Make Your Way with Love

“So come pull the sheet over my eyes/So I can sleep tonight/Despite what I’ve seen today/I find you guilty of a crime/Of sleeping at a time/When you should have been wide awake.”
— Audioslave

If life is the same-o same-o routine playing out a bit like that Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day, it can feel like your sleeping while wide awake. But don't let that keep you from actually living the life you dream of everyday. There is always a way to make life like a box of love heart sweets - with a different positive message to get you on track for each day.

But, you have to believe that there is a way and you have to power to take action. Otherwise, you'll blink and one day will turn into 30 years and the next thing you know, you'll be retiring not just from your job - but from your life. And I'm not talking about taking action for one day, I'm talking about taking action everyday, over and over again, consistently for a long period of time. Because that is the only way you will make progress.

For every obstacle, there is a solution. For every challenge, there is a reward. But we must open our eyes and truly be wide awake.

Remember the theme song to Cheers? "Making your way in the world today, takes everything you've got." Well if that was the case in the 1980s, imagine what it takes to make your way in the world today. You need to be indispensable.

Confidence sells - people believe in those who believe in themselves. No one wants to be stuck in a room with other people who feel like they don't deserve to be there. Stop wondering if you're good enough. Know you are, and start acting like it.

How to be indispensable

There is a single quality that is so rare, that if you're an employer, when you find someone who has it, you'll do pretty much anything to bring that person on board and keep them happy.

And, the thing is, some people cultivate it naturally. But, others, once they realise its power, may be able to build it into who they are and how they operate. So, what do employers (and even lovers) look for? What makes a person attractive enough to be indispensable?

What is that single quality that makes someone precious and indispensable?

Beyond intelligence, loyalty, kindness, respect, discipline, pride, passion and compassion, it's the ability to create.

Sounds so simple. But truth is, the vast majority of people spend their lives learning how to follow then execute other peoples' game plans (even in relationships). Fitting their skills, abilities and mindsets into the predefined responsibilities and tasks required by a predefined job. And, that's fine. We need people like that in the world. If that's you and you work with pride and add value and that makes you happy, rock on.

But, know too that you regardless of how hard you work, you will very likely never be at the top of the indispensable list. Not because you're bad at what you do, not because you don't add value. Not because those around you don't like or even love you. But because there will always be a sea of people lined up to take your job who can do what you do in a similar enough way to make your boss, partner, colleague or collaborator happy.

For every creator, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of operators. You are expendable - and might even be viewed as collateral. Which is wrong - because no human being is collateral.

In my "Stop Doing and Start Being" post I had written that we as people are more than just what we do - and in this context we are more than just a job position.

In ancient times if you had asked an Egyptian or a Greek who they were, they would have given their father's name or their town of birth, but if you had asked the average Roman, he or she would have told you what they did for a living. It's what they wrote, along with their life stories, on their tombstones that are still visible in Rome today, even after two thousand years.

You have to relate that to the sheer size and anonymity of a great metropolis. In a world without ID cards, without passports, without birth certificates, how do you know what you are? Who you are? In ancient Rome, you knew that because of your job. How did they make their identity clear? On their tombstones they would write their occupation - i.e., "this is what I do".

Ancient Romans were small cogs in the big machine of imperial Rome (which at its zenith had a city population of over a million), they possibly didn't know their neighbours, everyone was looking for new ways to make their mark and stand out - and if they moved up in the world, to show that they had made it. It created new opportunities of conspicuous consumption.

This was centuries ago, but does it sound familiar?

Which is why, when you're a creator, everything changes. Rather than being the one people ask to carry out a plan, people look to you to create a plan. To solve a problem, to innovate a new idea, product, service or campaign, to see opportunities where everyone else sees barriers, to blaze a new trail rather than follow a well grooved one.

And, the thing is, most often it's not about radical departures from the norm or Earth-shattering breakthroughs.

What I'm talking about is the ability to create solutions on a daily basis. To understand we're at point A and we need to get to point B, then tap your creative/problem-solving juices to conjure the best possible way to get there.

An employer steering his or her commercial ship will find that ability immensely more valuable than someone who needs to be told every step from A to B by operators in the pipeline. Because it frees up the top echelon's creative juices to focus on other projects, while trusting in another's ability to figure out how to get done what needs to get done.

And if you're an individual who can not only create anew, solve problems and map out innovative pathways, but also possesses the ability to execute, to bring those plans to life then your even more valuable in the workplace.

People who can do both are extraordinarily rare finds, because creation and implementation are very different processes and almost always inhabit different brains and bodies, too. Most peoples' minds just don't function well on both levels. Which is why those folks tend to rise quickly up the ranks and often become entrepreneurs.

However, if you heal your mind with my 90 day programme, you'll find yourself becoming more creative, and retuning your brain to a more successful mindset. Not only will you become a rare find for your employer, but you'll be indispensable in your love relationships, too.

Yours in love,

Get on Track with Love

Regular readers of my blog will have realised from my posts on love that our health and happiness depends on more than just our diet and exercise habits. They also derive from a focus on being clear about what you really want in life and pursuing those goals with a passion. Some call this following your bliss. It isn't easy, but is imperative for optimal well-being.

While you might connect the word passion with thoughts that are racy or sexual, in fact, this term simply refers to your bliss and happiness in life. It also includes the things and people that inspire you and motivate you to action. Your passion is what you must possess to be happy. You need to ask the question: "Am I getting out of life what I came here for?"

The typical person takes an approach to life that emphasises what should be done and ignores deeper desires. This perspective holds that life has to be lived a certain way, the right way. And though this accepted right way is supposed to be the correct way to happiness, it usually doesn't produce satisfying results. So, how do you get on track for health and fulfilment?

Asking vital questions

I used to find that many of my friends were afraid to question whether they are truly happy. And this is true of most of us. We are afraid of doing more with our lives or moving out of our comfort zones. Yet those fearful ones remain largely uninspired, unfulfilled and unhappy. I ask those afraid: "What do you dream about being, doing or having differently than now?" Aside from a few small goals, the response will almost always be: "I have never considered it possible for me to be, do or have what I really wish for."

This prevalent thinking pattern stems from fear and begins with relatively simple, repetitive thoughts that grow into the beliefs that control your perspective. As a result, your beliefs create what you think is your truth, even if, in reality, it is not true at all. It's called being locked in a negative mindset, and this can happen early on as children.

Click here to rewire your mindset for success!

How many times have you discovered that your beliefs were completely the opposite of the truth? For instance, you may have thought that a friend was thinking negative thoughts about you only to find out later the opposite was the case. Still, your simple thought, correct or not, turned into a belief. Then your belief became the basis of what you thought was true for you. But it was true only because you believed it to be so. Then all your actions grew out of this belief, irrespective of whether the belief was correct!

The same basic process occurs in relationship to what you think you can or cannot achieve or experience in life.

Thoughts are powerful

Over time, your thoughts, when you entertain them for a prolonged period, crystallise into beliefs and your accepted truth. These thoughts become a self-fulfilling prophecy because of the simple law of attraction: That which is like unto itself draws similar objects to itself. So, the more attention you give to any subject, the more active the vibration of that subject is within you, until eventually it totally shapes your experience.

There is scientific evidence of thoughts gaining power over a prolonged period. In my "Heal Your Mind with Love" post I provide a 90 day healing programme to reset a negative mindset by focusing on the goals you want to attain everyday. It's important to focus on your goals everyday, because that kicks in your reticular activating system into action. This is actually a bundle of nerves that sits at the central core of your brain stem and is responsible for several different functions in the body. Notably, it can filter out images, sounds and input that we are bombarded with every single day.

We've all experienced our reticular activating system at work. For example, let's say you're like me, someone who is not interested in cars until you have to buy one. My twin flame suggested a family car model that we could buy, and now I'm seeing them everywhere! This is because suddenly this certain model of vehicle is of interest to me and my reticular activating system is picking it up.

Another example is whenever I overhear about conversations about movies, and someone is trying to remember an actor's name, I can answer that query even if I am in mid-sentence with someone else, because this information interests me. Believe me, I don't eavesdrop on other people's conversations. So, how do I pick up that question and not the rest of the conversation? Because it's just this one sentence that is of interest to me which comes through. It's like when you hear someone say your name across a noisy room. What happens is your concious mind will be engaged in the conversation you're having, but your subconscious mind is absorbing much, much more around you.

The subconscious mind can actually handle 40 million bits of data per second; the concious mind can only handle 40 bits of data per second. And the reticular activating system acts as a gatekeeper between the conscious mind and subconscious mind to only let through the information that's of interest to you.

What this means is that by focusing on your goals daily - by being clear about what it is that you want (and don't want) and visualising this regularly with emotion - you are telling your conscious mind and your subconscious mind that these are things of particular interest to you.

Subsequently, you are deliberately programming the reticular activating system (which acts the gatekeeper between the subconscious mind and the conscious mind) to let through what you want it to let through from out of the 40 million bits of data.

Remember, if you're focusing on your end result, the universe steps in and provides you with all the resources, people, opportunities and ideas you need, and by focusing on those things you're telling the reticular activating system when the subconscious mind comes across something to do with your goals to let that through - because this is going to help you achieve it.

