Health Lessons

Category: Law of Health

  • Sex for Health-Leonardo and Ben Franklin

    When Benjamin Franklin sat down to think about the virtues, he did so with a particular goal in mind.  He tells in his autobiography that he agreed with Cicero that creation of the universe was proof enough that there must be a GOD.  Franklin reasoned that if there is a GOD, then GOD must delight in virtue and that anything that GOD delights in must lead to health and happiness.  So, Franklin decided to study the virtues as outlined in scriptures and by the philosophers and to condense these virtues as much as possible–then go about living by those virtues.

    One of the virtues, as defined by Franklin, is Chastity (Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to weakness or dullness or the injury or your own or another’s peace of mind or reputation).

    As a teenager, I read Franklin’s writings and wondered what he meant by having sex “for health.”  It’s not too hard to understand what he meant by not having sex to the damage of peace of mind or reputation or to weakness or dullness.  The part about offspring is easily understood.  But, what about sex for health–do you know what that means?

    I don’t want to dwell on it too much.  I don’t want to try to play philosopher or sex expert.  I just want to tell you how I think I’ve seen the life of my patients and friends and my own life work in using sex for health. 

    I’m not going to fiddle with a fancy definition or start preaching; I just want to give you a quick way of thinking about how sex can improve health and how it can damage health (and I’m not talking about sexually transmitted disease).  I’ve lived in a committed marriage relationship, and I’ve lived with sex freely offered from many directions and freely taken.  I’ve had the honor of serving as physician to conservatively 10,000 people over the years (as an ER physician and in general practice and in research) and have cared for the Sisters from the Catholic Church, Priests of Buddha, prostitutes, erotic dancers, married and devoted, and single and living free.   I’ve cared for the elderly with young lovers, for the elderly living alone. I’ve taken a few notes about myself and others and will simply offer what seems to me the way to use sex for health. 

    I’m not going to repeat a Sunday School lesson or a high-school warning about sexually transmitted diseases.  I want to offer simply what I’ve noticed seems to work. 

    Sex should be fun and exciting.  It should result in better health.  It should increase energy (not drain it).  It should cause better health–mental and emotional.  To show how that can be accomplished, I can’t think of a direct way to explain or understand; but, the following analogy helps me keep it straight most of the time and will serve as an introduction:

    Sex for health is like Leonardo’s famous painting, the Mona Lisa–it’s very good art. 

    Leonardo reportedly carried this painting with him everywhere.  He looked at it from every angle.  He added to it occasionally, always looking for a way to make it better.  Some say that it was a painting of a woman he loved.  Some say it was a self-portrait of his feminine side. 

    I think it was both.

    Sex for health is sex where one person studies another in the most intimate way.  Rather than splashing paint everywhere, it’s as much what’s left out as it is what’s put in.  One lover starts to see his or her own soul when looking into the other’s eyes.  Emotions and personality and sensation and conversation (even conversation with GOD) become so mingled that it’s a chorus of two with harmony and dissonance instead of two people separate like two separate conversations in the same room.

    Some go around town splashing as much paint on as many canvases as possible.  Their sex becomes like a cartoon:  many caricatures but no detail.  There’s no study, no deep emotion, and so no real high and no real low.  It’s simply a pleasant distraction for a time.  But, there’s no art and there’s no energy from the health and energy of synergy.

    Some marry, paint a cartoon and then simply settle for the cartoon–repainting it over and over again.  There’s no sense of the art.  Each person in a love relationship is both the painter and the canvas.  Each canvas wants to be studied, to be understood.  Each canvas wants the painter to look from the outside and find a way to add more depth, more detail, more inspiration, more emotion. 

    If the painter loses focus and goes about town painting cartoons, and you are the Mona Lisa begging to be studied, wanting to be taken to a new level of art; then you will not be pleased that the artist took his/her eye away to simply focus on creating a cheap sketch on a chalk board that will be erased when the next school child comes along to draw a caricature.

    As Leonardo studied the Mona Lisa for years, carrying the art with him, seeing himself in the art, seeing his lover in the art, he created a masterpiece.  As two people travel together using sex as art, that art spills over into the remainder of their life.  Strength, creativity, confidence, energy, and health start to emerge.  Emotional and physical vitality grow and disease must work harder to break the fort.

