Get Happy, Be Happy, Stay Happy

Much to my extreme pleasure and relief, The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2007 does not, I repeat, does NOT, include The Secret. Woo hoo!

See the list

Most of us want to be happy. The United States Declaration of Independence declares the pursuit of happiness as an unalienable right. The Dalai Lama says the purpose of life is happiness.

The desire to be happy is a human given, wired into our brains, because without it, why go on? This makes sense from an evolutionary point of view.

It is this innate desire that unscrupulous gurus often exploit. Some of their followers do experience happiness, so they’re inclined to spread the word about the guru. Unfortunately, other followers are left in a worse state, many mired in deep depression or teetering on the brink of suicide. What goes wrong? In most cases, the followers have been immersed in conditioning and methods found in cults. The mind is broken down, and the person can no longer deal with reality.

Medical experts who help people recover from being in cults describe the same experience and blame it on a process called “dissociation,” in which the mind withdraws from reality based on cues and no longer connects properly to such tasks as consciousness, memory, identity and perception.

It can come about from achieving the “absolute unitary state” too many times. At its best, it can lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety and stress and offer practitioners a renewed sense of purpose. At its worst, it can cause extreme mental illness and even symptoms of related multiple-personality disorders.

Read the entire article, Tapping into inner happiness

Entering into different states of consciousness is very real and very powerful. I’ll even go as far to say that it may be possible for people to assist others in changing their brain state through physical contact and intention, such as giving and receiving Deeksha.

My point is simply this: There are safe ways to develop happiness, and there are unsafe attempts. Be careful.

No, no, no. I’m not anti-energy. (Ha ha! Get it?) I just think that it’s jumping the gun to vigorously claim that energy psychology techniques work by effecting so-called subtle energy. This claim scares a lot of people away from these marvelous methods, and I think that’s a shame.

To illustrate my point, check out these interesting responses to an article about Emotional Freedom Techniques. One of the respondents is the happy beneficiary of EFT treatments who was featured in the article — he doesn’t care a fig about how it works.

I am the Gary Williams in the article. I don’t care what anybody says about mumbo-jumbo and all that. All I know is that, after almost 30 years of suffering, I am now leading a healthy, nightmare, flashback and depression free life.

All I would say to the sceptics is: Try it…EFT WORKS!!

For the short-term, I don’t care how it works either. But for the long-term, I do care. I want to know the nature of the universe, what consciousness is and how it works, the role of human intention in healing, and so forth. I think the real question goes far beyond the concept of subtle energy.

So with that little introduction, I am happy to announce The International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies & Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM) 18th Annual Conference, to be held June 19-26, 2008, in Boulder, Colorado. The conference theme is Energy, Intent, and Healing.

The not-surprising-presenters include Larry Dossey, Dean Radin, Luisah Teish, Donna Eden, and Gary Craig. The big-surprise (to me, at least) presenter is Brian Greene, a leading string theorist. I can see why ISSSEEM would invite him, though. Greene studies things such as nonlocal particle entanglement, which is a key component of the theories to explain energy healing and intention. (If you’re interested in cosmology and string theory, I highly recommend Greene’s book The Fabric of the Cosmos.)

May we soon find the answers.

A live-in “sober buddy” for the rich. For a whopping $550 a day for low-maintenance gigs, to $1,500 per day for the harder-to-handle assignments.

I’m not kidding. Read this article.

My immediate reaction is to roll my eyes. What will they think up next to pamper the rich?

But what if I were a rich addict who needed help to kick the habit and get my life together? Would I hire a sober coach?

What if I were an addicted middle-class American who could, by the wave of a magic wand, have someone living in my house 24/7 to keep me out of trouble? (Does my chocolate addiction count?) I don’t know what I’d do. On the surface it sounds like the ultimate in pampering, or the ultimate in believing you have no self-control.

I tend to believe there are better ways to deal with addiction. Eliminate the root cause and you won’t need the sitter.

I begin with the belief that energy psychology is effective for resolving emotional and physical disturbances.