With the law of attraction, once you focus on what you want and visualise yourself with those things already in your possession with emotion, and take action in the direction of your goal, the universe steps in and you attract all the people, the ideas, and resources, and opportunities that you need to achieve it. The reticular activating system is what helps you to recognise those things the universe sends your way to achieve your goal.

That's why you have to be cautious about your thoughts. You get in your life what you think about whether you really want it or not. Chronically thinking about unwanted things invites unwanted experiences.

The most extreme example of this kind of self-fulfilling thought takes place in religiously motivated suicide bombers. Call them crazy, but for these people, meeting death in that manner represents truth and even God's will. They believe it strongly enough to give their lives.

Errant beliefs in your life

Are there any errant beliefs in your life? Many of you have chosen your paths in life because you were told they were the right paths, the good paths or the paths others expected you to take. This strong sense of right and wrong is often a very strong barrier to happiness. This is not bad, but there is a higher truth called freedom. Unless your beliefs about what is right and wrong are in alignment with the true and authentic desires of your spirit, you will discover frustration and great limitation in your happiness.

I mentioned earlier that your rules of right and wrong may, in fact, be the root cause for your unhappiness. Overly strict religious or social rules often lead to depression and despondency. They do not allow feelings of freedom, and those feelings are things your spirit knows and loves most. When you feel restricted for too long, your spirit naturally longs for freedom.

Think of it in terms of layers. Our stress is a layer under a layer of beliefs (which comes from our early experiences and forms the opinions we have of ourselves and our rules for living) and what will bring that stress to the surface are triggers (challenges and bad episodes in life). How we react depends a lot on our belief system.

We have what some call a bottom line in our belief system. This is the label we put on the opinion we have of ourselves (and what we think others think of us). It is not necessarily based on fact, but having formed this from our early experiences in childhood through to adulthood it has become a fact for us.

If this bottom line is negative, then this is what we base our rules of living on. These rules are our protective behaviours; so for example, if we have felt unsure about our appearance since we were we small, we may have grown up acting shy or feeling uncomfortable in the company of others.

And when something in our life happens to trigger our underlying layer of stress, we engage our rules of living, and reactivate our belief system's bottom line. If it is negative, then we are going to react negatively. This is why people react differently to the same triggers we encounter in life.

The triggers reactivate our bottom line, which releases negative thoughts. These lead to unhelpful behaviours that reaffirm the negativity we feel, causing anxiety. This confirms our bottom line, making us self-critical and angry - and the stress can bubble over our surface. In extreme cases this can lead to depression, we in turn will reactivate the negativity of the belief system's bottom line, which is the actual cause of the problem.

It is a vicious cycle, and illustrates well just how powerful thoughts are, and how dangerous errant thoughts can be. It may seem that your situation is set in stone, but you can break the cycle by changing the bottom line of your belief system to reverse the steps you took to your low point, and give you new rules for living. Click on the flowchart I've prepared for you above. Print it out and hang it somewhere visible to help you change your life.

This is rooted in the science of cognitive re-structuring. Without getting too complicated, cognitive re-structuring is learning to identify your own cycle of negative thoughts, habits and routines and replacing them with positive thoughts, habits and routines that will provide you with lifelong benefits.

Click here to change 6 negative habits.

We can't change our early experiences, but we can chip away at the way we view them, and make them more flexible in the way they affect our lives - whether it is in regard to the opinion we have of ourselves, or our decision making process in the choices we make to reach our goals. This is what my 90 day mind healing programme is designed to accomplish.

It can't be emphasised enough: It is time to consider what you really want to change in your life. Career moves? Changes in your relationships? Improvements in your physical fitness? A different sex life? Shifts in your religious orientation (resulting in more peace and spirituality)? If you are like me, just contemplating a truly desirable change is exciting, uplifting and energising. Doing something new means a new adventure to undertake, an opportunity to expand and grow outside of your comfort zone.

Free up your mind to love

We should never underestimate our thoughts. Our belief system is made up of them. Our belief system can be changed by them. And what we believe, if we think it long enough, and act on those beliefs, can be realised into "fact".

Read about how thoughts become things.

But my purpose with my post today is to remind you that the real truth that should guide your life is your emotional guidance system. Your feelings will be aligned satisfactorily when you are on your path of bliss. Conversely, you'll feel miserable or vaguely unhappy when your thoughts stray off track from what you really want.

I suggest you take notice how particular thoughts make you feel. Then follow the thoughts that make you feel happy, not the thoughts that ruin your mood. Visualise your happy place, and spend some time there in your mind. Consider how a fearful thought makes your body react with uncomfortable feelings. That discomfort is the sign of an errant thought.

A mundane example: If you think "I am going to miss my flight and ruin my day" and you experience a sick feeling, which is your body's way of signalling you are off track from reality. In truth, you will probably discover that your plane is delayed, or there may be another blessing hidden in the fact that you missed a flight.

If you can immediately think about the potential good news in this type of situation, your body reaction stops and good feelings resume. This type of shift in attitude may be problematic when you first try it. But you can train yourself to recognize your internal emotional guidance system so you can be in alignment with heavenly feelings.

Treat your positive thoughts as your guardian angels. Recognise that your angels are not worried about the world, because they know everything comes to pass with divine timing. You, too, can tap into this sense of well-being just by aligning your thoughts with the reassuring sensations of your emotional guidance system.

So, give something new a try! You will learn more about yourself and what makes you happy. get into your happy state, find your happy place, and free up your mind. Open it up to love.

It's your choice to feed on love

The first thing to realise about wellness is that it begins with a choice. For example, we need to make diet and lifestyle choices for a healthier life.

Breakfast starts the day with a clean slate, yet many tarnish the day early with poor eating habits. Cereals made from genetically modified grains. Simple carbohydrates loaded with sugar or corn syrup. Greasy bacon, ham, sausages, pancakes, toast, muffins and sticky buns that make your blood sugar go up and down like a roller coaster.

Hypoglycaemia, diabetes, nausea and pain result from our poor breakfast choices that stress the adrenal glands, weaken the immune system and induce the stress response. In this sense, a proper breakfast really is a lifeline.

For instance, I eat a stomach-nourishing breakfast of porridge, which is not only wellness-stabilising, but also medicinal when certain herbs are added to it. Food is a form of medicine, especially sources like roots, barks, fruits, seeds, flowers and tubers. Adding things like berries, strawberries, cinnamon and the such, varying these according to the seasons and to mood also gives you a breakfast of varying taste and colour, so you're never bored with what you eat.

If you eat the blood-sugar slamming foods that many of us in the West prefer for breakfast, you can expect to be besieged by all kinds of painful sensations and illness. Instead, you can choose to start your day with a natural health-boosting food that's filling and good for you. It's your choice.

Similarly, starting the day with positive thoughts is just a much a lifeline as eating a healthy breakfast (so you might want to skip the serious morning's news until lunchtime!). As a bad breakfast will have our energy crash by lunchtime, so, too, will negative thoughts take away our energy. And we need energy to stop fatigue.

Another bonus is this will boost your self confidence and power up that reversal of your belief system's negative bottom line.

Do the things that you love and keep doing them and share them with people, as you do this, whether its art, whether its music, its sharing stories, supporting people, whatever it is you love doing, keep doing it, and keep building your abilities to do it, and watch what happens: it will raise your energy, you'll feel better, you'll be happier, it will raise you vibe, you'll get positive feedback and that will build your confidence - and ultimately change your life to get you on track with love.

Yours in love,

Empower Yourself with Love

“They had no right to win. Yet they did, and in doing so they changed the course of a war... even against the greatest of odds, there is something in the human spirit – a magic blend of skill, faith, and valor – that lifts man from certain defeat to incredible victory.”
— Walter Lord

Walter Lord is one of my twin flame's favourite authors. He was a gifted author who wrote extensively about World War II and other historic events, such as the sinking of the Titanic. He had a long and productive career, passing away in 2002 at the age of eight-five.

The other day my twin flame read aloud a quote from Lord about the Battle of Midway, which took place between June 4-7, in 1942. The moment I heard these words, it became one of my favourite quotes. What immediately struck me about this quote was Lord's gift for sculpting words. A writer's duty is not to come up with new thoughts, but to craft ageless wisdom in ways that bring about epiphanies in the minds of his readers. Lord did just that.

What a poetic and accurate way to describe the uniqueness of our species:

Even against the greatest of odds, there is something in the human spirit - a magic blend of skill, faith, and valor – that lifts man from certain defeat to incredible victory.

In the last couple of years I've come to a strange conclusion. I believe that everyone would be better off if they stood in front of a crowd and admitted their biggest mistakes and embarrassments. Then with that out of the way, they could get on with being completely comfortable with themselves and confident around others.

After all, things couldn't get any worse (read: more embarrassing) than that, and they'd quickly realize that the worst never turns out as bad as they fear. It's one way to turn defeat into victory.

A recent correspondence from a regular reader about my post on becoming more productive during our individual magic time showed me an example of another.

