Health Lessons

Category: Climb

  • Create Your Personal Fountain of Youth

    Law 3: Climb
    Lesson 7: Create Your Personal Fountain of Youth

    I hope that you feel already the discovery of the truth of these lessons by feeling a current of healing and of peace beginning to move through your beautiful body.

    Yes, all bodies were created to be beautiful and as you find better health you will uncover hidden beauty.

    I wanted to make this lesson especially powerful for you, so, I’m practicing the lesson as I write it. I woke this day to walk out to a vision that you have seen. Water tumbles into a pool. The water spray from the cascade infuses the air with refreshment and coolness that wafts over the near-naked people who lay nearby in chairs.

    The pool reflects the summer sky and offers a cool immersion of peace to those who wish to walk the two steps from chair to water.

    The sound of the cascade washes away the noise of most conversation, of the traffic, and of the crowd of voices in every head that would scream orders of things needed done or else.

    Nothing to most but a pool at a hotel near the beach. But, set-up in the proper way, a place of retreat to Climb to better health.

    Today, as I describe the most powerful tool to help you use the third law, Climb, I practice that tool–Fountain of Youth.

    A Fountain of Youth and a Spring of Poison in the Same Place

    The Fountain of Youth will spring in the center of wherever you create an area–an environment–protected from the people and foods and practices that would steal your health, and fill that space with those people and foods and practices that would make you healthy.

    There are those, near this pool where I sit and write, who drink and eat more than they would at their own home.

    I have come here with healthy foods in small quantities and just enough money to buy gas home. So, I have created an environment controlled for health, a Fountain of Youth by limiting mobility and resources.

    I sit in the shade, now, to describe this principle for you. And in the description, I try to let you know the love I have for you and how much I want you to feel the extreme joy that comes even in times of trouble when you know how to wall off an area and create a new Fountain of Youth from which you then drink.

    And in that description, that I create for you, I create a wall of understanding and determination that purifies my own fountain.

    But, within a few feet, very near where I sit, there are those who read materials that bring more wanting of things destructive and within 20 steps can be bought drinks and foods that cause disease.

    So, in the exact same geographical point where I have created a Fountain of Youth, others create a Spring of Poison.

    Fountains of the Past

    Before his ministry, Christ spent 40 days in the wilderness, fasting.

    Oppenheimer spent time alone in the desert living on nothing but a jar of peanut butter and whiskey before he discovered the principles of physics that would become the atomic bomb. Then he lost his top-secret clearance for opposing some of the ways that his discoveries were discussed.

    While writing the script for the movie that brought him fame (Rocky), Sylvester Stallone painted the windows of his apartment black and refused contact with people.

    If you look at the great thinkers in every field, they spend time in a very controlled environment and then emerge from that environment with a new birth of vision and health.

    One of the most powerful tools of the third Law of Health, Climb, is to simply go to a controlled environment where the ingredients needed to Climb are there and everything that would pull you down is excluded.

    If I could think of one tool for you to use, so that you might learn to practice the art of Climb, it would be that you would with regularity, create a Fountain of Youth, and drink from it.

    Pre-Constructed Fountains of Youth

    How you create a Fountain of Youth, what and whom you exclude, and what and whom you include will vary depending upon the purpose of the fountain.

    I have gone to the mountains and taken no food, only a tent and water, and lived and ran, and meditated, and prayed.

    I have lived in the hospital for days at a time and studied the ways to treat disease. Sleeping there, eating there, and finding exercise during the night using the same treadmills used to rehabilitate the stroke victim.

    I have come to places such as this, here, by this pool near the beach, and brought my family, and created a Fountain from which I can drink the love and respect of sons (my reach into tomorrow). And so, here I am, now, trying to help you see the importance of creating your Fountain of Youth so that you might drink deeply.

    In the beginning, I recommend that, if possible, you go to a health retreat already established for this purpose. To create a Fountain located in the same place as a Spring of Poison is an advanced technique that will not work for most.

