Ten Simple Changes For Improving Your Life
By L. Kevin & Donna Philippe-Johnson
Changing your life for the better is easy. But like any good habit it requires discipline and will power. To be really happy and fulfilled in life, we must be as healthy as possible. With environmental pollution, inherited genetics, the onslaught of toxic chemicals in our world today, as well as the reality of having to make a living and earn money, changing your life requires daily vigilance and determination to do all the things necessary to insure success.
Above all else, strive to simplify your life, get
rid of accumulated stuff (at least 1/3). Give, sell or throw it away!
Get out of debt as soon as possible. Sell everything that you don’t
need. If you don’t touch, think about or use something in six months,
get rid of it. Convert it to cash. Downsize your living space. Consider
buying a small piece of land in the country, a place to retreat to
when times get tough. Get free from too many possessions. Get out
of the city if you can. Go back to nature and reconnect with what
is eternally real. See our article entitled,
Why I Chose the Simple Life.
Real worth is perishable, things like tools, fuel,
food, toilet paper, seeds; everything else must be evaluated as to
whether or not it brings you closer to peace or farther from it.
In the beginning it is wise to prepare a personal balance sheet for
yourself and determine your net worth. Make a list of everything
you own and put a value on it. What could you get for each item if
you had to sell it? Don’t list what you paid for it…what can you
get for it! Total it all and place it on the left side of the sheet.
Then go through all your financial obligations…what do you owe? Write
that on the right side of your balance sheet. Now, subtract one from
the other and you’ll see where you are headed. Either plus or minus…Don’t
be too alarmed, most people are going nowhere. They’re working toward
no real gain in the world, renting a life and paying for things that
offer no satisfaction or fulfillment. But seeing that is important.
To improve one’s life is to become a conscious consumer, making choices
that lead to freedom.
Below are ten things you can begin to do to take
control of your life. Choose just one of the ten suggestions and
work on it for as long as you need to master it and make it a part
of your everyday life. Proceed in
this way until you have incorporated all ten suggested changes and you
will be amazed at how different you feel. It will give you the
encouragement to keep moving in a positive direction. This is exactly
what we did and the results are that we are healthy, happy, debt
free, deeply in love with life, planting fruits trees, doing creative
work, growing organic foods and composting. Our balance sheets encouraged
us to consider another path.
If it looks like the suggestions below are all
about food and the body and have nothing to do with your financial
situation, then think again. Toxicity in the body clouds the mind
and emotions. It all goes back to food because that is what determines
everything in life. Food is the foundation of everything in this
world. All life eats, and eating requires choices that have rippling
effects that permeate all the other aspects of one’s life. It affects
yours choices too.
The ten changes that make all the difference
Number One:
Unplug your television set.
Literally, unplug it from the wall and only plug it in if you know what
you want to watch. Then be sure to unplug it again when you are
finished. This is very important. Also, get rid of your microwave
oven. Get it out of your house because it isn’t good for anything!
See our article, The Hidden Hazards of Microwave
Ovens.
Number Two:
Drink a quart of fresh lemon water each morning. For taste, add a couple of tablespoons of pure, organic maple syrup and about a 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. This is a wonderful cleansing drink that will help purge caffeine and nicotine from your body as well as keep you hydrated. The cayenne pepper is a natural, healthy stimulant that will get your blood moving. This is a very important habit; especially today while most of us must live and work in cities that are highly toxic and polluted.
Number Three:
Substitute one meal a day with fresh, organic fruit or raw vegetables, preferably the morning or evening meal. It is so important that we learn to appreciate living foods again. A lifetime of processed, cooked and denatured foods robs our bodies of living enzymes, the keys to open the gates of life. We must give our bodies live foods to regenerate cells.
Number Four:
Start eating one raw salad each day, with dark greens or a few fresh sprouts or fresh vegetables (not iceberg lettuce, which actually has little nutrition). Learn to appreciate dark leafy greens such as romaine lettuce, arugala, spinach, cabbage, etc. and fresh vegetables: carrots, onion, beets, ginger, garlic, celery, etc.
And if you are really in bad
physical shape (disease, ill-health, depression or severely over-weight)
then get a juicer! Juicers are wonderful tools to help restore you
to health. You can buy an inexpensive one for around 50 dollars and
it is worth every penny. It is far better to spend time juicing fresh
vegetables than it is to sit in a doctor’s office waiting for another
prescription drug! If you are really sick and want to get well, juicing
is absolutely vital. Drink at least 16 ounces of fresh vegetable/fruit
juice a day. Do not drink bottled juices. These are cooked and dead.
It must be fresh juice you make yourself at home. See our article,
Natural Healing.
