transformation | Ascension Lifestyle

26 Sep 2022
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What the Second-Happiest People Get Right

In 2007, a group of researchers began testing a concept that seems, at first blush, as if it would never need testing: whether more happiness is always better than less. The researchers asked college students to rate their feelings on a scale from “unhappy” to “very happy” and compared the results with academic (GPA, missed classes) and social (number of close friends, time spent dating) outcomes. Though the “very happy” participants had the best social lives, they performed worse in school than those who were merely “happy.”

The researchers then examined a data set from another study that rated incoming college freshmen’s “cheerfulness” and tracked their income nearly two decades later. They found that the most cheerful in 1976 were not the highest earners in 1995; that distinction once again went to the second-highest group, which rated their cheerfulness as “above average” but not in the highest 10 percent.

As with everything in life, happiness has its trade-offs. Pursuing happiness to the exclusion of other goals–known as psychological hedonism–is not only an exercise in futility. It may also give you a life that you find you don’t want, one in which you don’t reach your full potential, you’re reluctant to take risks, and you choose fleeting pleasures over challenging experiences that give life meaning.

The way to understand the study above is not to deny that happiness is good; rather, it is to remember that a little bit of unhappiness has benefits. For instance, gloom has been found to aid in problem-solving. The author Emmy Gut argued in 1989 that some depressive symptoms can be a functional response to problems in the environment, leading us to pay appropriate attention and come up with solutions. In other words, when we are sad about something, we may be more likely to fix it. Psychologists call this the “analytical rumination hypothesis,” and it is supported by research.

Obviously, this is not to argue that clinical depression is good—misery can quickly render people incapable of solving problems. Nor am I saying that depression passes a cost-benefit analysis. Rather, the analytical-rumination hypothesis is evidence that getting rid of bad feelings does not necessarily make us more effective in our tasks. And if these emotions can help us assess threats, it stands to reason that too much good feeling can lead us to disregard them. The literature on substance use suggests that this is so: In some people, very high degrees of positive emotion have been connected to dangerous behaviors such as alcohol and drug use and binge eating.

An aversion to unhappiness can lead us to forgo a meaningful life. Indeed, as one group of researchers that surveyed college students in 2018 found, fear of failure is positively correlated with meaning derived from romance, friendship, and (to a lesser extent) family. When I talk with people about their fear of negative outcomes in life, their true source of fear in many cases centers on how they will feel about having failed, not about the consequences of the failure itself. This is similar to the way discomfort with uncertainty causes more anxiety than guaranteed bad news. To avoid these bad feelings, people give up all kinds of opportunities that involve the possibility of failure.

But bringing good things into your life, whether love, career success, or something else, usually involves risk. Risk doesn’t necessarily make us happy, and a risky life is going to bring disappointment. But it can also bring bigger rewards than a life played safe, as the study of happiness, academic achievement, and income suggests. Those with the highest performance at work and school made decisions that were probably unpleasant at times, and even scary.

None of this is to say that we should shun good feelings, or that we’re foolish for wanting to be happy. On the contrary, the desire for happiness is natural and normal. However, making the quest for positive feelings—and the fight to banish negative ones—your highest or only goal is a costly life strategy. Unmitigated happiness is impossible to achieve (in this mortal coil at least), and chasing it can be dangerous and deleterious to our success. But more important, doing so sacrifices many of the elements of a good life. As Paul Bloom, a psychologist and the author of The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning, has written, “It is the suffering that we choose that affords the most opportunity for pleasure, meaning, and personal growth.”

Happiness itself would lose its meaning were it not for the contrast that we inevitably experience with sadness. “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness,” Carl Jung said in an interview in 1960. “The word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” You can take Jung’s words to heart by committing to a regular practice of gratitude in which you give thanks not only for the things that make you happy but also for the ones that challenge you. It feels unnatural at first, but it will come easier each day.

Some of the most meaningful parts of our lives are a direct result of negative feelings that slipped through, despite our best efforts to block them out. For example, I am the father of three young adults; it was not long ago that my wife and I were going mano a mano with three teenagers. We lost a lot of sleep then, but I wouldn’t trade away a moment of those experiences (now that they are safely behind us).

Some people take these lessons to lengths that might seem unimaginable. One is Andrew Solomon, the author of The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. “If one imagines a soul of iron that weathers with grief and rusts with mild depression, then major depression is the startling collapse of a whole structure,” he wrote. But as he told an interviewer several years ago, he eventually found a way to love his depression. “I love it because it has forced me to find and cling to joy,” he said.

This, in a nutshell, is the paradox of being fully alive. To strive for relentless positivity is to aim for the dimensionality of a Hollywood movie or children’s book. So though suffering should never be anyone’s goal, each of us can strive for a rich life in which we not only seek the sunshine but fully experience the rain that inevitably falls as well.

Original article here

23 Sep 2022
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The 5 Most Common Regrets of the Dying—and What We Can Learn From Them

Life has sped up. A never-ending stream of stimuli is vying for your attention every minute of the day. Some of it is fabulous and some of it is time wasting.

So how do you decipher how to spend your time?

The answer: you face the fact that you are actually going to die one day and that your time is sacred.

The more awareness you can bring to this, the more it will support you to live well, by being true to the life that makes the most sense to your heart, not the life dictated by society or others.

To understand the sacredness of your time and to realise the power that lies in the decisions you make, it helps to learn from those who have gone before you, from those who have not made the right decisions and have spent their deathbed days in the anguish and pain of regret.

By looking at the most common regrets of the dying, as shared with me during my years as a palliative carer, you might find yourself at a turning point, one where you can recognise the power of your choice from this moment onwards.