He wrote:

I am an avid fan of your blog since coming across it a few months ago. Your articles have helped inspire me to change.

I have had far too many peaks and troughs in my life. Sometimes the troughs were very deep and excruciatingly painful, only because I never stuck with anything long enough.

I was always leaving for a trip here, another opportunity there, getting sidetracked, and sometimes opting to party and enjoy life instead of attending to what needed to be done. Now I am committed to changing my life, and helping others.

Thank you for your thorough explanation of this thing called love. I am encouraged. It has given my hope persistence."

What struck me about the email was the reader's willingness to bare his soul and be totally honest - not so much with me, but with himself. By doing so, I believe he has already taken the first step toward rising above his past mistakes and achieving the kind of success he clearly aspires - to reach the healthy desires of his heart.

Admitting your mistakes may sound like a small thing, but it's not. On the contrary, you cannot navigate toward success until you have gone through the catharsis of being honest with yourself about the real reasons for your failure. Not excuses for your failure, but reasons - and in doing so turning defeat into victory.

I was reminded of the quote by Lord my twin flame had read out to me as I reflected on the reader's comments. Is this not the story of virtually all great successes? The reader's tale of woe describes the predicament that much of the human race finds itself in today. Between the brutal realities of struggle combined with our own human flaws, it can be quite difficult to pick ourselves up and trudge forward.

However, as we focus on being more productive, we also need to make sure we do make time for fun, too (so we don't get burnout)! That's the essence really behind our magic time, to be get more work done at our best time, so it frees us up to do other things guilt-free. We need to balance the necessary components in our lives, because a truly balanced life is the successful one. And love is the great balancer, we need to empower ourselves with love.

And the fact is that just about anyone with reasonable intelligence can do it, because the human spirit really does possess skill, faith, and valour.

I have written about these three facets of our humanity before:

1. Skill. You are born with one or more unique skills, and it is your job to discover what those skills are.
2. Faith. Faith is belief, and belief is a choice. In Star Wars, when Yoda effortlessly frees the X-Wing from the bog, Luke Skywalker says, "I don't believe it." To which Yoda responds, "That is why you fail." As much as I'd like to, I can't improve on Yoda's explanation of why faith is so crucial to success. As my twin flame keeps reminding me: Who am I to question a Jedi Master?
3. Valour. Valour is courage. Because you have free will, you can choose to be courageous. In other words, valour is a state of mind.

The bottom line is that the magical blend of skill, faith, and valour is always available to us. Unfortunately, we do not always utilise these powerful tools. But when we do, we indeed have the capacity to lift ourselves from certain defeat to incredible victory. We see this happening and read about it virtually every day of our lives.

So if my reader's email seems to describe your own situation to one extent or another, take heart. You can begin moving in the right direction today simply by utilising three remarkable human traits - skill, faith, and valour - that are already available to you, and in doing so empower yourself with love.

Life is fleeting

We need to make sure we are productive in our time for work and play, because life is short and time is fleeting.

For those close friends who really know me, they know I love my family. I mean, they are everything to me. So when I sometimes have to travel to writing seminars, even though I enjoy it and know I have signed up to become a better writer, it is difficult to be away from my family.

Going to a seminar is amazing, but it comes at a cost. For me, when I go to a seminar it's a choice between saying yes to learning something new and saying no to spending time with my family. If you say yes to something in your life, you have to say no to something else. That is the cold hard truth.

Weekend trips are the worst because I miss them and don't want to miss an opportunity to be with them. Why is one weekend so important? It's just a couple days, right? No. It's two days out a life that is passing us by.

Those who have children will attest that once their kids were born, they blinked their eyes and found them in school and changing everyday.

Life goes at top gear. Don't miss it as it rushes you by. Don't get run over by the speed of life. A weekend might be just a few days, but when you look back it could be your lifetime. This is why it is so important to make good use of every moment.

Some of us may feel that because you said no to your family for the weekend, you've missed out on your child taking a new step, or tucking him or her in at night. You said no to helping your wife around the house. But you have to make a choice. And many times, it isn't an easy choice.

This is the reason why we should be productive with our time and get focused. If we are saying yes to watching funny videos on YouTube during our magic time of productivity, or hanging at the pub drinking, then your saying no to reaching your dreams, saying no to dominating your passion, saying no to being the person you need to be.

Everyday you wake up and you have a choice. What will you say yes to and what will that choice force you to say no to? You may be running at a furious pace in your workplace, with big projects on the go you're trying to finish up taking up most of your time. Maybe you're spending more time with your family - and loving every second.

But you may still feel run down. You can get tired of it all, if you don't feel you're making the right choices, or using your time productively. You feel you are in danger of burnout.

But here is the trick. The biggest secret of all. When I feel down, and I feel like this is enough or like I can't do this any more - that feeling only lasts a second.

It lingers in my mind for a brief moment and then it is gone. I force it out and drive ahead. I refuse to allow those feelings to stay in my mind and cloud my vision.

I will not let them prevent me from taking control in everything I want to do and keep me from reaching everything I ever wanted in life.

I offer this opportunity for you. Do not dwell on the bad. Do not keep negativity in your life. Do not crawl up in a ball and stop moving. Live your life. Make every second count. Be amazing. You can do it, I know you can.

Don't wait for the days to pass you by. People who do that will never accomplish anything great. And not realising your full potential is sad. It's a waste of the gift of life given to you.

Naturally, it's yours to waste, if that's what you want. But is it really? Wouldn't you rather have that feeling like you could do anything? If I just waited for the days to pass by, I would feel despair everyday. Like there is no hope. And with no hope, there is no love, and with no love, we are powerless.

Do not let this happen to you. Do not let debilitating doubt stay in your mind and affect your momentum.

If someone asks me how I'm feeling, I tell them amazing. I will not feed negativity in their lives. I will only give them the positive. Because this might be enough to turn their day around.

We all have doubts. Positive self-doubt can lead to clarity. So, yes, you will have doubts. I'd be very doubtful ig you had no doubt!

And yes, you will be scared. Yes, there will be obstacles. But knowing that everything will not be perfect means there won't be any surprises. When you are presented with an obstacle, step up. Reward yourself. Having big goals is great, but you must set smaller milestone goals too, goals that you can reach and reward yourself for by doing something cool. And then when you hit that big goal - get yourself that prize. Savour the moment and then set the next big goal to achieve.

Stay humble. Stay prepared. Stay grateful. Remember someone else is happy with less than you have. Learn to be one of the happy people.

Everyone has rough days

We all have our own unique Friday the 13th moments. I had one last Friday. But then I read my reader's email and realised I had to share it with you. Because turning defeat into victory over the rough days, will mean more me-time, more time to have fun and bring the balance back into our lives.

In reply to my reader, I sent him a letter my grandmother sent me when I was younger. She told me to always keep a copy on hand in case I ever needed a pick me up. And so I share that today with you.

I'll let you into another little secret. My grandmother's inspiration letter to me was the basis for my own positive affirmations I used in my meditations to prepare myself for my 90 day mind healing programme.

Click here to rewire your mindset for success!

Here is my grandmother's letter to me:

Let me tell you something about you. You can do anything you want. You are in control. You can achieve as much success as you want to. You can and will pick yourself up when life knocks you down. I believe in you.

And let me tell you, I've been knocked on more times than I can count. And it was those words from my twin flame that gave me the encouragement to get back up and keep trying. We all need someone in our corner. Your grandfather was in mine.

I'll be in yours to the best of my ability. You're inundated with so much negativity these days, that I am almost glad I was a child two generations ago. But back then, too, it is as true as it is today, we all need someone to encourage us.

When you're struggling, and I've been there, I can tell you first hand that it'll get better if you keep on trying. If you believe in yourself, that means I will always be with you in spirit, because I believe in you. Go for it. Whatever that "it" maybe, as long as it is something your healthy heart truly desires.

When I first read my grandmother's letter years ago, I was a mess. I was unhappy, even though my family life was idyllic. I was literally on the brink of dying young. I was always tired. Listless. Here's the point: If you're looking back on the past year and you're not happy with where you are now, it will never get better. Not if you keep doing the same stuff that's gotten you the results you're not happy with.

If this is you, then let me tell you straight: You gotta change what you're doing. It's not working. If it was, you'd know it. You'd feel it. It's time to change. To get empowered. Below I provide a few simple steps for you to get started on your life - the life you're supposed to be living.

The 7 steps to you

Here's how to do it:

1. Get absolutely focused on what you really want. Do this by turning off the computer and just writing down the answer to this question: "What do I really want?" Forget what the emails tell you should want. Forget what Mickie tells you to want. Forget what anyone else wants you to want.

   This is about YOU. What do you really want? Want to run off and play guitar in coffee shops across South America? Good. You only live once. Be happy. Play "Lovesong" at least once. For me. Be free as a bird if only for a short while. try out your wings, see where, and how high you can fly.

   But whatever you do, get clear. Otherwise you're ripe for falling into someone else's agenda, and you will feel powerless. If you're in a twin flame relationship, then you will be already be halfway to getting empowered, as you'll have strong support to believe in yourself.

