Willpower . . . won't

Yesterday I watched Dr. Oz on Oprah. In the episode it followed the progress of 3 people who were quitting smoking. They all kept a video journal detailing the agony of willpowering themselves to quit. Willpower is like the bully forcing the Other-Than-Conscious mind to do something it doesn't want to do. It's kind of like blowing up a door with a stick of dynamite when you could have just used a key. Find the key.

Cigarettes are a very addictive drug. Who in this day and age doesn't know they're bad for you? And does knowing intellectually change the behaviour? I know an asthmatic who smokes. Think that's stupid? Wait--this person is also a doctor. John Morgan points out that it is not the intellect that got you to smoke in the first place, and it's not the intellect that will get you to stop. That goes for any habit or behaviour, really. So how do you find the key? You go to the source and work with it: that Other-Than-Conscious part of you that's driving your behaviour when you're not even aware of it.

There's one gal on the show, Wendie, who is set up to fail because her husband still smokes. So if she doesn't go back to it (which Dr. Oz suggested she would!) she will replace smoking with something else. For most women, it would be food. It pained me to watch those video diaries, not only because the quitters were in such distress, but because it was so unnecessary. I have personally witnessed a crowd full of smokers throw their cigarettes away AND CHEER at the end of a 2-hour Smoking Cessation seminar. They walk out of that room as non-smokers. We've had 3-pack-a-day-ers and smoked-for-40-year-ers, and they leave it behind.

So I wrote to Dr. Oz and suggested that we both have someone in common who could help with the smoking cessation: Doug O'Brien. Doug worked with Dr. Oz for 6 years, helping create the Dept. of Complementary Medicine at Columbia Presbyterian. Doug is also one of the hypnotherapists for John Morgan Seminars. It is what we do.

P.S. If you're reading this and have stopped smoking from our seminars, then I invite you drop Dr. Oz & Oprah a line. If you smoke and want to quit, get to a seminar or buy our DVD.

The Biology of Belief: Bruce Lipton 101

"I woke up one morning and decided to live my life in nothing less than joy." ~Bruce Lipton

This was one of the key phrases that shifted my para-dig-m of how I chose to live my own life. I was sitting in Bruce's Biology of Belief seminar learning about cell biology. Cell biology! Who knew it could be so exciting? It was one of those life-changing, Oprah Lightbulb Moment, Ah-ha experiences where you realize that the microcosm reflects the macrocosm.

A cell in a petri-dish will do one of two things: it will move toward things that are life-enhancing, in this case food. OR, it will move away from things that are life-threatening, e.g. a toxin. The first is a state of GROWTH. The second is PROTECTION. A cell can do either/or, it can't do both at the same time. You may be thinking, Yeah, OK. Why do I care?

Well. Let me tell you. A single cell in your body has all the same functions as your whole body. It takes in nutrition, oxygen, excretes waste, etc. Your body is a community of trillions of cells. It's not random. Think about a community: working together, each person contributing, communicating, relating. It's an organized network. And who's in charge? YOU, the leader. You're the director, the Queen-of-the-castle, Master-of-your-domain. The question is: are you a benevolent leader? Or not? What determines that? The environment you create by your beliefs and thoughts. Do you love your body? Do you love your life? Or are you stewing in a soup of toxic emotions? How long would you continue to work with someone who worked against you? How long would you expect your body to before it rebels? As Dr. David Lee (who gave Bruce his first cold-laser treatment) says, Your body. Your health. Your choice.

So, you give a cell some food, it moves forward, it grows. You threaten it, it retreats. You give a person nurturing and s/he grows. You threaten a person and s/he retreats into a state of protection. What's the difference? THE ENVIRONMENT. Change your environment, and you change your biology--YOU. In a state of growth, you have different chemical reactions happening in your body vs. when you're in a fearful state of protection. Bruce says that we're living our lives like we're in a race. We're at the starting line and we hear, Get ready. Get set. But we never get to GO. So our bodies are in a chronic state of stress. Stress is a protective state, not a state of growth.

This is your body's response to the stress Fight or Flight Response: your body prioritizes blood flow to the back of your brain, the survival part, to the back of your legs to run, and to the arms for fighting. It is the front part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex that has higher functioning skills of thought, logic, and reasoning. This is why it's hard to reason with someone who's fearful.
How much blood goes to other areas? The bare minimum. What about your immune system? That takes way too much energy. If your body is in survival mode, it's priority is not against some outside microbe. How much blood goes to digestion in this state? Not much.

And here's the thing about fear: new things are scary and avoided. Think about that. And then think about how when you're in a state of fear, you're much more likely to give up your freedom for security and personal safety. Which means you're easier to control. And now think about the media that shows scary-threatening-violence on TV, and drug companies that sponsor these "news" programs and tell you to take their pharma-zerka-toxin-el for your anxiety, your stress, your illness.

We weren't biologically designed to live in chronic stress. And yet, some people are so used to it, they think it's normal. Just because something is common, doesn't make it normal. We have a choice. So for me, I choose growth. I choose life. I choose JOY.

And if you ever get a chance, go to a Bruce Lipton seminar. Or read his ground-breaking book, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles. OR tune into Dr. Mehmet Oz's show on XM Radio today and listen to his interview with Bruce.

P.S. You can get a month of free XM Radio here.

Bruce Lipton on XM Radio!!!

This Tuesday, November 13th, Dr. Mehmet Oz is interviewing Dr. Bruce Lipton on the Oprah channel. If you've thought of enjoying commercial-free radio with LOTS of channels, here's an opportunity. You can get a FREE 30-day subscription to XM to sign on and hear the show if you do not subscribe. You can go to Oprah & Friends Radio Network to check out airtimes.

And from my Fall Folliage series...this is from a red bud tree:

I see hearts wherever I go. This is what it looks like in the spring:

GLORIOUS.

For My Fellow Anatomy Nerds...

"The brains of a cell are not where the genes are, it's not the nucleus...the brains of the cell are in the membrane. The cell membrane lets us talk to each other." ~Dr. Mehmet Oz

WHO DOES THIS SOUND LIKE??? That's right: Bruce Lipton! And yet, go to any basic biology book--even an anatomy & phys. book, and it says that the brain of the cell is the nucleus. It was just a passing comment, but having been through Bruce's Biology of Belief seminar and reading his book--WOW! That was my excitement for the day. Now...let's get Bruce on Oprah!

It's really great to see holistic healing getting attention in mainstream America. And speaking of Brimhall... Dr. John says that health care in our country is really disease care. While we're at it, let's get Dr. Brimhall on Oprah! I want to see Oprah get lasered. Ah...cold-laser therapy....Have a FABULOUS day!

P.S. Awesome post from the Grasshopper on anger. Go see.