Regrets of the Dying: I Wish I’d Lived a Life True to Myself, Not the Life Others Expected of Me

As a child, it was natural to mirror your primary caregivers. It was how you learnt. There was no real choice but to adapt to whatever their beliefs and lifestyles were. Your parents or caregivers may have made plenty of mistakes or done a lot of things right, but either way, they were living from their own life experiences and reactions, doing their best as who they were at the time.

Then the individual calling becomes more prominent, your heart awakens, and you realise that your own beliefs and preferences may not actually be aligned to those you have been raised with. And so begins the healing of realising you are not living a life true to yourself, but rather the life that is expected of you.

Dying people realised they had not found enough courage to live true to their own heart’s voice and it left them in depths of grief for a life not lived honestly to themselves.

Life is calling you now to find that courage and step into your own joy. Realise the sacredness of your time.

Regrets of the Dying: I Wish I Hadn’t Worked so Hard

There is nothing wrong with loving your work, and it’s brilliant if you do. But whether you do or don’t, it is easy to get caught up in never switching off from it properly. This is even truer in a society whose very lifeblood is supported by technology.

Dying people learnt too late that there needed to be more in their lives than work. When it was taken away from them, there was nothing left: no identity to support them, no stimulus to inspire them, no joy.

They realised they needed more work life balance in their lives, and a commitment to other areas of their lives. Most admitted it was fear that had kept them glued to their career: fear of lack with money, fear of judgment from work peers, and fear of failure.

By creating space and also honouring other areas of life, you can bring more efficiency to your working life anyway. And of course, you then bring more joy.

Regrets of the Dying: I Wish I’d Had the Courage to Express My Feelings

When children are sad, they cry. When they’re angry, they vent. When they’re scared, they say so. When they’re happy, they dance.

Expressing your feelings was once a natural part of who you were. As you mature you learn how to be less scared, for example. You learn life skills to help you navigate through various emotions and see things from different perspectives.

A lot of these skills support you. But some of them hinder your natural expressions, until over time, you think it is normal to never be vulnerable or express yourself honestly. Of course, this feels even more normal since most of those around you are doing the same.

It can take immense courage to express yourself, whether that is by being vulnerable and sharing your love, or being strong and sticking up for yourself. But it is absolutely vital to do so if you are going to live your fullest life – the one that makes the most sense to your heart, and the one that will ensure you don’t join the ranks of dying people living their last days with the heart-wrenching anguish of regret.

By facing your fear and expressing yourself one piece at a time, you can develop the habit of speaking honestly with emotional maturity. You can set yourself free and inspire others to do the same.

Regrets of the Dying: I Wish I Had Stayed in Touch With My Friends

In a world where it is almost impossible to lose contact with friends, thanks to the likes of social media, this regret may seem irrelevant. You can send someone a text to say you’re thinking of them, comment on their Facebook feed or Instagram photo, or chat via Messenger. But how long is it since you’ve really connected with these people in real life? How long since you’ve laughed together, cried together, eaten together or just hung out?

Real life connection is the essence of well-being. It is natural that some friends may fall away as your lifestyles and tastes change. New friends can come into your life through various channels like work, technology, sport, or shared interests such as book clubs or meet-up groups.

Dying people regretted not staying in touch with their old friends, though, because during their last weeks they wanted to reminisce, laugh about the old days, feel understood, and remember they once belonged in an easier world.

Text messages and brief contact is better than none. But making the effort for real-life time together is some of the best medicine you can give yourself for a regret-free life.

Regrets of the Dying: I Wish I Had Allowed Myself to Be Happier

Happiness is a choice – it doesn’t come from being lucky. It is not a denial of the hard times. Without the contrast you can never know how strong you really are, what you can rise to, or what your potential truly is. The hard times have their purpose, to help you discover all that. But how long you choose to stay focused on the hard times and their associated stories is your own choice.

You can choose happiness in many ways. Choose to find the blessings rather than allowing others to dictate your sense of worth. Don’t stay stuck in old stories. And always find things to be grateful for, regardless of your circumstances.

Every time you take ownership of your focus and steer it towards something that leaves you feeling a little better, you are opening your heart and life up to more happiness. Life is not a penance. It is a precious gift of time.

The realisation that dying people had around this, and seeing how they had allowed other people to determine their worthiness for happiness, brought incredible insights to them, and heart-wrenching regret.

It is your life. Choose your own focus.

Every single decision you can make and every single snippet of courage you can find, to ensure you are living true to your own heart, takes you further away from the anguish and heartbreak of regret. And the more courageous you are, the more the world also benefits. After all, we are all in this together.

Excerpted from The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware

19 Sep 2022
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The Work of Radical Frugality

There are some people who are frugal by nature, some who practice frugality as a mandate of their faith, and some, like myself, who embrace frugality by necessity. I live within a limited income as a bulwark against a consumer culture and capitalist agenda that would prefer we consume our way to oblivion—both ours and the planet’s. We are in a quagmire given the conundrum of the capitalist agenda, a system that requires endless consumption and growth to survive, and a planet that is begging we cease. Personally, I’d rather take my instruction from Mother Earth.

Of course, there are those who might disregard my call for frugality. They are the ones who, despite all efforts, will never be able to live within their means even if they wanted to. The working poor are just that—working one, two, or three jobs and still unable to make ends meet. For them and us, advocating for workers’ rights, fair wages, and enacting legislative policies aimed at economic equality is vital. But this is not an either-or position: We can be advocates of economic parity while at the same time turning down the heat on a historically rapacious capitalist economy by becoming producers and consumers in the home economy.

Over the years, I have taught and written about living in a home economy. But this is less a throwback to some 1950s-era domestic ideal than an approach toward undermining an American psyche and economy that has thrown us into unnecessary debt, encouraged us to buy our way to happiness, and all but driven us from our homes.