    Those who look for entertainment with another sketch on another canvas, quickly bore with their simple sketches, so they erase and find another canvas.  They look for deep pleasure, but they cannot find it, so they become more frantic and use more paint tearing up one canvas after another but never stopping to become better at the art.  So to add to the pleasure, rather than improve the art, they start to use alcohol or cocaine.  Even a simple cartoon seems like art now.  A little cocaine, a little alcohol, now the sketches become simple; then they become so simple they become meaningless and ugly.  Rather than art, they’re drawing crazy and ugly lines on page after page and think they’ve made art until the drug wears off and they see the ugliness of what they created. 

    So they become angry and reach for another canvas. 

    Or they blame it on the canvas and increase the number of sketches and canvases but don’t study the art or the canvas.  Finally, they can no longer hear the muse of love and art that would have whispered to a sensitive ear.  When they come across a clean canvas (open to art), they don’t recognize it and draw a little diagram.  If it starts to turn to art, they’ve become so insensitive to the muse that they don’t even see it.  They can’t hear the rhyme.  They can’t see balance of composition or even color. 

    Sex becomes only a way to fight their demons.

    Now they are drawing for anger at another person.  Sex becomes hate mail that the other person can’t read. 

    Now they’re drawing for damage control.  Sex becomes plaster on a damaged ego that washes away by the next day, calling for another patch.

    So I’ve seen the women who two weeks ago were the dissatisfied house wife: now, they’ve been dumped in the ER–exhausted and near dead after playing the crack house prostitute until she finally became nearly useless and was dumped at the ER waiting room–it happens every day.  Just a little too much dissatisfaction and landing at the wrong party is all it takes.

    I’ve examined the depressed woman who’s tried to commit suicide after finding no purpose and no energy and no new goal; unable to be painter or canvas, she feels unloved and would rather know permanent sleep than know another day without depth of affection.

    I’ve also seen the lovers of many years or of a few weeks.  They only see each other.  If another canvas comes along, they don’t want to take their eye away from the masterpiece they’re creating.  Another canvas is only a distraction.  They want to study the painting they’re working on and find a way to bring more life to it. 

    If someone comes along and wants to add to the painting–they protest, No!  Can you imagine Michael Angelo walking by the Mona Lisa and picking up a brush and starting to add to the picture?  Nope.  Canvas and painter would be insulted.  The Mona Lisa is Leonardo’s Creation alone. 

    It seems those who know the best of love, don’t want another person painting on their canvas.  They don’t need the affections of another.  They want to save the blank places (libido and hunger for affection) for their painter.  To allow another to fill in the spaces would be to mix colors and mix the effect until it became muddled.  That’s why dishonesty hurts the lover even if the mate never knows: the emotional and physical mixture changes.  Then when the painter comes home, he’s adding to a canvas that’s been altered by another.  So, he/she becomes inept.  The cheating person feels bored or unattached since the canvas allowed another’s brush rather than exposing the empty places to the painter and letting that person work the paint to find the best way (starting and restarting—studying until it’s a masterpiece).

    I’ve seen the elderly couple that continued to create.  Sometimes, another person has even come in and defaced the painting occasionally.  But, these master painters just got out the brush and turned the graffiti into another interesting part of the masterpiece. 

    I’ve met the widow or widower who, after losing their lover, felt so complete that they didn’t want another person to touch them with the brush.  Would you want to try to add to the Mona Lisa now that Leonardo is gone?

    I’ve also met the widow or widower (or divorcee) who felt defaced or empty and who found another person who could continue to develop the art in progress.

    I hope all of this helps.  

    Peace & Health,

    Charles Runels, MD     

    Runels.com

    Books by Dr. Runels<–

    P.S.    If this was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to read all of the Law of Health:  10 Essential Steps to Glorious Health & Miraculous Healing, then go here.

  • 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<–

  • Go Upstream & Downstream to Find Healing

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

    My baseball rolled off the practice field and toward the creek

    Eight years old, I had one baseball and mine was rolling toward “Crisoak Creek.” I don’t know the real name of that creek, but the water was the color and smell of what we called “crisoak” (The real name of the chemical in the water is  “creosote”, a category of chemicals put into telephone poles to keep them from rotting).

