News, (April 27, 2015), https://abcn. ws/2xZCBGD (2) U.S. Food & Drug Administration, FDA Authority Over Cosmetics: How Cosmetics Are Not FDA-Approved but Are FDA-Regulated, http://bit.ly/2IFG41l (3) Lupkin, Sydney, “Women Put an Average of 168 Chemicals on Their Bodies Each Day, Consumer Group Says”, ABC News, (April 27, 2015), https://abcn. ws/2xZCBGD (4) Ibid. (5) Grindler, N et al. (2015). Persistent organic pollutants and early menopause in u. S. Women. PLOS. , 10(1), 1163-1169. http://bit.ly/2OaEc6Y (6) Environmental Working Group, Public Affairs, “California Regulators: Non-toxic nail polishes anything but”, (April 10, 2012), http://bit.ly/2IC0msx (7) Barr, D et al. (2003). Assessing human exposure to phthalates using monoesters and their oxidized metabolites as biomarkers. Environmental Health Perspectives. , 111(9), 1148-1151. http://bit.ly/2O92lKU (8) Environmental Defense, Heavy Metal Hazard: The health risks of hidden heavy metals in makeup, (May 2011), http://bit.ly/2IFFUXN (9) Liu, S et al. (2013). Concentrations and potential health risks of metals in lip products. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. http://bit.ly/2DYehuv (10) Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. (2007, ). Lead in lipstick. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2Pc79f6 (11) US Food and Drug Administration. (2010, July ). Lipstick and Lead: questions and answers. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2CqnUQP (12) Darbre, P. Harvey, P. (2008). Paraben esters: review of recent studies of endocrine toxicity, absorption, esterase and human exposure, and discussion of potential human health risks. Journal of Applied Toxicology. , 28(5), 561-578. http://bit.ly/2OGZok8 (13) Ettinger, Jill, “Breast Cancer Study Finds Parabens in Virtually All Breast Tumors”, The Huffington Post, (March 25, 2012), http://bit.ly/2RqY5V0 (14) Janjua, N et al. (2008). Urinary excretion of phthalates and paraben after repeated whole-body topical application in humans. International Journal of Andrology. , 31(2), 118-130. http://bit.ly/2BX7DBS (15) Meeker, J et al. (2011). Urinary concentrations of parabens and serum hormone levels, semen quality parameters, and sperm DNA damage. Environmental Health Perspectives. , 119(2), 252-257. http://bit. ly/2zT0Urv (16) Sailenfait, A et al. (2013). Dose-dependent alterations in gene expression and testosterone production in fetal rat testis after exposure to di-n-hexyl phthalate. Journal of Applied Toxicology. , 33(9), 1027-1035. http://bit. ly/2y1drrf (17) Foster, P. (2006). Disruption of reproductive development in male rat offspring following in utero

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exposure to phthalate esters. International Journal of Andrology. , 29(1), 140-147. http://bit.ly/2PbzfXT (18) University of Rochester Medical Center, "Phthalate exposure linked to less-masculine play by boys,” Science Daily, (November 16, 2009), http://bit.ly/2NoxsNb (19) Kim, B, et al. (2009). Phthalates exposure and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in school-age children. Biological Psychiatry. , 66(10), 258-263. http:// bit.ly/2yiDj10 (20) Meeker, J. Ferguson, K. (2011). Relationship between urinary phthalate and bisphenol a concentrations and serum thyroid measures in u. S. Adults and adolescents from the national health and nutrition examination survey (nhanes) 2007-2008. Environmental Health Perspectives, 119(10), 1396-1402. http://bit.ly/2NnOBH6 (21) Columbia University Mailmen School of Public Health, "Prenatal Exposure to Phthalates Linked to Decreased Mental and Motor Development," (September 7, 2011), Science Daily, http://bit.ly/2IEmRNn (22) Lopez-Carillo, L et al. (2010). Exposure to phthalates and breast cancer risk in northern Mexico. Environmental Health Perspectives., 118(4), 539-544. http://bit.ly/2zStc59 (23) Reiner, J et al. (2007). Synthetic musk fragrances in human milk from the United States. Environmental Science Technolog y. , 41(11), 3815-3820. http://bit. ly/2DXZxLX (24) Schmutzler, C et al. (2007). The ultraviolet filter benzophenone 2 interferes with the thyroid hormone axis in rats and is a potent in vitro inhibitor of human recombinant thyroid peroxidase. Endocrinology, 148(6), 2835-2844. http://bit.ly/2Rq4wrr (25) Klammer, H et al. (2005). Multi-organic risk assessment of estrogenic properties of octyl-methoxycinnamate in vivo a 5-day sub-acute pharmacodynamic study with ovariectomized rats. Toxicology. , 215(1), 90-96. http:// bit.ly/2Crjmd0 (26) Wolf, P et al. (1994). Effect of sunscreens on UV radiation-induced enhancement of melanoma growth in mice. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 86(2), 99-105. http://bit.ly/2CpHMUc (27) Brashear, A et al. (1996). Ethylene oxide neurotoxicity: a cluster of 12 nurses with peripheral and central nervous system toxicity. Neurology. , 46(4), 992-998. http://bit. ly/2DZxT1g (28) California. EPA. Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. _Chemicals Known to the State to Cause Cancer or Reproductive Toxicity. _February 5, 2010. http://bit.ly/2ybhYGM (29) EWG’s Skin Deep Cosmetics Database, 1,4 dioxane, (2008), http://bit.ly/2yhdL4v (30) IARC. "Formaldehyde." Monographs 88 (2006). http://bit.ly/2O3bmFn (31) Congress.gov, S.1014, Personal Care Products Safety Act, http://bit.ly/2zSM1Fy (32) Revenue of the cosmetic industry in the United States from 2002 to 2016 (in billion U.S. dollars), Statista, http://bit.ly/2zSuxsG

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Creating a New Normal Breaking with convention in healthcare By Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami

rior to the 19th century, the high vocal parts in church music were sung by pre-pubescent boys or boy sopranos. Women were not permitted to participate. This created a problem for choirmasters as each boy’s voice began to change, the search was on to find a new replacement. In order to preserve the sound of the choir and avoid the need for constant replacements, many churches made an unthinkable choice; they chose the best boy sopranos and castrated them. Never having gone through puberty and without their testicles to produce 95% of their testosterone, the vocal cords of the boys, known as castrati, would never have the chance to lengthen and thicken, giving them a deeper voice. The first known castrati appeared in Spain in 1550 and at the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in 1565. The result of this mutilation gave a castrato the voice of a woman, but with the lung power of a man. With this came the ability to sing in full voice at the very top of a four octave register, creating a power and sound no one had ever heard before. As their popularity grew, the castrati soon replaced all the countertenors and falsettisti in church

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choirs (adult men who have extremely high vocal registers or sing in their falsetto or “head voice”) because their sound was deemed more natural to the high choral parts. Subjected to grueling training schedules, the castrati soon became the superstars of church music and opera. The average castrato was paid twice as much as the highest paid tenor or baritone. They were in demand for performances all over Europe with more travel and employment opportunities than they could accommodate. One of the most famous castrati, Senesino, was paid 3,000 guineas for one season in London, a massive sum at the time.

“What struck me most about the history of the castrati is how easily a cultural constraint can create a perceptual constraint, and suddenly something that previously would have been seen as abhorrent becomes the new ‘normal’.”

At the height of their popularity, there were 4,000 castrati in church choirs between the ages of 7 and 9. L .I.G . H .T. A RTICLES

With such severe hormonal imbalance, the castrati were most often overweight and very temperamental. It was nothing for a castrato to take off on his own and improvise on a melody, singing something other than what was written, in the middle of a performance. Naturally, this created some contentious working relationships with some of the greatest composers of all time including Handel, Bach and others. Regardless of their frustrations, the composers were sometimes at the mercy of the castrati because it was them that the audience was coming to see and if they wanted their music heard by the masses, they had no choice but to work with these eccentric divas. Nearly all of the castrati came from poor families. As shocking as it is, many of these families were more than willing and even competed with each other to have their sons chosen to be a castrato for the fame and fortune that came with it. Ruining one son’s life seemed a small price to pay if it kept the entire family from starving in pre-Victorian Europe. In most cases, such a survival strategy backfired because it’s been said that practically all the castrati hated their parents for allowing their bodies to be mutilated and lives ruined. In fact, when he became an adult and his family came calling for money,

famous castrato, Loreto Vittori, said the only thing he owed them was an empty purse. At the height of their popularity, there were 4,000 castrati in church choirs between the ages of 7 and 9. During the entire castrati era, there was much debate about the ethics of the practice, but music and money always won out. By the mid-1700’s, composers like Mozart put much more focus on male heroes using adult tenors, and the popularity of the castrati began to fade. It was Pope Pius X who finally outlawed the castrati practice in 1903. What struck me most about the history of the castrati is how easily a cultural constraint can create a perceptual constraint, and suddenly something that previously would have been seen as abhorrent becomes the new “normal”. Just because churches were struggling to find more boy sopranos, opera houses had to sell lots of tickets or close their doors, and parents were willing to sacrifice their own child to keep from starving, it became okay to mutilate young boys for hundreds of years. After a while, no one even questioned it. It’s just the way things were. It reminds me of a young woman I heard recently who was asked to make a comment on certain political situations

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Why is it normal to subject children to 49 different vaccines by the age of six when they’re in the most important growth and development stage of their lives?

in the world. Her comment was that she didn’t really have a comment when she said, “Well, that’s just the way things are going right now.” Apathy is always interpreted as allowance by those who are more than willing to make your choices for you.

“There are lots of things in healthcare today that do us far more harm than good. Never be afraid to break with convention when it comes to your health or the health of someone you love. Question everything, go within and choose what’s right for you, not what everyone else is doing.” How often are we faced with a cultural constraint, a problem in our lives, where we don’t take the time to stop and really think about what to do, but make the “normal” choice because that’s what everyone else is doing or what people in power positions tell us to do? Why is it normal to subject children to 49 different vaccines by the age of six when they’re in the most important growth and development stage of their lives? Why aren’t there more people questioning this instead of blindly following along because they’ve been told it’s the next routine step in their child’s plan of care? When someone is diagnosed with cancer, why do doctors automatically defer to the “normal” treatments of radiation and chemotherapy, even though we know they’re horribly destructive with a very low long-term success rate? From one

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decade to the next, it seems there’s a fad surgery that many people are having and yet, no one seems to question if it’s really necessary. In the 1950’s, it was the tonsillectomy for children; in the 1990’s, it was the hysterectomy for women. C-sections are so common today that no one even questions if they’re absolutely necessary anymore when they used to be a rare occurrence. Babies that do not pass through the birth canal don’t receive a crucial immune system inoculation from the mother’s vaginal mucosa, and the final intense surge of oxytocin, the bonding hormone, isn’t triggered. C-sections should only be used as a last resort when the mother or baby’s life is in danger but instead, they’re an everyday occurrence that we’ve been programmed to think of as perfectly “normal”. There are lots of things in healthcare today that do us far more harm than good. Never be afraid to break with convention when it comes to your health or the health of someone you love. Question everything, go within and choose what’s right for you, not what everyone else is doing. Never abdicate your decision-making authority to someone else just because they’re wearing a white coat or have an impressive title. Only you fully understand your situation, and whatever you choose will be perfectly normal…for you. When our lives are constrained by illness or other problems, fear is the trigger that narrows our perception, leading us to believe that the only choice is the one everyone else is making. As long as we remain grounded and present during troubling times, we can maintain a broader perspective on our situation that includes more choices than we knew we had. When we choose the course of direction that’s really best for us, we create a new “normal” and can then become an advocate for others to do the same.

A PARTNER IN PROGRESS When going through a health crisis or any other serious life challenge, it’s easy to feel like you’re in it alone. While the support of family and friends is very helpful, it often takes the knowledge and advice of someone who’s been where you are to provide the right kind of inspiration and guidance to see you through to success. With the Master Mind Mentorship Program (M3P), Dr. Sadeghi becomes your partner in what may be the most important race of your life. By utilizing the patented techniques of Integrative Psycho-Synthesis (iPs), participants work with Dr. Sadeghi to explore and neutralize the deeper aspects of their negative emotions, relationships, fears and subconscious limiting beliefs that are at the core of their problem. The progressive, 12-week course includes weekly one-on-one phone consultations with Dr. Sadeghi to assess progress, clarify goals and devise a proactive strategy for the manifestation of healing in the area of life where it’s most needed. To ensure your success, Dr. Sadeghi will join you in co-creation, practicing directed intention on your behalf to accelerate the realization of your goal. M3P is the most powerful psycho-spiritual intervention that merges psychological exploration and spiritual inspiration with physical motivation to synchronize mind, body and behavior. Based on availability, be prepared to schedule as far as six months in advance. Succeed with the inspiration and guidance of Dr. Sadeghi’s patented mentorship program!

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To provide the maximum amount of personal attention, Dr. Sadeghi chooses to work with only a small number of clients at any one time. Be advised that space is limited.

ITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ALLOW IMPERFECTIONS

ACC E P TA N C E

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TENSION

LOVING

SENSUALITY & SEX

LETTING GO

OUTSIDE

NO ONE IS STANDING IN YOUR WAY ON THE PATH TO HEALING By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

WHOLENESS

ENJOYMENT

DIVINITY

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recently had the honor of speaking at the 30th Annual California Women’s Conference held in Long Beach, CA. This is a transcript of my speech. I took that opportunity to address the attendees about how they could take more conscious control of their health and lives by creating a context based on honoring the self in ten key ways. I call this method It’s allowed because we don’t need to seek anyone’s permission or have to wait for a doctor’s advice to start a healing journey. That journey begins by filling our souls up to overflowing. When we are fed spiritually, that healing energy spills over into every other part of our lives – including our health - creating changes that can only be described as miraculous. DISCOVERING THE COMMON DENOMINATOR

For every one man, ten women will be diagnosed with some type of autoimmune disease. When we look at autoimmune diseases such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis where the body starts producing antibodies and begins attacking or eating up the thyroid tissue or even vitiligo, where the body produces antibodies against the pigment in the skin, or alopecia that creates extreme hair loss, or perhaps multiple sclerosis, where self-generated antibodies attack the myelin sheath that protects the nerves, the research shows that some types of infertility and various cancers are caused because of a connection to the autoimmune disease. As a family doctor, I’ve been exploring why autoimmune diseases have such a predilection for women over men and why this disparity has been going on for decades. No one has been looking into it, and I wish I could tell you why. I wish I could tell you that the answer came to me in a dream or that it was provided by a prestigious, double-blind study, but that isn't what occurred. What occurred was a

realization I had while I was observing my little girl. At the time, she was 3 ½ and had a little bit of eczema on her forearm. As a result, she was fixated on wearing only long sleeves and did not want to play with other girls. While still a toddler, I had observed that she was constructing an internal world in which she felt she was less than others or not good enough in certain respects. My wife Sherry, who is a pediatric orthodontist and dentist, as well as the brains in our family, and I sat down and came up with an idea. We took some long socks that Hannah loved, cut the ends off and turned them into sleeves she could wear. It worked. She was so excited. The new colorful sleeves brought her confidence back, and she was able to get back outside and play with other little girls. At that point, I started working with my colleague, Dr. Robert Gross, who is Harvard trained with a PhD from Tufts University. We asked ourselves whether the sort of self-rejection my daughter had experienced could be the common denominator in all the autoimmune diseases that affect women. As our autoimmune patients came in, we began getting more detailed histories from them. We paid more attention to their biographies, and paid particular attention to how they felt about themselves. Instead of immediately putting them on a protocol of strong chemotherapeutic agents, high doses of steroids and other medications, we started prescribing them more non-traditional therapies. IMPERFECTION CORRECTION

The acronym we developed for the treatment is It’s allowed. The “I” stands for Imperfections. I've been privileged to work with some of the most brilliant and talented women in the world, but regardless of their level of success, it

“I've been privileged to work with some of the most brilliant and talented women in the world, but regardless of their level of success, it always becomes clear as we talk more about their lives that they have big and small ways of habitually criticizing or attacking themselves... Their sin is that they’re not perfect, whatever that means to them.”

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always becomes clear as we talk more about their lives that they have big and small ways of habitually criticizing or attacking themselves. The mental context in which they live on a daily basis is one where they are the villain who must be attacked for not being enough… on pretty much every level. Their sin is that they’re not perfect, whatever that means to them. By way of contrast, certain American Indian tribes have a tradition that when weaving cloth for clothing and such, they leave an imperfection somewhere in their work because that’s where they believe the spirit of life enters and exits. It is like a window into the next dimension. That was a profound discovery for us. We wondered how effective it might be to create that kind of context within a healing protocol. Could we find a way for these women, who were constantly attacking themselves emotionally, to release their self-directed negative energy outwardly instead of aiming it inwardly where it caused their bodies to attack themselves? How would we even monitor such a program with physiological markers that we could use with every patient? Once we set the program up, we took a baseline blood draw on each patient and then monitored their blood markers in a new sample taken every 12 weeks.

TENSEGRITY & INTIMACY

It’s allowed. The “T” stands for the level of Tension that has developed within oneself. We all have tension within us that starts from the time we wake up and continues to develop, but we look at it as a bad thing. We don't know how to move it around and allow it to sublimate into what we refer to as tensegrity, which is a level of tension that actually creates a deeper integrity within ourselves. It’s allowed. The “S” was the most enjoyable part of creating this program. It stands for Sensuality and Sexuality. We started asking questions, and found out that some of the women with autoimmune diseases hadn’t been sexually active for decades. The last thing they wanted to hear was another doctor telling them that even though they were juggling their jobs, kids and everything else, sex was still important. They didn’t want to hear it. To stress the importance of making time for sex, we provided them with a large collection of studies from the National Institutes of Health and other respected institutions. One study that looked at women with breast cancer showed that the number of women having the least amount of sex and the fewest orgasms had the highest rates of breast cancer. Nobody talks about that. I published similar findings in a piece I

wrote for my medical journal, MegaZEN, under the title, “Elusive Orgasm.” Women with the physical terrain that supported autoimmunity had the lowest levels of two of the most important hormones, oxytocin, and relaxin. More sex. Can you imagine walking out of a doctor’s office with that kind of prescription in your hand? To have that kind of conversation with someone requires a different kind of narrative. It requires a heart-centeredness that allows you to invest in another human being rather than just giving them the standard treatment. It’s so easy to write out a prescription for a steroid and have the patient take it as directed. That’s symptom management. To create healing, we have to establish a different context between doctor and patient. It requires inspiring a special kind of confidence through compassion in the patient, so she feels safe enough to share why she hasn't had sex in over a decade. It’s important for her to be able to share what’s occurring for her - not just physically but emotionally that might be impacting her health. What is the context of her current relationship? What are the challenges? What are the misunderstandings or misinterpretations? What is the wall that she keeps running into that’s taking her opportunity for intimacy away? It is this kind of personal conversation that encourages the body-mind connection. This was a conversation that wasn’t happening with these women at their previous doctors’ offices.

SPEECHES & APPEARANCES

The results we saw were astounding and have been shared in detail in my book, The Clarity Cleanse. The “I” of the process represents a way of holding or viewing one’s personal imperfections to help the patient go deeper and create an internal world conducive to healing. So many of us believe that the body, what we see, is all there is to us. The idea that there is a different world inside ourselves than the one we experience outside is foreign to most people. So we started prescribing things like meditation and dream incubations, which is a visualization process of reflecting on the day before falling asleep.

“It’s so easy to write out a prescription for a steroid and have the patient take it as directed. That’s symptom management. To create healing, we have to establish a different context between doctor and patient.”

ACCENTUATING ACCEPTANCE

It’s allowed. The “A” represents Acceptance. We hear it all the time, but what is it that needs to be accepted? It’s so easy to cover up imperfections with cosmetics, hair color, and so on. I would certainly look prettier if I took care of my receding hairline and a few other things, but what M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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would it be like if we truly accepted ourselves the way we are? What would it be like if we were comfortable with ourselves? That’s the type of conversation Dr. Gross and I were having with these women. Some of these women desperately wanted to be a size 2 because that was their idea of beauty. Imagine being born a pine tree but preferring to be an oak. You create a continuous battle within yourself because of a lack of self-acceptance. My partner and I believe that consciousness precedes phenotypic expression, an idea that informed the creation of our protocol. Your consistent thought processes give birth to a physiological shift that ultimately ends up producing antibodies that support some variety of autoimmune disease. The amount of energy that must be sustained over months or even years to produce physical antibodies is significant. This is about creating proteins. If you want to develop the next cell phone or electronic gadget, how much time goes into that creative process? To produce a sophisticated protein that shifts and changes requires a significant level of consciousness, and that’s the body-mind terrain that no one was talking about. See yourself walking out of the doctor’s office with a prescription for acceptance. It's these kinds of advanced body-mind exercises that women can do on a daily basis to cultivate within their consciousness what it means to be more accepting.

deeper gentleness than the way you normally treat yourself. Can you see yourself walking out of your doctor’s office with a prescription for self-love? Can you imagine what it would mean to cultivate a love like that? The other “L” represents Letting Go as a spiritual practice. I tell certain patients that their condition might be connected to wanting certain things to be perfect or a specific way, and when they feel the energy of resistance to their present situation, to work on letting that negative energy go. I give them breath work to do, and then monitor their blood markers. Just by learning to release negative energy in this way, the results were astounding. People would come in with a devastating physiological terrain, and we’d follow their body looking at biological markers, and see a clear shift happen in the results. OUTSIDE THE ILLUSION

The “O” stands for getting Outside, literally but especially outside one’s mind. It’s incredible to be sitting across from a 16-year-old who kept cutting herself because she felt like she wasn’t good enough, pretty enough; you name it. We wanted to create a context where women could get out into the world to begin a conversation with themselves and discover what a miracle they are. Do you realize that every second, over 40 million tons of the sun burns itself up so there can be light in the sky, life on earth, and so that you and I can have this conversation? So we’ve got this tiny little ball called earth and this giant ball of fire that is one million times larger than our planet. And, the earth keeps rotating while it revolves around the sun. Ladies and gentlemen, our language is flawed. When the ball of fire comes up in the morning, we still refer to it as a sunrise. Isn’t that funny? We say we’re going to go and watch the sunset, but the sun is not actually setting. We’re the ones moving on our little planet. If people made it a priority to get out for 33 minutes once or twice a week, it would shift so many things for them.