2. Dump the daily dirt out of your brain. You do this by writing down a huge list of everything you think you must do to in order to do what you really want. Just doing that will kind of clear it from your brain and free up space in your mental computer's RAM.
3. Decide what's doable. You know that big list you just made that's probably scaring you? Go through it and put star by all the stuff you can actually do.
4. Decide what you can do NOW. Now. You know all the stuff with stars by it? The stuff you can actually DO? Go through all of it and find the stuff you can do in the next 30 days. Put two stars by those items.
5. Forget the other stuff. All the other stuff can be dealt with later. Now - let me address critics in the audience who want to debate whether or not that's a good strategy. "Isn't that procrastination?" "Isn't that other stuff important?" The answer to both questions is probably!

   But here's the deal. You can't do anything about it right now, and if you worry about it then you're just taking away focus and energy from the stuff you can do. And that's not going to get you anywhere. Also - by actually doing the "immediately doable" things for the next 30 days - I know from experience that your momentum will be so great you'll be able to easily do a lot of the things from your list you originally thought were impossible for you. You'll also have new clarity and will probably find that much of the other stuff on the list isn't even needed.

6. Get to work on them. If you get all caught up on the little details, you'll be in the same place a year from now. Don't let that happen.
7. Accept reality. You want to know something? This is not going to be easy. Yes, follow your passions. Yes, you can achieve what seems impossible at first. But it doesn't happen with the wave of a wand. Real magic is slow. It takes time. You just need to break through your comfort zone.

   If this is you then let me do you the same favour my grandmother did for me. By saying you can do it. I believe in you.

Yours in love,

Don't Sabotage Love

In this post for today I'm going to respond to a reader's email and her problem with hitting the brick wall of fatigue, and what I like to term as self-sabotage.

As you know, if you spend more than 5 minutes online looking for information to change your life, there is a lot of stuff out there. Much of it is theoretical, processes and ideas that sound good but at the end of the day, don't give you results.

I offer practical advice on how to bring love into our lives, because that is the key that unlocks most of the secrets hidden from us - or we hide from ourselves. For example, I've already had people write in about using my 90 day mind health programme to let me know they've already experienced positive results in their lives. And if I'm about one thing, it's results.

Now, what I want to share with you today delivers such tremendous results, quickly, that it falls into the "I can't believe this works this well" category after people use it.

It's a technique called loving yourself.

Sure enough, self-sabotage - or the flip side to a successful life - hinges a lot on being able to know the right time to put yourself first. This isn't about being selfish (real love never is) it is about being self-aware.

And when things start to go your way in business (or in love!), you'll soon have more work than you can handle. Instead of searching for opportunity, it will come at you fast and furious. Soon you'll need to focus on saying "no", otherwise you'll end up like the reader who emailed me. She went through a phase of too much success.

For goodness sake, I hear you ask, how can you have too much success?

Undoubtedly, too much of anything - even a good thing - can be bad for you, but I'll let you be the judge after reading her email. It's a real lesson on how to properly deal with abundance and avoid the dirty little game of self-sabotage that we all too often play.

Can you handle your success?

A week ago I things went all willy-nilly. Turns out, it was the early warning signs of illness, leaving me bedridden for days. Of course, this seriously impeded me in the productivity department. I'm up to my earrings with work on my customised cupcake business as well as enjoying opportunities from all corners of the planet. Things are outrageously good for me. But I need to be performing at the top of my game. Every hour matters. Getting sick is not a part of the plan.

I tried to self-diagnose via the web (a terrible thing to do by the way). Was it salmonella? A ten foot long tapeworm-demon? A life-threatening illness and my days were numbered? Of course my friends were trying to diagnose me too. The bets were on that I was pregnant. Nope, I didn't need to pee on a stick to know that diagnosis was bogus. But I still couldn't figure out what was wrong. Lucky for me, I have some pretty intuitive friends. One of them sent me a link to your blog.

My fiancé quietly reminded me that I had been going non-stop and that I severely needed a break. He was right (nothing new there). But isn't success meant to be good for you?"

Knock backs are a part of our lives. One of the biggest differences between those that live extraordinary lives and everyone else often comes down to one simple thing: Those that live extraordinary lives are willing to act without guaranteed outcomes. Taking action without 100% certainty that "X" will happen suggests you are both flexible and capable of taking risks.

In this context, some experts call what my reader in her email is describing as an upper limit problem. This is when you go through some major growth, where you bust through your upper limits and increasing your capacity for success.

Now the idea is this: each of us possesses an internal thermometer for how much success, wealth, love, happiness and intimacy we let ourselves experience. That is our upper limit setting; it's our success comfort zone.

Given that, when we exceed our internal thermostat by achieving a serious win, it blows the mercury through the roof and metaphorically pops our head off. Something negative sidetracks the goodness: we break an ankle, fry our computer, get involved in family drama, overeat, overspend and get sick. We apply the brakes to our success through the dirty little game of self-sabotage.

5 ways you're sabotaging your own life.

Why do we let this happen? Because it will bring us down to our normal range of capacity where we can cosy up with our security blanket.

And it doesn't stop there. We think that happiness comes when we are winning: a great relationship, a better job, a bigger pay cheque. The sad reality is that for all our huge milestones (and even the little ones), a stampede of negative emotions and actions can dismantle our progress.

Never felt like you don't deserve something? Have you ever believed that something is too good to be true and it can all vanish with one false move?

Know that this is pretty standard fare of an upper limit problem, which is just a negative reaction to positive change.

Excuse the spoiler alert: dealing with our upper limit problems can significantly expand our capacity for palpable and lasting personal success while maintaining loving relationships.

Really this is fantastic news! By calling out the vampires that suck the life from our wins, we can up our ante but not undermine the gains we make along the way.

And the reader that emailed me is experiencing unbelievable growth. She is excited about the success of her customised cupcakes and things were amazing. So, she didn't just bump into her upper limit; she smashed it with a sledgehammer. She felt unstoppable - almost - until she found herself ill in bed.

Nice kettle of fish you might say, but this is why we need to understand our upper limit problem:

• So we don't mistakenly label ourselves as flawed or broken or, worse yet, "not good enough" to handle a big jump in success or happiness.
• So we can harness life-changing breakthroughs that actually linger and provide real traction to build on.
• So our relationships with our partners (and others) don't suffer or dissolve.
• So we can check our ego and victim, "why does this always happen to me" diatribe at the door.

Don't forget that diatribe is for the powerless. Look, no one escapes this dialogue so don't feel weak, bad or alone if any of this strikes a pain point. Everyone on the planet experiences upper limit problems at some point. Thankfully for us they are easy to diffuse when you have the right tools and a willingness to overcome them.

It is also beneficial to remember that moving through your upper limit setting isn't a one time quick fix. If you're committed to continually expanding your levels of wealth, love and happiness then strap in for the ride baby.

How I rose above my upper limit problem:

• I acknowledged my tolerance for how good I was willing to have my life be. If I wanted to shoot for the moon, can I actually handle my own success?
• I also came to grips with how amazing my life was at that point. At the exact point where I was - not in the future when I wrapped my next big deal. That meant treating people and events in my sphere with all the love, respect and honour that I could muster.
• I told my family how much I loved them. I let myself be grateful for the money currently in my bank account. I thought about the roof over my head and the bounty of food on my menu and the amazing clients that I had worked with.
• I acknowledged my abundance in a real way and I verbalised this to the people around me.
• Then I gave myself a permission slip to chill out. I released myself from the guilt of non-productivity. No computer time, no work: just me and Haagen-Dazs and back-to-back episodes of Mad Men for three days. It was a step in the right direction of figuring out how to live inside my life with more ease.

Once you do this - the moment my reader stops beating herself up for being unproductive and sick - you'll go into speedy recovery mode and be as strong like bull in no time.

Personally, being cognisant of my success "comfort zone" has been a huge leg up for me when it comes to turning up my own success thermostat.

Eventually, I began to do it more often with less fear of getting burned. And that tastes sweet.

How to overcome fatigue

Ever self-sabotaged yourself so much that you've run yourself ragged?

Don't despair, because their are also some practical things you can do to combat fatigue.

In general, feeling tired or exhausted is a normal sign that it's time to rest and sleep. But if you are constantly fatigued or excessively tired over time, you're not healthy. The good news: With simple changes and natural remedies, you can defeat fatigue and live vibrantly.

Every so often, your lifestyle can attract too much stress, too much work, too much worry and not enough relaxation or sleep. This makes you fatigued. And when this fatigue is prolonged, or allowed to exist for weeks on end, it can become chronic. Chronic fatigue is one of the most debilitating health issues you can grapple with. It saps your energy and joy for life. Often, it can lead to depression.

Subsequently, the problem is that many people bring prolonged fatigue on themselves through their daily actions and choices. Fatigue-inducing actions include:

• Working too many hours.
• Experiencing too much physical or mental stress at work.
• Taking on too much without the ability to say no.
• Not reducing psychological stress.
• Not getting seven solid hours of sleep per night.
• Over-using external stimulants like caffeine, sugar or drugs to keep you energised.
• Eating a poor diet high in simple carbohydrates, sugars and fats.
• Not drinking ample amounts of water.
• Wearing down your nervous system with smoking and drinking alcoholic beverages.

