Health Lessons

Category: Awaken

  • The Relation of Negative Influences to Energy

    To be awake requires energy.

    One of the common complaints that people bring to their physician is “fatigue.” Sometimes, when people complained to me about fatigue, I found serious diseases like cancer or heart failure. In that case, curing the disease would help the fatigue.  But, there are three categories on the fatigue-awake scale that are not often discussed that do not necessarily involve a “disease.”

    Point A

    On the diagram below, look at point A.  If you look at the scale, you will see that as negative influences go up (emotional drama, guilt, poor diet, even physical disease, poor health practices) the person dwindles in energy.  But, here’s the surprise: because the scale is not linear, as the person decreases negative influences, he/she will not experience much increase in energy.  So, there will be little motivation to continue efforts to remove negative influences.

    Point A is where most people live.

    All the way to the right on the scale, you find death.  But before death, the negative influences are so great that the person experiences little change in state even with something very negative.  Often, as a physician, I have seen people in the emergency room who were under so many negative influences (drugs/alcohol) that they were not even aware that they had been shot or stabbed.

    Finding Creativity Through the Removal of Negative Influences

    Someone living at A will need strong, even unnatural influences, to experience improved energy and pleasure (hence a leaning toward drug abuse).  We all crave any emotion other than boredom and fatigue. It’s why we go to the movies. Most would prefer fear (scary movies), sorrow (tear-jerking dramas), or fear (action movies), or desire (sex movies) over boredom. It’s what art does for us…wake me up, scare me, make me laugh, make me cry–anything but boredom. 

    But, don’t really hurt me. That’s a movie or a good book or just good art.

    So, when someone lives at A, it takes a great stimulant to bring them back to energy.

    Not that movies or art are not helpful.  Artists and poets create for us both heaven and hell and hold up for us both love and hate. But, on a physical level, living at A is miserable and making it back to B, where one may feel an upsurge in energy will require removing multiple negative factors.

    The main point about point A is that patience will eventually bring them back, but getting from A to B will require patience because immediate and dramatic effects may not be felt when adopting good habits.

    Point B

    At point B, one starts to experience increased energy due to the removal of sufficient negative factors. This would also represent most young people for whom the negative influences of poor diet, exercise, or mental and spiritual abuse of themselves have not yet affected them.

    Most healthy adults practicing good diet and exercise will routinely make it here.  Because of the sensation of the fall back to fatigue when practicing wrong habits, this person will usually get back on the right path pretty quickly because they will miss the energy lost.

    But, most seldom remove enough negative influences to make it to point C.

    Point C

    At point C, the person has removed so many negative factors that he/she operates from a place of creativity, natural flow of energy, love, and even can reach spiritual enlightenment.  Achieving this will often require the practice of fasting, prayer, meditation, reading of scriptures/philosophy, and a more diligent removal of negative influences and habits–and the practices of other positive habits–than most are willing to do.

    Notice that at this level, even a slight movement to the right on the negative influences line will drop energy precipitously.

    The person at C will notice a drop in focus and creativity with even the slightest change. Not that this person is fragile, but their focused mental and spiritual state is sensitive.

    The Muse will run, the angels will fly, the vision will fade when offended.

    Making it to C, once felt, will cause a person to thirst for GOD, to hunger for health, to beat the walls in anguish, go without food, leave their friends and family–anything to climb back up the hill.

    Richard Bucke, who experienced an enlightenment episode while traveling in his carriage, wrote about this experience and the conditions that may lead to it (in Cosmic Consciousness) and how it changes one forever.

    The purpose of the Law of Health is to move one to the left on the Negative Influences scale as far as one may dare to go.

  • Expect to be Hated

    Law 4 Awaken Lesson 6-Expect to be Hated

    After spending years developing what became the O-Shot® procedure, I offered the treatment to Susan. She had suffered permanent scarring of her vagina and anus from the physical abuse dealt her by her former husband.

    On her lunch hour, Susan walked to my office from the bank where she; and we did the procedure.