“I wear Love Buttons all the time. Love is one of the most important things to me because love saved my life. I’m talking about a specific kind of love, and being gentle with oneself in a way that registers in the consciousness.” LOVE & LETTING GO

It’s allowed. The first “L” stands for Loving. I wear Love Buttons all the time. Love is one of the most important things to me because love saved my life. However, I’m talking about a specific kind of love. I’m not talking about going to Tahiti for ten days. I’m talking about being gentle with oneself in a way that registers in the consciousness. It’s a

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I have asked patients if they even realized that the molecule at the very back of the eyes, retinol, is half of the beta-carotene they see in carrots. That’s why they say carrots are good for our eyesight. When we look at the molecule of beta-carotene, it’s literally on half of the retinol in the back of the eyes. It’s a total mystery. Isn’t that amazing? So when they create this context, they get excited. They realize what a miracle they are. They’re part of this cosmic conversation, this ontological experience called life. It’s allowed. It’s so easy to write a prescription for methotrexate. Don’t get me wrong. I have a prescription pad, and when it's needed, I use it. However, it requires a different kind of conversation to pay attention to the consciousness that precedes a physiological disturbance. WHOLENESS AS HEALING

It’s allowed. The “W” is one of my favorites because it stands for Wholeness. It stands for the "we." I remember when I was in medical school, one of my anatomy partners told me that when she went to college, her grandmother took every

“We wanted to create a context where women could get out into the world to begin a conversation with themselves and discover what a miracle they are.”

HIGHER PRIORITIES

It’s allowed. “E” is for the Enjoyment factor. We asked patients what they enjoyed doing. Most of the time, it didn’t matter whether it was dancing, hiking or something else. Whatever it was, they hadn’t done it in years. When they started walking, biking, getting a pet or doing anything they loved on a daily basis, it was amazing what it did for them and their bodies. It’s allowed. Last but not least, the “D” stands for Divinity. We invited patients to find a place or thing they could connect with on a higher level. We look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are unseen. However, the things that are seen are temporal, and the things that are unseen are eternal. Our worldly belongings and even our bodies are temporal objects. So we introduced them to and helped them engage with these essential qualities that impact life, and yet can’t be seen, such as integrity. We

defined what integrity is for us and what it means to have wholeness within what we say. We defined what it means to be authentic, honest, and truthful. These are qualities you can’t get at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. You can’t read it in any book. I don’t care if the book is endorsed by Oprah. You can’t go to a self-improvement seminar and load up on a whole lot of authenticity. It won’t do you any good because it needs to be cultivated.

SPEECHES & APPEARANCES

piece of clothing she had worn since she was born and sewed them into a quilt for her. Just the thought of that brought tears to my eyes. Can you see that? Can you see that at one point there was a remedy that could bring people together? This student and her grandmother would quilt together. During the process, they would talk and share. They would process their emotions of the day, including their hurt feelings and disturbances. It was as if they were digesting the experiences that were occurring for them. While they created a physical quilt, they would use the fragments of their emotions to knit together a blanket that would bring so much warmth to the whole family. Unfortunately, we've lost this kind of fellowship today, but each one of us is the gateway to a new possibility.

HONORING THE SELF

It’s allowed. What I’m sharing with you is women came into my office who were dealing with some of the most horrific physiological experiences. One of the most important things we did was to create a context for them at the end of which they got filled up. I remember when I was a chemistry professor, one of my favorite experiments was to stand in front of the students with two pairs of tongs, a paper cup in each one. I’d hold the two cups over separate Bunsen burners. While one cup was empty, the other was half-filled with water. The empty cup always caught fire quickly and was consumed in a flash. The other cup didn’t burn at all, and as long as I kept filling it up to replace the water that had evaporated, it would never burn even though it was made of paper. It’s my intention to invite all who need healing regardless of their disease to come together to find out how they can fill themselves up in a way that cultivates a deeper level of self-honoring. When we get filled up, we can take a stand for others and doing so will be a different experience for everyone. My invitation for anyone who needs healing is to examine what it will take to fill themselves up and to move forward in life from that place of fullness because It’s allowed. M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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Belated Blessing How loss works for the greater good By Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami

was doing some online research recently and came across a story that I wanted to share with you because it had a profound effect on me. So often it’s hard to find a reason for why bad things happen. In a world that’s created by consciousness, I believe everything has a reason for being or occurring, even if we’re never made aware of its purpose. Life doesn’t need our acknowledgment to carry on its business. Still, I was impressed by this story because it reminded me of the perfect way in which life conducts its economy of scale. Nothing that comes into existence from the tiniest microbe to the largest planet or anything that happens from the most joyous experience to the saddest is ever wasted. No matter how painful an experience might be, it always serves the greater good, even when we don’t see it right away. In May of 2006, Brandon Day and Gina Allen of Dallas were in Southern California for a business conference. During a leisurely hike in the San Jacinto Mountains, the pair got lost after they strayed off a trail to explore a

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remote part of the wilderness. Initially, they weren’t worried because they could still hear voices from other hikers in the distance. They were certain they’d find their way back to the trail once they crested the next ridge—except they didn’t, and by that time, the distant voices they’d heard earlier had faded from the air. They’d only planned on a brief hike, so both wore light jackets with shorts and tennis shoes, and neither brought food, spare clothing or even their cell phones. The first night was spent in a cave created by a cluster of huge boulders where freezing temperatures and their own hunger pangs made it virtually impossible to sleep. The next day they struggled over the rocky, unforgiving terrain attempting to follow a stream downhill, only to find absolutely no signs of life. They spent their second night near a covering of brush, huddling together to keep from being awakened by their own shivering. By the third day, the elements were breaking them down, and Gina was feeling particularly weak. Even so, they prayed

“Everything has a reason for being or occurring, even if we’re never made aware of its purpose. Life doesn’t need our acknowledgment to carry on its business.”

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a lot and continued to repeat the same mantra they’d created the night they became lost, “We’re going to get out of here. We’re not going to die. It’s not our time.” Eventually, they stumbled upon a campsite inside a dead-end gorge. They were ecstatic that someone would finally be able to help them find their way back. Entering the site, they found a sleeping mat, backpack, tennis shoes, spoon, disposable razor and a poncho hung in the brush to create shade. Almost at the same time it hit them; something was wrong. Most of the items were wet. A flashlight and radio wouldn’t work because the batteries were corroded. The camp was deserted. They were devastated. They found identification at the scene that showed the camp had belonged to John Donovan, a 60-year-old retired social worker from Virginia. They would later learn that Donovan had been following the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail from Southern California to Canada when he vanished the previous year. The pair also found his impromptu journal, scrawled on the pages of a sketch pad and the backs of various maps. They

were the desperate admissions of a man who knew he would never be found and was preparing for his own death. In an odd twist, Donovan’s last journal entry was exactly one year to the day that Brandon and Gina stumbled into his camp. No one had ever found Donovan, and now it seemed certain that they would meet their deaths there, too. Frantically searching for anything that could help them, Brandon found a sweater for Gina in the backpack, dry socks for himself and a box of matches. They lit a small fire, but a passing helicopter never saw them. The next day, Brandon knew it would likely be their last and that he had to do something drastic. He found a huge culvert full of dead brush, stuck a match and set it all on fire. Very quickly, nearly two acres were ablaze. Helicopter crews were alerted and rescued Brandon and Gina at the scene. Recovering in the hospital in Palm Desert, they wanted Donovan’s family to know that his death was not in vain but had a very noble purpose, to save their lives. “With tragedy comes rebirth,” Brandon said. “We have a special thanks for that person.” M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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LOVE POWER OF

A CHAPTER FROM “THE BOOK OF CREATIVITY”

By Freydoon Rassouli

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When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. KHALIL GIBRAN

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ove is the intoxicating and bewildering energy that opens the flow of creativity. It leads us into a deeper experience, away from the weariness of the mundane life, toward the freedom and wholeness of expressing our creative nature. The feeling of love is the power that arises from our deepest evolutionary roots and urges us to create, to generate new life, to regenerate our species. This joyful feeling is the fountain of strength and creativity that is released when we are free from judgment and allow our limits to expand. Love is a mysterious ecstatic feeling that activates the inner life of an artist to create works that are uninhibited and freely and skillfully expressed. It is the energy that draws a person into the deeper and more sacred areas of the psyche. When people tell me they love a certain work of mine, it brings me confidence, but when I love what I am doing, it makes me fearless. Writing, painting, composing, observing and playing, all require daring submission to the process of being swept into this ecstatic energy, toward a transformation of the self, in a similar way to what happens when we fall in love with someone. Creativity comes in naming our own icon, in envisioning our own creative inspiration to make

our own journey to awakening! This is the beauty of dreaming and the process of giving birth to it in some form in our own life. When the power of love is directing the creative process, there is no need for enhancing or beautifying what is being created. The ability to create, which could take years of experience to achieve, can be expressed in one moment through the power of love. The thousands of skilled brush strokes of an artist cannot show what a single stroke led by love can express. Love connects the hearts together through the creative process. When we create through pure love, we make a safe place for others to dream through our hearts. We set them free to travel the valleys and peaks of transformation! If Huckleberry Finn finds his magic in the Mississippi River through Mark Twain, we dream with him as he explores the unknown. If Don Quixote fights his battles for his ideal woman, it is not ours to take away from the vision of Cervantes. If Beethoven creates a sonata inspired by his beloved, it is not our place to limit what he envisions. Works of art are created for a variety of reasons, but above all else, every creation flows from a source of joy and love. We live for the joy of being,

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The feeling of love is the power that arises from our deepest evolutionary roots and urges us to create, to generate new life, to regenerate our species.â&#x20AC;?

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Works of art are created for a variety of reasons, but above all else, every creation flows from a source of joy and love.â&#x20AC;? and out of that joy, the infinite expression of form and learning and compassionate activity evolves. When I love what I do, I know that I am expressing my love in the form of a painting. My imagination is the driving power behind it, and just like other lovers, I am not concerned about what others would say about it. The consistent mysterious factor, which keeps the power of creation moving through every obstacle, is the inherent love of creating. Whether it is a child, an artwork, a way of life, inventions, new forms of healing, sculpture, weaving, composition, playing music, singing, dancing, bringing laughter to people, there are thousands of ways we can invite and welcome others to feel joy through our creativity! Love is the truth that brings eminence and raises our consciousness from the earthly plane to higher levels. The same way the moon is prominent among the stars, lovers stand out shining among other people. It is only through love that we can experience the exalted life that

we were meant to live. As we reach that level, the ordinary life begins to seem limited and confined and contained in a much smaller world. It is somewhat like the joy of playing in unlimited free space as opposed to being contained within the boundaries of a prison cell. When we are released from confinement, we become immersed in creativity, like the sun pouring infinite rays of its radiance upon earth. A creative person does not see the self, because it has been surrendered into the energy of love. The same way that a flower blooms as it feels sunshine, a work of art flourishes through the love of its creator. When creative work is evolved through love, what is invisible to the eyes becomes visible to the heart, because love comes flowing through it. Love can flow through anything, split it open, dissolve it, melt it, and make it bloom, or make the person so powerful that he can create what he could not even envision in his dreams. One of the most powerful instances of how divine love cultivates the creative power is the

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love of Rumi for Shams and its eminent impact on his life. Rumi, who lived during the twelfth century, before meeting Shams, was a Muslim cleric and a leader and spiritual guide to a great number of Islamic scholars, and he had professorial positions in four different religious schools simultaneously. Shams was a wandering dervish, who had spent a lifetime as a mystic journeying within and beyond himself.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Love is the truth that brings eminence and raises our consciousness from the earthly plane to higher levels.â&#x20AC;?

Within the short time the two of them spent together immersed in spiritual discussions, Rumi was completely transformed from a religious leader into a poet of great madness, singing ecstatic love songs as he danced through the alleys and streets. If Rumi had not met Shams and had not developed such a powerful love for him, the world would not have had the opportunity to benefit from the creative expression of the great mystic he eventually became. Through the power of love, a man who had never written a poem in his life, became one of the most celebrated poets of all times, creating some of the greatest love sonnets ever written. He describes his encounter with Shams in such a delicate way:

The event, which is believed by some to be one of the most amazing incidents in the development and expansion of human self-awareness, was Rumi's encounter with Shams, who was destined to expand Rumi to a creative dimension far beyond what any ordinary person can reach.

In the midst of the darkness, a moon appeared with its brilliance. Stepping down from the clouds, it glanced at me. Like a skillful falcon that hunts a bird and steals it away, it captured me and flew back to infinite space. As I looked for myself, I could not find me, for my body had become all soul in the tenderness of love. The nine spheres of heaven dissolved in that moon as the ship of my existence drowned in the sea of love.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;The gift of creation offers the beauty and nurturing in every moment, an anointing of its own kind. Nature spends itself in a perpetual cycle of seasons to give us spring.â&#x20AC;? The creative process can be experienced almost like another person with whom we interact, a presence which we come to know. We begin to have conversations with our unborn creations. We can ask it questions, and it will give us intelligible answers. Like loving someone, commitment to the creative act is commitment to the unknown. It is befriending what is unknowable. It helps us understand the need for faith to reach for it. Love is much more than pleasure and joy; it is a reaching for what is unknown. Love invites the expression of art from us to see itself. We are reaching out beyond the known edges of our self to unite with the beloved, to touch, to sense, to reshape, to rejuvenate, and to create new life. Love offers itself for the sake of Love, for the edifying and ecstatic experience of transcendence. Whenever we love what we are creating, we subconsciously enhance its beauty and bring more music, poetry, and dance to it. Love lifts us from the cross of our own crucifixion, and comforts and soothes us with the sacred anointing oils, setting us free. The gift of creation offers the beauty and nurturing in every moment, an anointing of its own kind. Nature spends itself in a perpetual cycle of seasons to give us spring.

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age. SOPHIA LOREN The palace of dreams within our perception looks for the kingdom of the beloved, for the house of the beloved, in search of love. The only thing that remains is that place where we dwell with love in the soul. Everything becomes an enticement, a lure, and everything else that is blocking love is destroyed and ruined to clear the way. It is useless to run away from the challenge

of love. In the end, love is the only companion that can bring us joy. We can ask ourselves the questions. Are we the lover or the beloved? Do we really need this, or do we just want it? Is this necessary? We can live without many things, but not without love. It is not really living if we are trying to avoid the greatest of all possible experiences in this life. It is truly a grace to know that it is love that is attracting us, and it is then and only then, that we are moving in a direction toward the fullness of life. The power of love warns us, teaches us to recognize the clues of love so that we become awake and aware enough to hear only our own heart. It is the only true guidance we are given. Our heart knows us better than we know ourselves. Listen to it! What is it singing to you in the quiet moments? When the sun rises at dawn, creation is revealing its face to us. Love is like the sun that brightens our life at dawn as our beloved appears in the light. Our heart opens and takes the beloved in, and the energy of love gives a new radiance to our creations. Colors of paintings grow brighter, forms became more delicate, and brushstrokes became softer. The power of love takes over, and lover and beloved unite. Anything we create becomes the description of our love, and we feel to be united with our creation. We become the altar of creation itself. We dance because our heart is dancing. We let beauty have its way with us. One can climb mountains on a quest, cross the desert looking for the truth, seek the advice of kings and prophets, but the truth can only be found in one's own heart. It is written there through secret longings in a language that only

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lovers can hear. A dream lover can make us feel wonderful for a night but disappears when we go to work. The beloved never leaves us. The beloved goes to work with us and whispers love songs in our ear in the classes and during the lectures and in the middle of final exams.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.â&#x20AC;? FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Experiencing love and creativity working in harmony together is the ultimate goal of humankind. The union of the two becomes the nature of our belief about our Creator. As human beings, we have been created to experience our creative nature. However, there are seductive passions and goals that can ultimately limit our creative power. Only those who are freed from the goals that limit them, whose hearts are filled with love, discover the opportunity to move forward to claim the divine nature from which they came. When we create without love, our creation becomes austere and without spirit. If we don't combine our love with creative expression in some way, it will lose its flow of excitement, and then life becomes a matter of

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meeting needs and simply obtaining necessities, which can quickly extinguish the fire of love. Creativity is the thread that guides love, the song of the soul that uncovers us. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. We have heard of many artists and creative people who have faced depression in their lives. Some have even committed suicide while at the height of their success. What is missing in their lives is the elevating energy of love, which is the best antidepressant in existence. Love is as critical to our mind and body as oxygen. Without the experience of love in our life, the more likely we are to become depressed. The artists who face depression are often those who are unable to love themselves, and they do not feel loved by others. They often become very self-focused, making them even less attractive to others, depriving them of opportunities to develop the energizing power of love. One primary reason we become depressed is that we sit around passively waiting for someone to show up with the love we need, but love doesn't work that way. To experience love and to attract love, we need to already be in love. We need to be in love with life and with everything around us and be actively expressing that love in a variety of creative ways. To be free enough to express love is to always be open to receive it anywhere at any time without any conscious effort. As love begins to radiate from those who are able to do this, they will generate and receive even more love from others, which stimulates the creative juices to begin flowing inside of them. The stirring of love naturally offers an experience of joy to everyone around them. This becomes a path of developing

an understanding of the true nature of the self in relation to oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s environment, which is the deeper meaning of the idea that man is created in the image of God as expressed in scripture. The entire universe is created through a mysteriously divine substance that is infinite love, and we are already immersed in it. As a society, we have failed to help awaken others to this truth. Hopefully, we can come together to raise the awareness of this challenging invitation of love. We are descendants of the divine light. The image of the creator is always shining within us. This is the revelation from which all physical life is made, and it flows from this divine light. Like the source of all light, it carries with it the potential of this inner creative intelligence and power, and we exist on earth to make creative use of it. Recognition of this truth is what helps us develop a more inclusive love for all that has been created. Everything is made of a divine substance, and we are given the power of imagination and creativity to use it for the benefit of all creation! It is not given to us for ourselves alone. We damage it by personalizing it and using it only for our own satisfaction, especially when we use it to wield power over others simply to satisfy the ego. If we pour love into what we create, we can reflect more consciously on what we are reaching to express. Rather than focusing on what we are receiving through the process of creating, we surrender to the flow of what is being created through us, just as we surrender to a partner in expressing and sharing love. We follow the flow of love as it guides us in all relationships and our interaction with life. Of course, this is a challenging process for many people to learn, especially those who have not transcended their wants and needs to be able to consider another in the same way they do themselves. Many creative people are so focused on their process, they are not able to move beyond this self-involvement enough to be able to surrender to love to guide them. The more we can be sensitive to others and learn to respond to their needs, the more we are able to tap into the source of creativity available to every one of us. How do we awaken to the beautiful reality that what is flowing through the universe is meant for all of us, instead of limiting and narrowing our world to reach only for our own selfish concerns? This is the power of love, the energy that already exists, waiting to guide us on a journey of companionship and creative expression. This is the undiscovered power that

has yet to be recognized as an incredible gift flowing from the source of all creation. If I am witness to anything in my life, it is to be a living testament to declare the truth of the power of love that is freely given for every man, woman, child, and every form of life on earth. When we surrender to love, we let it take us where it will. We surrender into a guiding energy that instinctively knows the ways of love.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;If all the legends of the Holy Grail conceal a hidden essence of truth, it is found in the emanations of the radiant mystery of the heart.â&#x20AC;? Art is much more than the appearance of things, and the artist is much more than one who learns to copy a likeness of something else. In our highest and deepest moments of experience, we are the creators of our existence, and creation itself is attracted to the energy when we respond with love. We are called to share our stories, to create new visions, to risk the unraveling of the veils and masks we hide behind, and when we do, we give the deeper feelings within our hearts the chance to flower and grow into pure freedom to create something new. We let our hearts guide us into new ways of seeing; anointing us with a glowing light from within, for the longing within our hearts attracts love as the sacred alchemy that transforms our life experience into joy. If all the legends of the Holy Grail conceal a hidden essence of truth, it is found in the emanations of the radiant mystery of the heart.

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Healing Remedy for the Toxin of Mass Media Inaccuracies Navigating the media’s altered reality By Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami

magine for a moment that you’ve heard about a new drug on TV, and all the amazing things it’s purported to do sound too good to be true. So like a good proactive patient, you do your own homework. You conduct online research, check out social media information and reviews, maybe go to a nonprofit website like WebMD, stop by Wikipedia, and even go so far as to read the original study on the drug that was published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. Every one of your sources confirms what you originally heard on TV about the drug’s ef fectiveness. Of course, there was a small percentage of anecdotal evidence and personal comments about a possible connection to cancer, but all the experts you came

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across resoundingly dismissed this idea as a myth and those supporting it as quacks, kooks, charlatans and of course, conspiracy theorists. Perhaps you discover that your own doctor recently attended a national conference where he learned about the drug and its amazing effectiveness. Feeling satisfied with your investigation, you leave his office with some free samples and a prescription. You’ve done your due diligence with regard to your health, far more than 99% of most patients, and feel confident that you’ve made the best, most educated health decision for yourself. Or have you? What if all the non-stop media information swirling around you on a 24/7 cycle was false, nothing but a carefully

constructed and managed façade designed to manipulate your perception and ultimately, the choices you make based on those engineered ideas? Does this sound like dystopian science fiction? Look a little closer, and you’ll see we’re all living very much in an altered reality when it comes to accessing accurate information on almost anything.

“The Washington Post’s story about ‘fake news’ relied on fake news and turned out to be fake news itself, designed to silence people who ask questions.”