Act now to banish fatigue

Horrible as it feels, suffering chronic fatigue is something most people can vanquish. If you examine the list above, you can see that all of these examples are based on personal actions and behaviours. Change these and you naturally change your energy levels. Here's what you can do:

• Set a standard sleep and wake schedule, and try not to deviate from it. Experts suggest that eight hours of sleep per night is ideal and the healthiest, which you can divide into two slots.
• Do not over consume beverages with caffeine or cut out sugar-laden drinks that dehydrate you while also causing spikes and drops in blood sugar. This leads to fatigue.
• If you experience fatigue in the middle of the day, take a nap (if possible), go for a walk or take a personal day to go home and recharge. One lost day may forestall suffering fatigue for weeks or longer.
• Try to get your work done within a set time frame. This may mean prioritising your magic time, managing your schedule more efficiently or reducing your workload. Learn to say no to extra tasks before you are overwhelmed. Again, this means balancing your health with your work.
• Learn and practice daily stress-management and stress-reduction techniques, like mindful meditation breathing. Aromatherapy also helps, as do hot showers and soothing baths at the end of the day.
• Avoid all external stimulants (sugar or caffeine energy drinks) that produce artificial energy. These provide only short energy boosts while dragging your body down. If you need energy, go for a brisk five-minute walk or do some jumping jacks or have sex with your partner. While it sounds counter-intuitive, it takes energy to make energy. The more you exercise or move your body, the more energy your body produces naturally.
• Eat only whole grains when deciding on breads and pastas; they take longer to break down and turn to sugar in your body. They do not cause the same spikes and dips in energy that simple carbohydrates do. Getting your carbohydrates from vegetable sources is even better.
• Try to not overstimulate your sense organs when you are feeling stressed. That means creating work and living environments that are not overly crammed with images, sounds, smells and clutter. Such things tax your nervous system and can sometimes lead you to feel fatigue.

On the road to good health

Realise that energy is the elixir of good health. Fatigue drains you of vibrancy.

Reach out to the things that will energise you. In this context, experts suggest 5 things that lead naturally to optimal energy:

1. Oxygen: Without oxygen you cannot live. Yet most people breathe shallowly, using only a portion of their lung capacity. They do not bring in enough fresh oxygen into the body, nor do they expel enough carbon dioxide. Breathing deeply a few times every hour, as long as the air is fresh, can help energise your body, aid in detoxification and invigorate your cells. (Remember, if you are anxious, take shallow breaths, as in that instance your body is getting too much oxygen.)
2. Food: Necessary for life, food is your fuel. Eating whole grains, fruits and vegetables while cutting back on sugars and processed foods goes a long way toward creating natural energy and stabilizing sugar crashes.
3. Water: Water is remarkably important for all functions in the body from the elimination of toxins to the moistening of the lungs and other organs to keeping the muscles loose. Drinking water to stay hydrated is a valuable resource for preventing fatigue.
4. Sleep: Sleep allows your body to shut down and begin to repair itself from the stresses of the day. You need this time to regenerate, clean and repair. Without ample sleep on a nightly basis, you will surely experience fatigue and, often, chronic pain.
5. Movement: As mentioned before, it takes the use of energy to create extra energy. The more you can walk, jump or exercise, the more energy your body naturally starts producing. Being sedentary leads only to more sedentary behaviours which, in turn, lead to low energy, tiredness and fatigue. Get up and move.

In addition to these lifestyle changes, there are additional things you can do to prevent and overcome fatigue: Get regular bodywork like massage or acupuncture. Take yoga. Go to the gym. Hike or bike on a regular basis. Add supplements to your diet like B complex, vitamins E and C, magnesium, zinc, selenium, iron, and ginseng.

Be sure, on the other hand, to forgo pills supposed to pep you up and combat jet lag.

Live a vibrant life

Essentially, you should live a vibrant life and get naturally tired.

Don't forget, being tired is a natural part of each day, signalling a time to rest. Since fatigue is largely self-induced because of our lifestyles, it is clear that making changes in your daily behaviours, actions and choices can naturally reverse fatigue and prevent its return.

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise, is a good saying, but generally, we can live a vibrant life full of energy by making the adjustments that can keep fatigue at bay.

Although it may take some effort at first, routines are easy to maintain after a brief period of introduction.

Try some of the suggestions made if you're feeling run down, it might just the shot in the arm you're looking for.

Here for you in love,

Recover with Love Power

Many people search for meaning or purpose or passion and want to follow that in their lives. They want to know how to live a soul directed, purpose driven life, and to remove fear, anxiety and overwhelm in order to achieve a position where you actually get to have what you want and feel good doing it. And although many of these dreams at first seem impossible, at second glance they can seem merely improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.

However, one of my readers contacted me to say that no matter how much she planned to get done during the day, she always felt stressed out at 5pm when it was time to go home to her family. She never felt like she accomplished everything she wanted, and frankly, she was feeling burnout from this routine.

She wrote:

Mickie why is it so hard for me to say no? I feel that I am a horrible person when I ever say no to someone, but I just feel that I am giving to everyone but myself. I think I'm grappling with burnout, and I fear I'm coming to the end of my patience. Do you have any tips for me on what I can do to avoid a complete meltdown?"

This hits on a really important topic for most people because as I'm sure you'd agree with me, sometimes we worry to much about what other people think and we end up putting ourselves last just to make other people happy. This is how busy people feel. But in such circumstances, if we need to set boundaries and say no to others in order to get what we want, then we have to do it without feeling guilty and worrying that we're hurting or letting others down.

There is a belief that if we have to say no to something we have to be aggressive and possibly even mean, but the most powerful strength is gentleness. It's all about having the right tools to create a connection. This includes a great alchemy of skills that you can learn and bring together to perform the magic of compassionate and thoughtful appropriate delivery, to help you say no without feeling bad about it.

So, I thought today I would publish 4 ways you can avoid – or recover from – burnout.

Nearly every successful person I know has grappled with burnout. I've personally gone through it and come out the other side several times. I did it by using these four techniques:

1. Truly disconnect. In today's business world, we are constantly tethered to our BlackBerries and "always-on" connections. Henry David Thoreau is quoted to have said, "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone". As a result, when we truly disconnect from time to time, the effect is almost magical.

   By "disconnecting," I mean being totally out of touch with work. On a recent trip to Florida for a family holiday, for example, I did something that might seem a bit over the top: I "black holed" all my emails during that week. Everyone who emailed me got an automatic response letting them know who to contact for help or support while I was gone, and asking them to email me again after my return if they still needed me. Then their email was deleted.

   Most business people are scared to death to do this, worrying that they might miss something incredibly urgent. Then they come back from vacation and are even more stressed out than they were before they left, because they've got 2,313 emails sitting in their inbox.

   If you just sort of disconnect instead of completely disconnect, there's always a tiny voice in the back of your head replaying, over and over again: "Wow! I wonder how much email I'll have to catch up on? I wonder what's going on back at the office?" You've got to totally cut this off to free up more "Psychic RAM" in your head.

2. Refocus on your successes. Many times, the feeling of burnout occurs because things are not going right. Keeping in mind that "right" is a relative term (and I believe everything ends up the way it should be, no matter what), the way to overcome this form of burnout is to change your focus.

   Focusing your energy on what's wrong only creates an endless spiral of more and more negativity. Instead, take out a piece of paper and start making a list of every "victory" you've had during this year, this quarter, this month, or this day. When you do that, selective perception kicks in - and you'll see that there is significantly more good than bad going on. My twin flame swears by this technique, using it as a positivity pill to energise him towards his workload.

3. Set a major goal that you cannot achieve on your own. I admit, I've only just started doing this. But I can already see how it leads to a powerful change of direction, intention, and motivation. And that can get anyone out of a funk. This is the kind of goal that rallies the troops and gets them to transcend what they themselves thought was possible. One famous example is Microsoft's original goal of "A computer on every desk and in every home." And the ultimate goal is to change the way business is played. To me that means bringing more fun into business and never doing things the same way they've been done. I utilise this in my life - and my love life - as well, and it helps keep the routine from becoming, well, routine.
4. Get back to the fun. Think back to when you were a kid - to the things that got you really jazzed and excited. What did you like to do? For me, it was writing, drawing, and making people laugh. That's why I write, why I've taken art classes and enjoy entertaining my friends. I make sure I incorporate activities into my life that give me enjoyment by making them a priority.

   How many times have you heard yourself saying, "I'd love to do such and such, but I can't because I'm too busy." But what you're really saying is that you have not made that activity enough of a priority in your life. Or that you feel guilty about having fun.

   For most of us, work is our default setting unless we have something else scheduled. Don't settle for enjoying life only when you can squeeze it in between business. Put fun activities, rewarding experiences, and exceptional adventures on your calendar and protect them like you would any other appointment. As I always say, the richer and deeper the source of emotional recovery, the more we refill our reserves and the more resilient we become.