    In the beginning, find a place that practices truth, or else you may do more harm than good. When you go to drink from a fountain, you want the waters as clean and pure as possible for by definition you must be able to put aside all filters and drink deeply until full so that you can sustain your body and soul when you go back to your daily life of using your body-tool in the battles of this world.

    Since your filters will be put aside, you will be at greater risk to ingest poison and so should as guarded about pre-construed Fountains of Youth as if your life depends upon that wisdom and guarding–because it does.

    Make Your Own Fountain of Youth this Week

    As a trial, you can create a 3-Day Fountain of Youth, downloading all of the recordings. Also, download the shopping list. You probably already have the 3-Day Burn handy and can avoid the download but if you’ve misplaced it, download again.

    Then make a date on your calendar to do the 3-Day Fat Burn (even if your weight is normal, for this is a modified fast that does much more than cause weight loss). Plan the burn at a time when you can be away from those who lead you to harm and spend time either alone or near those who support your best health.

    The day before the 3-Day Burn, go buy everything on the list.

    Then give away or throw away the unhealthy foods and drinks that are not on the list.

    Now, start the Burn and drink from your Fountain.

    More Advanced Trips to Pre-Constructed Fountains of Youth

    If you wish for me to recommend a Fountain specifically for your purpose, or to create one for you to visit, write to me at DrRunels@Runels.com describing what you would wish to happen at the Fountain if you could see the miracle of your choice.

    Plan on creating and drinking from a Fountain at least once a year, preferably once a quarter.

    The Portable Fountain

    Eventually, as you become more inspired and more skilled, your life will become a Fountain of Youth. Wherever you go, you will carry with you a way of thinking that walls off the rest of the world, and your fountain will spring up from the earth beneath your feet no matter where you plant them.

    You will be in the world but not of the world.

    And as you drink more deeply, eventually others will come to you, looking for water and will drink and discover what you have now discovered.

    But, when you see the waters spring from beneath your feet, you are most vulnerable. Before a fall, pride.

    You must still, always, and forever, take time to leave the world and be alone and create a Fountain and then drink deeply. If you do not, then you will one day look to find your portable fountain has dried and you wade through a pool of poison.

    When this happens (and it will), run as fast as you can from the world, and take only what will help you Climb again.

    Peace & health,

    Charles

    Charles Runels, MD

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

    ©2009, 2020 Charles Runels, MD

  • Law of Health: 3 Climb. 6-The Annual Peak

    Every Man & Woman is Sculptor and Painter of the Body-Temple
    HOME :: May 10, 2020
    Law 3: Climb

    Lesson 6: Climb to the Annual Peak

    Why?

    One of the unchanging laws of health is that the healthy make time to escape from the world, from business, from recreation, and even from family to climb to the most elevated peak of mental and physical health possible for that person. In the process, a spiritual health will also be found.

    Why?

    Because it’s hard to tune a car while it’s driving down the interstate. And it’s hard to refocus on what to do and to renew strength to do when you’re busy doing.

    So, you can take a few minutes to make a do list to help you climb the ladder. But, at least once a year, and no more than once a quarter, the most healthy and the strongest, take a day or a few days to make sure the ladder is against the right wall and to renew strength for the climb. Then with that knowing, they go back to climbing the ladder with more purpose, more strength, and more joy (even when there is pain), and more peace (even when there is sorrow).

    What?

    As a child, I did not know who Thoreau was or that he had written of the process (which I will give to you on this page) that he used to find the wall on which to rest his ladder–to find the peak. I did know, even then, even as a child, that I would sometimes feel less healthy and less connected.

    Whatever scripture you read–I think you will find that the most connected spiritual heroes occasionally separate from the world to become closer to Something not of this world–to climb to their Peak.

    So the thing I want to show you is how to find your Peak–the Annual Peak, from which you gain vision, strength, and health. Then use your daily routines to maintain that peak as much as possible while knowing you must eventually stop and do this process again.

