Spreading germy thoughts

by David

This morning I was listening to the radio morning show on CBC. Every week they have a medical doctor on and he reports on some interesting findings from the world of medicine. According to the good doctor in past years lots of medical doctors and nurses showed up for work even if they knew they had a flu or cold. They thought that they were being of more service to their patients then not being there for them at all.

Of course, the fact that one sneeze can send out over 40,000 droplets of water full of active viruses into the office air, and could therefor easily spread the disease to the other patients, wasn’t fully considered that big a problem. After all the thinking back then was that no one was ever going to die from a cold or flu.

But that was before H1N1 cam along. That changed things forever and it’s a different story now.

But this is a blog is about mindset not medicine so I do need to draw a connection here and so here it is.

No matter if they be they embodied in physical viruses or negative thoughts damaging factors can easily spread, populate, and infect new hosts in very similar ways. For example, in offices everywhere managers have noticed that it only takes one worker voicing negativity to bring down the well-being of the entire work group.

Sound familiar?

That to me is a clear indication that thinking systems mirror the physical system as seen in the body. But the body has an advantage. It’s got an immune system that, if maintained in health, does an excellent job of handling invading pathogens on a daily basis. Unfortunately the one corrective system that I believe is present in the mindset is itself very slow acting.

So slow in fact as to appear to not be present at all. That leaves the thinking much more susceptible to negative invaders. In fact studies show this to be true. Our daily thoughts, they report, are on average about 70% negative.

So what kind of flu are you helping to spread?

More Power to you.

Writing about mindset immunity

by David

To do my job I have to write frequently about my theory of mindset immunity.

But I have the same problem that I know a lot of other bloggers do. It’s all about with coming up with ideas to write blog posts about. I tend to edit myself too much. That inhibits my ability to just start. It can be debilitating. Then, just the other day, I came across the brilliant blogger Elizabeth Potts Weinstein. She wrote a post about that very problem.

“Just write” she advised. “Don’t think.”

Now I’ve heard that before from other writing instructors but I escaped the message’s integrity to turn the advice into action. Until Elizabeth PW came up with her post. She said it so eloquently. So powerfully that, to me at lest, it just resonated in my bones.

Trans Fat Thinking

by David

I’m not a huge health nut. I’m a mindset immunity nut. So what am I doing writing about trans fats? There is a story here.

Not that long ago my wife and I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things. We soon found ourselves in the dairy isle so we got our cheese, sour cream, and some yogurt. Then we got to the butter. “Where’s the butter?” I asked her as if she would know. There wasn’t any. The shelf was bare. Seems there was a sale on butter and, since this was latter in the day, other customers had run off with it.

Our only alternative was the other brand and it was about twice the cost of the house brand that was on sale.

But by now I was hooked on getting a deal and we did need butter. So the only other choice was something that is not even a dairy product. It’s margarine, that molecular mash-up that often stands-in up to four times as often as butter in many families’ refigerators. Same color, similar consistency, and it even has the same packaging as butter. The one pound square this I got comes dressed in that familiar paper wrapper and its even exactly the same size as a pound of butter.

But of course it’s not the same.

It’s margarine.The label says that on the front. On the back is its ingredients and nutritional info including the trans-fat percentage. This is the thing that’s been linked to many diseases including some types of cancer. It’s a molecular freak that the body simply can’t use. If it tries to it will turn it into something even more deformed.

Now that I’ve had a chance to research it a bit I find that it’s probably closer to being plastic than food. Nothing will grow in it. Leave it out and no pesky flies will go near it. Won’t rot or smell weird if left out either. It’s definitely not butter.

So why did I buy it?

I was skunked by price. Outmaneuvered by the marketing and seduced by easy availability.

Sounds familiar? Many do it every day when they pick up a great book of advice, positive quotes, or read stories of successful people. Get their shot of motivation for the day to help them overcome a tough situation or just help them figure out what to do next.

What else can they do?

Real authentic passion and mindset immunity is in short supply. It’s rarity makes it expensive in time and effort to find it too. So we stick with the mind-candy even though we know that it’s addictive and eventually leads to system breakdowns. It’s loaded with trans-fat thinking that:

is extrinsic, it doesn’t come from you it comes at you
clogs the pathways of good clear creativity with rules and “guidelines” that are not your own
it’s not natural to you so it may not quite fit and it doesn’t last very long
it’s just cheap and instant and requires little work to get because there’s lot’s of vendors out there who are ready to give it to you

I’ve read some of those trans-fatty books. I know what they are like but I now know better.

Glad I’m finished with this post. Now I can go to my fridge, reach in for that chunk of margarine, and chuck it in the garbage trans-fats and all.

More power to you all.

Here’s to 20 years with Madiba

by David

Nelson Mandela in 2008. Photo Credit: www.sagoodnews.co.za

Madiba is not a name most of you will recognize right of the bat.

I didn’t.

That’s because, for one thing, I’m not South African and for another I didn’t take the time to closely educate myself about the man whose unfailing belief in his cause changed his whole country first and later the world.

If you just look at the picture on this page you’ll know right away who Madiba is.

Just in case you’re wondering (and I didn’t know this myself either till I found it here) the other name of this man is of course Nelson Mandela. Madiba is an honorary title adopted by elders of his clan.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the day that he walked out of prison a free man after being locked up for an entire third of his life (Mandela is now 91).

What kind of strength of mindset does it take to survive 27 years in a prison cell and then come out of it and not seek vengince on those who condemded him to all those years?

I only have a clue.

…But

It’s not just positive thinking (although that might help)

It’s not deep-breathing excercises (though that’s a good one for health)

It’s not keeping really busy doing something else (though I think he certainly did that too)

It’s all of those things and something more. Something natural and a mystery at the same time.

A phenomenon really.

I have a name for it. I call it Mindset Immunity

It kept him from becoming a bitter and resentful beast.

It does it for you too if you’re very lucky to have it strike your insides.

Happy anniversary Madiba!

More power to you.

…David

Going Bananas In Emerg.

by David

File this under alternate health care.

It is being reported that at the QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax Nova Scotia has hired a psychologist to take care of emergency patients that complain of pain but don’t seem to have any physical symptoms.

What to do? Send him/her home telling them that they’re crazy and, “Oh, by the way, please don’t come back”?

No. That would not do.

This hospital has something better.

They refer the patient immediately to the hired talk-therapist to quiet the person down.