Energy psychology is an umbrella term for mind-body therapies and techniques which are believed to address disruptions of subtle energy in and around the body, which can cause emotional distress, negative thinking, unwanted behavior, and negative physical manifestations. Many of the popular techniques, including Emotional Freedom Techniques, feature tapping on particular locations on the face and torso. These locations are associated with acupuncture points.

Unfortunately, the existence of subtle energy has not been scientifically proven, at least not by mainstream researchers. According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, these “putative energy fields (also called biofields) have defied measurement to date by reproducible methods.”

I’m not in any position to argue whether subtle energy exists. I have no idea if this mysterious force has anything to do with healing. But I do know that energy psychology techniques are effective, and I’m extremely interested in knowing why. Perhaps one day mainstream scientists will prove the existence of subtle energy and tell us exactly how it can be worked with. But until then, I prefer to stick with possible explanations that don’t involve unproven energy fields.

Following are alternative theories put forth by mental health professionals.

Theory 1: Tapping as Affect Activation/Sensory Stimulation

Ronald A. Ruden, M.D., Ph.D. speculates a neuroanatomical and neurophysiological mechanism for tapping techniques.

“We propose that tapping and other sensory stimulation increase serotonin in both the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. The success of this technique requires that glutamate be first increased in the circuit by activating affect. We suggest the name ‘Affect Activation/Sensory Stimulation’ to encompass this general approach. AA/SS represents a paradigm shift for the treatment of these problems.”

To learn more, read Why Tapping Works: Speculations from the Observable Brain.

Read more articles on Dr. Ruden’s site.

See also, The Biochemistry of Energy Psychology: An Immunologist’s Perspective on Physiological Mechanisms Underlying Energy Psychology Treatments

Theory 2: Modulation Via Multiple Sensory Stimulation (Nervous System)

Dr. Joaquin Andrade, along with Maarten Aalberse and Christine Sutherland, have developed a technique (Brief Multi Sensory Activation) that uses tapping as well as other sensory stimulation to modulate emotions via the nervous system. These former leaders in energy psychology no longer support the unproven mechanisms in energy-based systems.

Learn more about BMSA

Theory 3: Tapping As a Means for Disassociation and Reframing

Research psychologist Joe Griffin of the Human Givens Institute discusses dissociation as a possible mechanism in the context of treating PTSD. He writes:

“Dr. Farouk Okhai, a consultant psychiatrist in Milton Keynes, has offered some hypotheses as to why the tapping technique might work. He suggests it might work, primarily, because it creates a dissociation between the intensity of the original experience and current emotional experience. Focusing part of the attention mechanism on the tapping disengages attention sufficiently to allow a reframe, a different perspective, to be taken concerning the trauma.”

Read this fascinating article, PTSD: why some techniques for treating it work so fast

Theory 4: Tapping As a Means of Enhanced Labeling of Emotion

Renowned energy psychology practitioner Dr. Lana de La Banana theorizes that tapping and other bizarre-looking sensory input such as humming, counting and rolling the eyes while speaking the problem, allows for enhanced labeling of negative emotions.

This theory is based on new research that suggests that if you name your negative emotions — put them into words — activity in the amygdala, a brain region involved in emotional processing, is calmed.

The name of my blog is a personal reminder. I have to work at being happy. The bad news is that apparently I’ve been doing things that work against my goal. The good news is that now I know what I need to do.

For instance, contrary to conventional wisdom, one study has found that those who had been assigned to keep a daily gratitude journal ended up less happy than those who counted their blessings once a week! Sitting on my desk is a beautiful polished green stone labeled “Gratitude.” I’m gonna put that dang thing in a drawer and take it out only on Saturdays.

In another study, participants who were told to vary their good deeds ended up happier than those forced into a kindness craze. So, don’t try killing others with kindness lest you kill your own happiness.

How many times have we learned that more isn’t necessarily better?

