We live during a sacred time. A time ripe with possibility. With each storm, there is the opportunity for great destruction or transformation. These storms can help me recognize much is beyond the control of my ego – out of my personal control. My attitude makes all the difference. Once I recognize the sacred nature of the storm, I can choose to turn from fear to love. Instead of fighting the destruction, I embrace the transformation. I ask myself: what is possible? What good can come of this? How can I respond with love?
What is Self-love?
Think of your favorite friend. What about a beloved grandparent or teacher? Sometimes we may encounter a person who carefully listens to us and responds to us.
Unfortunately, for some of us, this may be rare. I think love is listening and responding. A nurturing mother responds to the baby’s cry with milk, changing a diaper, or a hug. Doing this moment to moment is love.
Many of us see the value of self care; we value adequate sleep, healthful food, and exercise. Most of us know the pleasure and value of having fun. Yet it seems play is a forgotten activity of our past. Authentic play has immense value – calming of pain, restoring our energy, and evoking excitement and joy.
I remember hearing, “don’t be so selfish.” Often people just assume that focusing on our desires is narcissistic or just a waste of time. If you are not enjoying your life because you neglect yourself, then what are you seeking?
Jesus emphasized that the most important aspects of his teaching are:
“Love God with all your heart, all your Soul, all your mind and all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Why are you neglecting yourself? Is it idealism?
I think that it is through self love that we are able to love others. When I am rested, fed and content, I am most receptive to the needs and wants of others I value.
What is Love?
Much has been written about a sentimental view of love. Reducing love to the early days of falling in love, we miss so much of what gives life meaning. Do we even care anymore?
Some professionals write about relationships and bonding, but avoid the word love all together.
Attraction can rapidly lure us closer to another, but just as quickly can be lost.
Falling in love is different from other qualities of love. After a few months or a year or so passing, we may view our beloved very differently. What we once loved about someone, we may now despise.
Yet our heart can be deeply connected to another for years. We often feel this bond the most, when we part.
I think our heart is a symbol of love, for it can teach us much about what we love. When we can calm, our heart’s desire can be felt. Unfortunately, due to the traumatic nature of our world, we can be numb to the subtle longing of our heart.
A child is another powerful symbol for our heart’s desire. Often we neglect the voices of children as whimsical and irrelevant. Just as tragically, we neglect the inner child. For within our heart and mind, this dynamic can lead us to unforeseen gifts.
Emily Dickinson wrote to a friend in a letter, “the heart wants what it wants or it just does not care.” How much do we wander through our life, fulfilling obligations of work and family, feeling empty and unfulfilled?
Love is a mystery. Yet it is a mystery worth encountering with wisdom and sensitivity. Great secrets can be found, seeking the longings of our heart.
If you seek to reject the heart, be forewarned that scientific research reveals the power of our heart’s intelligence. “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart,” writes Hellen Keller.
What do you believe about the news you watch?
I loved reading about United States History and Politics, even as a young child. In 1982, I began studying Political Science as a student at West Valley College. I was excited to take my first college course in Political Science.
My professor was Bill Whitney. He was very excitable and interesting, lecturing about elections during the depression, political parties and spy satellites. I told him that he had very interesting ideas but I thought he would be more effective if he cited more research.
Professor Whitney then accused me of being a spy for Dr. Karamitsos who was a Marxist. I was surprised. I knew about Communism, but I was only taking World History with Dr. Karamitsos. I barely knew her. I was a political moderate, sensible. Communism in Russia and China seems extreme to me. I was shocked and did not know how to respond to him.
Professor Whitney assigned a project analyzing the news media. I recorded on my Video Tape Machine, the national news for ABC, NBC, and CBS. It was during the presidential election of 1984 between President Ronald Reagan and Vice President Walter Mondale. Due to my analysis, I began to see how the news media covered certain stories and yet ignored others.
Moreover, I learned how much fear and anger often gets stirred up when we discuss politics. Political discourse is designed to evoke powerful affect and certain behavior.
Negative Thinking
Human life is difficult. Eighty percent of human thoughts are negative. Ninety-five percent of our negative thoughts repeat the next day. For some of us, we have a childhood with healthy bonds. Yet even for those who have secure attachments and those who did not have adverse childhood experiences, life is challenging.
Our Subconscious Mind is a challenge. It is a million times more powerful than our Conscious Mind. The Subconscious Mind thinks like a five year old – simple, black and white, and timeless.
