Is what you worship ruining your life?

Humans were designed to worship. Designed to worship? Seriously what. Did you inhale too much "California grass", I hear you thinking. Nope. Think about why you want more money, designer shoes etc.  Think about why you go to the bar at night. Think about why you watch the game every Sunday.  Think about why you watch gossip celeb tv. Think about why you do the things you do. In each one of our lives, is an element of worship. Humans were designed to worship. This is not something that most of us ever think about, yet realize. Most of us do not even realize, that we are worshipping something. So what are you worshipping and how might that be affecting your life?

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Can you love an addict?

When we are addicted to something... anything... we lose ourselves. We wear so many masks to hide our insatiable hunger for our fix of choice, that we become merely a shadow of our former self. This feeds into the feeling of emptiness and that there is a void which we must fill up with something outside ourselves, because we feel hollow. For every addiction there is abandonment at the root of the self-destruction and distraction.

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What to do when you crash in recovery.

Recovery is not a linear process. It is important to be aware of what we can expect in recovery. If we are not mentally prepared of the rocky ride of breaking an addiction, it is easy to get stuck in black and white thinking and give up. We will do this because our default mode of thinking is one of the addict. This means that we often struggle with the gray zone. This is the area where change happens: at the border of our comfort zone. Not inside it, yet not outside it. The problem arises when we don't follow the path of HOW WE THINK recovery should be - then, we feel like a failure. We will easily give up, because we feel that we are not "doing it perfect". 

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How do we re-connect when we feel disconnected?

I was doing an eating disorder group workshop last week and this question was asked. What do most of us do when we feel disconnected? Some of us obsess over our iphone, others have randomn sex, some of us eat too much, drink too much, take too many drugs while others constantly instagram their ABS while living in the gym addicted to social media and being "liked" for their outside, all the while they feel hollow and unloved on the inside. And yet others simply stop eating to numb the emotional pain, in attempt to feel in control in a world that feels chaotic and scattered oftentimes. So how do we reconnect when we feel disconnected and we just want to distract from the unease of being human - of feeling uncomfortable emotions?

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When we just can't stop hating ourselves.

In this TED talk, poet Shane Koyczan talks about the perception of beauty. It is hauntingly, heartbreakingly beautiful. The essence being, how we need to understand that our words... the way we speak.... is what sets off every other domino effect in the world... in our own and other people's lives. Our choice of words has lasting impact on our own sense of self and those that cross pur path. Yet, we often find ourselves using words so carelessly... as if it's only words. Only words.

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5 Steps To Get Back in Tune With Your Body

Our body makes our trauma real, it provides experiential knowledge of the trauma. Our cells remember hurt from the past. The emotional pain resides in our body memory.

When we do not listen to our body, its only option is to INCREASE the volume.

jack kornfield life matters

This is why we got to listen to our body, if we want to break free of past pain.

If we do not listen to our body, we become imprisoned by it. Our life playing on repeat, like a hamster on a treadmill.

So the key to break the cycle is to start being present in our body, and listening to our truth. Where we are right now.

Accepting that we are in pain, that we are acting out, numbing ourselves or whatever we are doing to avoid being in this skin we are in.

By recognizing our dysfunction we can take ownership and change.

As much as it is frustrating, and pretty painful actually, to have to realize how we have been suppressing our truth; fact is that the faster we decide to examine our patterns - we can let go of that which is not serving us. 

Only then can we let go and move beyond our current self-limiting beliefs, which has body memory.

Yes, we cannot just rely on talking our way out of our dysfunction. Pain and trauma has body memory. This is also why attraction happens beyond words spoken. We pick up on people's truth and core self by their body language. Our body behavior will reflect our thought patterns: are we reserved, scared of comitting? Are we open, vulnerable and caring? 

People like people who touch them - body, mind and soul.

The physical accent of touching is very primal because it literally transmits energy and information beyond our conscious control. Physical touch is a core part of recovery and re-connecting both with ourself and others.

We do not re-connect by intellectualizing and overanalyzing life. 

Often intellectualizing things only further disconnects us and provides as a procrastination to take action.

We reconnect by feeling life and the shades of it.

When we touch other people (not grope them, mind you), we are showing a sense of genuine concern. 

We are reaching out beyond intellectual blabber and making people FEEL heard, cared for and understood.

The more senses we activate in other people, the stronger the bond will be. And the more genuine also, because we are reading different levels of each others' truth. Who we really are - what we say being secondary.

body memory

If we only address the cognitive aspects of change, we get a limited view of emotional responding.

We end up with an overemphasis on conscious controlled cognitive thought processing with little consideration of actual interpersonal dynamics in real time.

We become that person who sounds smart, but doesn't act smart.

Where there is no relationship between what we say and what we do. 

And that's just so unattractive on every level. 

A key reason to why many of us fail to understand that we cannot keep faking it; people pick up on the unsaid cues too and react in a instinctive way to that, far more important than the picture being presented. Why glitter images of perfect lives often crumble: if too much effort is put on presenting shell perfection without attention to that which is core, we develop a gap between who we are and what we put on display for everyone to judge. When the gap is too big, we feel like frauds and we don't know where to take action because we get too attached to picture perection. And again, the lowest standard will always be perfection, because that is simply not attainable. Also, why perfectionism is so off-putting to others.