    One month later, Susan called me.
    “The pain I suffered during sex is gone completely,” she exclaimed. “And, I’m not leaking urine when I run or needing to get out of bed to use the restroom—I’m able to hold my urine. Because I’m now able to sleep and exercise, I feel much better overall and I’ve lost weight.”

    Six months later, Susan married her high school sweetheart.

    Soon, I started teaching and researching and talking to the press about the O-Shot® procedure.

    Then came the surprise.

    Sex therapists and other physicians started attacking me online. Even though the materials and methods we use to do the O-Shot® procedure (PRP) had been researched for over a decade (with positive results and a very safe side effect profile), extreme, hate-filled posts and writings appeared regarding me and the other 1,000 plus providers of the O-Shot® procedure (including gynecologists and urologists).

    Reading the criticisms of those who poured the hate, it was easy to see that those who hated us understood neither PRP nor how we did the procedure; they made assumptions based on a less-than-awake and less-than-informed state.

    Still, I initially felt surprised and hurt. Those feelings of mine were very immature.

    When you awaken to Truth about your occupation, your health practices, your love relations, you will (because you are awake) see things that others cannot see.

    The man who discovered heart catheterization was kicked out of his hospital. The man who first suggested that physicians wash their hands after delivering babies—also, kicked out of the hospital and died in the insane asylum.

    Socrates was forced to drink poison. Boethius, Mandela, Bunyan were all imprisoned. Please make note: they were imprisoned not for harming another person but for their ideas about how to bring peace and harmony.

    Dr. George Sheehan, the cardiologist—who wrote a regular article in Runners World about the health benefits of running—was considered to be a quack by his colleagues. It’s difficult to comprehend now, but in the 1970’s cardiologists largely thought that because the left ventricle of the heart enlarged in runners, that running was not beneficial to longevity. Now we know that aerobic exercise does more to prevent heart disease than any blood pressure or diabetes medication.

    But, George Sheehan was largely hated by many cardiologists of the 1970s.

    When you wake up and then live the truth that you see when awake, you will be disliked. You will not only be debated and opposed, (listen carefully) when you wake up and live the truth you see—by some, you will be HATED.

    HATED.

    I promise.

    It’s not “maybe” someone will not like you.
    I’m guaranteeing—HATED.

    You may even be harmed in reputation, financially, or even bodily.

    When the hate happens, you note it so you can think strategically; but, if you pay too much attention to the hate, you will modify your life to live the truth of the haters. Then, you die in spirit and become despondent, or dull, or even spiritually or physically dead. The muse hides. The angels cry. And you join the timid who run with the mob rather than the brave who fight with their GOD.

    Read.
    Observe.
    Listen.
    Then, go inside. That is where you find your awake Self and Your principles of health.

    Then, as you live your truth, expect to be hated.

    Previous lessons in the Law of Health discuss the need for Love and Fight to find health; but, when it comes to becoming Awake, since arrows are deflected more easily when expect, you would do well to remember to expect to be hated.

    Important

    C.S. Lewis noted that there are three reasons for pain and suffering: (1) pain as a consequence doing wrong (2) pain for doing good, and (3) pain for reasons we don’t understand.

    Ted Bundy and Mahatma Gandhi were both loved and hated during their life. Bundy was swooned over; Gandhi was demonized and assassinated. Since both doing good and doing wrong can lead to pain, then pain and the hatred or love of others cannot be a reliable gauge. No worries though because the test is simple: Is that I’m doing helping others or hurting them?

    Go inside and ask and answer that question. That is your guide. For strategy, you can note the hate and the love from outside, but for your purpose and your health practices, use that simple test.

    Do Today

    In a quiet place, ask yourself just two questions:

    1. Does everyone like me?
      (If the answer is “yes”) Am I not doing something that would lead to better health of me and those around me so that I can be liked by all?
    2. Does anyone dislike or hate me?
      (If the answer is “yes”) Is the thing for which I am hated bringing better or lesser health and happiness to others?