    As a child, less cluttered by the desires and scars and failures of a grown man, the method I used was simple: I would walk through the forest most of the day (for as many days as it took), reading scripture at night; then I would simply find peace by almost walking through it and so bathing in it somewhere in the forest. Then from that peak, I enjoyed a calmness and strength that carried me (with less involved daily and weekly practices) through the year.

    As a man with sons of my own and things I feel called to do, and with poisoned arrows aimed my way, the clutter and chatter make finding my way back to that peak a more complicated–but not much more.

    Here’s the annual process that I use now (the same process used by those stronger than me) that will take you to your peak of mental and spiritual health.

    How (7 Steps)

    1. Make a Time and Place

    As a child, I would go through the discipline of finding the peak during the Christmas break. Then, when I did not need to go to school, I could find a few days alone in the forest, and it prepared me for the holiday.

    Now, as an adult, the weeks leading to Christmas are very busy. But, my sons leave to spend time with their mother and I am left alone for a few days after Christmas. Patients are less needful during this time as well. So, the two or three days starting at lunchtime on Christmas day are best for me.

    I have also made time by simply taking a long weekend in a hotel room in a place where I can easily be alone and there is a place to walk.

    A tent in the forest for a few days also works.

    The main thing is that for 2 to 3 days there are no people, little phone, no movies or television, no magazines, nothing but the writings that you think allow you to drink most deeply from the most unpolluted thoughts.

    2. Fast

    I know the word, “fast,” is a true 4-letter word that scares or offends many people as much as any other. But, it’s only been practiced for a few thousand years. I can look back as far as scripture goes and find it recommended. And I can also look in the best seller of today, The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman, and find it recommended as a way to find superior health.

    So, perhaps, it’s worth doing? And, it’s easiest to do an extended fast when alone.

    Here’s a quick study on fasting that inspired Jack LaLanne as a child and inspired and instructed me most of my life: The Miracle of Fasting: Proven Throughout History for Physical, Mental, & Spiritual Rejuvenation.

    A simple method, is to make supper your last meal (so you do not go to bed hungry) and then have nothing with calories until the next night at the same time. Drink plenty of fluids and do not change the amount of caffeine that you drink–simply make sure you get no calories from whatever you’re drinking.

    If you’ve never fasted, then 24 hours is plenty. But, for the yearly peak, eventually, you’ll want to extend it to around 3 to 5 days.

    “Fasting” by simply not eating chocolate, or giving up your favorite food, does not work as well. Not even juice fasting works well for the yearly peak. I’m talking about ZERO calories.

    Don’t worry about losing strength. Lions fast. Vince Gironda and other muscle men have taught periodic fasting as a way to GAIN strength.

    And of course, spiritual leaders have taught it as a way to gain a different kind of strength.

    3. Walk

    Do prophets walk because they are prophets or do they become prophets partly because they walk? There’s walking and then there’s Walking.

    You will understand more by reading this short essay by Thoreau on walking. If you read nothing else this year, in an effort to become healthier and to reaching your annual peak, download (for free) and read this essay by Thoreau on Walking.

    It would also help to listen to this free recording by me on walking (you probably have this already, but re-listen to it as part of the process of finding the annual peak)…

    Here’s even more on walking and some of the people who walked<–click<–

    4. Read Great Thoughts

    Go as far up-stream as you can, to the headwaters where the thoughts are as close to pure as humanly possible, where love and courage and wisdom are least diluted. Then read not as much for information as for synchronization with the Mind from where thought originates. If the person who wrote what you are reading did not own a television, wondered the desert, and died for his beliefs–that’s a clue that you’re close to the headwaters and maybe reading the appropriate words.

    5. Pray and Meditate

    Here’s a wonderful introduction to meditation: Master Guide to Meditation and Spiritual Growth

    Here’s a guide (a free download) to prayer: How to Pray.

    6. Write what you see while connected.

    Here’s a guide to making a journal (which can be a form of prayer): The How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci Workbook: Your Personal Companion to How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci

    7. While Writing, Make These 6 Lists

    1. What is the one thing most needed to be done today (if not done your family and your business will suffer)?
    2. What do you get to do for fun? What re-creations bring you the most pleasure?
    3. What do you want to see done over the next 3 to 10 days?
    4. What do you want to see done over the next 30 to 365 days?
    5. What do you want to see done over a year from now?
    6. Of the lists above, what are the most significant contributions you can make?