PREDETERMINED PERCEPTION

Here’s an example. There has been an effort in the last several years to get the Washington Redskins football team to change their name because some people find it offensive. Without taking a position on the subject, if you look at the newspaper, online and TV coverage of this issue, the immediate impression is that the vast majority of Americans don’t approve of the team’s name and think they should change it. In reality 71% of Americans, more than two thirds, don’t have a problem with the name and don’t want to see it changed.1

Astroturf experts seek to isolate, ostracize and create phony controversy around those who disagree with them. Ask the wrong questions and they turn you into a social pariah, trashing you to your friends and business associates, burying you in ad hominem personal attacks with lots of moral indignation, but no factual evidence. Personal attacks like these are used to incite fear in the hearts of people afraid of being labeled Anti—[fill-in-the-blank] and bring them back in line with the false consensus the Astroturfers have manufactured. The idea is to make the person the focus of the controversy through lots of false attacks on their character for even asking such questions in an attempt to divert attention away from the actual facts of the issue. These kinds of attacks happen daily on corporate whistleblowers, politicians brave enough to go against the grain, alternative healthcare providers, private citizens, and independent journalists (mostly online) who report on the whole scheme and defend those caught in its web.

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The truth is, special interests have unlimited amounts of time and resources to discover new ways of manipulating how we see things, all while remaining invisible in the process. One of the most effective ways they do this is through a practice called Astroturfing. For those who don’t know, Astroturf is a type of synthetic groundcover often used on athletic fields instead of real grass to reduce maintenance. Astroturfing in the media happens when representatives of political, corporate or other special interest groups disguise themselves as regular people and go online to publish blogs, Facebook posts, Twitter accounts, reviews, letters to the editor or pay armies of people to post loads of comments below articles and videos to give the false impression that a grassroots movement is leading the majority of people to feel a particular way on a certain issue—to make you mistakenly believe that attitudes about something are overwhelmingly trending in a specific direction. This is to pretend that there is widespread public support either for or against something, when there isn’t. The goal is to get you to change your mind about something, not because you’ve learned new, factual information, but by making you feel like an outsider when in reality, you’re not.

“If anyone was ever given the power to determine what was and wasn’t ‘fake news’ and be the gatekeeper of information for all people, you probably wouldn’t be reading this right now.”

FAKE NEWS FALLOUT

Only two months ago, The Washington Post published an article claiming 200 websites on a third-party list it obtained were fronts for Russian propaganda that threatened American interests and called for a crackdown on this “fake news”, as it was called. After lawyers from several of the listed websites threatened the newspaper with a

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defamation lawsuit, The Washington Post printed a retraction admitting that the list was sourced from a mysterious group called PropOrNot that tellingly “insists on public anonymity” and that the newspaper could in no way “vouch for the validity” of any accusation against any of the websites.2 In the end, The Washington Post’s story about “fake news” relied on fake news and turned out to be fake news itself, designed to silence people who ask questions. On the other end of the information spectrum, most people aren’t aware, but the U.S. government quietly voted in 2013 to remove a provision from the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 that formerly prohibited it from using media propaganda to shape public opinion.3 True free speech is open to all forms of expression, and it is left up to the individual as to what he will take or leave of it. Many powerful special interests continue to try to classify alternative and integrative health information as “fake news” to shut it down. The usual excuse is that there isn’t enough research on certain healing treatments, so they’re “unproven”, “unsafe” and therefore quackery. The truth is that 99% of all medical research funding comes from grants provided by pharmaceutical companies that are not about to pay for studies of holistic treatments that would undermine their products and profits. If anyone was ever given the power to determine what was and wasn’t “fake news” and be the gatekeeper of information for all people, you probably wouldn’t be reading this right now.

“Wikipedia is mass media and should not be trusted for accuracy or objectivity, especially when it comes to matters of science and history.” ATTACKING WITH OVERWHELM

Another popular tactic of the Astroturfers is to intentionally throw so much conflicting information into the media, that it makes people’s heads spin as they throw up their arms and disregard it all, including the truth. This is used extensively when it comes to healthcare information, leaving people with no clear sense of how to make tough choices or what plan of care to choose for themselves or loved ones. Special interests regularly throw enough so-called expert opinions, conflicting studies (that they paid for themselves) and contradictory surveys into the media that it obscures our ability to get to the truth or to know what really works or is safe. This method is heavily employed to blur the link between drugs and harmful side effects, such as

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with vaccines and autism. DECEPTION & DEAL-MAKING

If there’s a one-stop-shop for being misled by Astroturfers, it’s Wikipedia, the alleged online encyclopedia. The message Wikipedia sells is that it’s the public’s free encyclopedia and that anyone can go on the site and write new entries or edit current ones to keep everything up to date as times change. In reality, Wikipedia is full of anonymous editors who control and co-opt thousands of pages on behalf special interests. Just try going on the site as a guest editor to correct inaccuracies or add a footnote and see how long your changes last. In most cases, edits that conflict with the intended message of the special interests are changed back within minutes. Information is regularly altered or entirely deleted with impunity in violation of Wikipedia’s own policy. This shouldn’t be surprising when we consider in 2012 Wikipedia was caught in a scandal paying a public relations firm to skew and edit entries on behalf of publicity seeking clients. 4 Clearly, accuracy is negotiable at Wikipedia. This is underscored by the fact that when a medical study examined a broad selection of medical conditions as described in entries on the site and compared that information to peer reviewed medical research, Wikipedia information contradicted the actual medical research 90% of the time.5 Wikipedia is mass media and should not be trusted for accuracy or objectivity, especially when it comes to matters of science and history. In fact, some college professors are finally catching on and refusing to accept Wikipedia as a research citation or resource for any projects from their students. It’s sad to say in the 21st century, but you’d be better off with a 32-volume hard copy set of encyclopedia Britannica, but they don’t publish physical editions anymore.

TRUTH FOR SALE

So let’s get back to that new medication you were researching and felt confident you’d done all your homework. As it turns out, the Facebook posts, Twitter accounts and glowing reviews on message boards were all written by paid professionals hired by the drug company. In fact, the Wikipedia monitor for the product’s page on that site is also on the payroll, but it doesn’t end there. Corporations and political special interest groups continue to pay Google to alter search engine results to ensure that only their manufactured positive reviews, self-funded research and news coverage that agrees with their point of view fills the first several pages of the returned results, while any websites or articles that raise questions or are seen as opposing the official narrative are buried on page eight or nine, or even further back, if they’re listed at all,—results that you’ll

likely never see. So, it was no coincidence that in your initial internet search about the new drug, you were inundated by positive articles that severely minimized or even neglected to mention serious side effects, published by a nonprofit organization that was secretly founded and paid for by the drug company. In most cases, the doctors that aggressively push such drugs, downplay serious side effects and call critics quacks or conspiracy theorists or serve on advisory boards that approve drugs, are nearly always paid consultants of t he p h a r m a ce u t ic a l corporation. Oh, and that conference that your doctor attended that praised the drug to the heavens was sponsored by the drug company, too. In a not-so-unique example of these incestuous conflicts of interest, former CBS news reporter, Sheryl Attkisson, was given a press release from

the National Sleep Foundation that declared there was an “epidemic of sleeplessness” across the country and that Americans should “ask their doctor about it”. How many times do we hear that on TV every night? Attkisson became suspicious because she knew that “ask your doctor” was a catchphrase used by the pharmaceutical corporations. They know that if they can get people into their doctors’ offices talking about a real or imagined malady, that they’ll likely leave with a prescription in hand. Attkisson’s research soon revealed that the organization’s press release wasn’t based on any research, but a public survey, which was sponsored in part by the sleep medication, Lunesta. It was only because of Attkisson’s investigative work that the conflict of interest was included as part of the story when it aired on CBS. None of the other networks even mentioned it. They simply read directly from the press release. Eventually, Attkisson would leave CBS and network news altogether because of the media illusion that’s intentionally created for public consumption and the frustration, resistance and consequences that come with attempting accurate reporting.

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L .I.G . H .T. A RTICLES

“In most cases, the doctors that aggressively push such drugs, downplay serious side effects and call critics quacks or conspiracy theorists or serve on advisory boards that approve drugs, are nearly always paid consultants of the pharmaceutical corporation.”

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FACT VS. FICTION So what can you do to separate fact from fiction online, in print and through the airwaves? Here are a few important tips:

Inflammatory Language Astroturfers use inflammatory language very often, along with personal attacks and name calling to divert your attention away from the fact that they have no evidence to support their claims. The minute a person calls someone else a name, you know the argument is over because they have nothing else to offer. Be aware of the indiscriminate usage of names like quack, kook, charlatan, fascist, racist or conspiracy theorist to try to get you to label someone, shut your mind down and stop listening to what they have to say. Just a word about the term conspiracy theory. The media would have you believe that conspiracies are extremely rare occurrences and people that even suspect one might be happening are crazy and should take off their “tin foil hats”. The fact is anyone who doesn’t believe in the reality or frequency of conspiracies doesn’t believe crime exists. Why? Because virtually 98% of all crime involves some level of conspiracy, which is nothing more than two or more people coming together to plan and/or carry out an illegal act. That’s it. There’s no mystery here. If two people agree to rob a bank and get caught, they’re guilty of conspiracy to commit armed robbery. If a woman hires a hitman to kill her husband for the insurance money, she and her accomplice are guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and fraud. Clearly, collusion to mislead the public through the media and maximize drug profits or engineer public behavior or opinion by the highest levels of business and government can’t possibly happen without a great deal of illegal planning and secretive cooperation, which is a conspiracy by its very nature. Conspiracies happen every day on a large and small scale. Now who’s wearing the tin foil hat?

Debunking Myths Astroturfers are always claiming to have “debunked” so-called myths that oppose their narrative to keep you away from the truth. The idea that what they don’t want you to know is a myth, is the myth itself.

Diverting Attention Attempts are always made to attack people and organizations surrounding an issue, rather than the issue itself. Pretending to be morally outraged at the very posing of a question with no attempt to actually answer it is a big red flag. Astroturfers reserve all their skepticism for the people exposing the wrongdoing rather than the wrongdoers themselves. They never question authority, but constantly question the credibility of those who do. This information is provided to you so that you can be more conscious when consuming any amount of public information, especially where it regards your health or the health of your family. With a greater level of discernment, you’ll be able to think for yourself, make the right choices and better navigate our political/corporate sponsored altered reality.

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Sources (1) Clement, Scott, (Sept. 2, 2014), “New poll says large majority of Americans believe Redskins should not change name”, The Washington Post. (Link: https://wapo.st/2KjGev7) (2) Durden, Tyler, (Dec. 8, 2016), “Washington Post Appends ‘Russian Propaganda Fake News’ Story, Admits It May Be Fake”, ZeroHedge. (Link: http://bit.ly/2OG4I4v) (3) Kelley, Michael, (July 16, 2013), “US Government-Funded Propaganda Has Officially Hit the Airwaves”, SFGate. (Link: http://bit.ly/2Gbwy3n) (4) Goldman, Eric, (Oct 5, 2012), “ Wikipedia’s ‘Pay-for-Play ’ Scandal Highlights Wikipedia’s Vulnerabilities”, Forbes. (Link: http://bit.ly/2vefQxA) (5) Keymey, Dan, (May 27, 2014), “Don’t Trust Wikipedia When It Comes to Your Health, Study Says”, TIME. (Link: https://ti.me/2KXSVN2) (6) This message was based on a TEDx presentation by former CBS reporter, Sheryl Attkisson, TEDx. (Link: http://bit.ly/2Gdf1Yq)

Fine Tune Your Mental Focus

HEALING PROZEDGE

We all have busy schedules and often find ourselves pulled in multiple directions with the obligations of work and family. As our attention gets fragmented and stress rises, we lose our edge. We start to forget little details and don’t follow through on certain things, as our overall performance starts to wane under the weight of it all. Slowing down is always the best medicine, but sometimes that’s not an option. For those situations, Be Hive of Healing has developed Prozedge, a proprietary blend of herbs, vitamins and minerals to help you sustain peak performance and maintain your mental edge, while reducing your stress level. Prozedge contains a synergistic blend of all natural ingredients formulated to provide comprehensive support for the nervous system and cognitive function that includes: DMAE Bitartrate, Rhodiola rosea root extract, Ginkgo biloba leaf extract, eleutherococcus senticosus root extract, passiflora incarnata (Passionflower), Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, folate, Vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamin) and Pantothenic Acid (as d calcium pantothenate). Prozedge is a great choice for keeping yourself at the top of your game if you know you’ve got a hectic schedule coming up, or even as a daily mental primer.

BEHIVEOFLIFE.COM/PROZEDGE

SEVEN STEPS TO MAKING YOUR LIFE

A WORK OF ART By Heathere Evans

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n the hustle of everyday life it’s easy to forget that each one of us is actually operating in two worlds. Most adults were raised to focus only on the world of doing: goals, lists, milestones, schedules, business, busyness and “what’s next.” But this approach only takes into account half of who we are, leading to a constricted life resulting in chronic stress, frustration, dysfunctional independence, overwhelm, and anxiety. Another, deeper aspect of who we are exists in the world of being, full of things that make our heart sing, connect us to our compassion, ignite our creativity, evoke laughter, and make us feel alive! When we ignore this essential part of who we are, our spirit is dampened and we feel off-kilter, disconnected. Our lives lose their meaning and we start wondering about the purpose of our work, relationships and the things that fill our days. TAPPING OUR WHOLE SELVES

The need to see and express the fullness of who we are as body and soul became so clear to me while having a conversation with a revolutionary entrepreneur who teaches wholeness to young girls, boys and adults. Her business, disguised as a sewing studio in the South Bay, actually serves a higher calling.

CONTRIBUTIONS

“Through one lens they were sewing pillows, purses, skirts, tops and stuffed animals. But seen a different way, they were actually being encouraged to access and cultivate qualities like courage, gratitude and intention.”

Based in Redondo Beach, California, Joyce Zappellini has taught hundreds to sew through day courses and camps for girls and boys, as well as evening classes for adults, since Sew Creative Café was founded in 1989. I first met Joyce five years ago when my two daughters, Caitlynn (then 12) and Jacquelyn (then 7), expressed an interest in sewing and I found her lovely shop. Walking in, there are bright, colorful fabrics, threads, and a row of sewing machines with samples of handmade treasures covering the walls. As my daughters worked with Joyce to hand-pick swaths of fabric and work on a variety of projects over the year, something interesting happened. Through one lens they were sewing pillows, purses, skirts, tops and stuffed animals. But seen a different way, they were actually being encouraged to access and cultivate qualities like courage, gratitude and intention. The physical action of sewing was creating a deeper connection to their spirit, and the self-esteem and self-confidence that resulted were palatable. “When we think we are just humans, slugging through our days without seeing our wholeness, we feel cut off, stifled and disempowered,” explained Joyce. “I know how much pressure there is on kids these days with academics and sports. My classes satisfy the creative part of the soul where everyone can express freely in a safe environment without the pressure.” BRINGING SPIRITUAL ESSENCE INTO PHYSICAL FORM

With each stitch, Joyce was seeing the students’ whole selves and encouraging them to cultivate it by bringing out their own authentic expression from within. Each project, therefore, becomes a physical representation of that wholeness, an expression of both body and soul, to behold and appreciate. In my work as a coach, I often use inquiry with teams and individuals for self-discovery and exploration. As I spoke with Joyce, I wondered what would happen if more often we chose to see one another’s wholeness in our professional and personal relationships. M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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MAKING YOUR LIFE A WORK OF ART Here are seven soul qualities from Joyce’s creative approach to consider for your own life: BUILDING COUR AGE:

A woman in her late 20s, Claire first came to Joyce’s studio as a little girl. “She’s so intelligent,” said Joyce. “She also has trouble being related to by others and has a strained relationship with her mother, who is very hard on her.” Out in the world Claire is often afraid of making mistakes. She’s worried she won’t be accepted, will be criticized and harshly judged. As a result, Claire is unlikely to take risks or think creatively for fear of being rejected. Joyce’s class offers a different environment. Claire is able to try something new, make mistakes and learn how to fix them. She relishes this experience so much, she named Joyce’s class “courage class.” Joyce beamed when she told me, so delighted that Claire is learning and developing new skills. Coaching Inquiry: How do you make others feel safe to express themselves? Do you allow yourself to build resilience through your own mistakes? CULTIVATING GRATITUDE:

Joyce’s store was abuzz with conversation and a cranberry scented candle burned on the front desk. A smile sprung to life on my 12-year-old’s face and then expanded like one of those fireworks on the 4th of July. She was nearly bursting out of her skin with excitement. “I know exactly what I’m getting everyone for the holidays! I’m going to make each person something special, a sewing project just from me!” Coaching Inquiry: Do you allow your expressions of gratitude to bring YOU a ton of joy? Where in your life do you give from a place of obligation or sacrifice? When do you notice you’re coming from authenticity instead? EXPERIENCING FREEDOM: Creating a place in the world like Joyce’s studio that doesn’t dictate a certain way we have to be, allows us to open our minds. From that place, we can think new thoughts and listen deeply to the wisdom within.

Coaching Inquiry: Try this sentence completion exercise. “One way I could allow myself to be more open is___.” Then try , “One way I could allow myself to be even more open is___.” NURTURING CURIOSITY:

A petite little girl from India came into Joyce’s studio one day with a crude red line drawn down her arm. She shared with Joyce that her mom had freaked out when she saw it, yelling at her because it looked like a deep wound. Joyce’s approach was to stay neutral, be non-judgmental and ask questions so she could hear what was really going on. She asked if the girl had meant to make the mark look like a cut. “No,” the little girl replied. “I was just so bored in class.” When we let our knee-jerk reactions run the show, we often miss out on the learning and the deeper truth of what is really happening. Coaching Inquiry: Where are your snap judgements or reactions getting in the way? ENCOURAGING GROWTH: When we let our lives and our work get routine, we can feel underutilized

and stagnant. The joy of being a part of creation—whether it’s sewing a quilt, starting a new job, building a company, or trying a new recipe in the kitchen—is a part of who we are at our core. A sense of growth, expansion or contribution to something bigger than ourselves helps us feel on-purpose. Coaching Inquiry: How are you allowing yourself and others to contribute and connect to a sense of value in what they do each day?

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FOSTERING LEARNING:

“I like to teach my students to think” explained Joyce. “When students ask me how to do something, I don’t rush right in. I let them think about it for a minute. I might ask, ‘Well, what’s your next step?’ They light up when they’ve figured it out!” Joyce loves watching them develop their ability to think and be more self-reliant! Coaching Inquiry: Where are you rushing in to problem-solve for others and cutting them off from their own learning opportunity? HONORING SELF & OTHERS:

When we allow the entirety of who we are to be expressed, we are our best selves. Joyce’s real magic is that she sees the essential nature of her students, as whole, complete and capable, just as they are. She simply appreciates them. There are many ways we can do this for ourselves, in our work environments, with our children and in our relationships. “Sewing is meditative. When you’re in the zone you don’t think about anything else, you just enjoy being creative. It is peaceful, non-competitive, calming and fun,” said Joyce. “When sewing with others it builds camaraderie, friendship and a community.” CONTRIBUTIONS

Coaching Inquiry: Give this meditation two minutes of your day today. What would it be like if I saw everyone as whole and complete, doing the best that they can in this moment? A FUTURE TO BEHOLD

These seven qualities reveal just a small piece of the fabric that makes up the grand tapestry of who we are—souls with bodies. Activating soul-centered qualities in ourselves and others, and bringing them more fully into view, allows us to feel more integrated. Our work, therefore, becomes a physical representation of that wholeness. From that place, we begin to live life to its fullest, creating a masterpiece to behold and appreciate.

“My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue, an everlasting vision of the ever changing view.” - CAROLE KING

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Heathere Evans is a professional coach, mentor and business consultant. She teaches emotional intelligence to organizations and individuals for healthier communications and more successful work environments. She can be reached at www.pivotincorporated.com.

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MANEUVERING THE

MIDLIFE CRISIS MAKING THE MOST OF MIDDLE AGE By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

o you’re cruising through life, and everything seems to be going well. The career is great, the family is good, and then one day you get the distinct feeling that everything and nothing in your life is wrong, all at the same time. You can’t quite name the feeling, but it’s a kind of discontent that throws you off your game, leaving you unfocused and unsure about your future. Of course, you feel guilty about having these feelings because you should be grateful that life is as good as it is right now, and you are. It’s just that you can’t shake the restlessness that’s telling you something is off; something's missing. BEYOND THE CLICHÉ

C ON T I N U E D. . .

M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

CONSCIOUS LIFESTYLE

In 1965, Canadian psychologist, Elliott Jacques, started seeing a lot of men in their 50’s expressing fears of aging. Many were concerned that they’d missed their true calling in life, while others regretted never accomplishing the goals they’d set for themselves when they were younger. It was very common for the men to pine over lost relationships from their youth, and nearly all of them were convinced it was too late to fix any of it. It was these kinds of feelings happening in middle age that Elliot Jacques first defined as midlife crisis.