    Further Reading…
    The Courage to be Disliked<–

  • Law of Health: 4 Awaken. 5-Beginner’s Mind

    September 1966, Birmingham, Alabama, 6 years old, I woke early and my mother cooked scrambled eggs in an iron skillet. There were real butter and real grits. I ate them with my father. He drank coffee and ate more of the eggs than I. My younger sisters still slept.

    Then, I walked 1/2 block to the corner to catch bus #98.

    An older boy at the bus stop, Bobby Campbell, sat with me during the ride. The older boys at the back of the bus “cussed” and seemed big and menacing.

    That was my first day at school.

    I also remember my first day of swimming lessons. I felt cold and the deep end of the pool was the bluest water I’d seen. The teacher seemed beautiful, and graceful in her one-pieced, blue, swimsuit, and black hair which reflected the summer sun, and her shoulders strong when she climbed from the water.

    Six years later, age 13, night time, a cold Tennessee creek full of snakes, stars poking through a mountain sky in July, and me sitting on a rock with a pretty dark-haired girl from Muscle Shoals–Paula.

    She gave me my first kiss.

    Remembering those three teachers (of bus rides and swimming and kissing) and the attention I gave to those teachers shows me my best beginner’s mind.

    Imagine the focus and eagerness to learn, the beginner’s mind, with the first bus ride, the first time to jump into deep water, the first kiss.

    If I use that same mind, even now, when I travel, plunge into water, or touch my lover–then I learn.

    Just a book? Then it stays closed.

    Only water? I sit on the side of the pool while the children swim.

    Just my lover’s mouth? Then I miss the depths of a different spiritual pool.

    Traps that kill the beginner’s mind…

    Trap 1: Letting a name become an explanation.

    Naming it “gravity” does not explain why two objects are attracted with a force proportional to mass and inversely proportional to separating distance. Names do not explain.

    Trap 2: Thinking the first answer is a real answer.

    Ask “why?” five times in a row, and you’re always left with an unanswered question.

    Trap 3: Not living with the question.

    Most can’t tolerate the unknown. So they let a name or the answer to the first “why” become the answer. Get to the real questions. Then live with the question and your life becomes the answer.

    That is the “beginner’s mind.”

    Only with the beginner’s mind can you find your best health.
    This is one of the lessons teaching the Law of Health (which never changes).

    Peace & health,

    Charles Runels, MD

    Law of Health<–
    3-Day Fat Burn<–

  • How to Avoid Brain Dumb Downers

    Lesson 4: Avoid Brain Dumb Downers

    You could drink a cup of coffee to wake your brain, and then undo the awakening with lethargy and dumbness by drinking excessive alcohol.

    You could practice mental, physical, and spiritual Laws of Health to Awaken–but still lose your best health if you simultaneously consume even one of these “brain dumb downers”:

    1. Talking too much

    Benjamin Franklin made “Silence” second only to “Temperance” as the virtue most needed to find the other virtues and your best life. Too much talking not only puts the brain to sleep but also poisons the emotions and wastes time.

    His definition well defines the practice: “Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.”

    Of course, there’s a time for lighthearted times between friends (this is not trifling but uplifting), but continuous trifling babble consumes time and energy that could have been used to find every type of health.

    2. Other people who talk too much.

    This one’s worth mentioning separately because the people who will talk non-stop and waste the days of others will find and latch to those who practice silence. Two people who both talk too much can enjoy each other’s company, but they clash so much from trying to talk over each other that they will be most happy with someone who will sit and listen.

    So the more you practice silence, the more you will find that incessant talkers want your company. If you sit and listen to every word for as long as they want to numb your mind and waste your day, then you are consuming the narcotic of babble as much as if you were the one talking. It is not their vice but yours; you consume a narcotic to hide from your thoughts and alibi your coma when you sit with incessant talkers.