By “home,” I am not referring to a physical space alone, though we are being driven, evicted, and displaced from our homes more and more these days, which is why we have become homeless in both form and function. I’m talking about the transiency and dependency that defines and supports the capitalist consumer culture. With neither the skills nor the inclination to stay in place or do for ourselves, we turn to the marketplace for our needs. (Not for nothing, there is an irony to all this talk of place-making when no one wants to stay in place anymore.) This dependency has a long history. It is not for naught that we have become, for all intents and purposes, indentured servants, living on credit and owing our soul to the company store. This is how the system is intended to work. The indentured make docile workers, and Amazon would be happy to bring you into its fold.

Beyond that, there is value and comfort in the making of a home. My respect for “home,” or the type of work that living in a home economy suggests, is due, in part, to my childhood. Growing up as the daughter of two immigrant parents who moved to New York following World War II, I understood, or saw, what utility born of frugality looked like. My father worked as a tailor and my mom worked to make a home in a railroad flat shared with relatives and boarders, and later in our own apartment in the Bronx.

Together, my parents sewed our clothes, made curtains and bedspreads, mended, repaired, cooked every meal at home, and basically did for themselves or did without. But, more significantly, they offered a sense of home, security, and comfort that was tangible to me as a child; one that I have carried forward as an adult. And yet, despite all my skills, my knowledge, and my refusenik underpinnings, I do not have what my parents had. In fact, many of us do not have this: the relationships bound by the need and a commitment to make a self-sufficient home.

It was the ancient Greeks who first coined the term “economics,” or “oikonomia,” as a system of household (oikos) management (nomia). So economics refers to the management system that serves your home. What that home is may vary—the planet, your body, the marketplace, or where you live—but knowing how you define it should determine how you manage it. It is overly simplistic to think that home economics deals exclusively with making cupcakes or jam. It is the serious effort toward creating a management system that works to support the needs of your home.

For me, this includes working in and with seasons, putting up the harvest, avoiding packaging, and cooking my meals from the “stores” I have at season’s end. It includes doing without or making do by repairing, mending, and being grateful for the blessings I have been given, and, of course, being frugal—radically frugal. But it also means living in community with what I call the “new farm family,” that distillate of days gone by when generations lived and worked together to care for each other, and an ethic and lifestyle I embraced following my time as a small-business owner.

Running a business these days requires the sort of branding and niche marketing that can feel more competitive than cooperative. Besides that, as a one-time small-business owner, I know how beholden we are to institutions (banking, insurance, etc.) and goods that either come from, or are regulated by, international markets or organizations. Moreover, if you calculate the amount of carbon used on the build-outs and equipment required to launch and run most businesses, you’ll quickly understand how unsustainable “local” can be.

Still, I understand the theory of “buy local.” Shopping locally allows our dollars to circulate more within the community, and to support the people and businesses we care about. But this is no panacea, particularly when attempting to live within your budget.

As I like to point out, many people are lucky to be earning $15 an hour, but we are living in a $100-an-hour world. Every time we step out and into the marketplace, we are faced with the costs of goods and services that have outpaced our income.

I’m not advocating for cheaper goods, however. We haven’t been paying the true cost of anything for quite some time. Still, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know where living outside your income will lead. We can’t spend money we do not have to support local businesses, but if we don’t take part in the local economy, we tend to feel guilty.

Which is why, when a friend of mine still running a small business once told me, “Your frugality is killing my business,” I was heartsick. I knew what she was saying. It is not easy to be a business owner these days, but I’m very careful with my “disposable” income, and, well, with a planet begging for limits to growth (or no growth), I can’t help wondering when we will begin to take it seriously, and how we will respond.

One of our responses can be the type of collective living that this new farm family implies. And yet, we moderns have become addicted to an ethos of independent living, uprooting ourselves from our home communities to chase better jobs or schools elsewhere. We do not “need” each other as we once did. Our modern anything-anytime consumer culture has made our need to rely upon others near-obsolete.

This is why living collectively seems such a challenge. Mired in the mindset of independence, collective living is seen by many as primarily a means to keep rent cheap, which makes it fickle, temporary, and resistant to the larger commitment of turning down the heat on this capitalist monster. Without asking or learning the functional and emotional skills necessary to live in a home economy, our experiment in collectivity will do little to effect permanent change.

In speaking of farm families, however, I admit to waxing poetic on a lifestyle that, from a historical perspective, was more complex and compromised. Farmers were victimized, in the Great Depression and afterward, as the capitalist system demanded bigger economies of scale. “Get big or get out” was the call, and many farmers perished in attempting to take it on. More soberly, many landowners in this romanticized past were responsible for the displacement and genocide of cultures that only today we are willing to acknowledge, even if we’re not doing more than speaking about it.

But survival is an impartial taskmaster. The plight of the immigrants coming to America isn’t pretty. Neither is the story of slavery or genocide or the feeding frenzy of those who came from England to gain access to land and resources for the crown. Dang it if Jefferson’s “nation of farmers,” a rallying cry for many small farmers today, has not been overly simplified for easy reading.

But there is a movement of young farmers returning to the land, and they, too, are attempting the audacious act of living outside the tethers of the capitalist system. This makes us bedfellows in a movement, which is what home economics is really about: an effort to stand up against an economy that is doing its best to steal the best this life has to offer, a place to call home, in both form and function.

But believing in the virtues of a home economy will not magically change our values, nor will it immediately bestow the skills or intention for living in the seasons or turn us into people who would rather make, repair, sow, grow, or stow our foods than buy them from the store.

And it will not immediately turn us into capitalist refuseniks, or even someone who wants to save whatever resources and time we have to support the efforts of young farmers.

