We are the only ones who can both preserve and destroy the entire world.

We are the only ones that can consciously guide and control our body, breath and mind

We are the only ones that can consciously relax and repair our body and mind.

What happens when we do this?

What are the benefits?

Why bother?

Today, Blair helps us acknowledge that most of us are already out of our comfort zone. Many teachers of self-improvement in the years past have encouraged their students to step up and get out of our “comfort zone.” Blair believes most of us are already there or beyond.

The Next Zone can be the solution to our fears of the day.

In business, it is called “The Zone of Proximal Development,” which Danny Iny or Mirasee.com defines as, “the area that’s beyond what you can do alone, but where you can perform successfully with the help or guidance of a coach or teacher.”

If fear is the cheapest room in the house….

Rather than paying for coaching, Blair offers up the most affordable (cheapest solution) to fear…take a listen.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

– Man’s Search For Meaning, By Viktor E. Frankl

Nowadays I hear many stories of people getting thrown a curve ball, when plans are changed without their permission. Like the flight that’s too late and causes you to miss an important business engagement, or when you wanted to spend time relaxing and rejuvenating and instead you need to clean up a mess from a flooded basement.

We know there’s nothing we can do to stop the winds of change, however, we can use those turbulent times to grow. We can retrain ourselves to see unexpected change and loss as an opportunity study ourselves and move ourselves closer to freedom.

We really never know what will happen next and we don’t always know if we’re making the right decision, but we do know that with attention and steadiness, we can help make the situation turn out alright.

We have a chance to reconsider, re-group, or re-appraise the situation and develop a plan B. Here’s how our brain anatomy helps us with this transformational task:

The prefrontal cortex is our brain’s CEO. It allows us to make choices when presented with two different perspectives.

The amygdala is our vigilant center, helping us decide when something could be harmful and therefore needs attention or if something is rather neutral and doesn’t need our immediate response.

Through continued practice of paying attention to our breath or mantra, we enhance the connection between these more discerning powers. Overtime lessening the grip of our necessary, but fear based, amygdala.

1. We are heavily dependent upon our mind until we step back and acknowledge our own existence.

2. The mind is the center of our world until we learn to relax past it.

3. We actively refuse to listen to the guidance of our own conscience.

4. We cannot think our way out of a prison made of thoughts, and yet we try to do just that.

Our reluctance to embrace and embody the wisdom of our conscience can be solved and resolved. Gaining freedom from our old mind and staying true to our new forward momentum requires vigilance and inspired fellowship. This is very important because our loyalty to our painful past and distorted self-identity is much stronger than we imagined.

To succeed in life, we will need to simplify our life by protecting our mind and senses from useless damage and distractions. 

When you begin to deconstruct stress down to it’s components, this is what you find. Listen to Blair in this week’s podcast explain this process of deconstruction and expose the root in which stress stems.

When you have a story in your imagination about the wonderful (or terrible) day that you are going to have next Thursday, you are not here in the ‘now.’ By doing this, you need to turn your attention away from ‘now,’ and turn it toward the story… which is imaginary.

Learn to develop the habit of managing ‘now’ the best you can, and the stress that used to come from the stories in your imagination will fade. Listen to Blair’s commentary for more:

Today’s audio podcast is a reading of Desert Storm — a short essay I wrote over the weekend.
As you may know, we are giving away (while supplies last) free copies of The Happiness Revolution.
Before people toss me into that cesspool of online hooligans trying to snatch their wallet, I thought it would be good to remember why Alive and Healthy exists.

We are a non-profit institute dedicated to diminishing all levels of suffering through science, spirituality and lifestyle management. We began in 2002.

I began this work at the age of 14 in 1969.

Do you think I really want to sell folks a book?
Or, in this case, give a book away?

Well, yes and no.

Everyone is seeking for solutions to the stress and sufferings of this crazy world. They go online to search and commonly, we jump from disappointment to disappointment to utter despair.

I believe my book and the resources of Alive and Healthy will not disappointment.

Our goal is to diminish suffering and despair, fear and doubt, hatred and rage through education, new habits of what we believe about ourselves and supportive fellowship.

So, YES, I would love to send you a book.  And NO, I wish we could use the book as a fund raiser to help many, many people with classes and more.

Thank you for your interest and support.

Sincerely,
Blair Lewis

• The Importer/Exporter
• The Ego
• The Enlightened Intellect 

The fourth component of the mind is the massive Warehouse, which stores every experience and memory we have ever had. This warehouse also holds all the experiences that we were not even aware we were experiencing. Listen to Blair explain this part of the mind, and the effect that even subtle forms of carelessness have on our mind.

When we are constantly denying the reality in front of us, then we suffer even more.

Unabridged Version
We know that all of us numb out in some way when we’re stressed, and we numb out by doing things such as blanking out, or we play our music loud, or we dance, or we have a cold refreshing beverage of some sort. When we are stressed, we all do something to sort of numb things out.

Terri has always said (she happens to be a specialist who understands the use of pain medications, which has been her expertise for over 25 years as a physician) that when people numb out the pain (with prescription medications), they also numb out emotionally. Well, that sounded really good and logical to me; then all of a sudden she gave me 12 pages of proof! And this is really fascinating!

There was a study done at Ohio State University*, 2 different studies, one involving 80 college students and one involving 114 college students, and what they found out was that by just simply taking one Tylenol (acetaminophen) a day, it reduced their empathy towards other people’s suffering. And in the study, they had the participants rank the pain each person might experience in different scenarios, of whether they felt hurt or wounded or felt pain. And the students that were taking a Tylenol, didn’t think that the painful scenarios described would hurt that much. That it didn’t seem to bother them that much; therefore they thought the other person wouldn’t be hurting that much. The study showed that acetaminophen can reduce empathy, as well as serve as a pain killer.
[Both sources cited at the end of post.]

Then came the statistics:
Each week, 23% of American adults, approximately 52 million people**, use a medicine containing acetaminophen (Tylenol). That acetaminophen also blunts positive emotions like joy. So not only do they not recognize that maybe their words might be painful for another person to hear, that they’re a little more brash. A person might be really hurting from a life event that they’re telling you about, but if you’re taking Tylenol, you don’t think it’s that bad. But if you’re not taking Tylenol, you go “Oh, my gosh!”

Now, I believe that people are probably taking other things besides Tylenol, and it’s probably having the same effect. Then, if you add in the number of people that are taking medicines for anxiety or for depression, that may also numbing out their ability to have empathy for other people, I find that really interesting, really sad.

When I saw this journal article, Terri and I had many long discussions about it, I thought goodness gracious! A lot of people don’t realize they might be hurting our feelings by what they’re saying because they might be taking some Bufferin or some other common pain reliever, you know? They just don’t get it.

Ending Tagline: Thank you for listening. Visit Blair’s blog for more thought provoking ideas.

SOURCES:
* Their results were published mentioned by Ohio State University and originally published online in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, in an article titled: From painkiller to empathy killer: acetaminophen (paracetamol) reduces empathy for pain
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci first published online May 5, 2016 doi:10.1093/scan/nsw057
Dominik Mischkowski, Jennifer Crocker and Baldwin M. Way

** Each week about 23 percent of American adults (about 52 million people) use a medicine containing acetaminophen, the CHPA reports.
Acetaminophen – the main ingredient in the painkiller Tylenol – is the most common drug ingredient in the United States, found in more than 600 medicines, according to the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, a trade group.