Give all four of the above ideas a try when you're feeling burned out or when you're trying to break free. They've worked for me - and they'll work for you too.

Protect your brain from burnout

The danger of burnout can affect our brain power, too. Our mind seems to seize up and refuses to take in new information. Experts say this is when fluid intelligence starts to decline and crystallised intelligence dominates, similar to what people over 40 experience. But whatever your age, there are ways you can optimize your fluid intelligence, boost brain function to protect it from early burnout - and stay younger, longer.

Abstract reasoning and solving problems are parts of your intelligence that are ongoing throughout your life. We use both types of intelligence, for example, when we have to solve a mathematical problem. You have to use fluid intelligence to figure out the strategy to solve the maths problem and then use crystallised intelligence to recall the right maths formula needed.

Fluid intelligence dominates when we are younger, when we do this without the benefit of experience or specific education about whatever information we want to process. Once we get older, however, crystallised intelligence takes over, so the theory goes, and we abstract reason and problem solve more by using prior knowledge, education and experience.

If fluid intelligence declines past 40 and crystallised intelligence continues to grow throughout the remainder of life, does that mean that we're incapable of processing new information like we did when we were younger? No, it just means that as we get older, we tend to rely on what we already know as a basis for in-taking new information rather than creating the wheel, so to speak, as when we were younger. We emulate this when we get burnout.

Our fluid intelligence is still there and able to be used - we just don't use it very much. Kind of like those bikes we used to ride more when we were kids. We still know how to ride them - but our bike riding skills are likely going unused more often now. For many of us, our gathering of new information, learning about it, retaining it, using it can fall into a rut. If we get into a routine of doing things, this just speeds up the process of crystallisation.

Our fluid intelligence skills, like our bike skills, can get more and more rusty as we get older. Our crystallised intelligence takes over and our brains just kind of function on auto-pilot, processing information automatically according to what we already know.

However, cognitive research shows that there are ways to "teach an old dog new tricks" or to protect your brain from early burnout, boosting brain power and memory by stimulating our fluid intelligence capabilities again. The research has shown that fluid intelligence, like any other skill, is trainable, and the more you train, the stronger it gets. According to experts, there are specific ways to stimulate and strengthen your fluid intelligence.

Here's how:

1. Novelty. Set out to learn about something you have no prior knowledge of. This can be as complicated as astronomy or as simple as replacing tile in your bathroom. Open yourself to new experiences of learning. This helps your brain make dopamine, a pleasure chemical, and stimulates the growth of new neuron connections. The upshot is, your brain likes, and thrives on, learning new things.
2. Challenge yourself. In physical exercise, the concept of muscle confusion is successful as it constantly challenges the body to respond to new movements, thereby strengthening it. The same is true for your brain and cognitive abilities. Playing brain games are great, but once you master them move on to another and master it. Tetris is a good game to play for example. Keep challenging your brain to strengthen itself.
3. Think creatively. Use both sides of your brain to make associations to solve a problem or learn something new. Draw input from both conventional and unconventional thinking. In short, don't rely on your crystallised intelligence to figure it out.
4. Take the hard way. We've all learned more efficient ways of doing things. However, next time, try doing something a less efficient way to stimulate problem solving and get your brain off auto-pilot. For example, instead of using Map Quest, or your GPS, buy a road map, get a bright red pen, and map out your destination yourself.
5. Socialise. Network or join new groups outside your realm of knowledge to gain different perspectives on the world. Meeting new people and entering their environment stimulates your fluid intelligence/cognitive thinking by getting you out of a rut. It allows you to gain different perspectives from different people and challenge your own thinking.

As I tell my friends suffering from brain burnout, to keep your brain and your memory functioning in a youthful way, it's important to give it regular exercise the same as you do the rest of your body.

Challenging your brain to learn and experience new things outside of your workplace does the same thing for your cognitive functioning as using different muscle training exercises does for your body - it stimulates brain health and growth. It also stimulates feel good dopamine hormones in your brain that helps fight depression, lowers stress and cortisol levels that makes you irritable and short-circuits memory. So no more burnout!

Boost your memory for added power

Our brain is a complex data base, and we can sometimes get stressed - which prolonged can lead to burnout - when we begin experiencing brain fog - i.e., forgetting some things like a name, where they put our keys, appointments, etc.

Most of these memory episodes are not due to some serious brain process 95% of the time. Rather, they are likely due to just the usual memory and cognition (ability to perceive and interpret) changes. These changes are not permanent and may just indicate fatigue, stress, nutritional deficiencies, or even cognitive boredom, meaning your brain is not getting enough stimulation! In fact, you can do a lot to boost brain power and memory and I'm going to recommend some easy things below that will help you do that.

1. Diet/Nutrition: You will have heard that fish is brain food, that's because it contains Omega-3 oils that repair worn out brain cells and preserves all your memory areas. Your brain (and the rest of you) thrives on proteins. Limit simple sugars in your diet. Your brain (and the rest of you) functions better making its own glucose from complex carbohydrates and proteins.
2. Oxygen power: Your brain needs oxygen to thrive. Working in a stuffy office or house all day can zap your brain power. I tell my friends to open their windows and take several deep breaths when they wake up in the morning, once in the afternoon and once in the evening. If possible, go for a walk, exercise, work, or play outside in the fresh air for a few hours, weather permitting.
3. Exercise: Some experts suggest aerobic exercise 3-4 times a week (running, walking, bicycling, swimming, treadmill, elliptical, dance aerobics, etc.) in tandem with muscle strengthening exercise like weight-lifting, kettle bell workouts, yoga, all help deliver oxygen to all the tissues of your body including your brain. In addition, it creates feel-good hormones in your brain that helps clear brain fog and depression.
4. Recharge with sleep: Getting enough sleep is like plugging your brain in to recharge. Nothing zaps your short term memory and creates brain fog more than not sleeping enough. Your brain and other parts of your body repair itself during sleep. Eat a high protein, zero sugar, snack on turkey or tuna before going to sleep to help your body release growth hormone, the master repair hormone. Sugary snacks, especially 2 hours prior to sleep, turn off its release.
5. Stimulate your brain: As mentioned before, do crossword puzzles, play card games, chess, any type of game that requires memory recall and/or critical thinking will stimulate both your short term and long term recent memory to stay sharp. Break your patterns by changing things up. For example take a new way to work, use your opposite hand to do tasks, build a birdhouse, take up painting, or learn a language! Your brain thrives on learning and slows without stimulation.

   Learn to boost your brain.

6. Avoid substance abuse: Research has shown that smokers and alcohol drinkers develop dementia more than non-smokers. Alcohol kills brain cells that do not recover.
7. Avoid neurotoxins: Exposure to toxic chemicals like spray paints, some glues, environmental chemicals, pesticides, can all cause neurologic damage especially without good ventilation.
8. Avoid Aspartame: Check the label of products, but generally sold as Equal, Nutra-Sweet, Spoonful, now renamed as Neotame, aspartame is an excitotoxin that some experts believe creates all kinds of neurologic havoc, including memory loss, irritability/rage, damage to developing foetus nervous systems, etc. New research shows that diet sodas are linked to strokes, but do not state why. It could be the aspartame in certain diet sodas (Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Pepsi) that is the cause and not that it is sugar-free.
9. Memory robbing drugs: Many prescription drugs can cause memory loss. If you feel your medications may be contributing to your memory problems, talk to your doctor, or your pharmacist, and ask him to look into whether memory loss could be a side effect.
10. Brain/Memory boosting supplements: B vitamins, especially folic acid, B6, B12, are crucial to good brain health. As we get older, we don't absorb B12 from our intestine and most everyone gets deficiencies making it a crucial vitamin to supplement. Other brain cognition and memory boosters that you can supplement with are phosphatidylcholine, DMAE, phosphatidyl inositine, acetyl-L carnitine, phosphatidyle serine, vinpocetine, and huperzine.

Getting older doesn't have to be fraught with anxiety of forgetting everything and everyone you know. Stay away from neurotoxins, eat a healthy diet full of brain-memory preserving nutrition, make use of the brain-boosting supplements available, exercise and keep challenging yourself to do and learn new things. You'll be surprised at the difference it can make in keeping all your precious memories intact.

Figure out something new to do, or learn, every week, even if it's just taking a different way to work or going somewhere different for lunch. Allow yourself to meet and experience people with different perspectives that will stimulate your fluid intelligence ability. Your brain will love you for it and I know you'll feel more energised!

And remember chase after your passions, do it with love, and you'll find yourself stronger when you recover with your love power.

Yours in love,

Love is the Only Option

I hope all my readers enjoyed their spring break as much I did. The weather, although rainy at first settled down into a good mood, It's beautiful weather where I live at the moment. Not too hot, with a gentle breeze that tickles your soul. It's what some call travelling fair season.

And I love waking up to a spring morning, as the sunlight comes cascading in through the blinds, warming our senses to a lazy wakefulness. It's a great start to the day.

I have four immediate needs first thing in the morning: a pee, tea, a period of reflective silence about the day ahead, and a quick reassurance that nothing has happened in the night that might change that day drastically. I do that by surfing through news headlines online.