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Unfortunately, the media took hold of this information and with the help of Hollywood quickly turned it into a joke and a cliché. When most people hear the term midlife crisis, it’s almost impossible to fight off the mental image of an older man driving around in a red sports car with a woman who’s 30 years younger than he is. How many people roll their eyes at the mention of a man having a real midlife crisis with the dismissive comment: “He’s just trying to recapture his youth”? How many women blame the breakdown of their marriage on their husband’s so-called midlife crisis rather than taking an honest look at the shared responsibility of their situation? The truth is both men and women can have a midlife crisis. The fact that the term was coined from a sample of men makes no difference, and trivializing this difficult experience doesn't help men or women get through it. Some of the misconceptions about the midlife crisis come from the term itself. The word crisis implies that there’s a big emergency happening right now with lots of drama. In fact, the opposite is true. The symptoms of a midlife crisis usually creep up on us so gradually that most of us don’t even notice them until we wake up one day and our lives seem sort of gray. It might be more accurate to call it a midlife malaise than a crisis. Although there are lots of factors that create different experiences for each person, the main issues include: • A general unhappiness with a life that used to satisfy you • Unexplained feelings of lethargy, boredom or depression, a lack of motivation to pursue your goals, your fire is gone • Difficulty making decisions about your direction in life • Lots of reminiscing about the good old days, checking up on long lost friends and old boyfriends or girlfriends on social media • Questioning past decisions • An obsession with youthfulness or exercise • Constantly comparing yourself to your friends • Thoughts of death and dying The word crisis comes from the Greek krisis which means judgment or decision and is further derived from krinein which means to separate, to decide. At some point in midlife, our 40’s through 60’s,

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most of us will be called upon to make certain decisions about the purpose and direction of our lives that will separate the second half from the first half in distinct ways. CONTENTMENT, NOT CRISIS

It’s estimated that 10-12% of men experience a classic midlife crisis,1 although these numbers likely account for men with heightened symptoms, who are also likely seeing a therapist. Considering how subtle and universal the symptoms can be. I’m inclined to believe the average is higher, and it isn’t traditionally just a man’s problem. A study from Cornell University showed 34% of men and 36% of women reported a difficult midlife transition.2 How many of us have gotten up to go to work one morning after being in the same career for 25 years and asked ourselves, “Is this it? Is this all there is to life?” You don’t have to be seeing a therapist to be struggling with personal fulfillment issues and the direction your life has taken. The key to navigating through a midlife crisis is to understand what it really is - a search for more meaning and purpose in your life. It’s not a single event, but a time of transition and growth. Now that you’re established in your career and the kids are grown and maybe out of the house, your discontent is calling you back into dreams you’ve not yet lived. The focus of your life is shifting from taking care of others to feeding your soul and awakening creative desires you put on hold while you secured a home and raised a family. Those pangs of restlessness are actually pulling you back into alignment with who you really are. This is a time of creating true contentment, not crisis. MIDLIFE MISTAKES

We navigate many crises throughout our lives. We’re regularly having experiences that separate us from our old life and set us off in a new direction with new decisions to be made. Some of these include getting married, having a baby, divorce, illness, the death of a parent or spouse, losing a job, changing careers, or retirement. In many cases such as these, life unexpectedly pushes us onto a new path with things like the “oops” baby or getting downsized from a job. The midlife crisis is unique because for the first time we consciously realize that we have the power to redirect our lives and reinvent ourselves with more freedom and possibilities than we enjoyed in our younger years. When that light bulb goes on, and the yearning for something more begins, we can make some big mistakes if we don't understand what a midlife crisis is and how to handle it properly.

“The symptoms of a midlife crisis usually creep up on us so gradually that most of us don’t even notice them until we wake up one day and our lives seem sort of gray. It might be more accurate to call it a midlife malaise than a crisis.”

The second mistake is made by people who know they need to change their lives but do nothing to make that happen. They’re completely immobilized like a deer in headlights because they don’t know what to do or how to do it. Part of what scares us about midlife is realizing we have the freedom to choose our own path. That freedom can be overwhelming, causing us to not choose anything. It reminds me of a famous news report back in the 1980s about a group of people who escaped the Soviet Union and claimed asylum in the U.S. The bigger story came when the people decided to go back to their communist country because they were entirely overwhelmed with the freedoms in the U.S. They couldn’t make choices and direct their own lives on a daily basis, so they returned to where someone else would do it for them. The third mistake people tend to make in a midlife crisis is to hit the eject button and immediately exit their current lives. They quit everything including their jobs, friends and

sometimes their marriages. With no forethought or pre-planning, these people often struggle for years to put their personal, professional, and financial lives back together again. FINDING YOUR NEW DIRECTION

CONSCIOUS LIFESTYLE

The first pitfall is to misinterpret the need for more meaning in life with a need for more pleasure. These are the red sports car Lotharios who date women half their age that turn into the midlife crisis cliché. They use lots and lots of pleasure to temporarily mask their discontent, usually ending up feeling just as empty and directionless as when they started.

Once you understand that your midlife crisis is a good thing and that it is guiding you into a more fulfilling life, you can take the necessary steps to begin finding that new path. Explore old hobbies and passions. See how they might be incorporated back into your life or how you might make a new career out of them. After living a certain routine for 20 or 30 years, some people think they have no passions anymore. A good way to begin finding a new passionate direction is to ask people close to you what activities and situations they’ve seen you engage in where you seem most alive. When they tell you, trust them and explore more of those things. Lots of people work for companies that have mission statements. Every decision by the company is made to support that purpose. To move your life in a new direction, it can be helpful to make your own mission statement. When you do this, decision-making becomes easier because you can ask yourself whether a certain choice moves you closer to or further away from your mission. A good mission statement should include what values you want to operate by, what it is M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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that you’ve chosen to do and why you’re doing it. For example, maybe you’ve cracked people up in the office for years and now feel like you could start to incorporate your secret passion for standup comedy into your life. Your new mission statement might sound something like this: With candor and honesty, I use humor and storytelling to reveal the truth and inspire others to make a better world by changing the way they think and live. RECONCILING REGRET

Middle age is traditionally a time to reassess life, and everyone wants their life to have meaning. We’ve spent the last two to three decades establishing our careers, starting families and working toward realizing all those dreams we laid out for ourselves back in our 20’s. Whether we’ve accomplished those things in whole, in part or not at all usually determines how much meaning we give our lives. At the same time, we’re getting a real sense of our mortality. We see ourselves physically aging; time feels like it's flying by, and suddenly we realize how short life is. Taking stock of the past is an important step in reinventing ourselves, but it also exposes us to the single biggest obstacle to making the second half of life a success—regret. Midlife can sometimes feel like climbing the ladder to your dreams only to realize once you get to the top, you leaned it against the wrong building. Suddenly, the life you’re living looks nothing like the life you planned. All sorts of regrets can run through your mind. I wish I’d gone

“The key to navigating through a midlife crisis is to understand what it really is - a search for more meaning and purpose in your life.”

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to college. Why didn’t I start my own business when I had the chance? If only I’d pursued my passion as my career. I wish I’d worked harder to save my marriage. I let the love of my life slip away. The purpose of life isn’t to have no regrets. Be thankful you can experience regret, otherwise, you'd be a sociopath. The purpose of life is to learn, mostly from our mistakes, and start again with that information in a more intelligent way. So, in reality, we could say there are no real mistakes, just more information. Thomas Edison famously said that he didn’t build 1,000 failed inventions on his way to creating the light bulb, but that the process of creating the light bulb had 1,000 steps. Embracing the F-word, failure, helps us recognize our mistakes as gifts and use them to move forward into success without beating ourselves up with regret. Regret usually comes with a lot of grief attached, especially where relationships are concerned. It’s important to work through your grief, and a good therapist can be very helpful. In the end, it’s still all about learning, getting back in the driver’s seat of your life and moving forward in a new direction. We do that by asking ourselves, what have I learned from this experience, how am I a better or wiser person because of it and what will I do differently next time? PEACE WITH THE PAST

Looking back on our lives, we can be pretty brutal on ourselves with all the I could have’s, and I should have’s. Part of dissolving the grief

“Whether big or small, everyone has regrets, and the only way to use them to improve your life is to not hate yourself for having them.” physiological changes, but we can do a lot to slow that process down. In fact, we can do that in a very big way that keeps us healthier much longer than our parents were at the same age. Think about your parents and grandparents at your current age. Odds are you’re in much better health and look and feel better than they did back then. I’m not going to say 80 is the new 60, but health science and anti-aging techniques have seriously changed the game in middle age, and that means more opportunities stay open to us much longer. Obviously, that doesn't mean you can still try out for the U.S. Olympic team. Some trains have left the station and aren’t coming back again, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other things that can be fulfilling in similar ways.

Letting go of regret means making peace with the fact that the past could not have been any different based on the amount of knowledge and self-awareness you had at that point in time. We're all doing the best we can with the amount of information we have available to us at any given moment. If you could have done better, you would have. It’s that simple, so stop beating up on yourself. Whether big or small, everyone has regrets, and the only way to use them to improve your life is to not hate yourself for having them.

There’s an old English proverb that says, “A man is not old until his dreams become his regrets.” Aging is unavoidable, but it’s not the same as getting old. People get old when they give up and stop living because they give in to the lie that it’s too late. The best way to escape getting old is to see all your mistakes as information to make another choice. That way, you have no real regrets and can use what you learn to keep dreaming new dreams and going after them.

IT’S TOO LATE

Besides guilt and grief, the other aspect of regret that makes it so painful in midlife is the idea that it’s too late. Too many years have passed, and there isn't enough time to go after what you really want or the opportunities you missed. One of the biggest ways we convince ourselves it’s too late is by believing we’re too old to go after what we want. Yes, aging comes with inevitable

CONSCIOUS LIFESTYLE

that comes with regret is letting go of the false idea that somehow we should have known better. Somehow we should have had a crystal ball, seen all the options with absolute clarity and made the perfect choice. It’s unfair and even absurd to take an event from the distant past and judge your actions from the knowledge you have now. It makes no sense to retroactively shame yourself because the person who made those choices is a completely different human being than the one you are today. At least I hope you’re a different person than you were at 25 or 35. I know I am. You would never expect someone in his or her 20’s or 30’s to be as world-wise and self-aware as someone well over 50. So don’t expect it of yourself, either.

In reality, your life experience doesn’t emerge from your physical body or chronological age. It comes largely from your state of mind and the choices you make from that perspective. We fall prey to regret when we let the world define what success means for us. The great thing about midlife is that we finally get the courage to stop caring about what other people think. Take a risk to make a new dream and pursue it. It’s only too late if you think it is. After all, the only way to get the best fruit is to go out on a limb. M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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LESSONS ON LIVING FROM THE DYING Another great way to neutralize regret and help reset your priorities in midlife is to look at the difference between the regrets of the living and the regrets of the dying. According to Psychology Today, when categorized, the majority of regrets healthy people have concern education.3 These are followed by regrets about careers, romantic relationships and then parenting choices. For the dying, regrets are more fundamental and larger in scope. They don’t involve single events or lost opportunities, but instead focus on the way life is lived. Bronnie Ware is a palliative care nurse who treated hundreds of dying patients and wrote a book about her experience, The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying: A life transformed by the dearly departing.4 According to Ware, the most common regrets expressed to her by dying patients were: 1. I WISH I'D DARED TO LIVE A LIFE TRUE TO MYSELF, NOT THE LIFE OTHERS EXPECTED OF ME.

• People-pleasing is a difficult trap to escape. Midlife is the prime opportunity to reinvent yourself and be your own person. 2. I WISH I HADN’T WORKED SO HARD.

• This was expressed by nearly every male patient. The drive to achieve can leave men missing out on once-in-alifetime moments particularly with children, memories they’ll never have. 3. I WISH I’D HAD THE COURAGE TO EXPRESS MY FEELINGS.

• Suppressed emotions are never healthy, but how often do we not speak our minds just to keep the peace? Why do we have such trouble standing up for ourselves or asking for what we deserve? Why is it so hard to say, I love you? 4. I WISH I HAD STAYED IN TOUCH WITH MY FRIENDS.

• Things like careers, marriage and having children pull us onto new paths causing us to spend less and less time with our friends until we’ve faded out of each other’s lives altogether. Later in life, we find it's the history we have with our friends that's the real gift. As the saying goes, make new friends but keep the old, for one is silver, the other gold. 5. I WISH I’D LET MYSELF BE HAPPIER.

• In most situations, happiness is a choice, just like everything else.

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With this in mind, it might be a little easier to let go of individual regrets and focus more on the overall quality of our lives from this point forward. When we do that, we find a lot more to be thankful for, not to mention the opportunity to redefine who we are and what we’re about by making better choices through hard-won wisdom. THE POINT OF POWER

Other ways to help you move through regret include using the emotions you feel to push you to create new things and opportunities. There are countless success stories of people who lost everything and used their anger and frustration to rebuild a better life or bigger business empire. Think about how you could help others avoid the same pitfalls with the knowledge you have. Teaching others, especially young people, in this way can provide a unique kind of closure that’s very healing for the loss you feel. Above all else, remember to act on what you’ve learned. The past is gone; it has no power over you and never did. The point of power is always in the present moment because that’s the only place you get to make choices. Remember, it’s much easier to reconcile the regret of things you did rather than things you didn’t do. So forgive yourself, make a bold choice and move forward. No regrets.

Sources (1) The myth of the male mid-life crisis. CBS News Sunday Morning, (June 22, 2011) https://cbsn. ws/2yUGtbA (2) Sue, Shellenbarger. (April 7, 2005). The female midlife crisis: more women than men now report upheaval by age 50. The wall street journal, https://on.wsj. com/2EDXoW9 (3) Shrira, Ilan. (September 18, 2010). The biggest regret of your life: avoiding irrevocable mistakes. Psycholog y Today. http://bit. ly/2CXyqzt (4) Ware, Bronnie. (2012). The top five regrets of the dying: a life transformed by the dearly departing. London: Hay House.

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DON'T CALL IT A DIET HELPING YOUR CHILD LOSE WEIGHT WITHOUT CREATING FOOD OR BODY ISSUES By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

ccording to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in six or 17% of children and adolescents between ages 2 and 19 are considered obese. Although the number of children dealing with significant weight issues in the U.S. has held steady over the last several years, it still means 12.7 million young people continue to face diet and exercise challenges on a regular basis. The prevalence of obesity remains highest for Hispanic children (21.9%), followed by black children (19.5%), white children (14.7%), and Asian children (8.6%).1 Although many children need to lose weight, getting them to do so can be difficult for several reasons. Lots of children eat unconsciously out of habit. Even so, when they are young, most children do not eat too much because of a food addiction or other complicated issues with food that affect many adults. It's very important to take an approach that helps your child lose weight but does not distort his or her relationship with food. Habits can be changed, but deep-seated psychological fixations on food are a much bigger challenge that some people spend their entire lives trying to conquer. It’s also essential that your child, no matter his or her body size, maintains a positive self-image throughout the entire process, and that he or she does not become obsessed with a particular weight or with looking a certain way. The focus should always be on the child, not the scale. Finally, getting children to eat healthier can be a tough sell, particularly if they’re exposed to sweet treats when they’re away from home. It can also be challenging if alternative foods aren’t as tasty as the treats or if the whole family isn’t on board with the effort.

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WELL-BALANCED SOLUTIONS Here are some tips to guide you through the challenging task of helping your child lose weight, with a focus on keeping their mind and self-image as healthy as their body.

1. CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR.

Be sure your child needs to lose weight. There is no single calculation that determines whether a child is overweight. Using body mass index (BMI) numbers is tricky because children of a certain age haven't reached peak bone mass, which can affect the measurement. Consult your pediatrician and share any food program with him or her to be sure your child is getting the proper nourishment for their age. 2. FOCUS ON HEALTH.

When speaking with your child, always keep the focus on health. Never mention body appearance, clothing sizes, and such. Never infer that this is a problem that needs to be "fixed." You can call the program a fitness plan or anything else you like; just don't call it a diet! 3. FOOD IS FUEL.

Never use food as a reward for children, or denial of certain foods as a punishment. Under no circumstances should you punish your child if you find out that he or she has eaten something they should have avoided. Keep your child's relationship with food healthy by stressing in positive ways what food does for the body and how it is our fuel. Also, avoid presenting food as a pleasure device.

4. LONG-TERM SUCCESS. Studies show 65% of dieters gain all their weight back and then some, within three years.2 With weight, we must lose it how we want to live it. Be sure that you choose a plan for your child that is sustainable throughout life, not a quick fix to reach a certain weight that they can’t maintain once the scale reads the “right” number. You’re teaching your child a new lifestyle and relationship with food. 5. FAMILY PARTICIPATION. Research shows that home environment is extremely powerful in a child’s weight

loss success or failure. The number one predictor of childhood weight loss success is if parents lose weight themselves.3 Set a good example for your child, join them in the program to provide support and be sure everyone at home isn’t eating unhealthy foods your child is trying to avoid. 6. EXERCISE ESSENTIALS.

All children should get at least one hour of physical activity per day. Disguise exercise as fun time through activities like biking, swimming, dance class, gymnastics, jumping rope, or chase games like tag. Take family walks and go hiking in nature together. Limit time spent engaged in sedentary activities like TV, video games, and cell phone usage. 7. SLEEP ON IT. Be sure your child is getting eight hours of quality sleep per night. Sleep deprivation increases

hormones that stimulate appetite. 4 8. CONSCIOUS EATING. End mindless eating by discouraging eating in front of the TV. Make eating its own

event, preferably with the whole family at the table with no cell phones. Never force a child to clean his plate and allow him to finish when he is full or not hungry anymore. Teach your children to listen to their bodies so they can feel when it’s time to eat. Also, avoid running through the drive-thru and hurriedly eating in the car. 9. CUT SUGAR.

In weight gain (and many disease processes), sugar is the main culprit, not fat. Aim for low-glycemic foods that don't turn into sugar (glucose) quickly in the body. High-glycemic foods cause blood sugar to spike and then crash, leaving your child even hungrier. Avoid high-glycemic foods from processed grains (chips, white bread, rice, pasta, pretzels, taco shells, etc.), as well as starchy foods like potatoes, quick oats, wheat, and corn. Hispanic children are the most obese, largely because they exist on a high-glycemic culturally dictated diet that’s based on rice, beans, corn and wheat - all starch. This is why by age 70, 50% of Hispanic/Latina women and 44.3% of men can expect to be diagnosed with diabetes.5 Avoid fruit juices for the same reason, choosing instead low-glycemic options like green apple slices, berries, nuts, and unsweetened nut

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“All children should get at least one hour of physical activity per day. Disguise exercise as fun time through activities like biking, swimming, dance class, gymnastics, jumping rope, or chase games like tag.”

butters. Eat plain whole milk yogurt with berries you add, rather than choosing brands with the sugar and fruit already added. Low-glycemic foods take more time to digest, allowing your child to feel full for longer periods of time. 10. FAT & PROTEIN. Include protein and healthy fats

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at every meal. Good fats like olive oil and saturated fat from dark meat chicken and leaner cuts of beef help us feel satiated, don’t spike blood sugar and don’t trigger the munchies. Protein is more filling and stimulates hormones necessary for the release of body fat for energy. One pot meals made in a crock pot can be great because they add healthy, satiating fats and plenty of fiber-rich vegetables to a meal. Consider eggs or sausage for breakfast instead of sugary cereals. 11. QUINOA SWAP.

Consider quinoa if your child is having a difficult time avoiding processed grains. While it’s a medium-glycemic food, it provides the same mouth feel and similar taste as rice or wheat. Use only in moderation. 12. SAUCES & SEASONINGS.

Your child will eat healthier if the food tastes great. Most of the time, this is just a matter of sauces and seasonings. Even a salad can be rendered unhealthy with the wrong dressing. A great place to start is Healthy Sauces, Dressings & Toppings by Mark Sisson. 13. ALTERNATE FLOURS.

Explore alternate flours that aren't grain or starch-based such as coconut flour and almond flour. The internet is full of great recipes for things like pancakes, muffins, and cookies using alternate flours, so your child doesn't have to feel deprived. 14. STEVIA.

A natural sweetener that contains no sugar and does not raise blood sugar, stevia is derived from the leaves of the stevia plant. You can buy stevia to sweeten your baked goods, and it can easily be substituted for sugar in most recipes. It's available in both powdered and liquid form. Be sure the only ingredient on the label is stevia.

Sources (1) Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, “Prevalence of Obesity Among Adults and Youth; United States, 2011-2014”, National Center for Health Statistics, NCHS Data Brief, No. 219, (November 2015), http://bit.ly/cdc-obesity (2) O'Meara, Alex, "The Percentage of People Who Regain Weight After Rapid Weight Loss and the Risk of Doing So," LiveStrong, (November 7, 2015), http://bit.ly/livestrongobesity (3) Boutelle, Kerri et al. (2012). Parent predictors of child weight change in family-based behavioral obesity treatment. Obesity, 20(7), 1539-1543. DOI: http://bit.ly/wiley-obesity (4) US News & World Report, "Better Sleep for Better Weight Loss," (June 19, 2017), http://bit. ly/usnews-sleep (5) Diabetes Among Hispanics: All are not equal, (July 24, 2014), American Diabetes Association, http://bit.ly/ads-hispanic

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Peculiar Partnerships Spiritual symbiosis helps us gain the greatest benefit from challenging relationships By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

f you’ve ever had the chance to watch one of those nature documentaries on TV that are produced by National Geographic or the BBC, it doesn’t take long to realize that the natural world works in a perfectly coordinated and effortless manner. Much of this balance is the result of what’s called symbiotic relationships between animals, insects and even types of algae and coral. Two creatures come together in an unlikely pair to provide each other with a service that’s mutually beneficial to both. Hermit crabs often use their pincers to poke sea anemones to get them to release their grip on their current rock of residence and then hold them in place over their own shell, so they can reattach to it as their new home. Although the result is a very ugly looking hat for the hermit crab, the anemone’s stinging tentacles provide it with a form of portable protection to fend off predators. In return, the anemone gets to feast on the crumbs of the crab’s daily leftovers. Another example are cleaner fish like wrasses, catfish and gobies that wait in special neutral zones along the coral reef. Eventually, much larger fish like parrotfish, damselfish and even sharks stop by. Although they could easily eat them, the much larger fish adopt a specific pose that tells the cleaner fish it’s safe to approach them. Once they do, the cleaner fish pick the bodies of the larger fish clean, feasting on dead tissue and parasites, as well as cleaning any wounds. This unique relationship keeps the larger fish in excellent health, while giving the cleaner fish a steady source of food. Another fascinating pairing is the honeyguide

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“No matter how odd or uncomfortable it might seem that you’re paired with certain people in different parts of your life, each relationship exists to serve your personal good in some unique way.”