    3. Detailed information about something beyond your control.

    One of the reasons that the weather channel can relax (for any situation other than an approaching disaster) is that there is nothing that we can do about what we hear. The weather channel reports 100% upon conditions 100% beyond your control.

    Even the news about foreign lands and wars can be important to know to be a good citizen, but a continued diet of such information can be an excuse for not thinking and not doing–a narcotic that blocks your best health.

    Thoreau called all news “gossip”; the names of people and countries change with every age but the news stays the same.

    4. Literal drugs and alcohol.

    Interesting isn’t it–that cliche’: “drugs and alcohol” That tells the fact that some like to separate alcohol, “It’s not really a drug.” Drugs that put the mind and emotions to sleep (including alcohol) prevent the total waking of the mind.

    Do not suddenly stop medicines given to you by your physician. But, if you want to work with your physician to decrease medications, or if you struggle with boredom or anxiety or depression or insomnia (mental ideas for which drugs with narcotic-like effects are often given), then here are ways to need less medicines so that you can awaken:

    a. When worried, think of what’s the worst that can happen and prepare your mind for what you will do in that situation.
    b. Think of what you can do to survive the worst possible scenario and what you can do to make the best possible scenario happen, then do those things. Action and prayer eventually slay worry.
    c. Many painful emotions erupt from the poisonous chemical balance found in those who do not practice physical activity every day. Exercise one hour per day to stay sane. Exercise two hours per day to enjoy your best health. There may be those who seem to skirt these rules and do well, just like many seem to do well on 3 hours of sleep per night. But, most people find their most wakeful place by following these guides.

    5. Mindless movies or television.

    Stories can inspire and instruct. Good stories will always be the method of teaching of the prophets and poets. Stories can be verbal, theatre, movies, recorded audio–who knows what will come. Stories will always be enveloped in the form of the most entertaining way to communicate in every age.

    Stories become narcotics when they do not instruct or inspire but simply evoke emotion to help the sleeping person think they are awake. The sleeping person feeling the emotion of a mind-numbing story simply feels the emotion of the dream, not the emotion of the present moment.

    Watching those stuck in prison or in a hospital bed, I can see the usefulness of a mind-numbing story. But, even there, I have wondered, “Would this person be the next Boethius should the mindless stories go away?”

    6. Mindless games

    When I was young, I played chess and imagined a king and his court and soldiers there on the battlefield. Now, with electronic gaming, whole worlds continue to grow in cyberspace with people working to find recognition and power or love there in that space the way I looked for it on the chessboard.

    I quit playing so much chess (though I still enjoy the occasional game to exercise my mind) when I read Franklin’s essay where the gout that plagued him spoke to him (in a humorous satire) about how he should have played less chess and pursued more physically active hobbies, leaving chess to the person who does physical labor as an occupation.

    The real space around me holds enough people who would thwart my best efforts to keep my mind occupied. The strategies needed for this day become less clear if the narcotic of mindless games become my main focus.

    7. Gods that do not inspire.

    Only one G–.

    Those who ignore that G– ignore the most powerful force–prayer or communion with that G–.

    Those who approach that G– through a door of religion that puts the mind and body to sleep to the voice of G–, those who must look for G– through a lattice of man-made rules so thick that it muffles G–‘s voice and blocks the Light, those people cannot hear or connect. The rules that define their G– disconnected them from Awakening and from best health.

    Religion should be a path that a child could follow to G–, not a narcotic that sleeps you to the universal mind in a coma of man-made dogma.

    8. Music that dulls the mind.

    Music has rhythm, words, melody, and volume.

    All of these can be used to either awaken or to put to sleep. All of these components of music can be used to inspire or to evoke emotions and ideas that poison.

    Music reflects the spirit of the composer and the performer. You will take on the spirit of both when you dive into a composition. Even without words, you can feel the spirit of the artist who performs and the artist who composed.

    When you find an artist and a performer that lifts you (and it may not be at your church and again it may), then consume that music.

    If music does for you something other than this, then what is it’s purpose?