Number Five:
Exercise your body. Take up some form of physical activity at least 5 days a week, 30 minutes a day. It is so easy to incorporate this into your life. Take the stairs at work, take up gardening, chop wood for someone, park farther away from the front door when you go shopping and walk! The best parking places are generally filled, so why not use that to your advantage. Use it as an opportunity to walk. To stay in shape it is recommended that we walk at least 10,000 steps per day.
Stretching
is important too, or perhaps some simple form of hatha yoga, tai
chi, or resistance exercises. Also practice deep breathing, expanding
the belly and the chest cavity. Americans generally breathe incorrectly.
We must learn to breathe easy and natural like babies. Go outside
in the early morning air and take some deep breaths. Celebrate and
appreciate the angel of air. Whenever you eat too much at a meal,
go outside and take several deep breaths or go walk it off!
Apply
the ancient wisdom of cosmotherapy to your
life (connect with nature):
·
Sunbathe (heliotherapy for the nerves),
·
Air-baths (aerotherapy for the lungs),
·
Water
baths (hydrotherapy
with hot and cold water for healing muscles and pain.
·
Mud
and clay compresses
(geotherapy), can actually help pull toxins out of the body.
·
Joy
through movement exercise
(dynamo-therapy), dancing, running, martial arts, etc.
·
Occasional fasting or the Art of Sobriety (cellulotherapy)
·
Natural
nutrition (vitiminotherapy)
Number Six:
Reduce
cooked food consumption (12-16 ounces per day): Cooked foods are
the number one drain of energy on the body. You don’t have to give
up cooked foods to be healthy, but you must learn how to make wise,
smart choices. And that means homegrown or organically produced,
fresh whole grains and vegetables. It also means eating a modest
amount of cooked foods. Healthy choices are sweet potatoes, brown
rice, whole grain pastas, millet, oats, whole wheat or rye sourdough
breads, sprouted grains, homemade soups, organically raised meats
or fresh game, etc. Avoid processed boxed or canned meals, refined
grains (white rice, white flour, white sugar, hydrogenated oils,
trans-fats) frozen dinners, avoid microwave foods and go back to
home-made slow foods, prepared from simple ingredients. Eat one cooked
meal per day and you will have improved health and plenty of energy
to enjoy life. See our article, Natural Nutrition.
Number Seven:
Begin
to eliminate biocidic (life-destroying) foods
from your diet and replace it with life-generating foods, such as
soaked seeds and nuts, sprouted grains, organically produced fermented
dairy from healthy, well nourished, grass fed goats or cows (yoghurt, cultured butter, kefir, clabbered milk,
homemade-fermented cream cheese and whey, etc.). For a list of biocidic foods, see the article entitled, “The Art of Sobriety”.
Number Eight:
Learn how to garden organically, compost, or at least grow a few pots of indoor greens, sprouts, wheatgrass, etc. (See our article, The Starburst of Life: Biogenic Foods.) It is so important to learn how to read from the open book of nature and to participate with the natural elements of sun, air, water, and soil. Indoor baby greens and sprouts can be grown even in an apartment! There is no greater satisfaction for man than to be in the natural world, experiencing the terrestrial forces. Too often this simple understanding is overlooked and denied. People who are living in big cities are especially vulnerable to ill-health and depression because they are cut off and insulated from natural, organic life. This can be reversed in simple, small ways by surrounding ourselves with biogenic (fast growing) green plants.
Number Nine:
Read and study the classic
literature from all traditions. Study the ancient wisdom such as the
writings of the Greek philosophers, the sacred books of
Number Ten:
Develop some form of mind discipline such as playing chess, studying geometry, mathematics, physics, relaxation and visualization, meditation, zazen, vipassana, chanting, prayer, etc. It is important to exercise the mind and to discipline it through creative thinking instead of with thoughts of fear, desire, hatred, lust, anger and greed. Exercise the mind to be a servant of the forces of light rather than a mere receiver of inferior currents of thoughts.
In Conclusion
These ten suggestions for positive changes in life are based on our experience and what has worked for us. Perhaps you could formulate your own list, one that would come from a simple, intuitive knowing about personal changes that need to be made, according to your unique circumstances and life experience.
So, if you feel that your life is not working and that you are tired and weary of the model you’re currently living, try finding at least one thing from the list (or your own list) and make a commitment to work on it until you have mastered it. Small steps, making progress slowly, is better than feeling overwhelmed with attempting too many changes at once. Mastering even just one thing, such as drinking the cleansing lemon drink daily, will help to bolster your confidence and give you the momentum you need to continue making these positive changes.
When we began our radical journey to health and peace, we had no idea that the simple, reasonable choices we made would lead us, in a very short time, to the level of freedom and happiness that we now enjoy. And so, with great love and encouragement, we offer this information that we have learned through our own personal experience. We do not consider ourselves experts on life, but we do feel that there is a universal order of how life works. And we feel that these suggestions can help lead one toward greater balance with that universal order.
May
you all be well and peaceful and happy
Donna and Kevin
For additional articles see
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