Much more is accomplished in nature by cooperation, rather than competition. Because humans are also part of nature, we too enter into symbiotic relationships where we offer services and receive benefits all the time. Of course, it’s easy to see how relationships with people we love are mutually beneficial to us and others. Still, it’s the most unlikely pairings that can provide us with the biggest benefits, but only if we’re willing to take a closer look at the dynamics of the relationship and see the service that’s being provided on each side.

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bird that leads honey badgers to beehives. Once a badger breaks open the hive with its large claws to gain access to the honey, the honeyguide can easily claim its prize, the waxy honeycomb.

What benefits might your overbearing boss be providing to you? Perhaps it might be to stop underestimating yourself and settling for a lower position, so you can advance your career or maybe even start the business you always wanted and be your own boss. What things might your relationship with your irritating mother-in-law or busybody sister be revealing to you about yourself, and how could you use those realizations to move your life forward? No matter how odd or uncomfortable it might seem that you’re paired with certain people in different parts of your life, each relationship exists to serve your personal good in some unique way. Nothing in nature is random. Your business isn’t to be preoccupied with what kind of awareness or opportunity for awakening you’re providing to someone else. That’s their personal puzzle to figure out. Your job is to glean the greatest benefit from the relationship by examining it not from a competitive consciousness, but from cooperative consciousness. When we can recognize and work with the symbiotic spirituality that’s built into our most difficult relationships, we quickly find that once we stop fighting the associations, we’ll be fed by them. M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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THE ECOLOGY OF

ONCOLOGY HOW DISEASE TAKES ROOT IN THE MIND-BODY ENVIRONMENT By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

any years ago, I was returning to Los Angeles from Hawaii and had rushed to the airport to make my flight. In the process, I’d put an apple I’d purchased the day before in my carry-on bag to eat on the plane because there was no time to stop for a meal on the way. As I passed through security, my bag was pulled off the conveyor belt by an agent who looked like he’d spotted something suspicious. Within seconds of searching my bag, he pulled out the apple and told me I had to throw it away.

SECOND OPINION

I was surprised. I’d taken food on flights before, and it was never a problem. He told me that as a remote chain of islands, Hawaii had its own ecosystem and that there were several types of insects that could invade various kinds of fruit. While these creatures were common and non-threatening pests in Hawaii, if accidentally introduced into the environment of the mainland U.S., they could proliferate and cause a great deal of damage to orchards throughout the country. Naturally, I threw the apple away, but the experience got me thinking about how such a tiny creature, which wasn’t a problem in Hawaii, could potentially cause so much damage in a different environment. The difference wasn't in the bug but in the habitat in which it found itself that determined whether it remained docile or became a danger. It reminded me of how disease can take root and develop in one person who does yoga daily and eats organic, while someone else who doesn’t make such healthy choices lives a disease-free life. Science is increasingly showing that it's the quality of the soil or physical terrain of the body, as I call it, that's more important in determining whether the seed of sickness, the germ or cancer cell, will take root and flourish, and why it does in some people but not others. OVERDUE ADMISSION

I’d heard at some point about how the Asian carp, which wasn’t particularly invasive in parts of Asia, became extremely aggressive when mistakenly introduced into American waters. Likewise, the Japanese knotwood was colonizing English gardens and treated like a weed when it wasn’t nearly as intrusive in Japan. Through various news articles, I recently became aware that the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the world's preeminent authority on cancer research, was finally starting to talk about the environmental differences in patients' bodies and why some people get cancer and others don't. They were suggesting that if we could figure out the secret, we could prevent the seed of cancer from ever taking root by reconditioning the internal environment or soil of the body in a way that was inhospitable to cancer. For over 60 years, science has been focused solely on a seed-only approach to cancer, examining tumors and how they behave without giving any thought to the environment within a patient’s body that allowed them to develop in the first place. Clearly, the cancer cell is only part of the picture in cancer research, yet historically that’s where 99% of our focus has been. Naturally, I was excited to hear that traditional medicine was finally beginning to look at cancer, not as a standalone invasive process, but as a relationship between the cancer cell and the host body that determines whether those cells proliferate and later metastasize, because I’d been saying it for years. Even in the presence of cancer cells, if the relationship between them and their environment isn’t mutually supportive, the cancer cells will be eradicated or remain in a dormant phase indefinitely. C ON T I N U E D. . .

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Traditionally, much of the problem with cancer treatment has been and continues to be the inability to determine whether cancer will metastasize once it’s found. Because we have no understanding of how the internal terrain or soil of the patient’s body cooperates with and allows cancer to proliferate, we have no way of knowing in which patients it poses the greatest risk and in which it will most likely be neutralized or remain dormant. Without being able to make this crucial distinction, the trend has been to over-treat everyone, usually with toxic chemotherapy that has only a 2% success rate of achieving a 5-year survival,1 in a one-size-fits-all approach that harms far more patients than it helps. TREATMENT & TR AGEDY

By not understanding which patients’ bodies are the most hospitable for cancer to grow and spread, patients tend to be rushed into aggressive and life-changing treatments as a so-called preventative measure that may not have been necessary in the first place. A perfect example is breast cancer. Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a common breast pathology that science has now labeled stage zero cancer. As absurd as that description is (either you have cancer, or you don't), DCIS often lays dormant in most women's bodies and never develops into cancer.

relationship between cancer and the patient’s internal environment, happened in South Korea in 2002. Primary care doctors were given ultrasound devices to scan patients for thyroid cancer. When a nodule was found, it was biopsied. If tests were positive for cancer, the thyroid was surgically removed. As a result, thyroid cancer rates soared across South Korea to the point at which, by 2014, levels were 15 times higher than they had been in 1993. Billions were poured into treatment, while tens of thousands of lives were changed forever when they lost their thyroid glands and yet, death rates from thyroid cancer remained unchanged. What happened? It wasn’t malpractice because the tests proved the nodules met the criteria for cancer. What doctors never stopped to consider was that within the bodies of the majority of those people, the nodules would never have advanced to the stage of causing clinical symptoms. The unfortunate people were over-diagnosed with a condition that would never have developed in their bodies and thus were over-treated as if it actually existed. Such are the tragedies of the dominance of seed-only science and the subsequent rush to “preventative” and aggressive treatment for a disease that would have remained dormant in the patients’ bodies their entire lives.

In 2000, the Archives of Internal Medicine examined the records from a study performed at Yale-New Haven Hospital in 1988. Medical records were reviewed for 233 women participating in the study who had their first experience with breast cancer. Of the study participants, 31 were diagnosed with DCIS. The good news is that none died from cancer or experienced a recurrence. Unfortunately, half of them chose to have a mastectomy.2 To bring clarity to this issue, DCIS has been the subject of many studies, but the most interesting appeared in the Annals of Internal Medicine3 and the British Journal of Cancer.4 Both of these studies reviewed the autopsies of a wide cross-section of women. In their examinations, they discovered that 40% of the women had DCIS present in their breast tissue at the time of death. The most important point is that these women died from a wide range of causes, including car accidents. DCIS was even present in the breast tissue of women in advanced age. The point to understand here is that these women walked around the earth, happily living their lives, with DCIS, until they died of something else. Another example of the early detection and rushto-treatment disaster, without understanding the

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“Together, cancer cells and their environment form their own ecosystem where if the terrain is successfully altered, the cancer will wither and die, like an acid loving plant trying to grow in alkaline soil.” UNREALIZED EXPECTATIONS

It was English physician, Dr. Stephen Paget, son of the founder of modern pathology, Dr. James Paget, who first put forth the theory in 1899 that the proliferation of cancer depended largely on local conditions. He also discovered that when

cancer spread, it didn’t do so in its original site but gravitated toward areas in the body that were far from random. In examining over 300 patients in which their breast cancer had metastasized in other areas, he found in nearly 80% of the cases, that the cancer cells bypassed other organs and healthy tissue, overwhelmingly in favor of the liver, lungs, and spleen. Even certain bones were preferred over others. It showed not only how a patient’s physical terrain could be accommodating to cancer, but that certain tissues within the body itself were more hospitable to cancer than others. Unfortunately, it was centrifugal theory or the idea that cancer takes hold in one spot and spreads out from there like an expanding ink stain that found favor in the medical community and later led to severe, seed-only interventions such as the radical mastectomy advocated by William Halsted.

While genetics are an important piece of the puzzle, we know from other research and epigenetic studies that simply possessing a particular gene does not mean it is or will ever be activated to create a certain condition. Much of that also depends on the quality of the terrain within our mind-body environment, which we’ll explore later, and how the energy generated by our emotions alters our physiology to become supportive of disease. ENVIRONMENT & EVIDENCE

We know that tumors constantly shed about 20,000 cancer cells into every milliliter of blood. In a day, a tumor can slough off nearly one-tenth of its weight. If conventional wisdom held true that all cancer cells were certain to spread cancer wherever they land, it would then be a fact that people with cancer would have metastasis happening all over their body and yet, most don’t. This is another enigma of cancer and the body environment that science has yet to explain. An even stranger example of this phenomenon is the case of patient D.G., as he’s called in Australian medical literature. Having been diagnosed with melanoma, D.G. was treated with a surgical resection and went on about his life

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Now it seems that after more than a century, Paget’s seed and soil theory as he called it, that metastasis is the result of a pathological relationship between cancer cells and their environment, is finally receiving legitimate consideration in mainstream medicine. Of course, this comes at a time when billions have been spent on genetic testing with little return. So far, gene expression assays such as MammaPrint and Oncotype DX can help doctors identify whether a small percentage of patients are at low risk for metastasis, helping them avoid chemotherapy or determine whether they might benefit from targeted therapy with Herceptin. In either case, they still have no clue as to how the

internal terrain became hospitable to cancer in the first place. Together, cancer cells and their environment form their own ecosystem where if the terrain is successfully altered, the cancer will wither and die, like an acid loving plant trying to grow in alkaline soil.

“NK cells don’t learn anything new. Instead, they are part of the body’s innate immune response in that their only job is to seek out and destroy aberrant host cells.”

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with no other incident. Years later, he donated a kidney to a friend who was prescribed immune suppressing drugs to prevent rejection of the kidney. Within weeks, the friend began to show many tiny metastases in the kidney and had it quickly removed. The cancer had come from D.G's body but once it found a new environment inside his friend, it began to proliferate. It was obvious that while not truly cancer-free, D.G.’s body was keeping it suppressed because his internal environment was no longer conducive to its metastasis.

“We know stress suppresses immune function and therefore is a significant risk factor for countless disease processes. Your job is to eliminate as much stress as possible from your life, especially when it comes to work and relationships.”

ARMING IMMUNITY

As with the case of D.G, individual immunity continues to be the focal point of cancer therapy research, with low immunity being labeled as one of the host factors that make an internal environment favorable for malignancies. For example, we know that chronic inflammation in the body negatively impacts immunity and increases the risk of cancer. Studies on mice whose lungs were exposed to thousands of dormant cancer cells show that only after a portion of the original group of mice were later exposed to an inflammatory lung stimulus similar to pneumonia did the dormant cells wake up and turn aggressive. Other research shows that not only will a tumor grow at the place on a chick’s wing where a cancer-causing virus is injected, but that inflammation caused by an injury on the opposite wing will cause a tumor to develop there, as well. The body creates different kinds of immune cells for various purposes, and of particular interest to scientists studying cancer and immunity are natural killer cells or NK cells. Unlike other immune cells that are designed to constantly memorize the identity of new invaders so they can eradicate them quickly at the next infection, NK cells don’t learn anything new. Instead, they are part of the body’s innate immune response in that their only job is to seek out and destroy aberrant host cells. The strength of NK immunity is a crucial factor in preventing metastasis in the body. Years ago, it was found that cancer cells employ special proteins to trigger the brakes on the body’s immune cells. When certain drugs interrupted this deactivation process, the body’s immune cells re-engaged and started attacking the cancer. Experiments into NK cell activity and how to activate immunity or amplify it is an ongoing part of immune regulation research. PREVENTION PRIORITIES

These are some of the new terrain or soil-based research projects scientists are exploring, and

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while promising, it will likely be years before any of them evolve into general treatment for patients. Only when we can separate ourselves from exclusively pursuing seed-based or cancer cell only theories will we finally understand how to alter the ecology of the body, so its internal environment isn't conducive to cancer in the first place. Then, we’ll be able to distinguish who can benefit from it versus the small percentage of patients who require aggressive intervention. Ideally, it means answering the denominator problem where the numerator is you, and the denominator is everyone else who is at risk or was exposed, but didn't get sick. Why were you the only one who caught your nephew’s cold even though everyone else held him at the party, too? How can some elderly people have smoked cigarettes their entire lives and never die of cancer? You don’t have to wait for years for the research to filter down to patient therapies to start changing your body ecology to be healthier and less hospitable to everything from colds to cancer. We know stress suppresses immune function and therefore is a significant risk factor for countless

“Research on laughter regularly shows its power to change body chemistry, boost immunity, and speed healing.”

Chronic stress tears us down so gradually that we don’t even notice it. Low-grade stress becomes our new normal, and we forget what it’s like to live a life that’s joyful, inspiring and full of people and things that uplift us. This doesn’t mean that we don’t have problems from time to time, but if three days have passed during which you haven’t laughed out loud at least once, spent quality time with someone you love, or engaged in a creative activity that energizes you, you need to make some real changes because living a life that’s “not bad” all the time isn’t a life that’s really good most of the time. Research on laughter regularly shows its power to change body chemistry, boost immunity, and speed healing.5 Spending more time doing what you love has also shown to impact recovery from an illness that was thought to be terminal.6 In fact, experiencing overwhelming

joy and excitement has been known to increase the production of interleukin 2 in the body, an immune system activating protein that is administered exogenously to patients with kidney cancer.7 Sharing feelings of deep love with those we care about not only helps us live longer,8 but causes our DNA strands to expand and even switch specific genes on and off.9 These are the things I call spiritual nutrition that are absolutely essential for feeding the soul and changing the soil of the body. Speaking of food, the body even absorbs fewer nutrients (the building blocks of our health) from what we consume, if we don’t love what we’re eating.10

SECOND OPINION

disease processes. Your job is to eliminate as much stress as possible from your life, especially when it comes to work and relationships. I’m not talking about having a big project due at work once in a while, but chronic stress that goes on for weeks, months or years. If you hate your job, get a new one. If you’re in an unfulfilling or abusive relationship that can’t be salvaged, get out of it. If you have friends or relatives who don’t treat you with kindness and respect, distance yourself from them. Your health depends on it, and you deserve better.

FEELINGS AS FERTILIZER

Having worked in integrative medicine my entire career, I always advise patients facing chronic illness to search their personal histories for residual stress from traumatic events that may have happened years ago, some of which they may have long forgotten. The mind has an amazing ability to protect us from the emotional aftermath of problems we don’t want to or can’t deal with at the time of their occurrence, so we can get on with our lives. The problem is that feelings buried alive never die. They come back to haunt us in serious ways, quite often in the form of illness. This is because our internal terrain has changed significantly due to years of conscious or even unconscious stress from emotions such as abandonment, bitterness, M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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“If we intend to cure the chronic diseases that have reached epidemic proportions in the last 100 years, it’s time to personalize diagnostics and treatment in a very intimate way. It’s time to make physical ecology a standard part of oncology.”

regret, jealousy, and anger. Realizing and releasing the residual stress generated by these emotions is crucial in healing from any chronic disease, and especially for disease prevention because feelings act as the fertilizer of our physical soil.

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Sources (1) Morgan, Graeme, et al. (2004). The contribution of cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adult malignancies. Clinical Oncology, 16(8), 549-560. DOI: http://bit.ly/2yY0Wwg

In service to helping patients everywhere incorporate a terrain or soil-based component into their current treatment, I recently released the book, The Clarity Cleanse: 12 steps to finding renewed energy, spiritual fulfillment, and emotional healing. It contains the same emotional exploration and resolution exercises I prescribe to my patients struggling with serious illnesses, which is the same program I developed during my recovery from cancer more than 20 years ago. It also contains an optional 30-day diet to be used during the emotional work. While it’s not mandatory, experience has shown that the diet often enhances results because of its ability to relieve pressure on the pancreas, making both the physical and emotional bodies better conditioned to release their toxins.

(2) Moody-Ayers, S et al. (2000). \"Benign\" tumors and \"early detection\" in mammography-screened patients of a natural cohort with breast cancer. Archives of Internal Medicine, 160(8), 1109-1115.

By focusing much more on each patient’s individual life, history, and physiology, we move much closer to solving the denominator problem or why YOU got sick. It relieves us from spending all our time and research funds on searching for a catch-all, silver bullet solution for a disease that doesn’t have an impact on everyone. If we intend to cure the chronic diseases that have reached epidemic proportions in the last 100 years, it’s time to personalize diagnostics and treatment in a very intimate way. It’s time to make physical ecology a standard part of oncology.

(8) Buettner, Dan. The Blue Zones: Lessons for living longer from the people who have lived the longest. First. Washington D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2008. Print.

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(3) Welch, H. Black, W. (1997). Using autopsy series to estimate the disease \"reservoir\" for ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast: how much more breast cancer can we find?. Annals of Internal Medicine. , 127(11), 1023-1028. (4) Nielsen, M et al. (1987). Breast cancer and atypia among young and middle-aged women: a study of 110 medicolegal autopsies. British Journal of Cancer, 56(6), 814-818. (5) Cousins, Norman. Anatomy of an Illness. 20th. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. Print. (6) Siegel, Bernie S. , M.D. Love, Medicine & Miracles: Lessons learned about self-healing from a surgeon's experience with exceptional patients. first. New York: HarperCollins Publishing, 1988. Print. (7) Chopra, Ph.D. , Deepak. "Living Beyond Miracles." Living Beyond Miracles with Deepak Chopra & Wayne Dyer. Church of Today. Warren, MI. 1992. Lecture.

(9) G. Rein, R, McCraty. Local and non-local effects of coherent heart frequencies on conformational changes of DNA. Proc. Joint USPA/IAPR Conference, Milwaukee, WI 1993. (10) David, Marc. Nourishing Wisdom: A Mind-Body Approach to Nutrition and Well-being. First. New York, New York: Crown Publishing Group, 1994. Print.

*Additional resource:

Mukherjee, S. , “The Cancer Invasion Equation”, The New Yorker, (September 11, 2017), http://bit.ly/2JbqT0i

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Context Precedes Content Details help us derive meaning from life

occdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers of a wrod apaepr, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. This famous paragraph demonstrates one of the most important principles regarding how we perceive and ultimately experience things in life; context precedes content. The words above are only readable because of the context in which they appear; all the first and last letters of each word are in their proper place. Because the words are presented to us in this specific context, we can understand the message or content that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s conveying to us. Now try this:

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By Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami

“To decode our problems and decipher the hidden messages they have for us, we must place them within the proper context.” It’s almost impossible to successfully complete this exercise because of the context in which the words are presented; the colors of the letters contradict the colors of the words themselves. In the same way, we misinterpret the true meaning of circumstances in our lives when we place them within the wrong context. We never get the real content or message of why we got sick, lost the job or divorced, usually because we’re blaming someone or something outside ourselves for our situation. That only leaves us confused and unable to interpret the meaning in what’s happening to us, so we continue to perpetuate the problem. To decode our problems and decipher the hidden messages they have for us (which are crucial to finding solutions), we must place them within the proper context. Because we co-create our experience of reality through our consciousness, we must place every problem we have into

a personal context if we are to understand what our challenges are trying to tell us about ourselves, and if we intend to grow and not go on unconsciously creating the same mistakes. Instead of lashing outwardly at someone else with blame, we must look inwardly and ask ourselves, “What does this situation have to say about me? How did I attract this person or circumstance into my life? Why is this happening to me again?” When we’re brave and honest enough to place our problems within a personal context instead of a blaming one, we reorder the details in such a way that the messages they carry for us begin to become clear, and we can finally take corrective and healing action toward real solutions. This new context or order in which we place all these details must begin with us. We’re at the front of the line and top of the list because to a very large degree, the quality of life each of us is experiencing right now is nothing but the sum total of every choice we’ve ever made right up to this very moment. The buck not only stops with you, it starts with you, as well. You are the beginning and end of a closed creative loop called your life, and the only way to consciously direct that process is to place it within a personal context, then the content of your experiences will lead you to the solution you’re seeking.

REALIZA AND RESILIE CREATING CLARITY IN A TIME OF CRISIS By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

he longer I live, the more I realize that the quality of my life experience isn't dependent on how many things and experiences I can acquire and hold onto, but how good I am at letting them go. When a personal crisis occurs, the context we place it in has as much to do with how we experience loss as the circumstance itself. By realizing we can choose how to define and ultimately experience a personal crisis, we gain a greater sense of control over our life at a time when it’s easy to be lulled into inaction by feelings of powerlessness. The first noble truth of Buddhism tells us to live is to suffer, but suffering through a tragedy isn’t the same as being immobilized by the pain of the experience. It doesn’t matter what the crisis is - a surprise divorce, the death of a loved one, a shocking diagnosis, or financial devastation - we can improve our quality of life during the event by making the choice between pain and suffering. Of course, we must first be aware that we even have this choice. Once we are aware, we can clear out the chaotic thoughts that cloud our thinking and decision-making during a crisis and create mental space for deeper realizations about how and why the situation occurred. C ON T I N U E D. . .