    These lists have been said by many thinkers in many ways, but the most recent and helpful version I have read was here: The 168 Hour Week: Living Life Your Way 24-7

    Summary

    Climbing once a year to once a quarter to your peak mental, spiritual, and physical health through a day to three days of disciplined practice will make the year better in many important ways.

    This practice, of finding that peak, has been taught by thinkers of every religion for centuries and usually involves these 7 practices:

    1. Isolate.
    2. Fast.
    3. Walk.
    4. Read.
    5. Pray.
    6. Write.
    7. Plan.

    So, there you have it, Map of the 7-Steps to your Peak. You can keep the momentum by studying this: The Law of Health: 10 Essential Steps to Glorious Health & Miraculous Healing.

    Thank you for your attention to this map, I’m honored that you have looked at it. Please keep me updated about your progress.

    Peace & health,

    Charles
    Charles Runels, MD

    1-888-920-5311

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

    ©2009, 2020 Charles Runels, MD

  • Water Teaches Health

    Law 3: Climb

    Lesson 5: Water Teaches Health

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

    One of the most important lessons about health can be seen by watching this video:

    Notice that the water never goes uphill?

    Water, left to fall "gracefully," 
falls only downward.

Aging "gracefully" 
by allowing the body to decline 
without effort 
into keeping the water up the hill 
is not "graceful."  

Water is difficult to hold. 
But, with thought and skill, 
you can hold water 
and carry it back up.

    Without effort and thought and the regular climb,

    be no more surprised

    to see your health cascading from a mountain of vitality

    into a pool of dis-ease

    than you are to see this waterfall.

    It is the way of a waterfall.

    It is the Law of Health.

    Do Today

    1. Know that whether you believe it or not, whether you remember it or not, health flows downward as surely as water.
    2. Counter the natural cascade by remembering and living the Laws of Health–every day taking your health in hand and climbing back to a higher place. This explains why health is also like a bicycle: there is no standing still; if you quit going forward, you fall over.
    3. ShareThis

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

  • Law of Health. Law 3-Climb. Lesson 4-The Weekly Routine

    Law 3: Climb

    Lesson 4: The Weekly Routine

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

    Most of what I know about medicine, I learned by watching the thousands of people who have come to me for help.

    Of course, having studied medicine and chemistry and philosophy in school helped me understand what my patients had to teach; still, the lessons came from the people who trusted me with their health. So while I was teaching them, they were teaching me.

    Recently, a woman asked me, “Who taught you this, who was your teacher?”

    I thought for a minute, and realized the answer was everyone whom I had ever met had something to teach me–and I learned from almost all of them. But, I did not know how to explain, so I gave her another answer that was just as true, “I learned it from the sky.”

    One of the lessons that I learned from the most healthy is the weekly routine: the weekly climb to better health and better focus.

    I see the extremely healthy practice daily routines, but the practice that distinguishes them even more from the rest of the world is the weekly routine. The activities included in the weekly routine, even more than those in the daily routine, include actions that are important and not urgent.

    So, because even these actions are less urgent than what you might do daily, and because they are not usually included in your day, it’s the weekly routine that usually goes undone.

    When I get off track and feel the edge becoming dull, it’s usually because I’m leaving off the weekly climb back to better health with the weekly routine.

    For example, you may be in the habit of walking most days as part of your daily routine, but if you fail to take time once a week to think about your mileage for the week, or even what that mileage should be, then you do not reach the conclusion that your mileage may not be adequate and that you are missing more days than you thought. Therefore, you do not make corrections in your schedule to get the mileage up to the 21 to 25-mile mark.

    As for schedules, it’s the weekly routine where you actually make the weekly schedule that keeps you on track with your exercise and work and rest. Without the weekly routine of looking at your schedule and planning to do what should be done to be healthy, then most of it goes undone.