Our Subconscious Mind is vast. Our conscious mind “is like a boat in a sea of the subconscious,” wrote C. G. Jung.
This is good news, because there is much to be gained from changing the subconscious mind.
Our shadow is the parts of ourselves disowned early in life. Yet our shadow is 90 percent gold.
“We can actually change our brains and make new neural circuits,” says Joan Borysenko. ”The brain has an inherent negativity bias. It worries a lot; it ruminates. And bad things stick to it. Bad things stick around for a while. Good things you hardly notice.” That is about survival. “If you look around for what awful things could happen, you are more likely to notice them. . . . . We are then stressed out. We make poorer decisions because stress cuts off some of the activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). The PFC is where our decision making and executive functioning are located. If you freak out and you get in that the PFC goes off line.”
Where can we find accurate information?
In college, I was very interested in the politics of Central America – El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. Because I took a Spanish language class at San Jose State University, I discussed with my fellow students the news from Spanish language stations from Latin America. I came to realize that Spanish language television news from Mexico covered many stories from Nicaragua and El Salvador that CBS, NBC, and ABC news did not cover.
I asked my pastor at church, Father Clemens, if he knew someone at Santa Clara University who was connected with Central America. He introduced me to Father James Torrens who connected me with a newsletter from Costa Rica about Central American Politics and life.
Upon receiving the newsletter monthly, I was shocked how dramatically different the United States television networks ignored news from Central America. At the time, Nicaragua and El Salvador were very important political stories, because they were debated by many US Congressmen. Yet many relevant facts about Latin America were not being covered by the US television networks.
I was reading a writer from Mexico describe the United States and he wrote that “Americans see the world like we have mirrors at our borders.” Americans see the rest of the world like we see the United States, even though the world is vastly different – social customs, poverty, infrastructure, media, and government. Americans do not seem to distinguish our own country from other countries which are vastly different. I think Americans find it very difficult to see the world accurately, because the news media is not presenting vital information about the world. Moreover, I do not think the news media objectively and fairly covers domestic issues in the United States. How objective are we as Americans?
The Blind Leading the Blind
What secrets are being kept by government from its own citizens?
Who does government serve, if not its citizens? In 2002, my mom filed a lawsuit in another legal dispute. My mom said her lawyer, Jean Starcevich, requested a recommendation for a doctor to do a psychiatric evaluation. I recommended Dr. Daniel Amen who is a neurologist and psychiatrist. My mom flew to Orange County, California, USA and had a SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computer Tomography). This is a type of brain scan of blood flow in the brain.
Upon returning from Southern California, my mom told me the Amen Clinic staff had informed her that she had poor overall blood flow in her brain and the appearance of bumps and waves in the surface area of her brain which is indicative of poor brain function. Therefore, she was at risk for neurological problems later in life.
My mom was born in Omak, Washington, a small town in north central Washington State. My dad was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Yet my parents were part of an experiment to determine how much radiation a human being could tolerate before getting sick. (Please check the documentation below if you wish to evaluate the veracity of these claims.)
The Amen Clinic staff had told her that radiation was released in Hanford, Washington, USA (from 1944 to 1972). My dad served during World War II in the Marshall Islands as a United States Marine. Sometime after his honorable discharge from the Marine Corp, my dad began working at the General Electric plant which produced plutonium for the United States government. My mom and dad were married in 1956 in the Hanford, Washington area.
In 1981, my father died of lymphatic cancer and its complications at 57 years old. My mother had a stroke in 2006 and suffered terribly from seizures. During the last ten years of her life, she was catatonic at times, starring off into space and unable to speak. My mom was an gifted concert violinist in college and later became an executive administrator for high technology companies. After her stroke in 2006, she bravely endured her unbearable suffering with dignity and humor until her death in 2018. No one should have to endure such pain for such highly unethical secret research.
The staff experimenting with releasing radiation from 1944 to 1972 in Washington State was instructed to keep as few records as possible.
References
Wald, M. L., (1986, October 24), Northwest Plutonium Plant Had Big Radioactive Emissions in 40s and 50s, Section A, Page 20.
The Release of Radioactive Materials from Hanford: 1944-1972. (1997, January 24). Retrieved from http://www.doh.wa.gov/hanford/publication/history/release.html
Are You Awake?