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This awareness is what I call clarity and discuss at length in my book, The Clarity Cleanse: 12 steps to finding renewed energy, spiritual fulfillment, and emotional healing. It’s also the psycho-spiritual process I go through with all my patients who are dealing with a serious health crisis. I'm often the last stop for patients who've already been to the most prominent medical centers and specialists in the world, usually for advanced stage cancer, neurological conditions, and auto-immune diseases. Understandably, they're immobilized by the pain of their experience, but they soon come to realize that their best chance of healing requires their active participation, which means that they must redefine their circumstances and empower themselves by finding meaning in the situation. This is done by changing their perspective through clarity. PAINFUL POLARITY

our upset. In Buddhism, this is referred to as the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts, the place where the soul cannot be satiated. It's as if we could eat the whole world and never be filled up. It's also the place where addiction resides. I call this way of being the judgmental realm because of the concrete and rigid way in which it defines experiences where whenever we don’t get what we want exactly how we want it; the result is great pain. We cannot consciously act from this state of mind, but only unconsciously react to our circumstances. The way out of this subconsciously inflicted pain cycle is by being willing to consider that there might be some benefit for us amidst all the upheaval, even if we have no idea what it could be. Just being open to that possibility expands our consciousness from that of a dot to a flat circle that now has a circumference and surface area. We now have two-dimensional thinking that while still polarized, can at least allow us to consider that the situation might not

If we think of a single dot, we know that it's a oned i me n sion a l e nt it y with no height, width or depth. When we enter a crisis be all bad. It’s the unconsciously, our beginning of peace stress response of mind and relief. is triggered, and “When we enter a crisis I often demonstrate our thought unconsciously, our stress response this progression process becomes for my patients by chaotic and oneis triggered, and our thought scrunching a deflated dimensional like process becomes chaotic and oneballoon down into a the dot. Everything dimensional like the dot.” tiny ball to represent is bad about the the dot, then flattening situation, and nothing it out like a pancake to take is good, as we collapse into the shape of a circle. a negative state of being. We’re the victim of someone or something DIMENSION & DEFINITION else, and we don’t know why this is happening to us. It’s so unfair, and we just want it all to go The final transition occurs when the thought away. Because our pain has no meaning outside of process goes from being two-dimensional to a our own victimhood, we're not easily comforted. multi-dimensional state or from the flat circle We often find ourselves reaching to things outside to a sphere with height, width, and depth. We ourselves for temporary relief or distraction from can think of it as finally blowing the balloon up

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to create a three-dimensional object with space inside to hold a deeper understanding. In this state, we have the ability to think through our feelings as we experience them in real time. This way we will not be subconsciously controlled by them. We can simultaneously be in the head and the heart as we begin to work through and make sense of our experiences. In this open state of mind, we can create sufficient space where the mental noise used to be for new realizations about our circumstances to arise. This is what I refer to as the state of clarity, the ability to free oneself from the polarity of a problem and remain open to the deeper answers as to why this situation has appeared in one’s life. When we have these answers, our previously senseless pain transforms into suffering, which is loss defined by meaning. When our pain has meaning, we can suffer it with courage and peace of mind because even though we may not be able to fix everything, we know why it’s happening and

brought them, their gratitude leads them to want to be of service in some way regarding their crisis. An example of this might be someone using the opportunity of being diagnosed as HIV positive to speak to young people about safe sex practices. Others use their experiences to greatly improve relationships or completely change their lives and start following their passions because life is too short. In many cases, these people end up saying that what they previously saw as a crisis turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to them. When our choices are no longer based on reaction but realization, we’re experiencing multi-dimensional thinking or clarity. A UNIVERSAL JOURNEY

When we’re born, our mental processes naturally function in a multi-dimensional way. All our experiences are integrated into the holistic nature of our development. We don’t judge anything as good

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understand that or bad, but live part of the reason in the fullness of holds something “Being open to that possibility each experience good for us. Here, without resisting that there might be some benefit we are open to it, processing all possibilities for us amidst all the upheaval the totality of its the situation may expands our consciousness from emotional impact. We hold, which is why see our world as full of that of a dot to a flat circle.” I define this level of possibility instead of just consciousness as the consequence, which is essential imaginative realm, where to learning. Yes, we may touch an we are capable of imagining and open flame and feel the pain of being holding in mind other outcomes instead of just burned, but the experience isn’t all bad because the worst-case scenario. we’ve learned not to do it again. Getting our Often in this state of openness, even in the midst fingers singed was necessary for that realization. of great suffering, people shed their victim label So we process the temporary emotional upset, and begin to feel increasingly empowered, though receive the gift it contains for us and move none of the details of their situation have yet forward effortlessly. This is how we're created changed. Once they see the gift their crisis has to process experience.

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By the age of nine, most people have lost the ability to live consciously within an experience this way. Judgment from parents, teachers, caregivers, and friends collapses our spherical, holistic way of experiencing the world into a two-dimensional and sometimes one-dimensional ways of thinking. We're constantly told, "Don't do that" or "That's bad" and we quickly learn to interpret the world in strictly black and white terms, where if something isn't the way we want it or feel it should be, then it's all bad. No longer do we exist in our parasympathetic nervous system response where all is based on rest, rumination, learning, and play. Eventually, our sympathetic nervous system takes over, and we find ourselves in a world full of judgments, limitations, and boundaries, most of which we didn’t create for ourselves but still feel constrained by.

CONTINUUM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

When I draw the simple images of a dot, circle, and sphere to demonstrate this transition of awareness for my patients, I always put dual direction arrows between the images because at any time in life, we can move forward or backward along this continuum of consciousness. While we may be able to maintain clarity over the loss of a job, perhaps the loss of a marriage causes us to handle that situation quite differently and collapse into a rigid, judgmental way of interpreting the experience. Self-awareness in all areas of one's life is essential to prevent this from happening. Even so, some people can reach clarity with some issues in their lives and not others, while some spend their entire lives and only get to the second stage of two-dimensional perspective.

My wife, Sherry, and I teach the clarity process when we consult with couples who are breaking up and want to consciously complete their marriage instead of experiencing a traditional, adversarial divorce. find our way back We share with them to that holistic the tools they need way of being fully “The final transition occurs to prevent anger integrated with and resentment when the thought process goes our world and from contracting from being two-dimensional experiences. In a their consciousness way, it’s a return to a multi-dimensional state or back into a dot. It home to our original helps them maintain from the flat circle to a sphere psycho-spiritual state. higher priorities during with height, width, and depth.” This is why we love the separation process and characters like Dorothy in avoid the antagonistic and the Wizard of Oz, E.T., and Nemo self-righteous attitudes that too in Finding Nemo. Their journeys are often destroy health, family, and finances symbolic struggles of coming home again, of along the way. It keeps them aware of the fact restoring their original ways of being. From the that there is something to learn and even be Prodigal Son to Willy in Free Willy, what draws grateful for in the experience of completing their us to these kinds of archetypical characters is the life together, and that it’s their job to come to subconscious recognition that the journey back those realizations for their sake and the welfare of the family. In the situation where two people home to oneself is our journey as well. This is similar to the loss of innocence John Milton speaks of in Paradise Lost, in which the purpose of our life’s journey is to

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can maintain clarity and think through their feelings during the difficult separation process, they often end up having a better relationship than they did during their marriage.

RESISTING RESISTANCE

Loss of any kind can quickly lead us into a collapsed state of consciousness. The key to avoiding becoming trapped in this narrow perception is to stop resisting whatever is happening. Stop wishing it would go away, get fixed or that someone would rescue us from the situation. Stop trying to figure everything out. Just

This kind of transformation is an ontological experience that requires the development of a new language with which we can redefine our life circumstances and use to guide us out of the state of collapsed consciousness. The goal is always to create mental space, a psycho-spiritual sphere or womb where we can come to the necessary realizations and give birth to our newly evolved self through each experience. Hinduism tells us that our purpose in life is to give birth to our true selves, and we do that progressively through the clarity we gain from life’s most trying situations. No real change is possible without actively engaging in this cyclical spiritual rebirthing process. With this approach, we come to discover that bad things don't really happen to good people because we can find good in all things and that everyone's pain has a purpose when we realize that suffering plus acceptance leads to meaning.

SECOND OPINION

“In the situation where two people can maintain clarity and think through their feelings during the difficult separation process, they often end up having a better relationship than they did during their marriage.”

let the situation be and abide whatever emotions it brings forward. We must be aware of what we’re feeling and at least be willing to consider that there might be some good that can come out of the situation. Just making that transition expands the dot into a circle and provides at least two dimensions from which to view the situation. Accepting emotional upset for its own sake opens a doorway to eventually creating an experience with more depth and meaning. Through proper self-discovery, we continue to evolve our understanding of the situation and eventually create more space or volume which can contain a greater consciousness of ourselves and what’s happening. It’s within this mental space, the spherical, multi-dimensional perception of our circumstances, that understanding is achieved and healing can happen.

BIOGR APHY BECOMES BIOLOGY

If we choose not to take this internal journey and remain in a collapsed state of self-involvement, ME-ness, and judgment, we place our lives in a holding pattern where nothing changes because we're not changing. By clinging to our resistance of the situation that keeps pushing back against

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us and preventing us from making any progress, we become like a tiny bird flying into a wind tunnel, expending furious effort and energy but ultimately remaining in the same place. Over time, the negative emotions of the contracted states such as anger, resentment, and fear create chemical changes in the body that alter its physical terrain, making it more vulnerable to illness. This is the mind-body link to health where one's biography eventually becomes one’s biology and demonstrates the high corollary relationship between the psyche and the soma. This is why when our consciousness collapses in a highly emotional situation, the eventual collapse of our health is virtually certain unless we can fully process what we’re going through and achieve clarity for ourselves about the issue. Almost all of my patients with terminal or degenerative diseases have had some kind of unresolved personal issue in their past that has kept them emotionally and consciously contracted in one way or another. The contraction then eventually manifests in their bodies as illness - a chronic emotional dis-ease that develops into a physical disease.

side of my body at the age of four. I was in the hospital for six months on a morphine drip for intractable pain. A team of nurses would hold me down while the doctor would bend my left arm to break up the keloids that would have otherwise severely limited my range of motion and mobility. I remember screaming until I lost

REVERENCE FOR SUFFERING

In his book, Answer to Job, Carl Jung examines the Biblical character’s life of near constant tragedy and how he chose to respond to his challenges. Throughout this work, Jung tells us that the key is to maintain a level of reverence for suffering, to respect it and not fear it, to expect it and even welcome it in when it arrives. When I was diagnosed with cancer as a student, I took a year off from medical school and discovered for myself what it means to surrender to suffering. I explored every area of my life where I knew or suspected I might be harboring unresolved emotional issues and created a process by which I finally realized and released those experiences from my mind-body. That process is what became The Clarity Cleanse. I recall discovering that I hadn't fully processed the emotions of being burned over 70% of the left

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“As a sphere, the earth rotates on its axis, and the hemisphere that's experiencing darkness will always turn to face the sun once more. In the same way, expanding our thinking into multi-dimensional spherical form ensures that the dark times of our lives will once again be bathed in the rising of the light.”

my voice and nearly passed out. During my healing work, I finally permitted myself to suffer for that tiny boy, not just for the physical pain, but for everything I lost as a result of that tragedy. By giving myself the dignity of my own emotional process, I was able to fully release the contracted unresolved negative energy patterns related to that experience and other past experiences that had contributed to the breakdown of my physical health. Once I healed emotionally, my body began to respond physically.

FULL CIRCLE

It is in the open mind, the sphere of our expanded consciousness, that spirit comes to meet us and we receive answers that reveal us to ourselves. The search for clarity is the path to existential maturity and allows us to take personal responsibility for everything in our lives. In return, while we may not be able to control all the situations in our lives, we receive the ability to choose how we will experience them, and thus create a much greater quality of life regardless of what happens. We get to reorganize our way of being with ourselves and interacting with the world that creates a model for personal growth through self-care that’s independent of our circumstances. As a sphere, the earth rotates on its axis, and the hemisphere that's experiencing darkness will always turn to face the sun once more. In the same way, expanding our thinking into multi-dimensional spherical form ensures that the dark times of our lives will once again be bathed in the rising of the light.

This is why the person who has the disease and their psycho-spiritual background are just as important as treating the disease itself. To master this technique and to be able to usher patients through the process while creating an internal space which holds love and compassion for their struggle is the difference between a physician and a meta-physician. To be able to take this journey with each patient and go the distance, while witnessing their courage and strength, has been the greatest blessing of my career. It has provided me with realizations about life, death and the human spirit that have brought my understanding of health and healing full circle.

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The Persian poet, Rumi, described the place in the mind where spirit meets us as “a field out beyond right doing and wrong doing." Out beyond black and white, good and bad, out beyond the judgment of the contracted dot consciousness, he says he will meet us there. That place, that field is clarity, and it’s where I ask all my patients to meet me as the first step in their healing process. As an instructor, I encourage all medical students to explore the idea of clarity and the increasing role it will play in mind-body medicine in the future, because patients are far more than a dot, number, diagnosis, lab result, or piece of tissue. To be a true healer, they must learn how to help patients give meaning to what they’re going through. This is more than psychology, it’s psycho-biology and plays a legitimate role in how patients respond to treatment and to what degree they experience recovery.

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BEING A CHAMPION OF CHANGE INSTEAD OF CONFORMITY By Dr. Habib Sadeghi in the Foreword for Dressed to Kill (Edition 2)

ood health is 90% prevention, and I believe in educating patients with all the lifestyle and dietary information I have available to me so that they can make the best health-supporting decisions for themselves. In 2014, I came across the book, Dressed to Kill, by Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer that put forth a relatively well-researched theory that there may be a link between underwire bra usage and breast cancer. Building on this theory, I wrote an article that was published online for which I was mercilessly criticized in the press, not because the media offered any legitimate evidence to disprove the possible link between underwire bras and breast cancer, but because I was so bold as to draw womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attention to an idea that modern medicine had deemed taboo. What follows is the foreword I was asked to write by the authors of Dressed to Kill for the second edition of the book. The online article in question was published in the 2015 edition of MegaZEN.

SPEECHES & APPEARANCES

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“If freedom has any meaning at all, it’s the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.” GEORGE ORWELL

FOREWORD

We live in interesting times. As the world becomes more politically and socially polarized into an ever-increasing number of interest groups, it seems that everyone has something to say. The problem is that except for the members of one’s own in-group, no one wants to hear it. In a world where tolerance is supposed to be the order of the day, we’re becoming increasingly intolerant of anyone who happens to hold a view that challenges our own, so much so that laws are being enacted the world over to limit and even criminalize the free expression of thoughts and ideas. It's no longer enough to refuse to hear viewpoints that oppose our own; we must make public examples of such heretics who dare to challenge the status quo by either having them arrested or shaming them into silence through merciless ridicule in the press. In either case, the larger goal is met; the offender soon comes to understand that expressing thoughts outside the socially correct box will not be tolerated and with repeated punishment, he’ll eventually stop thinking such thoughts as well, and simply conform. In turn, his public humiliation serves as the perfect warning sign to prevent any would-be revolutionary from also stepping out of line. In no other social sector is the resistance to new ideas and pressure to conform to the status quo greater than in medicine. There is simply one way of doing things, one philosophy of patient care, and it will not be challenged without great consequences. Even so, any physician who takes his vocation of healing seriously cannot remain silent when the health and wellbeing of patients are at stake. Free speech is crucial in any civilized society and particularly in medicine, which

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hasn’t cured or eradicated a single disease in over 60 years. If we intend to keep our children and grandchildren from suffering from the same chronic diseases that plagued the five or six generations before them, we must allow the free exchange of ideas to flow, especially when it comes to medical research, treatment, and prevention strategies. That means sharing ideas that many people may find unacceptable today, but in a generation might easily be viewed as self-evident. How does the discovery that allows our world to move forward occur if humans do not challenge each other’s ideas? George Orwell, author of the dystopian novel 1984, said, “If freedom has any meaning at all, it’s the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.” Many people don’t want to hear about alternative healthcare theories because there are countless careers, professional reputations, medical journals, educational institutions, billions of dollars in research, pharmaceuticals, and surgical interventions wholly dependent on doing things the way we’ve been doing them for nearly 100 years. It’s been said, however, that if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. While modern medicine has improved greatly with regard to diagnostics over the years, it still holds a dismal record when it comes to curing the diseases it's gotten so much better at diagnosing. That’s because the philosophy of and approach to medicine itself has not changed, and those who are the gatekeepers of information exchange in the medical community are highly resistant to and even threatened by any idea that’s remotely non-traditional, because too much is invested in the old ways.

“While modern medicine has improved greatly with regard to diagnostics over the years, it still holds a dismal record when it comes to curing the diseases it's gotten so much better at diagnosing.”

When I first came across Dressed to Kill, its message resonated deeply with me. I felt that

authors Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer had presented a substantial case. While not conclusively proving that underwire bra usage caused breast cancer, they certainly put forth a credible argument that underwire bras might well play a significant contributing role in breast cancer development and that further research was warranted. Because I regularly contribute to several online media news and health information outlets, I decided to write an article on the findings Dressed to Kill had put forward. I felt Singer and Grismaijer’s research deserved to be heard by a larger audience and that the conversation about a possible link between underwire bras and breast cancer was one women needed to be having. I wholly believe in patients taking charge of their health through dietary and other kinds of lifestyle choices. That includes everything we choose to put in, as well as on our bodies such as colognes, personal care products, and even clothing. We have far more control over our health than we think we do, and I believe in empowering my patients as much as possible. The cumulative effect of the choices we make every day over time are often the collective cause of the diseases that seem to “just happen” later in life. Nearly 30 years in medicine has taught me that no disease just happens and that there is far more we can do from a preventative standpoint to secure our health later in life if we have the proper information to help us make the right choices.

SPEECHES & APPEARANCES

I’ve come to understand through firsthand experience that to be a true healer today, you must be a nonconformist. As diseases like cancer and neurodegenerative disorders continue to ravage the present generation, just as they did in the past, doing things the way they've always been done is not only irresponsible but negligent. It’s now incumbent upon physicians as healers to say it’s time to find another way. Of course, this requires stepping out away from the crowd and forging a new path, becoming a trailblazer, a reluctant leader who isn’t so much self-declared but chosen by fate and necessity to ignite the next evolution in healthcare. In fact, it’s never been any other way. All the greatest scientists, physicians, and philosophers from Galileo onward were threatened, professionally ruined, and even jailed for expressing ideas that we now take for granted. To be a healer means to be a leader, whether one likes it or not. To be a leader also means to be alone, at least until an idea gains favor, because society is overwhelmingly populated by followers. An old Polish proverb states that eagles fly alone, but sheep flock together. That is how I’ve chosen to run my life and my medical practice, by flying alone and showing others a new way, regardless of those who would seek to ground me.

“To be a healer means to be a leader, whether one likes it or not. To be a leader also means to be alone, at least until an idea gains favor, because society is overwhelmingly populated by followers.”

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“I believe that words have power. Quite often in the press, words are carefully chosen to send an implied message with the intent of exerting influence over or stigmatizing a particular person, group, organization or idea.”

Within hours of my article being posted online, the backlash began. To say that I was universally excoriated by the press would be putting it mildly. I was called a kook and a guru who was “sparking outrage” by pushing a “debunked breast cancer myth” that had long been “scientifically discredited.” Not only that, but I had the audacity to release such “pseudoscience” during National Breast Cancer Month. How foolish I was. I thought the research, medical and media communities would be as intrigued by Singer and Grismaijer's data as I was, and would conduct further investigations in the hope of empowering women. Instead, I discovered how high a price one can pay for stepping outside the lines of what’s socially acceptable. All the major news networks covered my article with equal amounts of snarky ridicule and self-righteous outrage. What they didn’t offer, however, was any solid evidence that convincingly contradicted that of the authors of Dressed to Kill. I believe that words have power. Quite often in the press, words are carefully chosen to send an implied message with the intent of exerting influence over or stigmatizing a particular person, group, organization or idea. One particular reporter stated that my article, originally written for actress, Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website goop.com, was based on a “long-discredited” theory. To simply say the theory was disproven would be one thing, but that would imply that the original hypothesis was a legitimate theory at the outset and was later shown to be unsubstantiated by physical evidence. When a cancer medication or intervention fails in clinical trials, we don’t say the drug, procedure, developers or theory behind it were “discredited”; we simply say it was ineffective and move on. Because everyone is (or should be) working toward better cancer prevention, treatment, and a cure, there should be no time for this kind of infighting. By using the word discredited, the reporter

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sought to imply that the underwire bra/breast cancer connection theory was illegitimate from the start or worse, an intended fraud that was exposed, much the same way a false witness has his phony credibility stripped away in court. Nothing could be further from the truth. To even imply this theory is pseudoscience or that the medical professionals who spent years researching it are quacks does a great disservice to women who would otherwise read the findings with an open mind and then choose for themselves whether or not to make minor lifestyle changes that could increase their protection against breast cancer. I feared that women who stopped short after seeing such reactionary and dismissive reviews of my article would never go on to read it and decide for themselves. In her further attempts to discredit my article, the reporter stated that I offered “as evidence” only one source for my ideas, Dressed to Kill. It seemed convenient that she attributed my entire article to this book, which was just one of twelve sources in the original piece. In doing so, it was clear she was seeking to cast doubt in the minds of potential readers because Singer and Grismaijer committed the crime of being medical anthropologists instead of medical doctors. The obvious implication was that the book and my article were written by unqualified self-proclaimed experts and therefore the theory was nonsense. What the reporter didn’t share with her readers was that Dressed to Kill was inspired by research that had been performed by real doctors at Harvard University. The research revealed that women who did not wear bras had half the breast cancer risk of those who did. The reporter also didn't mention that the other evidence for my article included citations of studies from the U.S., China, Venezuela, Scotland, and Africa, as well as research published in three medical journals and one from a national department of public health.

In addition, the reporter quoted her independent blogger source who claimed my article suffered from a "lack of evidence" and asserted that, "This stuff scares women." On the contrary, I don’t believe I, Singer or Grismaijer are scaring women at all. We’re offering them information that may very well (if acted on in conjunction with other choices), give them the best chance they have

against being diagnosed with breast cancer. More choices empower women; they don’t frighten them. My phone was ringing off the hook with calls from hundreds of truly frightened women after actress, Angelina Jolie’s New York Times editorial, “My Medical Choice” was published in 2014. They were insisting that they needed the test for the BRCA1 gene and many told me that they were contemplating preventative mastectomies of their perfectly healthy breasts. My intention and the intention of the authors of the essential second edition of Dressed to Kill has always been to raise awareness, not alarm, to open up an educated debate free from egos and self-interest. The media attack on me was so pervasive that within 24 hours of my article being uploaded, Sydney Ross Singer sent me a supportive email that could only have come from someone who had personally experienced the kind of media backlash I had. A backlash provoked by those who dare to take the risk of stepping outside socially accepted norms in order to serve the greater good. Sydney Ross Singer is a real leader and forward thinker who is truly ahead of his time. His supportive words and knowing tone bolstered my resolve and reminded me why I've chosen to take the road less traveled in medicine. Ultimately, I believe the media’s anger, frustration and immediate dismissal of my article was more telling than the message they sought to convey. As I tell all my patients, how you react to an issue is the real issue, and it was clear to me that the media was protesting this issue way too much.