But with time, our lives as consumers in the capitalist economy will appear frail when compared to a life in the home economy. And eventually, we’ll come to understand that this is about more than making cupcakes. A lot more.

Original article here

14 Sep 2022
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I Believe In Angels

I believe in angels. I feel their presence in my life every hour, minute and second, I know they are with me, with us, but how? From a rational point of view, it is probably impossible to explain their existence, however I can say that they are part of my experience.

I remember being little and saying a prayer to my Guardian Angel that my beloved great aunt, Maninina, taught me. I kind of forgot about them in my teen years and way into my adult life. Then, as I was gaining more awareness of the spiritual me, I started feeling them a bit more and became fascinated by these special beings and their stories. Today, I want to openly share with you a few basic things regarding this magical realm.

What is the difference between Angels and Archangels? This is a common question and one that is easy to address, taking into account that there are multiple ways of explaining and understanding the angelic realms.

The word angel in Latin is “angelus” and it means “messenger of God”. The angels support and help us humans during our existence in the physical field, and they protect us.

The word Archangel is built by the prefix Arch, which means “chief” in Ancient Greek, therefore, an Archangel is a chief messenger. They support us as well, but more than that, they transmit the Divine or God’s decrees and ideas to humanity as a whole. Archangels are also known to us by names and here I want to talk about three of them:

Archangel Michael. He is our protector and defender. He also guides us to the circumstances where we can deliver our perfect service as light beings. He guides those who work at the police and armed forces and all of us when in danger. Call him when you feel you require a shield of protection and guidance on your purpose. His colour is blue, like his Sword of Light.

Archangel Gabriel. He delivers the Divine messages to us. He symbolises purification; in other words, he makes sure that we receive these Divine messages with a pure heart, as he is the angel of revelations. He is the protector of those who work in communication and language. Call him when you require clarity and effectiveness in your way of communicating. His colour is white.

Archangel Raphael. He is God’s Doctor and helps us to heal our soul. He opens our eyes to the realms of light and love. He protects health workers and couples. Call him when you require assistance for healing a medical condition and, of course, a soul condition. His colour is green.

There are other Archangels I can mention, such as Uriel, Chamuel, or Zadkiel. However, I will leave it for you to discover more about them.

How can we communicate with the Angels and Archangels?

First, acknowledge their existence. Remember that just because some things are invisible to the human eye, it does not mean they don’t exist.
Second, feel them in your heart; see them with your heart’s eyes.
Third, talk to them not in a needy way, but much like talking to a friend: ask for guidance and assistance.
Fourth, be open to their answer. You will know it via your intuition.

Now I want to talk about some very unique angels: The Angels of Paniri.

The Angels of Paniri came to life through the Master in Arts Fresia Castro, a Latin American spiritual teacher. A few years ago she was interviewed by a magazine and she shared a message received by the angels: “We are what you call Angels, and the time has come to radiate closer to you and it will be through art that we will do this better.”

They are called Angels of Paniri because Fresia Castro was living in the Atacama Desert in Chile at the bottom of the sacred mountain Paniri, when she began painting the angels. Fresia has painted more than one hundred angels by now. I share one of them with you here. The Angels of Paniri are special to me, because when looking at them, I immediately feel their radiation, their protection, their love.

I want to finish this article mentioning that a few years ago, the great Drunvalo Melchizedek, whom interestingly is a friend of Fresia Castro, shared a message he received from the angels as well: “We are not separated from you, we are you”.

Hence, all angels have a message to tell, the planet needs their radiation, their presence in people’s lives. Perhaps, we should leave our judgement and prejudice aside and listen to their high frequency vibrations and feel their love for us and accept their existence, then the world would be a better place.

About the Author:

Veronica Sanchez De Darivas is Chilean-Australian, now living in the UK and a proud mother of teenage twins. A spiritual awakening teacher, bestselling author, pineal gland (third eye) activator and Certified Instructor for the Cyclopea Method, Veronica is currently the only instructor in the world teaching the Cyclopea Method in English.

25 Aug 2022
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The Sky Is Falling, But There’s A Net

Networks are the rule of nature; not the exception.

The story of fungi is the story of our essential unity. The more we understand and respect this third kingdom, the more solutions we’ll uncover for the many challenges that face us. It’s not surprising that we are latecomers to the discovery of the usefulness of mushrooms, because our encounters with them are very short; they pop up suddenly and then they’re gone. With plants and animals, by comparison, which are visible for weeks, months, years, the embodied knowledge we have of them is naturally much greater. Mushrooms can feed you and heal you, they can kill you, and they can send you on a spiritual journey. Then they disappear. It’s very hard to understand them, but understand them we must.

It doesn’t really help to tell people that the sky is falling or the soil is collapsing without some options for solving the situation. This is what fungi and mycelium bring to the table: They represent ecological remedies that literally lie beneath our every footstep. To take just one example, consider agriculture. The new standard for sustainability is “no-till” farming, a process that features minimal disturbance of the soil in order to maintain its ability to absorb water and sequester carbon. How does one do that? By keeping the mycelium intact and planting seeds that are dusted with mycorrrhizal fungi. Ten years ago, you couldn’t find a single bag of such seeds; now you can’t find any without it. Ninety percent of the soil now sold in garden centers is fortified with mycorrhizal fungi.

The qualities of these fungi have largely gone unnoticed in the past, but we are noticing them now. We’ve identified several hundred species and cultures that have different talents for solving a lot of environmental challenges, and that’s just the beginning. It’s a matter of matching those talents specifically with a targeted concern. And as we keep doing that, we are building what I call an arma-mentarium of solutions, which is unprecedented in our time. We can dial in solutions using fungi with specific skillsets to address many of the environmental challenges we face.