News checking is much more than a morning routine - I'm a girl addicted to current events, and always try to catch up with what's changed on my personalised news stream service. Because our world never ceases to amaze me. Situations and events from the ridiculous to the sublime fill the virtual papers.

Here is the news

It'll come as no surprise that human interest always majors in the headlines: heartbreaking stories of teenage domestic violence, parents bringing up autistic children, to eye-opening reports of British teen twins defrauding the American stock market for millions of dollars. And from the mischief kids get up to today, to articles of historical interest revealing that Bob Marley was a strict father and that some parents were pushy even in ancient Rome.

The list of interesting facts continue: with data showing early milk feeds benefit premature babies, romance is driven by women and that there are huge water resources lying under Africa, or how dirt can reveal details of lifestyle, swans can kill people, and strokes can break your inhibitions.

Still on health, did you know that shift working can be bad for you, the nickel content in British coinage can cause skin disease and there is a mysterious skin disease plaguing Vietnam?

How about getting informed updates on science and new technologies for the non-Luddite: electrons with split personalities, machines that listen and learn, new internet suffixes, new laws over cookie tracking, disputes over intellectual property and copyrights online, and the introduction of mini sticky credit cards to name but a few.

It doesn't end there. You can read reports on kidnapped penguins from theme parks and giant mechanical animal theme parks and street theatres. Or discover Shakespeare in 37 different languages, the joys of seasonal eating, and how obscure words are good for us.

Similarly, have you ever wanted to know who gets on the FBI's top ten wanted list? Or about firms that use misleading and undesirable trade names or force you into retirement? Or what recipe rage is? Or dark tourism? Or who became the most hated man on the internet for his (now thankfully defunct) revenge porn site? Or the hate crimes that have divided the Amish community in America, Bergholz, eastern Ohio? Or the Norway island massacre?

Crucially, a quick skim read of these last news stories would have many claiming that it paints a picture of a world going steadily downhill.

Read how to protect yourself from negativity.

On the way to destruction?

Cruising home one day after work with the sunroof peeled back to let the spring breeze in, I came across a heated phone-in on the talk radio station I had just tuned in. The radio station had evidently just heard one caller say how he was stocking up on freeze-dried food, guns, and ammunition, because of the coming social chaos (he didn't say why there would be social chaos, but he was certain it was coming).

Keeping an open mind, I always say each to their own - we thankfully live in a society with freedom of speech - but as I listened to the heated exchanges I wondered why we had all become so polarised. Judging by the angry reaction of the people calling in to respond, tolerance of other people's views (however strange they may seem to us) is sorely lacking.

Everybody is an individual. So, why do we make such a fuss over differing views? Why are we becoming extreme in the way we express our anger? I don't understand it, just like the polarising effect of the Twitter hashtag, or those debates people are forever getting into with back and forth disputes on Facebook.

Virtual vandalism is what I call those Facebook arguments. You guys know what I'm talking about: someone writes something that someone else doesn't agree with, someone comments back refuting what the original person said, original person defends their stance, other people get involved, situation gets out of control, and so on and so forth.

Each to their own I say again, but here's a concept: If you don't like what someone says, how about just not saying anything at all? I kind of thought we all learned that in nursery school. I read plenty of things that I think are completely ludicrous, but every time I want to write something in response, I just think to myself, chances are you're not going to change their mind anyway, so why bother? Why not just leave well enough alone?

Really, if someone thinks Marvin the Martian would be a great president, who cares? If you don't like what's being said change the conversation, or stay out of it. It's like the saying, "Good manners sometimes means putting up with other people's bad manners" - sometimes we just have to let people think what they want and not try and crucify them for it.

You can imagine how allowing myself to be bombarded with such negativity from the radio had sunk my good mood in the car. I should have used the off button, but my thoughts came around to how everything seems to be so dramatically and unnecessarily polarised in our world, pulled to either one extreme or the other.

No one seems immune. In the heat of the moment we can forget there is such a thing as the grey area, and not to acknowledge this fact can be hazardous for your wealth, health, and freedom. You see, the grey area often gives you a third option, a middle way between two poles of extremes. And having options is a good thing - because freedom means having freedom of choice.

In moderation to the extreme?

Glancing at the news this morning over the Norway terror trial against Anders Behring Breivik for killing 77 people last July, when Breivik confessed to admiring Al Qaeda as an enemy, I wondered that if this man is the opposite (and surely not an antidote) of Islamic extremism, shouldn't we feel more confident that moderation, the third option, is the only answer?

However, for the listeners of the talk radio station as I was driving home, it could have been that the gun-toting man on there raving about stock-piling up against world chaos had touched a nerve.

There will be some who ask, how far should moderation go? Should we have intervened in Breivik's madness before he killed all those innocent people? And if he isn't a lone terrorist, should he now be tortured (as Islamic extremists and sympathisers have been by America's secret services) for information to stop other extreme right-wing groups continuing their attacks - such as in Germany against the Turkish population there?

Dare to dream of a better world

Race. Guns. Abortion. Religion. Politics. Football. These are issues we all know to stay clear of at a dinner party. And I'm not talking about constructive, creative arguments and discussions that are carried out in an open minded debate with an air of respect for everyone's views and stance.

Evidently, I'm talking about when people can get so divided in their views that you can literally feel the steam building in their ears as the discussion hots up! That isn't being passionate, it's being blinkered, and that can't be good for your health. And that's because of the extremist way we tend to view things in society nowadays.

And the issue of America and religion is a prime example. Constitutionally they have freedom of religion, yet needless to say, people scatter into factions that seem to despise and deny the other faction. But here's an interesting fact: of all Christian Americans asked the question of whether which religions they would prefer their children marry into, ranked by preference, which religion do you think came bottom of the list?

Muslim? No. Buddhist? No.

It was the atheist - people with no religion at all. Plainly people believe we must all believe in some form of deity. Christians surveyed would much rather have Muslims as in-laws than atheists. Now this might not be so surprising we when understand that religious extremists founded the United States, so maybe it's just in their DNA. I always wonder why they refuse to accept a draw in their sport of football. They insist on a winner and a loser. But seriously, doesn't freedom of religion include the right to not have a religion?

Now, I'm not saying I agree with atheists, but I surely don't expect everyone to believe the same way I do, nor would I want to discriminate against them if they believe differently.

Going on, in America one subject that undeniably polarises people is the issue of gun control. From what I've come to understand from the news reports, people will generally polarise into two options here: ban gun ownership or allow it. Each will have their own arguments that they will vehemently defend and will gladly walk off a cliff arguing their corner. Gun ownership is a constitutional right "to bear arms", but can the average person out there be trusted with one? This is pretty much how this debate goes.

Or is there a third option? Maybe that third option could go something like this: guns are a constitutional right and a valid defence of life, liberty, and property, but gun owners should have rigorous training before being granted a license that they have to renew annually, and the gun can only be a handgun and kept in a finger-printed locked safe at home.

Frankly, it's only a suggestion - hey I'm not even American, so why should I care, right? I just want the high school shootings I keep reading about in the news to stop.

My suggestion is open to modification, that's the good thing about finding a middle ground, and what I'm trying to show is that there is a grey area, a third option here. A workable option will move things forward, not keep them stuck in the same trench of dispute. And I'm not giving my own personal opinion on guns, merely that a third option can and should exist.

Ever divisive, abortion is another issue that heats up America. Of course, the arguments here are as simple as they are extreme: either allow abortion or outlaw it. Surely there can be no third option here?

For me, as a woman who believes that life is sacrosanct, I can never imagine doing what I consider to be harm to life growing inside of me. However, some experts believe that there is a brief window during early pregnancy where it's not an actual baby that is being terminated.

Unquestionably there needs to be clarification. How do you define a baby? Is it from the time there's a heart beat, and if so, when is that (from a factual, scientific perspective)? I don't pretend to have the answers, but I would be foolish to think that the option of abortion should not exist for those that think differently than I do - or for those whom abortion might be a lifesaver.

Consequently, freedom of choice is essential, and I certainly wouldn't want to hurt anyone that had an abortion. I find it ironic how pro-life supporters endanger lives sometimes with their violent protests. I believe I only have a right over my body, and I wouldn't feel comfortable having the law take that right away from someone who believes differently than the majority - even if I can't even imagine how any woman would want to abort a new life forming inside of her.

Knowingly, the fact that grey areas can be disconcerting should not lead to people lose the greatest freedom of all, the freedom that can never be taken away: freedom of independent thought. It doesn't have to be a case of "You're either with us or against us!" There is always a third option, and there is a way to co-exist. Life, nature and the universe is all about co-existence, and our very survival depends upon it.

It's time to find a way to co-exist to survive

Nevertheless, we seem to insist on grabbing a ready-made set of beliefs off the shelf instead of thinking for ourselves. With the current presidential election coming up, it seems to me that if you choose Republican you have to also be pro-gun ownership. If you choose Democrat you have to also be pro-choice.

Granted that's a big generalisation, and I'm sure that many Americans can select values independent of their own merits and after they've carefully considered all sides of the argument instead of being dogmatic and extremist.