SPEECHES & APPEARANCES

After providing this amount of evidence, which was only a small sampling in support of the bra/breast cancer connection, the reporter still labeled the theory as "completely bogus" (another charged word) according to her genericallynamed list of "medical professionals." It seems irresponsible to assume there are no credible medical professionals at Harvard University or on the boards or within the pages of either the officially recognized medical journals I cited or their related institutions. In support of the claim that the bra/breast cancer connection is bogus, the reporter offered as her sources one quote from the American Cancer Society (ACS) that linked to a Fact Page on their website that provided no research, data, or scientific citations to support their statements; one link to a short Q&A article from the New York Times interviewing a doctor inside the ACS that also provided no research citations; one link to a private OBGYN blogger in San Francisco who, in the reporter’s words, “eviscerated” my article; and a link to a USAToday piece mentioning a 2014 study that I had already included in my article because of its controversial and unscientific approach of not using a control group in its proceedings.

“Because the fight against cancer has been going on for generations with limited success at best, it’s time to welcome other voices to the conversation regardless of how unconventional they may seem, particularly when what they have to say is supported by research.”

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Because the fight against cancer has been going on for generations with limited success at best, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time to welcome other voices to the conversation regardless of how unconventional they may seem, particularly when what they have to say is supported by research. In 1847, Hungarian physician, Ignaz Semmelweis, had the audacity to suggest the absurd idea that something as simple as doctors washing their hands between patients while delivering babies could prevent thousands of mothers from dying of infection and puerperal fever. Semmelweis and his idea were met with outrage by the medical establishment. He eventually lost his position and was only given credit for saving millions of lives years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed germ theory. Today, the largest university in Hungary is named after Semmelweis. So perhaps the unconventional does have something to offer in the way of disease prevention and saving lives, particularly in the way of cancer. I owe my life to making the choice to not shut out unconventional ideas during my battle with cancer more than 20 years ago. As such, I hope that women and patients everywhere will never relinquish their most powerful weapon

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in their fight against cancer, the ability to educate themselves on all options, regardless of how unconventional they may seem to those in the establishment, and then make a fully informed choice. Back in 1987, I discovered anthropologist and behavioral scientist, Robert Ardrey, author of The Social Contract. Ardrey explained how all animals have built-in alarm systems to alert them, as well as their social group, to danger. When one starling sounds an alarm, the entire flock takes to the air, flying in close formation and moving in unison, often changing directions at odd angles and with sharp turns to confuse the oncoming predator. The visual overwhelm is enough to deter most birds of prey, including falcons. The impulse to fall in line with those around us and â&#x20AC;&#x153;do as the Romans do" is deeply ingrained in human survival instinct, as well. The problem is that human beings are rarely in any mortal danger and yet regularly deny their personal opinions and desires, and instead follow the crowd to do whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more acceptable. Many religious sects that use shunning to get people to conform to the group understand how deep-seated the impulse to be accepted is. Our prehistoric ancestors knew that

to survive, they had to work and stay together. Getting separated from the group guaranteed an early demise. Even today, we have a very strong instinctual, yet unconscious association that says separation = death. Although they may not realize it, it’s the reason people jump into fads and buy or wear something just because everyone else is doing it. It’s the need to belong, which is synonymous with the unconscious need to survive. It’s not easy to break with what everyone else is doing in medicine. I know what it’s like to forge a new path while resisting cookie cutter symptom management. It saddens me when physicians admire my practice and patient outcomes and yet still reply with comments such as, “That would be so different for me. What if I lost the respect of my colleagues? What if patients left my practice?” or even worse, “That’s just not the way we do it at my clinic.”

Healing often requires going against convention, and I’ve certainly had my experiences as both a doctor and patient. Singer and Grismaijer are forging a new path, a new way of looking at cancer prevention that's as relevant today as when Dressed to Kill was first published in 2002. I’m grateful to have their voices back in the national conversation on cancer at a time when free thinking is needed more than ever. If you dare to leave the flock, when you look back you just might find everyone else following you. Eagles fly alone, sheep flock together. The choice is yours.

SPEECHES & APPEARANCES

Of course, it isn't. That’s the whole purpose of blazing a new trail and trying to move medicine forward rather than continually flying in the same patterns and going nowhere. It’s trusting that taking a new direction will reveal a new

vision. Unlike birds, we human trailblazers hold on to the hope that we won’t be pecked to death if we move out of formation. Yes, there will be humiliation and even intimidation in an attempt to get us to return to the fold. We’ll be called pseudoscientists and snake oil salesmen. However, if our persistence holds out, and we can separate our misinterpreted drive to survive from our passion for progress, we just might end up being called visionaries, forward thinkers or courageous inventors. The masters who have come before us have proven this to be true. Progress is always seen as blasphemy before it is understood to be a blessing.

“That’s the whole purpose of blazing a new trail and trying to move medicine forward rather than continually flying in the same patterns and going nowhere. It’s trusting that taking a new direction will reveal a new vision.”

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PERSONAL DELIVERY

MIDWIVES BRING SIMPLICITY & INTIMACY BACK TO BIRTHING By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

t might seem hard to believe, but relatively recently, in 1900, 95% of all babies were born at home. In 1938, the rate had dropped to 50%, and by 1955, 99% of all babies were born in the hospital.1 While hospital births seem perfectly normal to us today, the truth is that women have been helping other women have babies at home for hundreds of thousands of years, and the move to medicalize the birthing process is a very recent development in human history. BIRTHING BECOMES BUSINESS

Before the second half of the 20th century, most babies were born at home with the assistance of a midwife, a woman specifically trained in the birthing process and the needs of the female body. In fact, the term midwife comes from the Old English term meaning with woman. As hospitals were formed and later grew into profit-based entities, the push was on to reframe childbirth as a medical procedure that required oversight instead of a natural process of the female body. When birthing became part of the medical business model, the experience changed drastically for both mother and child. Because childbirth became the most common procedure performed at hospitals, the profit was good, but the process had to be streamlined to accommodate all expectant mothers. Unfortunately, this uniformity of process stripped away much of the attention previously paid to the spiritual and emotional needs of mother and child in favor of a sole focus on biological issues. Assuming a woman didn't have any complex health conditions in addition to her pregnancy, she could expect to receive the same treatment every other woman got with conveyor belt-like precision. Today, time is money. Birthing rooms can’t be occupied for too long, so extended labors aren’t encouraged. While most women are administered an epidural for their pain, this often slows down the dilation process. To speed things back up again, a woman is usually prescribed Pitocin, which

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induces contractions that are longer, stronger, and closer together. Unfortunately, the pain is often too intense, requiring another epidural injection. This slows down the contractions, which means more Pitocin, and so on. Eventually, this process creates contractions that are so severe that the baby’s heart and respiration rates become extremely distressed. Not long after that, the woman often finds herself being wheeled into the delivery room for an emergency C-section which was artificially induced by mostly unnecessary medical interventions. HEALTH RISKS, FINANCIAL RETURNS

In recent years, however, some health professionals have begun to take note of the increasing number of healthy women with no pregnancy complications who end up having emergency C-sections after induced labor or other unnecessary medical interventions. Research from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has shown that the risk of needing a C-section rises sharply when labor is induced, especially if it’s the first child.2 Unfortunately, as hospitals rush to be more competitive and serve more patients, the number of C-section births has continued to rise. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that between 1996 and 2007, the rate of C-section births for the U.S. rose 53%, the largest increase ever recorded. In Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Florida and Colorado, the increases were between 70%-80%. By 2007, one in every three U.S. babies, 1.4 million, were born via C-section.3 C-section births have become so common now that most of us don’t think twice when we hear someone we know has had one, but the truth is that a C-section is classified as major surgery. Lots of complications can occur including hemorrhaging and blood clots for the mother, or intensive care for the baby. Even though these risks increase with subsequent procedures, 4,5

PA R E N T I N G

C-sections are now the most common surgery performed in hospitals.6 In order to keep women accustomed to C-sections, they're often told that vaginal delivery is no longer possible after the procedure. This isn’t quite accurate. Additional research from the ACOG shows that 60% to 80% of women can have a successful vaginal birth after a C-section.7 Perhaps the reason for this misdirection is that C-sections, being surgery, cost twice as much as a vaginal delivery.8

This isn’t to say that C-sections are bad. They save lives when they’re absolutely necessary. The real issue is why and how they became “necessary” for so many otherwise healthy women who choose a hospital birth.

intense feelings of euphoria, overwhelm, and bonding between mother and child. Oxytocin is also generated on a much smaller scale during breastfeeding. Because this big hormone rush that normally sets bonding patterns in place doesn’t happen during a C-section, feelings of attachment to the baby can be somewhat lessened. Studies of MRI brain scans from Yale University have shown some C-section mothers to be lacking in attachment to their babies or less sensitive to their baby’s upset than mothers who gave birth vaginally.9 Often monkeys given C-sections will ignore their babies. Oxytocin also works synergistically with serotonin as a mood elevator, which might explain why C-section mothers experience postpartum depression more often, but additional research needs to be done in this area.

Another concern with C-sections is that because the baby does not travel through the birth canal, a final surge of the hormone oxytocin isn’t triggered. Oxytocin is the “love” hormone that generates

In a vaginal birth, the baby becomes covered in the mucosal lining of the birth canal, with much of it entering its nose, mouth and sometimes the ears. This lining is populated with billions of

UNSEEN SACRIFICES

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various strains of probiotics that once ingested, serve as the first inoculation of the baby’s gut, establishing the primary culture of what will become its intestinal flora and immune system. In a C-section, this vital inoculation doesn’t happen, leaving the baby’s immunity compromised and struggling to catch up later in life.

“As hospital birthing continues to become more mechanized, increasing numbers of women are looking to midwives and home birth to bring a sense of personalization, peace and less trauma back for themselves and their babies.” PRIORITIES & PROCESS

As hospital birthing continues to become more mechanized, increasing numbers of women are looking to midwives and home birth to bring a sense of personalization, peace and less trauma back to what is essentially a sacred process for themselves and their babies. In general, a midwife remains with an expectant mother throughout her entire pregnancy, monitoring her physical and emotional well-being, providing individualized education, counseling and prenatal care. She also provides gynecological exams, hands-on assistance during labor, delivery and postpartum support (while minimizing all technological interventions when possible), lactation consultation, and referrals for additional obstetric care. At present, a midwife may practice independently or in association with a doctor’s office. A woman can also use a midwife in addition to the care she’s already receiving from her OBGYN, whether she chooses to have a home birth or not. Midwives are qualified to deliver babies at home, in the hospital, or at birthing centers. Midwifery is currently overseen by the American College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM), Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), North American Registry of Midwives (NARM), and the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council, along with the support

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group, Citizens for Midwifery. At present, there are four types of midwife designations. Certified Nurse Midwives (CNM) hold either a bachelor’s or master’s degree in nursing and have passed a national certification exam administered by the ACNM, earning them a state license to practice. Certified Midwives (CM) also receive their certification from the ACNM but hold degrees in areas other than nursing. Certified Professional Midwives (CPM) are trained midwives who have been certified through NARM. The credential requires recertification every three years. Direct Entry Midwives (DEM) may or may not hold a college degree, but have trained in apprenticeship and other instructional programs, which include attending home births and those at birthing centers. Whether you are interested in becoming a midwife or using a midwife's services, it's very important first to find out which certifications your state recognizes. You can do this by reaching out to your state midwifery organization through contact information provided by Citizens for Midwifery (cfmidwifery.org). Always be sure your midwife is certified and has ample experience. Ask lots of questions, and always check references with previous mothers they have served. Interview potential midwives in person. A successful birth experience depends as much on how your personalities and philosophies resonate as it does on the midwife’s credentials and experience. Additional information can be obtained from contacting ACNM and NARM, as well. IMPRESSIVE OUTCOMES

Even though midwives are thoroughly trained and professionally certified, modern society’s exclusive familiarity with hospital birth might leave some doubting the safety of birthing at home. Hospital birthing has to be safer because well, it’s in the hospital… right? The world was populated long before hospitals, but let's look at some more recent statistics. In 2012, the U.S. ranked 174th out of 222 countries with an infant mortality rate of nearly six deaths per 1,000 live births, far behind nearly every other industrialized nation.10 Because 99% of all births today take place in hospitals, it’s clear these mortality rates can’t be coming from babies born at home. On the contrary, a study published by the British Medical Journal following more than 5,000 expectant mothers in North America who chose a home birth with a certified nurse midwife showed they required substantially less of almost every medical intervention including epidurals, episiotomy, forceps, vacuum extraction and C-section, and experienced virtually no neonatal

or intrapartum mortality.11

A study from the National Center for Health Statistics, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, followed all single vaginal births in the U.S. in 1991 attended by either a physician or certified nurse midwife (CNM). It stated that mortality rates in the births overseen by midwives showed "excellent outcomes." In fact, the risk of infant death was 19% lower for births assisted by a CNM than they were for births

EXCEEDING STANDARD PR ACTICE

Naturally, these kinds of successful numbers have left some doctors looking down on midwives, feeling competitive and insecure. At times, this has been known to create a rift between the two groups, especially in rare cases where a woman has a very long labor or an unforeseen complication that requires a midwife to accompany the mother to the hospital. Her reception from the doctor can be professional, but tense. Of course, none of this helps the expectant mother, who should be the sole focus of the proceedings and not professional egos. She’s already disappointed that she couldn’t birth at home and doesn’t need a doctor making her feel like she’s inconveniencing him. It’s because doctors don’t see the vast majority of births that happen smoothly and uneventfully at home, but only the rare case that needs technological intervention, that they have a wild misperception of professional midwives. The goal should be to work collaboratively with midwives to provide the expectant mother with the highest quality of care based on where, how and with whom she chooses to have her baby. If home birth plans change, then a doctor should be fully committed to continuing to provide, as much as possible, the same kind of birthing experience the mother would have had at home with only the technological interventions that are absolutely necessary, while working alongside the midwife. Unfortunately, the American Medical Association (AMA) wasn’t keen on collaboration when they released an official statement in 2008 saying, “…the safest setting for labor, delivery and the immediate postpartum period is in a hospital or birthing center within a hospital.”14 It’s interesting that the AMA didn’t mention

PA R E N T I N G

Under its Professional Development heading, the NARM website provides quite a few research studies published by internationally recognized medical journals that consistently confirm the high rate of safety and positive outcomes for low-risk women birthing at home with the assistance of a midwife. One study, published in the Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health, stated that home births rose 41% in the U.S. between 2004 and 2010. It examined outcomes of nearly 17,000 women who planned to give birth at home between 2004 and 2009. Of that total, 89.1% had a successful home birth. The majority of the women who had to be transferred to the hospital arrived for “failure to progress” with only 4.5% of the total sample requiring Pitocin to induce labor and/or an epidural. Vaginal birth was accomplished by 93.6%, assisted vaginal birth by 1.2%, while just 5.2% had a C-section, a far cry from the national average of 33%! Of the 1,054 women in the sample who attempted vaginal birth after a previous C-section, 87% were successful. Postpartum hospital transfers for mother and child were just 1.5% and 0.9% respectively. Most of the babies, 86%, were exclusively breastfeeding by 6 weeks of age. The intrapartum, early neonatal and late neonatal mortality rates were 1.3, 0.41 and 0.35 per 1,000. Compare that to the U.S. average of 6 per 1,000. The researchers acknowledge that, "Low-risk women in this cohort experienced high rates of physiologic [vaginal] birth and low rates of intervention without an increase in adverse outcomes."12 [author’s clarification]

conducted by physicians. The risk of neonatal mortality (infant death in the first 28 days after birth) was 33% lower with a CNM than with a doctor, while the risk for low birth weight was 31% lower.13

“With a little more focus on personalization instead of profit, we can provide that kind of experience for every woman. Even within an imperfect health system, we can work together to give each mother and child what they deserve, a truly personal delivery.”

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midwives in their statement, especially since midwives can accompany women to the hospital who have chosen them to oversee their hospital birth, many of whom have practice privileges in hospitals. Fortunately, most OBGYN’s know and respect their patients, and they’re more than willing to work with a midwife throughout a woman’s pregnancy and be ready to meet them at the hospital when the time comes, if need be. What all doctors need to understand is that they were educated in a system that’s very reductionistic, that breaks the human body down into separate, impersonal, mechanical parts with a one-sizefits-all approach to care, especially childbirth. Melissa Cheyney, lead researcher on the study of 17,000 home births, said, “The U.S. has a limited idea of what it means to have a positive outcome

at the end of a delivery. Basically, it just means that everyone is alive.”15 What many doctors weren’t taught to recognize is how a woman interacts synergistically with her unborn baby and even her own body during the pregnancy and birth process. Surely women deserve more from the healthcare system than simple relief that nothing went wrong during their delivery. They deserve the kind of experience that connects them with their body and reunites them with the profound sacredness of what it means to bring another human being into this world, surely a woman’s greatest gift. With a little more focus on personalization instead of profit, we can provide that kind of experience for every woman. Even within an imperfect health system, we can work together to give each mother and child what they deserve, a truly personal delivery.

Sources (1) Epstein, Abby, dir. The Business of Being Born. Prod. Ricki Lake. New Line Home Video, 2008. DVD. 2 Sep 2012. (2) Ehrenthal, MD, Deborah, B. , MD, and XiaoZhang Jiang, MD. "Labor Induction and the Risk of a Cesarean Delivery Among Nulliparous Women at Term." Obstetrics & Gynecology. 116.1 (July 2010): 35-42. Print. (3) Menacker, Dr. PH, Fay. "Recent Trends of Cesarean Delivery in the United States." National Center for Health Statistics (CDC) Data Brief. No. 35. (March 2010): 1-8. Print. (4) Kuklina EV, Meikle SF, Jamieson DJ, et al. Severe obstetric morbidity in the United States: 1998–2005. Obstet Gynecol. 113(2 Part 1):293–9. 2009. (5) Liston FA, Allen VM, O’Connel CM, Jangaard KA. Neonatal outcomes with cesarean delivery at term. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 93(3): F176–82. 2008. (6) Russo CA (Thompson Reuters), Wier L (Thompson Reuters), Steiner C. (AHRQ). Hospitalizations related to childbirth, 2006. HCUP, Statistical Brief #71. U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. April 2009. (7) "OBGYNs Issue Less Restrictive VBAC Guidelines." American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists. ACOG, July 21, 2010. (8) U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. HCUPnet. Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project: Rockville, MD. AHRQ 2005 [DRGs 370–3]. (9) Swain et al. (2008). Maternal brain response to own baby-cry is affected by cesarean section delivery Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Volume 49(10), p. 1042–1052. (10) "CIA World Factbook, Country Comparison: Infant Mortality Rate 2012 Estimates." Central Intelligence Agency. N.p. , 2012. Web. 2 Sep 2012. http://bit.ly/2yRn5fT (11) Johnson, Kenneth, C, and Betty-Anne Davis. "Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives: large prospective study in North America." BMJ Group. (June 16, 2005): 330. Web. 2 Sep. 2012. http://bit.ly/2PKgAmh (12) Cheyney, Melissa et al. (2014). Outcomes of care for 16,924 planned home births in the united states: the Midwives Alliance of North America statistics project, 2004 to 2009. Journal of Midwifery and Women's Health. , 59(1), 17-27. http://bit.ly/2PLjaZg (13) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, Press Release: “New Study Shows Lower Mortality Rates for Infants Delivered By Certified Nurse Midwives," May 19, 1998, http://bit.ly/2EAkLzM (14) Kluger, Jeffrey, "Doctors Versus Midwives: The Birth Wars Rage On," TIME, (May 16, 2009), https://ti.me/2S5aKgU (15) Ibid.

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LOVE & UNITY

BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER IN SACRED PARTNERSHIP

any people don't know it, but my beautiful wife Sherry and I became ordained ministers three years ago. We chose to do so as a way to continue to be of service to others and deepen our understanding of this great spiritual journey we’re all taking together.

Since our ordination, we’ve experienced quite a few blessings, one of which is being asked to perform wedding ceremonies. It’s been an absolute joy to be able to bring couples together in a way that unites them both in life and in spirit. As the happy couples express their love for each other, it's a wonderful opportunity for Sherry and me to reflect on our commitment to one another, as well. We love sharing our experiences with the newlyweds, and learning from them, as well. We discuss the importance of nesting, especially if children will be part of the new household. We particularly love incorporating children into the service. Don’t be shy about asking us to officiate your wedding or even renewal of vows. We are always deeply grateful to be asked to share in one of the most significant spiritual moments of your journey.

To learn more call (818) 452-4483

THE APPOINTMENT THAT

CHANGED MY LIFE SURRENDERING TO THE PULL OF THE UNIVERSE

By Lisa Douthit

was diagnosed with my first cancer when I was 26 years old. I had my second diagnosis at 27, and my fourth by 35.

Although I don’t believe you can create cancer in your body, I do think there are physical, emotional, and spiritual components to illness, and I know I contributed on these levels to my own illnesses. I didn't intend to contribute to the breakdown of my body, I was simply doing my life the way I had always done my life. I was working hard, playing hard, and getting ahead. I loved to challenge myself and strived to be the best, work the hardest, and always do more. I’d learned early on that pushing myself beyond my limits got results. The problem was that each time I tried to touch my goal, I had to push even harder because it would jump just out of my reach. Sound familiar?