This has been my mission all along, and it turns out that a lot of my early ideas have proven to be factually correct and scientifically supported. When I do research experiments, I look for my biggest critics, often those working in universities, and invite them to prove me wrong. “Do this research on your own,” I suggest. “Design the experiment and the protocol, test the hypothesis, and get back to me.” Many of my most vocal skeptics have become big supporters.

And so, we shouldn’t underestimate the intelligence of nature and the many organisms that have evolved to this day. We are here today because of very smart choices made along the evolutionary path, and because of our ability to communicate with other species and enlist them to our benefit. And this doesn’t just work for humans. The communities of nonhuman species working together across the planet are the true architects of the ecosystems that maintain the circle of life.

Strength In Numbers

What’s been missing in the scientific conversation is the impact of the third kingdom, the mycelial and fungal networks. They are the foundation of the food web. Seventy percent of the biological carbon in soil is fungi, both living and dead. I’ve been attending conferences for years trying to engage the scientific community in acknowledging this vital piece of the puzzle, and it took a long time to register. Everyone’s looking above ground for solutions to our environmental problems. They’re looking at oil, at concrete, using mechanistic and conventional ways of thinking, without understanding that the biology of nature has already solved many of these problems. Unless we come to terms with our fungal underlords, our biological myopia may be the downfall of us all.

Humans indulge the idea that we are the highest species, the top of the food chain, and that the main purpose of the biosphere is to support us. But is this “highest species” worth protecting? This illusion of biological grandeur is the cause of our suffering because of the egocentricity it covers up. We’re still very much in kindergarten when it comes to understanding how to co-create a sustainable future for all beings — and all beings are necessary to make that future possible.

A core concept of evolution is that, through natural selection, the strongest and fittest survive. In truth (and scientifically proven), communities survive better than individuals, especially communities that rely on cooperation. Acting on such a principle, people want to give in order to receive, which I think reflects the power of an essential goodness. I see this as a major force of nature — that evolution is based on the concept of mutual benefit and generosity.

It’s certainly true in the world of fungi and plants and trees. Yes, there are negative influences in the human domain. We do have some bad actors. But I think their appearance reminds the majority that it’s far better to base our actions on the values we strive to attain, on the principles we want to carry forward into future generations. Who wants to teach their children to be greedy, mean, and violent? Benevolence, kindness, trust, forgiveness — the fact that these concepts exist is, to me, de facto proof that the evolution of life has been based on the concept of goodness.

Fungi build soil, which expands the carrying capacity of the ecosystem, and thus the capacity for adding biodiversity. The more complex your biodiversity, the larger your cast of characters, the more opportunities for plants and other creatures to collaborate on providing maximum benefit to all. It’s like anything else: the larger your selection pool, the more likely your successes. True wealth is not measured in material possessions but by the abundance of options and choices.

Mycology (the study of fungi) is capable of offering so many solutions. Yet the field is underfunded, underappreciated, and underutilized. I think this shows the chasm of knowledge we have to overcome. But it’s also a perfect opportunity to create an “integrative science,” building bridges of knowledge between researchers of fungal networks and other scientists to develop an applied mycology grounded in practical solutions. We need to be engaging fungi purposefully, because they are the agents of sustainability, they will give us resilience.

The Truth Of Our Interconnectedness

The problem we face today is that we live in artificial realities wherein we invent our own facts. The more artificial the reality (for example, “Climate change is a hoax”), the more divorced from the truth one gets.

These bubbles of false realities are often constructed to serve the interests of certain groups and people who are trying to hijack your consciousness. It’s like getting stuck in a video game. You end up believing in and playing by the rules of that game, but the problem is that those rules don’t apply outside the video game. Once you embed yourself in nature and start working in the real world, you’ll encounter a new set of well-established rules and a knowledge base that’s been tested for millennia. We won’t solve our most pressing problems unless enough people leave the video games they’re immersed in and fully reengage in the consciousness of nature.

We all have a deeply embedded yearning to experience nature. Can you imagine what someone would be like if they had never been exposed to the natural world? If their reality had been limited to bricks and buildings, to straight lines and asphalt? If that is your only view of reality, how many truly creative ideas can come from that?

Unfortunately, most people are, to some degree, ecologically impoverished, aptly coined the “nature-deficit disorder” by Richard Louv. But it’s not too late. We can still use our best technology and the tools of science to respectfully and humbly unlock nature’s secrets and reveal the depths of her knowledge. With fungi and mushrooms, we’ve only scratched the surface of how they work and what they know. There are literally thousands of unknown species, each with unique properties that may hold answers to the massive challenges we face.

Five or ten years ago, the idea that “everything is connected” sounded like New Age nonsense. Now it is less controversial, but we still need to develop more ways to show that this interconnectedness is real and that anyone can participate in a solution and have a meaningful impact.

A Time For Therapeutic Intervention

Like it or not, we’re actively involved in our evolution. The challenge is that we have to evolve faster because the problems we’re creating are eclipsing our ability to adapt. And if we don’t adapt and get ahead of this curve, we will lose the race and our species will instead simply race toward extinction. It’s happened to countless species before ours. I do think it’s a challenge we’re well-equipped to meet, but it will require a different mindset, a paradigm shift in consciousness that looks at everything holistically.

When you consider the webs of dark matter showing up in hi-tech scans of the universe, the webs of mycelium branching out through the planetary biosphere, the webs of capillaries in our bodies, and the neural structure in our brains — these, to me, are central to this new paradigm. It’s all connected, it’s all co-evolving. Networks are the rule of nature; not the exception.