    The putrid chemical smell of that creek would burn my nostrils from 20 yards away. I do not know what industries dumped their waste into that creek, but in the 1960s there were no laws to prevent it. Later, the law would change and eventually the creek would be clean again, but then, I feared that if the ball went into the water it would dissolve. I at least knew that if I entered the water to retrieve the ball that I would develop blistered stinking arms by the time I made it home to wash.

    I also remember that I uphill along the bank of that creek and find contributing streams, and if I followed one of those streams uphill, then I would walk away from the smell of the creek, away from town, away from even the suburbs, and into a deep forest of pine and oak and fern. I could walk all day away from Birmingham and never cross a paved road (and often did with the distances getting longer as I got older).

    The further away from the city that I walked, the more clear the water.

    Eventually, the steel companies strip-mined those miles of forest for the coal. But, then, when I was a child, I could trace the water upstream to clean air, clean water, and lush forest.

    Go Upstream

    To awaken the body and mind, it helps to remember those creeks and streams. You benefit from considering the current medical research, but it also helps to trace thought back upstream to a cleaner place.

    Downstream, the factories make drugs that cure disease, and that is good. We need the drugs.

    But, upstream, in the thoughts written by those before the times of pharmaceuticals, when thought and food and movement and prayer were all there was–upstream you find powerful healing thoughts that will awaken your mind and body.

    When new medical research appears, then people are writing to add to knowledge; but, they are connected to what’s upstream. Without being connected to that research, without connecting to upstream, they are less likely to contribute to the downstream.

    Go as far upstream as possible, where the water is clean and flows from those who lived and wrote at least 500 years ago. There you find ideas about health unpolluted by the hope that the local pharmacy will save. There you find ideas from minds that lived in the wilderness, never watched a TV show, never saw a commercial.

    They never heard recorded music, only the music that came from the heart of those who would sing in the fields or at home after a day’s work, and perhaps at a rare public event or at the temple.

    They had little hope of recovery from severe infection. Surgery was practically non-existent. They knew they had only one body with little hope of recovery from illness except with what might come from connecting to the body’s own inner intelligence and healing powers and from connecting to a higher power that animated the body.

    Drink from this stream of thoughts as close as you can to the fountainhead, and you will awaken to a better understanding of and connection to glorious health and miraculous healing.

    Go Downstream

    If you go to the local health food store, you will find many who trust the opinion of the cashier at the checkout counter more than they trust a research cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic. In some ways, this opinion is justified because the research cardiologist may be so focused on the downstream that the fountainhead is forgotten. If you forget the fountainhead, then at best you sculpt a diseased body that can be helped by the surgery and pharmaceuticals that are created downstream; at worst you see death.

    With continued focus on the downstream and the identification of some errors in the details found in the fountainhead, some modern physicians ignore the fountainhead completely and though they may be skilled as a technician they rightly should be mistrusted as healers.

    On the other hand, there are those who see clearly the wisdom and the purity found in the ancient teachings and unchanging principles of the laws of health but smell the stench of the downstream and never make it to the factory.

    It’s difficult to positive think your way or even pray your way out of a motor vehicle accident with a severed spleen while you bleed internally. It’s difficult for the surgeon to repair your spleen and save your life unless you will accept multiple medicines, some of which will be given to you by iv, and some of them you will inhale and some you will take by mouth.

    With trauma, it’s easy to see how the downstream makes healing possible that the ancients could not do. But, there are many medical problems (infections, metabolic problems, for example) that are just as dramatic and just as untreatable without the medicines found at your local pharmacy–medicines that did not grow from a tree and that did not come from a root, but came from a factory.

    The wise person, sculpting the body-temple, looks upstream and looks downstream with reading and study and critical thinking and with prayer and meditation and with consultation with trusted advisors to find what is needed for health and healing.

    Do Today

    1. Read ABC of Reading, by Ezra Pound (to think about how to read upstream and downstream).
    Savage Factors™ by Charles Runels, MD

  • 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

    Books<–

  • 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