This is how I can chose to wake up! A meme is an idea. A meme is like a virus; This is a metaphor. We have learned a great deal about viruses in 2020. Advertisers, politicians and religious leaders use memes to rapidly spread ideas.
Viruses can be highly contagious and even deadly. Memes can be constructive or destructive. These ideas can make our lives dramatically better or lead us to disease and death.
Memes affect our subconscious mind. 90-95 percent of our thinking is subconscious, below the level of conscious awareness. When I tie my shoes, I do not think about it. I just do it. This is because after so many years, I have acquired the skills subconsciously. I can think about other things when I tie my shoes.
The subconscious mind develops after a baby is conceived until its seventh birthday. The subconscious mind is like a five year old’s thinking, very concrete and living in the present. It is simple and prefers clarity.
Memes are designed with issues of sex and survival as well as protecting of those we love. These are the forces that move our subconscious mind.
Many of us are manipulated without even realizing that we are being influenced. Have your ever hear of subliminal advertising? Why would successful corporations spend millions of dollars on such strategies, if they do not work?
When we have a bad habit, we have difficulty stopping a behavior. I may do something over and over, even though I do not want to consciously. I make a New Year’s Resolution to eat better. Yet I find myself eating Panda Express Honey Walnut Shrimp. We are programmed to make choices with memes.
Most importantly, we can rewrite our subconscious programming. Memory Reconsolidation scientifically proves that we can change. We can rewire our brain. We can change our subconscious programming. We have a choice. We can wake up. We can be objective and empowered. This is exciting!
Please watch the following video I filmed about EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques):
What You Don’t Know About Weed May Hurt You
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’re likely aware that there’s been a substantial shift in the cultural attitude towards using marijuana for both medical and recreational use over the past decade.
In fact, there seems to be more public support for reforming marijuana law than at any point in our nation’s history.
Today, recreational marijuana is legal in 11 states and the District of Columbia, medical marijuana is legal in 33 states plus the District of Columbia, and polls have shown that more than half the country is now in favor of legalizing marijuana across the board.
But, just because something is publicly acceptable or popular doesn’t mean it’s safe or the wise thing to do…
The uncertainties and dangers of using weed are especially important to understand for those who are using, or considering using, marijuana for medical purposes. While the very name “medical marijuana” seems to imply that marijuana can be used for medical purposes just like any other medicine prescribed by a physician, the ways in which medical marijuana has been approved, prescribed, and made available to the public differ vastly from other commercially available prescription drugs.
Unfortunately, these differences and the use of medical marijuana itself pose problems that seem to be largely unrecognized by many physicians and the public.
I encourage you to watch the following video on what’s in weed and why it’s much more dangerous than people realize by Dr. Jerry Callaway, an ASAM-certified addiction medicine specialist in Santa Clara County, California, who’s been working in addiction medicine for the last 35 years.
Inside the video, Dr. Jerry Callaway discusses:
[0:56] Why medical marijuana can’t be classified as a medicine
[2:02] The short-term and long-term consequences of weed (including a study done in New Zealand on marijuana’s effects on IQ and brain functioning)
[3:03] How you can help someone get off of marijuana
[3:32] Why marijuana stays in systems of users for so long
[3:58] The effects of marijuana on the liver and why they are so critical to long-term health
[5:06] The emerging public health effects in Colorado of legalizing marijuana that are now being seen in California
And much, much more!
What do you think? Do you believe weed should be legalized for both medical and recreational use, or just one or the other? Why or why not? Be sure to share your thoughts on this important and timely issue below. I look forward to hearing from you and I know we can all help each other!
The Genetics of Addiction
When I was born, my family lived about a 5 minute walk from the current Apple Computers headquarters in Cupertino, California, USA. Much has changed here in Silicon Valley. Very few cherry or apricot orchards remain, and now it is a center of the information economy for the planet.
Amidst the many Google, Amazon, Facebook buildings in Santa Clara Valley are many wine bars, breweries, and marijuana dispensaries. Like any other city, town or village about 15 percent of the population has the gene for addiction. Some cultures have an unusually high rate of addiction, but addiction is a problem in every corner of the world.
My grandfather, Early Byrd Davis, was Cherokee; Native Americans have a 75 percent rate of alcoholism. He was a raging alcoholic. How do I know if I carry the gene for addiction?
Please watch this video on genetics and addiction by Dr. Jerry Callaway:
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