Excerpted with permission from Fantastic Fungi: How Mushrooms Can Heal, Shift Consciousness, and Save the Planet, the companion book to the acclaimed “Fantastic Fungi” documentary. ©2019, Earth Aware Editions.

Paul Stamets is the preeminent mycologist in the United States. He has discovered several new species of mushrooms, pioneered countless new techniques, published several best-selling books, and won numerous awards. Visit www.fungi.com

Original article here

22 Aug 2022
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The Swedish philosophy of lagom: how “just enough” is all you need

The night is going well. Everyone is laughing, and there is a happy energy in the air. The conversation flows easily and you’re the merry, relaxed kind of drunk. Then Josh swaggers over with a tray of something. Then you see what it is. Oh no.

“Time to do shots!” he shouts. You’re not sure, and you see others aren’t too keen either. But you don’t want to be a spoilsport. A grimace and a cough later, and the night changes. You feel sick, the room is spinning, and within a few minutes, everyone is too drunk to talk.

There comes a point when a thing becomes too much. If you’re not the outgoing, drinking sort, you could replace the opening example with something else. It might be at the end of the meal when that final slice of pizza turns you from “comfortably full” to “ergh”; when the car karaoke goes from being huge fun to a throat aching chore; or when that Tarantino movie you’re liking so far still has another two hours to go. Anything in excess becomes miserable, even the good things in life.

The fact that humans have unquenchable thirst and insatiable appetites is not new wisdom. It’s found in early Vedic texts, in Ancient Greece, and in most of the world’s religions today (most starkly in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. But in the Swedish idea of lagom, it has been given fresh life.

It’s an idea that might change how you see your life.

Just the right amount

Lagom translates as “just the right amount.” It means knowing when enough is enough, and trying to find balance and moderation rather than constantly grasping for more. Lagom is that feeling of contentment we all get when we have all that we need to make us comfortable. It’s neither a millionaire’s splurge in Vegas, nor a pauper’s cold winter night. It means having a roof over your head, food in your belly, friends at your back, and money — just enough money — in your pockets. If Goldilocks had a catchphrase, it would be “let’s lagom this bear house.”

There are two separate strands to lagom. The first is a kind of social awareness that recognizes that what we do affects other people. In this, we might see lagom more as a kind of “fair use” policy. If you take three cookies from the plate, two other people aren’t going to get one. If you hoard and grab everything you can, elbowing and cursing your way to the front of the line, then at best, that makes you a bit of an ass. At worst, it leaves others in ruin.

The second strand, however, is a mental shift that finds contentment in satisfaction. Many of us have internalized the ideas that bigger means better, that a bank balance means status, and that excess means happiness. Lagom, though, is to enjoy the “just right.” It’s not simply learning to “enjoy the simple things,” but also appreciating that sometimes less really is more. Lagom is knowing that enjoying the now of what you have does not mean you need to add more of it. After all, talking to a friend over a coffee is nice. But meeting with ten friends after ten coffees does not make things better. Lagom is to accept this and to let the fact deepen.

Applying lagom to your life

So, how are we to apply the Swedish principle of lagom to our lives? The great thing about lagom, as opposed to more ancient texts or religious homilies, is that it has an obvious practical value. It can apply to any type of person living any type of life. Here are just a few examples to start us off.

Work-life balance. It’s very easy to focus on only one part of life — work, love, family, health, play — that we end up ignoring or under-developing another part. Spending an entire month hiking and bonding with your brother might be great family time, but it probably won’t go down well with the boss. The Swedes, though, tend to be much more attuned to a sense of balance. They often will allow generous, regular breaks into their workday; they will go outside when they have been inside for too long; and so on. A “fulfillment wheel” is a way to measure balance across different aspects of life. Lagom is to be well-rounded and to take pleasure in that.

Exercise. The fitness industry has worked a clever narrative into our collective unconscious. It’s one which says that a $50-per-month gym membership, sparkly and expensive new shoes, and a bank-bruising personal trainer shouting at you to hop around and swing on ropes are the best way — the only way — to get fit. The lagom approach is to recognize that a walk is enough. For most people, regular trainers and a $5 T-shirt are enough to go running. Belly dancing, star jumps (jumping jacks), YouTube Zumba, and gardening are perfectly viable ways to get your exercise.

Staying in is the new going out. I’m sure your childhood is sprinkled with great holiday memories and brilliant getaways, but chances are that your fondest, deepest memories were those spent simply at home. You do not have to pay lots of money, or travel for hours, to have fun. A cheaply cooked meal, some old-worn pajamas, and an unashamedly rubbish movie is “just enough” to have fun.

There are countless other ways we can apply lagom, from how often we see our friends to how much we buy to living sustainably. But the profoundest element of lagom is simply to rest and relax when a thing feels good. Simple pleasures do not mean simple humans.

Original article here

15 Aug 2022
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Keeping Fit: How to Do the Right Exercise for Your Age

The effect of exercise on health is profound. It can protect you from a range of conditions, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. But the type and amount of exercise you should do changes as you age. To ensure that you are doing the right type of exercise for your age, follow this simple guide.

Childhood and Adolescence

In childhood, exercise helps control body weight, builds healthy bones and promotes self-confidence and healthy sleep patterns. The government recommends that children should get at least one hour of exercise a day. As a tip:

Children should try a variety of sports and develop skills, such as swimming and the ability to hit and kick a ball.
Lots of non–scheduled physical activity is great, too, such as playing in playgrounds.

Exercise habits tend to steadily decline during teen years, particularly in girls. Getting enough exercise promotes a healthy body image and helps manage stress and anxiety. You can also:

Encourage teenagers to keep one team sport, if possible.
For teenagers who are not into team sports, swimming or athletics can be a good way to keep fitness levels up.