    So, this is an important lesson, Climbing to better health with a weekly routine, because it’s here that you plan and grade yourself on all the rest of the Law of Health.

    The Weekly Routine should include at least the following:
    1. Rest
    2. Meet
    3. Grade
    4. Organize
    5. Metabolic Workout

    Rest

    You will see greater success if you practice most of the weekly routines on the same day of the week. This day will change, during your life, depending upon your work and family schedules. Most of my life, I’ve practiced the weekly routine on Sundays. But, Saturdays also work, and sometimes (during my ER years) Monday or Tuesday worked better.

    The first thing that’s helpful about the weekly routine is to try and avoid any work at your main job on that day. I’ve tried it both ways and you will find much wisdom in the ancient commandment to rest one day per week.

    Without this day of rest, several things happen. First, the work expands to fill 7 days, where if I plan to take a day off, then I will usually figure out a way to get the most important things done in 6 days.

    All of the work is never done anyway. There’s always something else to do. But, if I work every day, even at a labor of love, then I start to feel less creative and will see a drop in enthusiasm. Even if you love chocolate cake, if you eat it every day you will tire of it. So, taking a day off, even when you have something to do, even when you do not want to take a day off and you love what you do, will make you come back to that activity with renewed enthusiasm and vigor.

    This does not mean that you do nothing (though you can). Better is to have a creative leisure pursuit that compliments what you do the other 6 days. I prefer something very active physically (so I fell energized and strong) or something creative that expands the mind (so I come back with more creativity).

    Everything is related to everything, so if you let your recreations “be manful and not sinful” (as George Washington advised) you will find your day of rest makes the other 6 days more productive than if you had not taken the day off.

    This is also the day that you sleep a little longer, or take a nap that’s a little longer than usual. But, the most re-creating rest comes not from shutting down in sleep (and absolutely not from shutting down in a drunken stupor), it comes from swapping the attention of your mind to something fresh and worthy.

    Meet

    This is the time to meet with your “mastermind” group.

    This is the day for clubs, for worship, to go for the long run with the friend or spouse, to go for the long hike in the forest, to sit for extra time in meditation with a group, to have the family meeting and the family feast.

    This is the time to connect to those who have inside of them what you want and who want what you have inside of you.

    Life is for doing, not meeting. But, weekly meetings will empower the doing.

    Grade

    Whatever you do, you will do better if you keep a record. Find a way to keep numbers on anything important. Sometimes the numbers may not say it all. As Einstein said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” But much of it can be.

    If nothing else, keep track of the 1, 3, 5 plan.

    I also find this worksheet helpful. It’s more complicated and takes more time than the 1,3, 5 Plan but I pull it out and use it regularly and find that it helps me stay focused on the important. You may skip a few days but looking at it once a week helps you refocus.

    For more about how to use this worksheet, be sure and study and restudy this (one of my favorite books) by a man who coached business people and Olympic athletes about how to thrive with stress (this book helped me stay healthy and through 12 years as an emergency room physician in an inner-city ER):

    Organize

    Thirty-two years ago, a college professor came to the Shades Valley YMCA in Birmingham, Alabama, and taught a one day course on how to study in college. I sat in the back of a room of about 30 people and, at 17-years-old, learned lessons that continue to help me at 50.

    One of the most helpful tricks that he taught was the way to schedule and think about time. Even though I do my own web site, have an iPhone, and have no fear of electronics, I still like to see every hour of my week by filling out this form, which he recommended, once a week.

    Years after going to that lecture at the YMCA, I read a similar explanation of time management in Steven Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I’d recommend that you review this book once a year:

    Then I saw the same form again in this book, The Now Habit, written by a man who helped graduate students quit procrastinating and get on with the job of finishing their doctorate dissertation:

    Are you getting the idea that perhaps this form could be helpful to you?!