    The 5th Law of Health speaks of sex. Music that evokes ideas of sex is not a narcotic unless sex has become a narcotic (instead of inspiration and joy).

    Music that tears down should be jettisoned and washed away with good music as quickly as you would evoke vomiting followed by the proper antidote should you swallow poison.

    9. Mindless reading.

    As with music, the mind of the reader takes on the state of mind of the writer. So the subject of what you read can be important and helpful, but the state of mind of the writer is just as important.

    That idea explains why you can benefit from reading the ancient scriptures even if you do not understand every word of the subject. Because these scriptures came from pens of people who walked the deserts with G– talking through a much less developed lattice of distraction, these deep and pure waters clean the mind of the modern pollutants of overgrown religion and of unbelievers and of wisdom haters. The polluted hype of philosophy cakes that are all frosting with no wheat will wash away in the clean waters that spring from ancient scripture.

    The builders of complicated man-made latices (the vampires) know the power of the cleansing waters of ancient scripture and would have you avoid them by keeping you always focused on their growing lattice, which walls you into their prison where they can drink your attention and put you to sleep in a nightmare of disease.

    The ancient scriptures dissolve the lattice and fill your mind with the Breath and Words that awaken.

    10. The emotions of anger, jealousy, worry, and hate.

    The poison emotions can serve a purpose by pointing you toward your fear. Find the point from which comes the fear (what’s the worst event you’re afraid may happen) and do something to neutralize or combat that fear. Then you awaken back to the clear place of calm purpose.

    These emotions are not “bad” any more than pain when you touch a fire is “bad.” These emotions point to a fire in your life that will incinerate your peace and your health unless you take action.

    So, pay attention to the emotions, all of them. Then use these ideas (and what comes to you from practicing these ideas) to Awaken.

    This is one of a series of lessons in the Law of Health: 10 Essential Steps to Glorious Health & Miraculous Healing

    Peace & Health,

    Charles Runels, MD

     

    3-Day Fat Burn<–

  • Law of Health: 4 Awaken. 2-On Your Mark

    Lesson 2: On Your Mark!

    Thirty-two years ago, as a high-school student, I walked to the starting line, took a deep breath, waited, and heard the gunfire. As I took the first steps, I thought of a running secret–something that I want you to know because it will help you find and keep better health.

    The secret strategy that helps a runner find victory in any race is to make a strong start. Seems simple but imagine a couple of scenarios and you will understand how powerful this is.

    Imagine that it’s near the end of a marathon. If you are 200 yards behind the leader; it can be very painful to catch up because you are tired and must now accelerate. But, to run quickly and to get 200 yards ahead of someone at the beginning of the race, when you are rested, and the other person is trying to conserve energy, it can be very easy.

    At the beginning of a race–even a distance race–making a strong start puts you out in front.

    Instead of making a strong start, in a day and in a race, many will say, “I have the whole day before me, I’ll just take it easy for now and then make it up by running faster at the end.”

    But, then the end comes and distractions and fatigue intrude so that the race finishes with you behind with resolutions undone and with health dwindled.

    As you start your day, in the efforts to find glorious health and miraculous healing, remember that a day is all you have. Live your life in “day-tight compartments.” And, know that the first 3 hours of the day are the most critical as you try to outrun the fatigue and bad influences and poison thoughts that will try to overcome you during the day.

    Get ahead of these influences or they will outrun your resolutions and leave you behind in a day of missed opportunity and poor health.

    Clear the Track

    Those first 3 hours set the tone for the whole day. Those first three hours largely determine if your day will be health-giving or health-damaging, productive or non-productive, happy or sad, energized, or lethargic.

    Schedule your wake up time to help protect those first three hours from draining influences and mindless chores. Resolve to avoid mindless chatter or even talking at all. Resolve to keep your environment, your mind, and your schedule clean so that the track is uncluttered before you and you can create a strong start.

    Win the first three hours and you win the day.