In Your 20s

You are at your absolute physical peak in your mid-20s, with the fastest reaction times and highest VO2 max – the maximum rate at which the body can pump oxygen to muscles. After this peak, your VO2 max decreases by up to 1 percent each year and your reaction time slows each year. The good news is that regular physical activity can slow this decline. Building lean muscle mass and bone density at this age helps you retain them in later years.

Vary your training and keep it fun. Try tag rugby, rowing or boot camp.
If you are a regular exerciser, get advice from an exercise professional to build “periodisation” into your training regime. This involves dividing your training regime into progressive cycles that manipulate different aspects of training – such as intensity, volume and type of exercise – to optimise your performance and ensure you peak for a planned exercise event, such as a triathlon.

In Your 30s

As careers and family life for many intensify in their 30s, it is important that you maintain cardiovascular fitness and strength to slow normal physical decline. If you have a sedentary job, make sure you maintain good posture and break up long periods of sitting by forcing activity into your day, such as routing your printer to another room, climbing a flight of stairs to use the bathroom on another floor, or standing when taking a phone call so you are moving every half an hour where possible.

Work smart. Try high-intensity interval training. This is where bursts of high-intensity activity, up to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate, such as sprinting and cycling, are broken up with periods of lower-intensity exercise. This kind of workout is good for the time poor as it can be done in 20 minutes.
For all women, and especially after childbirth, do pelvic floor exercises, sometimes known as Kegel exercises daily to help prevent incontinence.
Diversify your exercise programme to keep it interesting. Try boot camp, spin class or yoga.

In Your 40s

Most people start to put on weight in their 40s. Resistance exercise is the best way to optimise calorie burning to counteract fat accumulation and reverse the loss of three to eight percent of muscle mass per decade. Ten weeks of resistance training could increase lean weight by 1.4kg, increase resting metabolic rate by 7 percent and decrease fat weight by 1.8kg.

Try kettlebells or start a weight-training programme in your gym.
Take up running, if you don’t run already, and don’t be afraid to start a more intensive exercise programme. You get more bang for your buck with running versus walking.
Pilates can be useful to build core strength to protect against back pain, which often starts in this decade.

In Your 50s

In this decade, aches and pains may crop up and chronic conditions, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, can manifest. As estrogen declines in postmenopausal women, the risk of heart disease increases.

Do strength training twice a week to maintain your muscle mass.
Weight-bearing exercises, such as walking, is recommended. Walk fast enough so that your breathing rate increases and you break a sweat.
Try something different. Tai chi can be excellent for balance and relaxation.

In Your 60s

Typically, people accumulate more chronic conditions as they get older, and ageing is a major risk factor for cancer. Maintaining a high level of physical activity can help prevent cancers, such as post-menopausal breast cancer, colon cancer and cancer of the womb, and it reduces the risk of developing chronic conditions, such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

Physical activity tends to decline with age, so keep active and try to buck this trend.

Try ballroom dancing or other forms of dancing; it’s a fun and sociable way to exercise.
Incorporate strength and flexibility exercises twice a week. Aqua-aerobics can be a great way to develop strength using water as resistance.
Maintain cardiovascular exercise, such as brisk walking.

70s and Beyond

Exercise in your 70s and beyond helps prevent frailty and falls, and it’s important for your cognitive function. If you have a period of ill health, try to keep mobile, if possible. Strength and fitness can decline rapidly if you are bed bound or very inactive, which can make it hard to get back to previous levels.

Walk and talk. Instead of inactive visits from family and friends, go for a walk together. It will keep you motivated and boost your health more than solitary exercise.
Incorporate some strength, balance and cardiovascular exercise in your regime. But get advice from a physiotherapist or other exercise professional, especially if you have several chronic conditions.

The main message is to keep moving throughout your life. Sustained exercise is what benefits health most.

Original article here

09 Aug 2022
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Miraculous Living

Today I was updating my Patreon account and found myself writing ‘Creating a portal to miraculous living & quantum reality creation.’

Mmmmm, I thought, that’s the first time I’ve used the term miraculous living. Normally I say magical living. But this time, nope, no way, miraculous typed out of my fingertips and that was that!

A pretty bold statement I thought to be talking about miraculous living. Now don’t get me wrong. I love the word magic. I love living it and receiving it and sourcing it for all to zing upon. But miraculous, now there’s a word that could take our world to whole new horizons of possibility.

So what’s changed to have me switch words like this?

The powers we work with now as world changing alchemists are phenomenal … life power, miraculous power, source power … these are the playgrounds of consciousness innovators and quantum reality creators.

The synergistic dance that’s available when you shift into a higher vibrational state of living is incredible. Opportunities show up out of the blue. Circumstances right themselves without any ‘doing’ on your part. The impossible becomes more possible and the miraculous is becoming more of a standard response to whatever normal life might throw our way.

Miraculous living to me is more than a sense of trust in the Universe and belonging to the growing sense of Sourceness in the world. It’s about living as the ALL, sourcing great miraculous newness for all life to thrive upon. It’s about leaving legacies too breath-taking to even yet imagine. It’s about superseding all that we’ve been before, quantum leaping into new ways of life that are joyful, geniusly inventive, super creative and effortlessly abundant, all while being wondrously in love with this world and all upon it.

About the Author:

Soleira Green is a visionary author, quantum coach, ALLchemist & future innovator. She has been creating leading edge breakthroughs in consciousness, quantum evolution, transformation, innovation, intelligence and more over the past 25 years, has written and self-published eleven books, and taught courses all over the world on these topics.

06 Aug 2022
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Clay As A Remedy

The four essential elements offered to us from Earth — earth, air, fire and water — have tremendous healing power.