Research also is showing that happiness depends less on circumstances, such as where we live and how much money we have, than it does on our daily activities. To be happy, we need a continuous dose of new, exciting, enjoyable activities. Doesn’t sound too hard, does it? Not so fast…

Initial results with the interventions have been promising, but sustaining them is tough. Months after a study is over, the people who have stopped the exercises show a drop in happiness. Like a drug or a diet, the exercises work only if you stick with them. Instilling habits is crucial. Another key: “fit,” or how well the exercise matches the person. If sitting down to imagine your best possible self (an optimism exercise) feels contrived, you will be less likely to do it.

The biggest factor may be getting over the idea that happiness is fixed–and realizing that sustained effort can boost it. “A lot of people don’t apply the notion of effort to their emotional lives,” Lyubomirsky declares, “but the effort it takes is enormous.”

Like anything worth having, some of us must work at being happy — especially those whose genetic happiness set point is low.

I guess I should stop trying to find my perfect spot on earth to live and create my happiness right where I am.

Sources:

The Science of Lasting Happiness, Scientific American

Sustainable Happiness: Why It’s All About the Day-to-Day, PsyBlog

Being Happy: Enjoyable Activities Beat Improved Life Circumstances, PsyBlog

(Special thanks to Cosmic Connie for the link to PsyBlog, and to Google for the Scientific American article.)

It’s Thanksgiving in the United States. Regardless of what you think about the holiday, whether you celebrate it, despise it or think of it as just a regular day on the calendar, I wish for you a good day!

I have a turkey roasting in oven — mainly because my husband really likes the smell of turkey wafting through the house. Personally, I’d rather go out to a nice restaurant and put the burden on them to fill me up with turkey and all the fixings. So we compromise. Next year it’s Thanksgiving in Costa Rica, bebe! Or somewhere far, far away from Arizona.

Just a quick tip for people who want to increase their visibility on the Web: If you don’t have a blog, get one!

Within minutes of publishing my post about German New Medicine, google had indexed the post. My post was listed as number one for the search words “German New Medicine David Holt.” Checking now, it has moved to second place.

Unbelievable.

Cancer.

Cure.

Controversy.

Cancer recently surpassed heart disease as the leading cause of death in Americans under the age of 85. So much for winning the war on cancer, as the nation and Richard Nixon envisioned in 1971. Read about the National Cancer Act of 1971. Notice the quote in the sidebar:

According to Vincent DeVita, M.D., director of NCI from 1980–1988, the War on Cancer “…did everything it was supposed to do. It supported basic research handsomely. It set up application programs—the EORTC [European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer] and U.S. clinical trials programs. The incidence of cancer in this country started dropping in 1990 and has continued to drop every year since, and so has mortality. And the morbidity from cancer, comparing 1971 to 2005, is like night and day….So, every benchmark of the mandate has been hit.

For some reason, that doesn’t make me feel any better. Each year more than half a million people die from cancer. We have a long way to go, and I believe that we need to get on a new path. We can start by answering the question: What causes cancer? Don’t be so sure that cancer researchers and drug companies have a handle on the causes and cures.

Get ready for a thrilling ride on the German New Medicine® train! Before we embark, I need to tell you that GNM is highly controversial in Europe (its founder, Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer, got out of a French prison just last year) and barely known in the United States. Hamer’s bio reads like a crazy novel, which admittedly can color one’s perception about the doctor and his research, but I think it’s still worth investigating.

Here is Hamer’s theory about cancer and other diseases:

All disease is the result of a biological response to a “conflict shock,” which occurs simultaneously in the psyche, in the brain and on the corresponding organ or tissue controlled by the affected part of the brain. This process evolved to help animals and humans to heal and survive.

This is a revolutionary finding. So revolutionary that it stands mainstream thought about cancer and disease on its head, which hasn’t gone over very well with those whose power, status and livelihood depend on keeping things as they are. Including keeping us in the dark, if the theory is true.

