Avoid Motivation Bullshit & Energize Your Body!

A quick search on the topic of 'motivation' reveals a ton of websites devoted to teaching you how to be motivated by a 'qualified' motivation coach. Sorry, but WTF? - There are people who will always try anything to make a living, and I feel especially sympathetic to those whom these workshops are targeted at, i.e, desperate unhappy individuals who are willing to part with the remainder of their savings in order to basically 'learn the secret of success'. I'm not going to say anymore, except, close your eyes to such nonsense - I can show you the path for free, and you can thank me by being a good human being.

Motivation; the solution is not to merely tackle the problem by hurling motivational advice and phrases, but by understanding the individual situation. Although there are psychological issues which can often be resolved using NLP techniques, the practitioners of NLP, neuro-linguistic programming,fail to embrace solutions outside their field, because any type of healing, and making someone motivated is a form of healing, needs a holistic approach in order to be successful. NLP, which I am a firm advocate of, is only one approach, and many 'motivation coaches' believe that it is the end-all-be-all-holy-grail answer. I'm telling you it isn't because the mind is affected by the brain, which is an organ of the body. You affect any physiological process of the body, and it will affect the way you think - makes sense right? Such a rationally simple piece of holistic thinking, escapes the NLP believer, and without this foundational logic, most of the people who subscribe to their courses are going to fail.

There are many reasons why someone may not be motivated. When someone feels 'lazy', finds it hard to get out of bed, or have energy to start exercising - they're going to blame themselves - 'why am I so lazy?' Next they'll force themselves, coercing their bodies into physical rigor - it won't last long, there is only so much that physical determination can do. They'll believe that something is wrong with their thinking, and will probably find 'inspiration' in motivational quotes, see a motivation coach, etc. As I see it, it's akin to pushing a wheel barrow with a flat tire.

One major reason for tiredness in many cases is due to the liver being unhealthy. The liver is the second largest organ in the body next to skin. It is responsible for removing toxins, and making energy for the body. If you're eating fatty junk food all the time, then your liver is also going to be clogged up with fat. If you're not drinking enough water, then your kidneys are going to dry up - the job of the kidneys is to clean the blood, your kidneys need water for optimal functioning, if they aren't working that well, then your liver takes over its job. If the liver is busy doing the job of the kidneys, it's not going to do its main job of breaking down fats and making energy for you very well, is it? So keeping your liver in good condition is the FIRST step in overcoming your motivation problems.

Other causes of tiredness could be a build up of toxic metals in your body. In which case, chelation can be used to remove them. I have amalgam fillings given to me by a drill-happy dentist - every time I chew, I'm releasing cumulative amounts of mercury into my body. Naturally, my body gets rid of any poisonous metals if I'm eating the right stuff. A natural chelation supplement is Selenium, which occurs at high levels in Brazil nuts, but be careful you don't take too much - you can overdose on it. Selenium will remove other metals in your body that are useful to you, so make sure you replace metals like zinc and calcium. Selenium is also found in other food substances, here is a list and other useful information.

Digestion problems can also be responsible for lethargy. If you're not digesting your food properly, then you're not able to absorb the nutrients that give you energy and help your body repair. From a holistic point of view, digestion can be the root of many severe problems - I've read so much stuff, that I wouldn't be able to do it any justice by attempting to even begin to cover it. The digestive tract consists of so many organs, including the stomach, that any diagnosis would be specific to any array of secondary symptoms.

Finally, no matter what. Every human should get enough life-giving, nurturing, energizing SUNLIGHT. We've been warned about the dangers, and of course the radiation from the sun can be harmful in the form of UV rays, but the sun is a good source of vitamin D (which is most beneficial to the liver). It is good to get this solar supplement without sunglasses or sunscreen when the sun is at the lowest in the sky - meaning near sunrise and sunset. Sunlight has been known to cure depression, and many people who suffer from SAD, seasonal affective disorder, can attest to the healing effect of sunlight on their mind. The more sunlight you get, the energized you will become in body and mind. Not only will it cure depression, it will also clear your mind of worries or other neuroses. Getting daily sunlight is as essential as breathing!

Natural Eyesight Healing: Day One

Over the past month or so, I have been considering to have eye sight correction by Lasik surgery, but because I have an aversion to any type of surgery, I decided to look up alternative treatments to improve my sight. I suffer from myopia (short-sightedness), and I stumbled upon the Bates Method, which I remembered reading about from a book I borrowed when I was fourteen.

I won't go too much into it, but the underlying theory is that the muscles that are used to rotate the eyeball are under tension causing a 'squeezing' which deforms the shape of the lens creating difficulty in focusing. The Bates Method involves a combination of exercises and relaxations that are designed to train the eye to be able to see properly again. There have been many books since written, elaborating and building upon the original principle, with very optimistic results from practitioners.