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Although I understood that when you approached life with a healthy attitude, when you were steadfast in your commitment to self-care and balance, you could achieve miraculous results that would serve both you and the world, however, I had no boundaries and the hunger of a street addict for validation and accolades, so I pushed myself well beyond my body’s capabilities. My unrelenting exertions didn’t stop during my cancer treatments. I worked fulltime throughout my chemo and radiation treatments, and scheduled multiple surgeries around vacations and family events. Even as doctors removed internal organs, and treated the ones that remained with toxic chemical solutions and radioactive fire, I continued to focus on my never-ending to-do list. When my body finally got thoroughly tired of being ignored, it started to yell even louder. That was the beginning of the end that created a new beginning.

I woke one morning with double vision. I thought it was weird but didn't investigate because I was training for a marathon and late for my early morning run before work. It wasn't until around mile five that I realized I might have a problem. I noticed my gait was dramatically off - I was running like I was drunk - and didn't go back to normal when I got home. When my sister, a nurse, saw me later that week, she expressed more alarm than concern. Being a very efficient pusher herself, she made a few phone calls and got me in to see a specialist immediately. Within a couple of weeks, I was diagnosed with two life-threatening autoimmune diseases, and sentenced to a lifetime of medication and possible paralysis with no cure.

same flow state. The day I met with Dr. Sadeghi was the beginning of a profound shift in consciousness for me. I set the intention to find a different way to live in all aspects of my life. I’d like to say I was healed in that moment, but healing is a process and I still had some work to do. I spent the next year in bed in an almost completely catatonic state. I had three young kids at the time and an overburdened husband who was trying to raise them as he watched me fight to survive.

My body had finally called in the loans it had given me during the years I’d spent overextending its energetic bank and was now looking for payback. I could no longer control the trajectory I was on as I helplessly watched the life-force draining out of me.

The irony was that I was a healer too. My goal had always been to serve others in the highest and best way possible, but the way I’d been approaching my work ended up costing me my own health and wellbeing. What I didn't understand at the time was that Dr. Sadeghi’s inner healer was coming from a much different place than mine was. I was pushing through my life to help others, he was being pulled. I was curious and needed to explore how to make this shift, for my way was literally killing me. Even though I was doing what I loved, I realized that I was constantly trying to control the outcome of my work and my life. This forced me to work twice as hard to keep up with my own expectations. My unrelenting exertions caused a seemingly insurmountable breakdown of my body and soul. I was exhausted and suffering from low-grade depression because my body was so depleted of energy and nutrients. Since Dr. Sadeghi is in a state of flow with his higher self and purpose, he is being pulled by life, which actually fills his energetic bank. Because he treats his patients from this state of being, he offers them the opportunity to access this

“What I found was that the gap between illness and health is where you find your truest purpose and a way to live it that honors your body and soul.”

CONTRIBUTIONS

Desperate for a miracle, I looked to integrative healing since traditional medicine was offering me no solutions. Sitting across from Dr. Sadeghi opened the door to hope. My guess was that he saw a lot of people like me in his practice - Type A, get-it-done-at-any-cost people who could fix anything except the one thing that truly mattered, their health.

My soul was desperately trying to understand how to do things differently, so I could learn to serve others and receive from a state of balance and flow. I spent much of my time during those months in bed in meditation because that's all I could do. I also read everything I could find about spiritual transformation and chronicled the shift that was occurring within my being. What I found was that the gap between illness and health is where you find your truest purpose and a way to live it that honors your body and soul. As I went deep within, years of trauma were burned off. It felt like I was being recreated at the cellular level. Slowly, my strength increased as did my connection to myself and my higher power. Eventually, I crawled out of that bed, and over time was able to walk without a wheelchair. Now, I feel like I can fly! I’m fully back to my family and work, but am managing my life in M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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a more intentional and healthy way. I stopped pushing and instead allow myself to be pulled by a force much greater than myself. I now feel fully supported by the Universe and have learned that once you let go of the outcome and move into flow, life becomes limitless. As an Integrative Life Coach, I teach others how to live successful lives that won't kill them, and I do it from a standpoint that won’t kill me. My programs are filled with Type A’s just like me who have had health issues in the past and need to shift how they approach their lives. They can now be more, do more, and spend more time with loved ones because they understand how to work in a flow state. They are able to live beyond their own limits and restrictions because they understand that their work isn’t really theirs - it’s part of a much bigger flow. I’ve also learned to practice what I preach. By releasing my own expectations and learning to trust, I was able to make the decision to publish what I’d written while I was sick. My book, Wellness Warrior - Fighting for Life in Fabulous Shoes, became a bestseller. You will never know what the Universe has planned for you unless you let go of your own expectations and limited thinking. If you want to destroy your health, the quickest way is to keep pushing. By letting life pull me and my clients forward, and trusting that the Universe has my back, I can live my purpose while teaching others to live theirs. For that I am forever grateful.

“You will never know what the Universe has planned for you unless you let go of your own expectations and limited thinking.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lisa Douthit (www.LisaDouthit.com) is an Integrative Life Coach and bestselling author who is passionate about healing from all perspectives. She is an expert at turning limitations into superpowers, and has made it her mission to empower anyone who wants to live a life beyond their own expectations, and not die trying. Lisa truly believes you can live your purpose, no matter what your health status is. She’s proven that her process works with hundreds of clients including herself. After contracting a lifethreatening autoimmune disease and four different cancers, she worked her own program to get out of a wheelchair and back to life. She also writes about her recipe for healing success in her Amazon #1 bestselling book Wellness Warrior – Fighting for Life in Fabulous Shoes. Lisa currently lives in Southern California with her husband, three children, amazing dog, and cat friends lovingly nicknamed, “El Diablo.” If you're interested in knowing how to live a life beyond your own expectations with half the effort, visit: https://lisa-douthit-7n8t.squarespace.com/ and fill out the short survey to find out if you’re a fit for Lisa’s high level mentorship program. You’ll receive a two minute energy boost video that could literally save your life.

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PUTTING HUMANITY

BACK IN HEALTHCARE DR. SADEGHI ADDRESSES THE 2018 GRADUATING CLASS OF WESTERN UNIVERSITY OF HEALTH SCIENCES By Dr. Habib Sadeghi

walked out of this same ceremony almost two decades ago feeling invincible, ready to rush out of medical school and crush it, as they say, but in the process, I was nearly crushed myself. You see, after battling and conquering stage III testicular cancer, I started my post-graduate internship getting literally beaten to the bone by a patient experiencing a psychotic episode during an overnight, 30-hour, on-call shift. It turned out that the patient who attacked me and drew blood during the assault had full blown AIDS. For the first six months of my internal medicine internship, I was popping triple antiviral medications with serious side effects, including kidney and liver damage, like they were candy or multi-vitamins. I remember urgently breaking away from rounds to find the nearest bathroom where I would puke my guts out on - before, during and after long rounds on a daily basis.

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During this difficult time, what pulled me through were my friends, family, mentors, and community. It’s the commitment of this community that kept me alive by providing me with clarity and helping me stay grounded during this hellish experience. To help me maintain this clarity or peace of mind so I could continue being a good physician in the midst of such a nightmare, I created an acronym. This acronym will be the last one that you will memorize before graduating medical school. • C stood for remembering to place context before content, emphasizing the importance of being medicinal before acquiring medical knowledge, having a cup before looking for the perfect tea bag. • L represented the necessity to let love lead. For me, love is not four letters; it’s a concept so deep and so broad it could fill four volumes of textbooks with each one

being thicker than Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. • A is authenticity and having the courage to unapologetically be yourself. This is entelechy, as Aristotle called it, the journey of the acorn growing into a great oak. • R is for respect. If you were to visit Jamaica before starting your internship, you’d quickly take note of the nationwide Respect Campaign to foster greater cooperation and mutual esteem among its people. The prefix “re” means “again” and the suffix “spect” means “look”. Respect means to look again, to look once more at the patient and see his or her humanity without a preconceived notion based on their diagnosis. • The I stands for intuition or insight, learning to trust your gut feelings. • T represents today, which is all any of us can say we have for sure. Ladies and gentlemen

SPEECHES & APPEARANCES

“As you proudly don your longer white coats just like all other physicians, do not allow the length of this coat to cover up your humanity. Have the courage to move forward and discover what it really means to be of service in healthcare.” of the graduating class, do not postpone that which feeds your soul. As Nike said it best, Just Do It, but do it today; do it now. • Finally, Y stands for yearning to be of service, the passion to want to make a contribution to society and serve a purpose greater than yourself. Ladies and gentlemen of the graduating class of 2018, as you proudly don your longer white coats just like all other physicians, do not allow the length of this coat to cover up your humanity. Have the courage to move forward and discover what it really means to be of service in healthcare. Will the members of the class of 2018 please rise? Signifying your awesome accomplishment and change in status from students to alumni, please move your tassel from the right side of your cap to the left, where it will be poised over your heart. Welcome to your newest community at WesternU Alumni Association and congratulations! M E G A Z E N W E L L -BE I N G J OU R N A L

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POETRY LOU I WILL KNOT By Anne Shulman Open your heart Expand your chest Let go No. I will knot. Why knot? I do knot no. Such easy peasy Advice from someone Who spent 500 hours On the right to give it. I don’t cry on the mat anymore. I don’t cry. Knot. She told me to breathe into the knot. It worked. It all works, That’s knot the problem. I’m knot. I feel like a used nub of pencil. I feel worn. Where are we going? Where do we imagine we are going? I love the planet. I do knot understand the people. Why do we feel an allegiance to the way things are? Why knot try something different? Why have a terrestrial imagination when there is is the whole Verse? Photo: Atik sulianami on Unsplash

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UNGE CONSIDER By Abu Hafez Consider, Please. Come Sit Here, Long enough to consider.

Limped & Emptied Just for now! Come Sit here, Long enough to Consider. Please, Just for now.

So Just So that you may be touched By a new realm of possibility, Emptied out, Broken, Vulnerable- only then, Only Then, The SHOWING, that is US - together, WE, May Come in, Long enough, for you To softly allow IT to Braille you, in that de-light-full darkness.

CONTRIBUTIONS

Please, Consider, just for now; just now, that there is no one home - in your body right now.

Limped & Emptied to be worn Willingly by whom who whatever comes in, Just for now, Consider.

Consider a “For Rent” sign Large enough Now, outside in front of your guesthouse of your physical body: “Free For Rent Freely, ALL Welcomed.”

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STAY OUT By Abu Hafez For Ms. Annabelle Wallis - Who Embodies the essence of Courage to be Alive.

Stay Out Stay out! Stay, Out! No matter. No, Matter. Stay Out. Don’t let any one, Or any thing, Push you back unto Your shell - you’ve been there before. It’s safe. Warm. Comfortable. Looking Good. Come Out - Here, Now. No matter, No, Matter. Out Here, Where Life has always in all ways been yearning to Be With YOU.

Photo: Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash

PRAYING By Mary Oliver It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch

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a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.

BEFORE MAKING LOVE THEY COMPARE SCARS By Rick Benjamin For Margaret

beneath her navel where they lifted out twin sons, & the scar that is the same

She’s traced the map of his forehead like a path that leads to some place

line deepened where their daughter rose up thirteen months later.

she wants to go. & the year a knife entered his hip is a time toward which she would

You got me, he says, as their skins start to knit together

travel. What he wants just now is not to think about the blows

a path toward longing, their bodies already lost to the places

his body has taken, & as if on cue she says, me, I’ve only got these two, the line

where love has left its indelible marks.

CONTRIBUTIONS

At fifty-eight, he thinks he’s got his share, holds up his right hand where, alone, he’s got ten.

WHAT IF? By Abu Hafez What if the can, could peel off the label So mystery & wonder would be born? Wow! The can could be, might be a can of tomato? Tuna? Pickles? Water? Rock? Or even sardines?

Wonder is wondering who would show up, then Out here To play with Life, if there was no label of me on me? What if?

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YOU ARE NOT ALONE ON THIS JOURNEY By Lisa Starr When illness strikes the body we must choose, or not, to heal, and when it strikes our spirits we must choose, or not, to feel.

Some will give you facts and figures that rattle ‘round your head; some will give you odds so staggering you might as well be dead.

But the choice is only part of it; This is no child’s game— for we can only heal disease when we discover whence it came.

Some will offer risky treatments and procedures that sound violent and though you’ll want to scream “not fair” chances are you will be silent.

These scaffolds we call bodies are more than skin and bones and these organs that maintain us are more brilliant than we know.

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But there’s another way of healing that starts with love and kindness, then adds some self-forgiveness and a bunch of open-mindedness.

And then there is the busy mind and the soul with all its yearning, and the fear that sometimes comes at night and the belly and its churning.

The path to curing illness is blazed by self-discovery; the source and not the symptom is the key to your recovery.

Our bodies are miraculous and they bring us grace and glory but even more importantly they help us bear our story.

The goal is freedom from the pain of living with disparity, and it takes practice and hard work— this process known as clarity.

So when sickness comes, in any form, we must treat it like a guest, even with its savage manners and its often brutal tests.

Every ailment, every challenge Also brings the chance to grow-to transform the act of holding to the art of letting go.

But saying it and doing it are very different things; especially when you’re gripped with fear that illness usually brings.

Let go the fear, set free the wounds you tried to bury long ago. Let clarity guide you to the light that you were born to know.

BE I N G C L A R I T Y

Photo: Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash

It takes work to live with clarity— it takes practice and commitment, and belief that you were meant to live a life of true fulfillment.

Remember self-forgiveness; Like faith it comes and goes, And remember to be patient With both the blessings and the blows.

The tools are here, the time has come; your life’s been waiting for you to cleanse the body and the mind for space for something new.

Who knows where the journey starts or if it ever ends… there’s a new song playing in your heart and it sounds like the Clarity Cleanse.

Doubt and fear will come and go but you’ll no longer need them, and some will shout their bad advice but you’ll no longer heed them.

And Dr. Sadeghi—he’s the conductor, and your past the familiar refrain, but you, my friend, are the maestro, as you set out for higher terrain.

CONTRIBUTIONS

You’ve come this far, despite it all— despite the scars and trauma and now you get to choose between a life of joy or drama.

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ENVY By Hilary Spaulding Richards If you get up on stage and sing badly, off-key, shrill, hands on your heart, smiling with the joy of song, then I want to poke you in the throat, make your bold, bad song go away. If you make some sort of company, one that is holistic and helpful, one we need, then go fuck yourself and shove your gorgeous logo and storefront up your ass while you’re at it.

If you write everyday, something mean and true, or filled with metaphor and device, if you take that written thing and share it on your blog or send it to your publisher, calling it, blithely or nervously, “book proposal”, then the degree to which I despise you is great. If you are afraid of me, you ought to be. I am your critic. your enemy. your lover. I have wrapped my legs round you and you will look into my eyes. But i’ll despise you the most if you next kiss my forehead, paternally, and walk out of the door, pulling the brass knob, letting its latch bolt spring into the strike plate with a click.

Photo: Nodoka on Unsplash

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JEALOUSY By Hilary Spaulding Richards You promised me there were only two things that mattered: me and your writing. Well, i wish you had never said that because pretty much everything i do, i wonder if i live up to that sort of love, that sort of mattering.

As if so little mattered so much. As if we were capable of holding magic, shaping universes, kissing wounds, looking into ocean eyes and seeing absolutely everything.

CONTRIBUTIONS

Even now, I wonder, is that still all that can matter? Making words, I realize, of course, writing, that it is absurd. story, So much matters. Other things matter. both Like babies necessary and weeding the herb beds. and plate tectonics and web design. null. super storms. the cable bill. a well balanced diet. motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s birthday. but I want you to know that I plan to live my life from now on as if that were it.

Photo: Pro Church Media on Unsplash

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SYNTHESIS By Hilary Spaulding Richards

In seurat’s nude poseuse de dos, the model has her back to you. it hangs at the base of one of musee d’orsay’s wide descending ramps in a particular pocket of un-air-conditioned air You stand before her, whose back is composed of ten trillion flesh-hued dots, whose tones vary so slightly, one to the next, that beauty, that everything which is possible, is housed within just one inch of her skin, a corner of her pinned raven hair, a fold of the white sheet upon which she rests. You will forget you are a tourist in a cotton skirt and sensible walking shoes, the one observing the piece. And you will be clothes-less, shame-less, facing the unknown in a body composed of multitudinous flecks. You are both one body and endless fragments Each a relation to and wholly separate from the next, but en masse, a multi-dimensional body, twirling in her travelling clothes, her sensible shoes, moving just so on the marble tiled floor.

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AUTO IMMUNITY (2 WAYS) By Hilary Spaulding Richards

I walk across the tree-lined quad to my car, my purse pinched between my arm and ribcage, unseen by my son, utterly incomprehensible to the vibrant, necessary motions of adolescence.

From a distance, I see myself on the quad with my friends. Ten or fifteen teenagers move in an amoeba-like cluster, molecules of gas in a glass chamber. We bump against each other and the invisible wall that confines us. In the group, I stand out â&#x20AC;&#x201C; I am still adjusting to my new long form but I am familiar nonetheless. I am laughing, with my head back as I skip and pivot. Now I have a red bouncy ball in my hands which I launch at another molecule, setting off a chain reaction of kinetic energy. The molecules dance and spread then mysteriously come back together in a seemingly choreographed magnetic sequence.

CONTRIBUTIONS

From a distance, I see my son on the quad with his friends. Ten or fifteen teenaged boys move in an amoeba-like cluster, molecules of gas in a glass chamber. They bump against each other and the invisible wall that confines them. In the group, my son stands out â&#x20AC;&#x201C; my eyes are still adjusting to his new long form but he is familiar nonetheless. He is laughing, with his head back as he runs and pivots. Now he has a red bouncy ball in his hands which he launches at another molecule, setting off a chain reaction of kinetic energy. The molecules dance and spread then mysteriously come back together in a seemingly choreographed magnetic sequence.

I walk across the tree-lined quad to my car, my purse pinched between my arm and ribcage, unseen by myself, utterly incomprehensible to the vibrant, necessary motions of adolescence.

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WATERFALL By Hilary Spaulding Richards You are still surprised when you return home from a day to find a dog, children, a husband.

Because here are other creatures with whom you exchange words of a more practical nature. How was the game? Did your bus come on time? Are you hungry?

There is an assumption of solitude, a familiar interior discussion {worries about natural disasters, a barrage of old memories that file one after the other, tired or promising notions, a new business idea, an invention you ought to make, the start of a poem, the night you wore that Lagerfeld dress, the hopeful expression on your fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face the last time you saw him}.

And as you fill the pot with water, watch it come, clear and lovely, from the faucet the noise might start again; some wild image of you navigating a raft through Velvet Falls, the pile of boulders over which the Snake River slides and froths, a treacherous stretch for any craft.

When you cross the threshold, all this noise shuts off, like someone cranked the volume down on the old wooden amplifier that sits on the closet shelf.

Photo: John Rodenn Castillo on Unsplash

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HOWL By Hilary Spaulding Richards I want to come back as a newborn and wail. I want to want a thing and to cry for it like itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nobodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business. I want to cry so hard that my tears blind me, and that my lips, no not just my lips, that my whole entire body trembles. I want to be frightened or to have the tag on my shirt chafe and to scream like I lost a limb, scream like Nero dipped me in oil and set me on fire.

I want to want milk and to yell the kind of yell that makes walls hum; the sort of inside out howl that calls the coyotes, moves the mist through the valley, and gathers the mothers of the universe, raises their eyebrows, makes them crane their lovely, long necks towards solace.

CONTRIBUTIONS

Photo: Tim Bish on Unsplash

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BY HER MOTHER'S BLESSING By Hilary Spaulding Richards

The doll in her dream spoke like churchbells reverberating as everything in the infinite space of nothing in the field beyond sleep and wake. “There's a dial,” she'd said, a coloquial hymn, birds soaring from her wooden mouth. “Just turn it to the left.” The moon in her dream was full and pearly illuminating the doll's carved features. The figurine urn housing a Kontombole cousin sourced from source inspiration from Inspiration herself. Gifted from an angel, her Vasilisa's doll had [of course] always been here in the dream. That voice in the dark a divine instrument The woman was too cold to pretend hadn't always been there.

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So the dreamer plunged her hand through the armored membrane then down dark passages collapsed by victim stories riddled with anger for her mother through the fluid and blood and fat and bone deeper still deeper into her cavity cluttered and still (the vessel now rudderless) Feeling her guts. Feeling them. Picking poppy seeds from the dirt for Baba Yaga. Searching until

And the cavity became home, Womb adorned by its treasured guests Naval pulsing memory of her mother's umbilical sweetness Lungs billowing God's breath Heart at the helm.

CONTRIBUTIONS

the dial turned gently left. Fire igniting a skull-lantern, coals enough to warm a hearth. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There now,â&#x20AC;? the doll chimed.

Floating down the flume through the needle's eye and again awake held by conscious hands beloved on her mother's breast seen by the multitudinous reflections of unseen, eternal Love.

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the

CL ARIT Y CLEANSE

P h o t o P r ov i d e d B y : S T E V E S h o w

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Contributors EDITOR IN CHIEF

Dr. Habib Sadeghi CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Dr. Habib Sadeghi

Anne Shulman

Dr. Sherry Sami

Abu Hafez

Luke Cowles

Hilary Spaulding Richards

Heathere Evans

Freydoon Rassouli

Lisa Douthit

Lisa Starr

Boris Kachka

Rick Benjamin

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Dr. Sherry Sami Hutch Morton M AG A Z I N E D E S I G N & C R E AT I V E D I R E C T I O N

Persius Creative A R T D I R E C T I O N & I L L U S T R AT I O N

Persius Creative

TEAM BEHIND MEGAZEN

Luke Cowles

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Kourosh M. Khajavi Vivian Liu Photography MANAGING DIRECTOR OF B E I N G C L A R I T Y P U B L I C AT I O N

Hutch Morton

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PA R E N T I N G

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MegaZEN Well-Being Journal - Volume 6

Articles inside

The Ugly Side of Beauty Products