    Wake-Up Routine

    You’ve learned about routines already as you studied the third Law of Health, Climb. It helps to consciously determine a wake-up routine and follow it so that you start the day with energy and focus and in the right direction.

    Has the wake-up routine really been practiced by the thinkers and healers of the ages?

    Read about the practices of the prophets and athletes and innovators and I think that you will find that the wake-up routine (though not usually called by that name) takes place in the life of most healthy and productive people.

    The order of the wake-up routine and the ingredients will vary at different times in your life and depending upon different goals. Here are some common ingredients that others have used to find superior health and miraculous healing:

    1. Contemplate the goal of the day.
    2. Read something inspirational
    3. Write
    4. Eat something energizing
    5. Pray or meditate
    6. Stretch
    7. Walk

    Seems like a long list to most. At times, it’s felt to me as if the wake-up routine (WUR) took so much time that by the time I finished the WUR, then it’s time to start the go-to-bed routine.

    The WUR must leave time for your resolutions and for your recreations–waking up cannot be the main goal in life, it’s what you do to be ready.

    On the other hand, the process of waking up can produce some of the most valuable products of your day. Also, many of the ingredients of a WUR can be done at the same time.

    You will understand more as we go through the ingredients of the WUR. The first part of the routine is the resolution of the day.

    “What good will I do today?”

    Benjamin Franklin asked himself every morning, “What good will I do today?” The answer became his resolution for that day.

    Hopefully, you’ve thought about this the night before as you did your go-to-bed routine because a purpose for waking up makes it much easier to wake up.

    So, before going to bed, you think of what good you wish to do the next day. Ask that you be shown your highest purpose–the most valuable thing you could do. Then, upon waking, you take a look at that resolution. This process should only take a few seconds to a few minutes.

    The answer does not need to be world-changing. Don’t wait to run until after you find a track worthy of you; make the part of the world in front of you better; make the world inside of you better; run the track in front of you and you have changed the part of the world that you most need to change. Then, as you make the part of the world in front of you better, you may be shown an extended vision of what you should do.

    But do not wait for something that is worthy of you. Be worthy of what’s given to you today and more will be shown to you tomorrow.

    Now, at the least, simply look at what you wish to accomplish by looking at that resolution written on a piece of paper. If you wish even more power, then spend time seeing the accomplishment of your purposes for the day in your mind’s eye and time praying about your purposes for the day before you even leave the bed.

    Though you may have ideas about what you would like to see happen next week and next month and ten years from now, when you take your resolution of the day, it should be for what you wish to see happen for that day.

    Tomorrow’s lesson will explain more about the ingredients of the WUR. For now, stop and ask (that’s right, do it now)–ask, “What good will I do today?”

    Write that on a piece of paper and stick it in your pocket.

    Close your eyes for a few seconds and see yourself doing that thing. Know that better health makes it easier for you to do what you resolve and poor health will hinder you.

    Your healthy body is the tool that will help you do.

    See yourself doing what you must to become more healthy so that you can accomplish your resolutions (do not worry about avoiding the bad, simply focus on what good things you will do and the destructive will fall away).

    Now, you are “On your mark!”

    BANG!

    The gun has fired.

    GO!

    This is one of a series of lessons in the Law of Health: 10 Essential Steps to Glorious Health & Miraculous Healing

  • Law of Health: 4 Awaken: 1-Don’t be a Dog on the Porch

    Law of Health: 4 Awaken: 1-Don’t be a Dog on the Porch

    When I was a child, my Father and I would often sit on the porch swing.

    That porch was in a unique place: I could climb onto my bicycle and be at the steel mills in Birmingham, Alabama, within a few minutes; I could also go the other direction and travel through the forest all day and never cross a paved road.

    The steel companies owned miles of property that they would later strip mine for coal, and that is where I would go to be alone and away from the city. Later, after the strip-mining, this land would be flat pine forest (with the pines planted to reclaim the ground). But, when I was a child, there were steep hills, and streams, and massive oaks, and muscadine vines, and rabbits, and snakes, and quail.