I approach everything with a slight skepticism, but seeing as the underlying theory seems plausible, I'm willing to give it a go. There's no harm in trying, and the process would help me learn more about the fascinating biology of the eyes and its processes.

Before going to bed last night, I practiced some of the Bates Method eye exercises. When I woke up this morning, I resisted the temptation to grab my spectacles. Apparently, when the eyes are relaxed the vision is better, because the muscles are not deforming the eye structure - I decided to take advantage of possibly improved vision after a relaxing night's sleep. I'm quite blind without my glasses, with quite a severe myopia of more than -6.0 in each eye; so at first I felt quite handicapped unaided by them, feeling retarded and clumsy when performing my usual tasks.

After a while without them, I found that I started to develop more confidence at doing things. One feels as clumsy without glasses, as one who has been depending on crutches to walk all his life. Initially, I struggled to think to do the most simplest things like making a cup of coffee, but that may be because of the distraction of the blurred environment. But there is no reason why I couldn't perform these tasks because if a blind person can do it, then there's absolutely no reason why someone who has partial vision cannot.

I thought about the difference between people who depend on glasses and those with perfect vision. People who look through lenses all day long have built a habit of locking their eyes forward (fixating on the optimum part of the lens), so that without glasses, they tend to look as if they are staring - ie, they don't have the soft stare that perfect vision people have. People with perfect vision scan more with their eyes, the movements are miniscule, yet small enough to notice. Someone who uses glasses, rely more on the movement of their head to look at things, whereas those with perfect vision move their eyes. That small but essential differentiation, is the reason why people with perfect vision have a faster peripheral vision. I decided that I would break the habit of my locked gaze, and be more conscious to use my eyes to scan, in that way, it would also work those muscles that have perhaps atrophied over the years.

So I tried reading a book, it was possible but uncomfortable because I held the novel so close to my eyes that I could smell the ink. When I used the computer, I had set my font size to 150%, and activated the magnifying tool, but even then it was difficult to read the screen without compromising my posture, so I decided to use my glasses for now whenever I used the computer - but removing my glasses when away from the screen to use the toilet or get a glass of water, etc.

Luckily, I have a mild obsessive compulsive order which makes it easy for me to keep up with things like these tedious eye exercises. These repetitive eye exercises which involve moving the eye up/down, left/right, clockwise/anticlock, etc, I imagine, are designed to mimic the natural eye movements of a full sighted person that us short-sighted people lack. I didn't expect to see any immediate improvements in vision after doing the exercises, especially after such a short time, but my eyes certainly did feel a lot more looser, as if someone had lubricated my eye sockets.

I've always had a fear of being blind in public, so I decided to challenge that fear and go out to lunch without the aid of my glasses - although I brought them along incase I needed to read anything. At first, I felt quite uncomfortable going outside without glasses, almost naked, and when I'm not wearing my glasses, I never know what to do with my eyes, they automatically lock into that straight forward, mannequin gaze. People appear as a blur to me, but I'm able to see enough to avoid a collision. I mimic the eyes of someone who can see, scanning my environment as if every object was sharp. It's easy just to stare blankly straight on because when everything is a blur, it's not very interesting, but I decided to be interested in the different types of blurs and fuzzy shapes. I managed to enter the mall without smacking my face into a glass door.

I feared my vision would be even more limited indoors, and I was right. As soon as I entered the mall from the sunny outside, the contrast between objects became even fuzzier and abstract. I got the feeling of jumping in at the deep end, but I decided that I'd feel more comfortable once I got used to it. I didn't collide with anyone, and I also made the effort to keep looking around, gazing into shop windows as I passed them. When everything is blurry, it's tempting just to isolate the larger shapes and ignore the smaller ones. Textures, words, and small collections of objects are extremely demoralising when you're half blind, but I decided that I would make a concerted efforted to 'scan' them, and not look like a semi-blind person stumbling through a mall, but more like a shopper taking a leisurely stroll. After a while, my eyes became more comfortable and relaxed, and after having lunch, I found that I could even read some of the text from the billboards at a distance. I could also begin to 'decipher' textile patterns on clothing, and start defining people's faces, although still blurry, I had the confidence to look at them, rather than avoid them as 'too difficult'.

I don't know if by this method I'll ever have perfect vision; I've read some people claim to go from 20/500 to 20/30 - 20/40. But I'll be happy with 'functional' vision, where I can perform daily tasks without depending on my glasses. I'll keep up this experiment for now, just to ... see. Off with my glasses again.