    So download it now, and follow these instructions:

    1. Write in the hours when you will work. These are the times when you must be at your job or at school and so are unchangeable (at least for this week).
    2. Put in when you will sleep.
    3. Write in an hour per day, up to 2 hours per day, that belong to you to exercise and listen to recordings of lectures or to music. To stay healthy and sane, you need an hour per day that belongs to you.
    4. Write in one hour per week when you will do the weekly review and repeat this scheduling event.
    5. Write in any special events that you would like to attend–especially the meeting with your mastermind person or group.
    6. Now look at your schedule and ask, “Do I have something to look forward to every day?” It can be simple and short, just the exercise, or perhaps the bath or sitting with a friend after the workout. But, you should have something that you look forward to every day.
    7. Ask yourself, “What is the most important thing that I want to accomplish this week?”

    The Metabolic Workout

    This is the time to do a fast or modified fast to exercise the metabolism and use the enzymes and hormones that renew and cleanse the body.

    Here’s a sample plan: The 3-Day Fat Burn, which is a modification of many strategies. If you don’t have it, then get it (including the grocery list which comes as a free separate download to help you do the plan).

    I’m also a fan of Paul Bragg and think this book belongs in every home:

     

    Important Question:

    Can you see why when people walk up to me in the grocery store line or at a coffee break at a conference and ask, “What do you do to stay so healthy and fit?” I look at them tongue-tied and sad.

    So many people want to make health more simple than how to change the oil in the car. Just take this supplement. Or just do this magic exercise.

    Real health, the real tuning and fine-tuning of the body involves much more art and knowledge than most suppose–but the rewards are stellar.

    Do not become discouraged if you must study and restudy.

    So must I. So must everyone.

    The continued and consistent doing of healthy practices

    brings better health

    even though your doings and mine

    will never be perfect.

    Learning and practicing the Law of Health is one such practice.

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

  • Law of Health: 3 Climb. 2-10 Steps to Climb from Fatigue to High Energy

    Law of Health
    Law 3: Climb
    Lesson 2: 10 Steps to Climb from Fatigue to High Energy

    You often think you are tired when you are simply bored or depressed. 

    You will look with boredom and fatigue at the books that hold the knowledge that will better your life or at the work that will express your love; then wake up to watch the hypnotic poison of mindless T.V. or listen to numbing music. That’s when you know you were not tired, simply bored.

    But, sometimes, you know real fatigue and fear (not boredom that feels like fatigue).

    If you wish to awaken, then you must conserve the energy that powers the engine of your mind and spirit, for each awakens the other.

    Here are Ten Commandments that have worked for me for replenishing nerve energy. 

    Disregard even one of the ten and you may find yourself supine as if covered with a heavy fog that pins you to the bed and chokes the air from your chest–I know from breaking every law on the list.

    But, I also know the energy of following them.

    Law 1

    Rest.

    If you fight a long battle or enjoy extra pleasure (and I will be disappointed if you do not do both), then spend extra hours in bed. 

    Have a day per week of rest. GOD rested one day per week. 

    The honeybees do not rest; they work every day. But the honeybees gather nectar mechanically and store methodically. 

    The GOD in you wants to create the nectar of Love that human bees gather to their hive. For that, you need rest.

    Law 2

    Play.

    All animals play. 

    Watch the dolphin that jumps from the sea. Does he arrive sooner for going vertical, skyward, rather than horizontal?

    Watch the dog that circles chasing his tail. Do you see the smile on his face?

    Only people seem to think that their role becomes so important that they cannot play. 

    Work without play becomes drudgery and uninspired. Play without work becomes a denervating vacation from nothingness and brings no pleasure.

    If work becomes drudgery, play. If play becomes boredom, work.

    Every day, work. Every day, play.  

    Today you may work 20 hours and play for 10 minutes. Tomorrow you may play for 8 hours and work for 30 minutes; but, everyday work and play.

    Every day work before you play, or your play laughter will be muffled by thought of work undone.

    Law 3

    Enjoy.

    Enjoy everything. 

    Enjoy your work (which is Love made Concrete) or find new work.