    My Father and I each had an English setter. His was solid white and he called her Sue. Mine was speckled with black and I called her Pat. Both dogs had a sweet disposition and a quiet way but would go hyperactive when headed for the forest because they loved to hunt for the quail that was plentiful then.

    I would come home from school and leave home with Pat, usually without my gun and head for the forest and walk until I found what most people find on the inside when they walk for hours without crossing a paved road.

    In the evenings when my Father and I sat in the porch swing, sometimes Sue and Pat would lie close to the swing to be close to us and listen.

    They were aware of each other, of being home, and of being near my Father and I. But, the details of our conversation were unknown to them.

    The philosopher and psychologist, William James, said in his book Pragmatism that we are like dogs on the front porch. There is conflict, and love and war that wages all around us of which we are unaware. We are to those other realms as Pat and Sue were to the conversation of my Father and me.

    When it comes to health for mind and body and spirit, it helps to wake up and become less like a dog on the front porch.

    Einstein asked his students,  “Of all there is to know, what percentage is known by the accumulation of all human knowledge?”

    One of his students replied, “4%.”

    Einstein answered, “What is the chance that GOD exists in the other 96%?”

    I do not think that the human mind and physical reach are capable of knowing a large percent of what is known about the universe. But, the mind is capable of reaching much further than most people reach.

    The mind and the spirit and body are so intertwined that when one suffers, all three are affected. The reverse is also true; developing a more awakened state can lead to better health.

    All 10 Laws of Health lead to a more awakened state. But, it helps to consider this idea separately.

    Here’s a simple example: Arnold Schwarzenegger (in his book, Education of a Bodybuilder) says that when he lifted weights, he would focus so intensely on the muscle that he was training that he would imagine being inside the muscle–imagine it growing to the size of a mountain.

    The Olympic and professional athlete will tell you that focus and concentration are necessary for excellent health and performance of the body.

    Though I’m not trying to become an Olympic star, I do want to be the best animal that I can be as well as the best mind and spirit. Awakening the mind and spirit as much as possible facilitates becoming a better animal.

    This idea of awakening can be and should be thought about on several levels. Before considering how to become fully awake, consider what it looks like to be asleep. In the classic book, A Brave New World, Alex Huxley talks about a society sedated by drugs and realistic movies that keep people from thinking. There become a relative morality and a general decline and fall.

    Being asleep in America can mean being hypnotized by television, where no image lasts longer than about 4 seconds.

    Count the next time you watch. 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, and before you say 5000, the image will switch. There’s a continuous flickering of pictures to keep one mesmerized and glued to the television–asleep. Then add food that makes one feel lethargic. Now, add beverages that turn down the volume on the mind and senses.

    And while this goes on family and work and the sky and the laws of physics and mechanics of business turn unstudied and untouched by the person made near comatose by such influence.

    Compare that with the person fully awake–aware of as many planes and areas as possible and plugged into that mechanism including the development of good physical health.

    Sometimes, it helps to sleep. There is a time and place for it. But, most people spend most of their day mostly asleep and then wonder why sleep does not come easily at night. So, I’m not saying that there is never a time to turn down the mind. But, there should be an effort to awaken the mind and body and spirit as much as possible to be animal, body, and spirit on the highest level possible.

    Awakening can happen on several levels:

    1. Simply waking up in the morning.

    2. Listening to those more intuitive or knowledgeable about what it is you want to know

    3. Thoughtfully awake to new information.

    4. Being awake to what’s going on with your own body.

    5. Being awake to things of the spirit.

    It isn’t easy to be healthy and vibrant if your practices put you to sleep. There are ways other than television that people use to hypnotize themselves into letting an hour, or a day, or a year pass without caring for the body.

    Next, we’ll discuss why people go to sleep and how you can awaken and become more alive with better health.

    Today, simply watch (without trying to change) and see how you might be dulling your mind or body or spirit.

    Peace & Health,

    Charles Runels, MD

    Runels.com

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