We are not being consistent and acting with integrity. We are not behaving in a way that is authentic. We are not relatable.

We are all talk and image with no substance.

Words are cheap, and that is why we need to SHOW our truth not say it.

Too much talking without SENSING, DOING, ACTING, FEELING does not take into consideration that which is beyond our consciousness: our deepest rooted belief-system.

This means we are only working on our shell.  Like we prefer - because core work can seem like a lot of work initially. Changing your core will hurt. It will be tiring. It will be a non-linear process of ups and downs and relapses.

That is the only way to transform your life in a way that is in alignment with who you want to be.

When we refuse to change our core, we deal with a constant sensation that we are not really living our truth.

Whenever another storm hits, our card house will collapse. Once again.

So here are the 5 steps in brief that is needed to get back into our body again:

1. CONNECTION: Create opportunities for connection to the body in a safe manner. Connection to and acceptance of all parts/ emotional states, connection to sense of Self. 

2. EXPRESSION: Create opportunities for safe and healthy expression through the body,

3. COGNITION: Correct cognitive distortions related to the body.

4. FUNCTION: Create increased ability to utilize self soothing and affect regulation skills

5. MINDFULNESS: Increased ability to be present in the hear and now.

Now these 5 essential steps to gain body sensation needs to be translated into action steps that are doable for your life on a daily basis RIGHT NOW.

I want you to write down next to each step what that action step would be for you.

And then do it.

How To Start Life From Scratch

Sometimes we need to start from scratch. Rather than overanalyze and try to fix things that are broken and lacking; simply toss out all our bad habits, past baggage and with it our belief-system. This, in order to take action steps to create the person, we want to be in the now. It is essential to understand, that this is a decision we make ourselves. Whether we make it or not; we are completely 100% in charge of letting go of the past, in order to become the person we want to be - body, mind and soul.

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Your Body Needs Touch To Heal

Being touched and cared for as an infant is paramount for our later development of self, and the establishment of our psychological self along with our physical self. Many of us today struggle with a sense of being truly comfortable in our body. And that's a real shame. Our relationship with our body will affect any other relationship we are in to some degree. If we are not comfortable with the body we are in, it gets very difficult to share our authentic self in an intimate relationship. 

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What does healthy LOOK like?

Size is not a reflection of health, only our vanity obsession. Thus each one of us is responsible for asking whether our lifestyle is centered around vanity and disconnectedness, rather than wholeness, happiness and acceptance... savoring the flavors of life vs. depriving ourselves. Deprivation always leads to soul hunger and most of us will binge later to compensate anyway. Or just grow emotionally unstable as we suppress our true needs. Living a life that is centered on nourishment and acceptance is health - in whatever shape, form or size that may be.

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What are your TRUE needs?

Every addiction, every act we do that inflicts self-hate and suffering is a desperate cry for love at the bottom of all the dysfunction. Addiction is love hunger. A hunger to be accepted for what we are at our very core. Every tale of addiction and self-destruction tells the same story of trying to fit in. Sacrificing who we are at our core: hoping to be worthy of love in some shape or form. When we don't express our needs, we stay stuck, disconnected and stagnant in our addiction. 

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How To Detox Your Mind

An untamed mind runs like wild horses. As scenic and romantic as that might sound, I can assure you that is not so, when it comes to our internal mind chatter. Quite the contrary. So we know that our mind controls our emotions, and that our emotions affect our physical state of wellbeing and organ health. The logical question then is: what controls the mind? Breathing. Breathing is the king of the mind. Breathing instantly takes us from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system response. Our reptilian brain is in charge of our response to life when we are in the sympathetic nervous system. Our reptilian mind is like a snake. It's sneaky and wants to attack and react. That's why many of us get lost in running after things like power, sex, binge behaviors and money.... always more, more more. 

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Are you Relaxed or Relapsed? +FREE Chemical Calorie Guide

In recovery we reach a point, where we want to relax a bit more. We get tired of structure and the rigidness of treatment, accountability and showing up everyday without numbing out via our preferred drug of choice. Many books talk about intuitive eating and "just listening to your body". And while I agree with this concept at large, the crucial issue here is, that timing matters for this concept to work in reality. It is far to easy to go from relaxed to relapsed - especially when it concerns disordered eating behaviors. Simply because every day we make choices surrounding foods, whereas with drugs and alcohol it is cold-turkey for a recovering addict. There are especially 3 things that can make it difficult to "listen to your body"...

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Transcending our limiting beliefs.

I was at The Longevity Conference in Anaheim, California last week with a bunch of health nuts like Dr. Mercola, Ron Teeguarden, Dave Asprey and David Avocado Wolfe - as charismatic as they are, not much health nut news there.  However, what really stood out was this guy whom I happened to stumble upon. He is absolutely brilliant in the field of transformation and transcending limiting belief systems. Check out below video where Kute Blackson talks about the importance of dyeing once before we die. This is crucial for anyone who is in recovery - we must let go of all the mental blocks that have held us chained to our past limiting beliefs. 

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