    Enjoy and find gratefulness for the water that washes across your hands and face when you wake, for the taste of the first liquid to pass your lips and cross your dry throat when you start your day, for your lover’s kiss, for your morning prayer, for the air that passes down the pipe to your lungs to give you the ability to think about the morning sky.

    Enjoy sorrow for sorrow is the vision that allows you to see joy and the possible sorrow of tomorrow is the timekeeper that encourages you to grab joy today.

    Law 4

    Look.

    If you direct all your thoughts to your career, your family, your self, then you develop a tunnel vision that leads to numbness and boredom. Everything relates to everything. Stop directing all your thoughts toward yourself and look away from your private concerns to the universe outside the people and concerns in your mental world.

    By looking outside yourself, you gain awaken to new worlds and new possibilities and new energy that you then import back to your world to make it larger. You also take what’s in your world and find new ways to contribute to the universe around you.

    Develop and study new interests. Study literature, dance, marital arts, music, gardening, or flowers-you decide. But, pick something new and study and you will find yourself looking outside yourself and your circle.

    When you look outside your circle, you awaken to what’s outside your circle.

    Law 5

    Sweep.

    Sweep your mind of the poisons that will dull you to an anesthesia of despair and fatigue.

    Take time to list every worry, every anger, every resentment, prejudice, and jealousy. 

    Then, find an action for each. Do something toward a solution for every worry, even if it does not completely solve the problem. Do an act of kindness toward those for whom you feel the poison.

    Law 6

    Eat.

    Eat least 5 servings of fresh fruit or vegetables every day. When you bite the apple with seeds still able to grow a new tree, you bite into life and swallow vitality. No need to fear food that is not still living, but make sure you swallow life daily and adequate amounts of life.

    Except for days of fasting, eat a minimum of 5 servings per day (a serving is one cup).

    Law 7

    Walk.

    As much as possible, dress for the weather and walk 3 to 5 miles daily in the fresh air (for a total of 21 miles per week). If safety or other problems dictate that you walk inside, then use and elliptical trainer and still go the distance. But, at least go for a short block or two in the fresh air daily.

    You will find more magic and health than is widely known in the meditation and movement of walking. Add other activities if you wish. But, if you ignore walking, you will see more valleys and miss more mountains.

    Law 8

    Release.

    Release responsibility for the results; take responsibility for doing your best at the most important thing you can find to do. 

    Work with your head and hands and not with your emotions.

    Do not worry that the most important thing does not seem important enough to you. More important things will come to you if you do what is in front of you with excellence.

    Do not worry that you may not see the result you intended. If you learn from that result to adjust to something more important or more constructive, then you did not waste your efforts.

    Do not release effort and focus. Use your strongest effort and your most narrow focus to do your work. Survey the promises made to you and to others, decide the best action, then focus and work.

    Do not dash from one activity to the next. Decide the most important thing to do and stay with it until you reach your predetermined stopping point. 

    Then go to the next thing.

    Law 9

    Ignore.

    The only opinion that matters is your opinion while connected to GOD. Worrying about the opinions of others is a huge drain of your energy. 

    You will make enemies and endear lovers with the same action, no matter your action-good or evil, constructive or destructive.

    Connect to GOD, then enjoy the rest, peace, and energy that comes from doing what you perceive to be right and best and ignore the inner voice that whispers the intrusion, “What will people think?”

    Law 10

    Stop.

    Whatever you are frantically doing (thinking that the world will end if you stop), stop doing it.

    At least for the time it takes to do the first 9 laws-stop and know that the world will keep going without you. Though you may think that you are the superhero that must save your family, your business, and the world, if you do not care for yourself, you cannot help. 

    And, when you are gone, the world will keep going without you.

    Peace & health,

    Charles Runels, MD

    1-888-920-5311

     P.S.: These 10 Laws are a modification and expansion of ideas found in a book published in 1954 by Edward Spencer Cowles, Conquest of Fatigue and Fear. I have used these ideas with great benefit since picking up a used copy of the book at a library sale 38 years ago.

    These laws were further modified into the following pocket book…

    © 2009, 2020 Charles Runels, MD