Clay is of the earth element and retains the planet’s electromagnetic energy. It is a purifier — like fire, water and air — despite the fact that it is dirt! Healing with clay connects us to Earth’s forces and creates a reciprocal relationship. As we become healthier humans we have more passion and energy for tending to the planet.

Clay is considered by some to be alive because of its instability and tendency to transform its chemical and physical components over time. While clay is not a cure all, it is a natural remedy that can have an enormous impact on body mind and spirit when used in a variety of different ways. Potters, for example, experience a unique healing effect of clay through its willingness to “listen.”

When you push or pinch, clay responds. The inherent nature of clay is to move as instructed, pliable at the creator’s hand. Some potters describe this as a reconnection with the forces of nature, a spiritual connection that permeates the soul, the physical body, the whole self. An amazing thing to witness is a room with 8-10 kids and wheels going. At times, you can hear a pin drop because the clay is so mesmerizing. Working with clay is incredibly therapeutic.

Physical Therapy and Arthritis

Physical therapy and art therapy are two treatment modalities that have long recognized clay as a source for client restoration. Simply working clay in your hands is great for arthritis or any other malady that requires keeping the hands moving without calling for any sort of skill or expertise. It is also recognized as a great medium with which to work through emotional crisis or troubles through the art of sculpting, with or without intention.

Clay As Meditation

Try this clay meditation when you want to get grounded. Take a hunk of clay and chose one of the following: pinch, poke or smear. Give yourself 15 minutes and do this one activity to the clay. You can use different fingers or even body parts getting creative but stay focused on not straying away. Let’s say you chose poking. Poke with one finger at a time, then two, then three, etc. Poke softly, poke with gusto, poke in a straight line, poke at an angle, but be careful you don’t start pinching! When your time is up journal about the experience. What came up, how did you feel, was it pleasant? Often times the most beautiful creations come from these meditations without intent.

Varieties of Clay

There are thousands of different kinds of clays, each unique in its mineral content determined by geological location and the weathering that has occurred. Some clays are suitable for eating (bentonite), other clays are suitable for industrial use, and still other clays are used to bathe in or apply to the body. Clay is a term used to describe an earthy, mud-like sediment composed of very fine particles of minerals, pliable when moist and hard when dry or fired. Clay differs from mud in its particle size and purity. Mud generally has more “debris” in it and does not have the same stickiness or retain its shape as clay does.

Clay is created during the cycle of rock formation. When magma cools it becomes an igneous rock. One of the most abundant igneous rocks is granite. When granite decomposes it breaks down into feldspar, quartz, mica, potash and kaolinite, which is also known as “pure clay.” There are many classifications of clay, including primary and secondary clays. Primary clays are found at the site of the “parent rock” and secondary clays are clays that have moved and changed due to ice, water flow and weathering. As the secondary clays travel, they can pick up and leave behind different minerals resulting in thousands of varieties depending on its location and what has happened to it. Some good places to search for your own local clay are in riverbanks, ocean shores, or construction sites.

A Natural Detoxifier

Clay’s healing impact on the body has been known for thousands of years and used around the world. Rich in minerals, clay provides two benefits: it pulls toxins out of the body and it also re-mineralizes. Clay is used in skin care products because of its pulling power. It is the best way to provide a deep pore cleanse. Clay baths are used to pull toxins, heavy metals and chemicals through our largest organ — the skin.

Clay’s natural pulling power results from its negative ions seeking the positive ions found in toxins, which either adsorb to the surface or absorb into the clay. Poultices and packs made with clay are used on bug bites, bee stings, headaches, burns and more, pulling the poisons or toxins out and helping the body to healer quicker. I once had the privilege of giving a clay footbath to a very, very sick woman. As she soaked her feet, she said it felt wonderful to squish her feet around in the mud at the bottom. She felt so relaxed and pampered. We were both amazed at the toxins we found at the bottom of the bucket that the clay had pulled through the skin on her feet!

Eating Clay

Usually when I mention eating clay, most people imagine taking a hunk of clay and chewing on it. Thankfully this is not how it is done! Most health food stores carry clay in powder or liquid form. It is mixed with a glass of water for drinking and, in most cases, doesn’t taste like much. Eating clay can be beneficial for many disorders such as diarrhea, parasites, ulcers, allergies, anemia and more, as clay contains minerals and energy that our body’s defense system needs.

Ideally, clay should be taken to build immunity so that if you are exposed to a contagious illness or if you are approaching a time of lowered resistance, your defense system is prepared. How much clay to eat and how often is determined by individual needs and what goals are being accomplished. For long-term use, 1 tablespoon mixed with water once or twice a day is a good guideline to follow.

Earth has provided us with a powerful natural medicine — itself! Clay is sacred; honor Earth and you will be honored with receiving its wonderful energy.

Original article here

03 Aug 2022
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Tips for High Vibe Living

My buddies were asking me how I stay in a continuous high vibe flow, so here goes, my tips for high vibe living …

Never judge yourself around anything. The simple act of judging of yourself will drop you like a stone to the bottom of the vibrational pond.

Love every cell of you and every moment of life. Fall wildly, joyfully in love with life on planet Earth and in the universe that embraces us.

Believe that you are here for more than just a good life. You are a walking legacy of creation that can remake us all.

Walk in awe, breathe in wonder, seek out beauty for your eyes to behold… et voilà, your vibe will skyrocket to whole new horizons.

Know that you are the universe, a source of new’ness, nature bursting into glory, oceans waving hello to the stars. This reframe from you as individual human to collective being is a fabulous way to live, rocking the high vibe into place with you always.

And finally, be up to something wondrously grand, a genius contribution to us all to have life thrive. You’ll discover in the new, high vibe reality that this brings joy, not burdens, to make that grandness come alive in the world.

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