How come I say extremist, like a terrorist? Well, the definition of terrorism is: "The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims" and right-wing extremism is no different.

In this context, some of the more violent pro-lifers in America should be careful not to become a terrorist in its most literal definition!

Moreover, getting hot under collar when walking through a minefield of sensitive issues is actually pertinent to the issue of the man on the radio, who was evidently preparing for some kind of zombie apocalypse that he believes is coming. My version of an apocalypse is what will happen if extremism of any colour or creed takes the upper hand. And with the mental state of our times being what it is, the issue of what some have termed as survivalism is a hot topic right now.

Under that term, the two extreme options are that we are either headed for an apocalypse in true biblical style, or that everything will continue to run as it has done. We should either build bunkers, live in fear, and waste our life away waiting for something that may never happen, or do nothing as we live in a civilised society with police and even an army to restore public order should society break down, and the police and armed forces never make mistakes. There will never be any terrorist attack, or an epidemic, or cyber-attacks on our infrastructure, or even any bad weather.

Perhaps there needs to be a third option here, because if we don't begin to co-exist more successfully, then something will eventually snap. You don't have to live like a crazy hermit preaching that the end is nigh, but it would be unwise to be completely unprepared in this economically fragile, technology-dependent existence we've ended up in, especially if you have a family.

This is the grey area, where in this case, it's epitomised by a phrase you've probably heard before: prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.

However, I don't mean people should live in a bunker on an island in Alaska, with a cache of AK-47s and a high-voltage perimeter fence. Living with 5 year's worth of freeze-dried food in a gigantic safe might be overdoing it. And I don't have sleepless nights worrying about things I can't change. These things would degrade the quality of the life I have and my family has.

Even if there is any break down of society, it's likely to only last a week or so at most before control is regained. If we go back to America in the news, think the Rodney King riots of 1992 in Los Angeles.

Although, there's a much higher chance of a viral epidemic than there is of winning the lottery, and most people who don't believe in that worst case scenario play the lottery! Cyber-attacks are a very real threat. Countries in recession. Yes. Bad weather across the globe? You bet. And if I'd have told you on the 10th of September in 2001 that terrorists would fly airliners into New York's World Trade Center tomorrow, you'd have screamed at me for my alarmist eccentricity and branded me a crank.

Similarly, maybe that's why people were upset with that survivalist guy who called in on the radio. Because he scared people. But that doesn't make the reality any different. In fact, what this radio call-in show gave us was a glimpse of a terrifying force you would witness during a social crisis: a hysterical crowd of people.

So, for many it might be better to choose the third option. That won't mean 5 year's worth of freeze-dried food. Practically, it's expensive and takes up too much room. A crate of honey on the other hand has a long shelf life, takes up little space, tastes good, is high in calories for just a spoonful, and (if raw, unheated, and unfiltered) boosts your immune system against infection from viruses, dirty water infection, injury, and the like. Experts say an adult needs around 1000-1500 calories a day to survive.

Going on the fact that we can't survive more than 48 hours without water, some may realise that instead of trying to hoard barrels and barrels of drinking water, having their guttering divert rainwater into barrels that can also be used to water a vegetable garden, and water purification equipment to purify water, as well as harvesting lake water (we live close to a marina) if more is needed is a better option. My twin flame always jokingly reminds me that our hot water boiler creates a reserve of water, too.

Obviously not because of any doomsday fears, but my twin flame has bought a generator, and we have solar panels that power the entire home to try and help reduce our carbon print, and be more environmentally friendly with our energy consumption. But it will stand us in good stead for any emergency that may arise.

On the same note, he keeps a gallon of petrol in the corner of the garage for the family car. He informs me you can buy an additive to make it last a few years (it goes bad after a few months otherwise). You won't want to leave the house if society has failed temporarily, but if it's a nuclear event you most certainly will (unless you really have gone all out for an underground bunker).

During a crisis you can forget going to an ATM or cash machine, and perhaps even currency may be worthless, so we have a little cash hidden away in the form of gold coins. But really, what people would barter with is what they need, and you can't eat or survive on gold.

And my twin flame, like a good boy scout, is always prepared for any emergency. Not the cataclysmic kind per se, but the small and large ones that are endemic in today's society. Our home is secure, well-lit, alarmed, fenced, and in a gated community. And it has an internal room with concrete walls and fire door. We go camping regularly as a family, and so we have a variety of other items such as cooking equipment, life-jackets, torches, medical kit and similar survival gear.

Notwithstanding my pacifist stance, my twin flame does own certain weapons (I dislike using that word) for emergencies, too. Sadly, looters and rapists are a genuine threat even if society doesn't break down, especially with times so hard, and news reports claiming that robbery is on the rise where I live. I refuse to have them in the house, so he keeps them out of sight. I have tried to persuade about removing them entirely, but he is adamant that when you have a family to protect, you have to be practical and live in the real world as it is today.

Don't ignore the greys

Honestly, the truth of the matter is that you can never be fully prepared for anything. We are prepared for the worst, but these survivalist strategies are for everyday emergencies, we don't dwell on doomsday scenarios. But if something were to happen (because you can never discount anything) then we're at least prepared to protect ourselves as best we can. That's what you call a third option.

And in my "Love is the Only Certainty" post, where I touch upon a theory about a countdown to the end of the world, I mention that if any change is likely to come, it would be a change of conciousness.

Rarely in any other generation than this has it been so clear that we need to learn how to co-exist in harmony if we are to ensure the survival of our human race. And to do that we need to stop thinking in terms of black and white, because reality dictates that nothing is black and white - not even hate. We need to stop ignoring the greys - the middle ground - and always try to find a third option to compromise.

Don't forget that this planet is for all of us. We need to learn to share it. Not fight for ownership over it. It's terrible how we think we can own the planet, or people, or we use natural resources and people as tools for our needs; our selfishness as human beings sometimes embarrasses me so much I wish I were an animal, like a faithful dog or a harmless bird.

Justifiably, it's what we have been taught from a young age that we need to own things, when the actual secret of life is we don't actually own anything - we borrow for a time, and we should enjoy it before we give it back. Not use and abuse it.

Unless we as human beings give up this narrow-lensed view of ownership and the struggle to try and own people, and force ownership over ideas, land, and the like, then we will not survive. And had we done this earlier, it is likely we would be a lot more advanced than we are today.

Similarly, true love isn't about ownership; it is about connection, about learning how to co-exist and compromise, and to understand that we come together best in the grey areas of life. Because it's in the give and take that we learn from each other.

The only option is love

And in love, like in life, when I come up against any difficulty, I always look for a third option. Because the beauty of life is no where more evident that where we are made better for the blending of minds, bodies and souls.

Such examples also exist in art, which imitates life. When art, craft and design come together in one great movement something greater than the sum of its parts emerges. Sometimes art inspires greater art when the two meet in homage. It's about being inquisitive enough to ask questions, when something takes our fancy. But we need the courage to think outside the box of narrow minds.

Had Claire Squires been narrow-minded, would she have run a marathon for charity which tragically ended in her death, but resulted in people donating hundreds of thousands to the Samaritans - the charity she was running for? She lost her life, but the reaction of kind-hearted people have given the hope that by her sacrifice others shall live.

Everything needs to be put into perspective. Everyday has its share of good and bad. For example, news reports of robberies on the increase are worrisome, but when put into context that overall crime is falling in England, the situation feels less bleak.

Like I said in my "Love is the Only Certainty" post, losing hope is not the way to turn things around. We must look to compromise with courage - but this means we must step outside of our safe zones. It might be outside of our comfort zones to stop behaving as though we have to own everything, and to start approaching everything with a view to compromise, but if we're going to survive, then it's worth more than just a try.

It's about taking that first step over new borders. It struck me when I was in Florida on a family holiday, during a visit to Disney World EPCOT, that with all those wonderful countries, cultures, and foods, where did most American people eat? In the American area! I asked myself where was that pioneering spirit Americans are famed for.

Keeping in line with the traditions of a tourist, I naturally sampled the American cuisine, but I did wonder why everyone eating in the American area of EPCOT were American, instead of at least sampling the food and drink of other countries there (they have a fantastic and very authentic Biergarten in the German area). After all, they're already in America!

Each to the own, naturally, but it's illustrative that we need to resist the rising fear of compromise, and consider other options. The core of the American spirit is adventure, otherwise they wouldn't be the great pioneers they are - and we need to take that spirit on board all across the world to break out and try something new, and reach out a hand into those grey areas where we meet in the middle. It is then we shall discover that the places outside our borders are not scary at all, and they share more common ground with us than we thought. Try something outside your comfort zone and see where it takes you.

Subsequently, it all comes back to that survivalist man on the radio that people were calling crazy. He took other listeners out of their comfort zone and made them angry. When we're taken out of our comfort zone, out of our narrow minded routine, we become frightened. When really we need to reach out, understand, and meet in the middle. Because isolation isn't the answer, it's part of the problem.

It's then love doesn't become the third option, but the first, and only option.

Thinking of you in love,