I posted the following several week ago on my blog, but it bears repeating here:

In 1981, Dr. Hamer discovered that every disease originates from a “conflict shock” that catches us completely off guard. He found that sudden unexpected emotional stress, like an unanticipated separation or loss of a loved one, occur not only in our psyche but have, coordinated from the brain, a — predictable — effect on the corresponding organ.

From over 40,000 case studies Dr. Hamer established that, when we experience an unexpected conflict, the shock impacts a very specific area in the brain, causing a disturbance that is clearly visible on a brain scan. When the brain receives the “conflict message,” the organ or tissue that is controlled from the affected brain area also reacts. Whether the organ responds with cancer, a heart condition, osteoporosis, a skin disorder, or with functional impairment as seen in Diabetes or MS depends on the nature of the conflict.

Based on our knowledge of the evolution of man, Dr. Hamer’s findings show that what we commonly call a “disease” never happens by chance, but for a very particular biological purpose. Cancer, for example, is contrary to the conventional view not an error of Nature but rather a “Meaningful Special Biological Program” created over millions of years of evolution to assist us in coping with an unforeseen biological emergency situation. Animals experience these biological conflicts in real terms, for instance, with the loss of the nest or territory, a separation from an off-spring, a mate or the social group, or when they suffer a death fright. Since we humans developed a symbolic way of thinking, we also can experience these conflicts in a figurative sense. A “territorial loss” can translate into the loss of our home, e.g. through a divorce, or an unforeseen loss of our job, an “abandonment conflict” can be caused by being put into a nursing home or by the loss of a loved-one, a “death-fright conflict” can be initiated by a diagnosis shock and the associated fear of dying. When we experience the conflict, the Special Biological Program is instantly switched on and the physical symptoms allow our organism to override everyday functioning and deal with the particular emergency situation.

For example: A mother receives the shocking news that her child was involved in an accident. At this moment she suffers, in biological terms, a “mother-child-worry-conflict.” This type of conflict always impacts in the area of the brain that controls a woman’s breast glands. Since, biologically speaking, an injured offspring recovers faster when it receives more milk, extra milk production is immediately stimulated by increasing the number of breast gland cells. Even if the woman is not breast feeding, the event still triggers the onset of this response as it has been doing for millions of years. As long as a woman is “conflict active” the breast cells will keep dividing and multiplying, forming what is commonly called a glandular breast tumor.

Since healing can only occur after the conflict has been resolved, GNM-therapy focuses on identifying and resolving the original conflict situation. During the healing phase, the entire organism undergoes a period of repair and recovery. The healing period is often accompanied with fatigue, painful swelling (particularly when the cancerous growth is broken down), inflammations, fever or infections. Understanding the biological nature of the healing symptoms is essential, because it allows us to free ourselves from the fear and panic that often come with the onset of symptoms.

The “Five Biological Laws of the New Medicine” that control the cause, development and healing process of a disease apply to all of medicine. Dr. Hamer’s findings have been verified 30 times by physicians and professorial associations, including the Medical Faculty of the University of Trnava (Slovakia).

Source: An Overview of GERMAN NEW MEDICINE® by Caroline Markolin, Ph.D.

This morning I received an e-newsletter from Dr. Joseph Mercola, a naturopathic doctor who supports Hamer’s theory. In one of the articles, Dr. Mercola comments on a new report from the American Institute for Cancer Research, which details the main risk factors for developing cancer and what you can do to reduce your risk. Missing from the report, of course, is the notion of resolving any past emotional traumas.

Dr. Mercola writes:

Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. Fortunately, there are now practical tools that can address this. One of the best was developed by Dr. Hamer and it is called German New Medicine. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. Energy psychology is one of the best approaches, and my particular favorite tool, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique.

I have interviewed two of the top experts in the U.S. in this area. One is Dr. David Holt who is the leading US physician in German New Medicine, and Dr. Bruce Lipton who is the top researcher explaining why this approach works. I grilled each of them for nearly three hours and it was absolutely amazing information.

If the American Cancer Society knew this information and applied it, I would donate money to them because then they really would be making a difference, instead of serving as pawns of the drug industry.

Either way, information is massively important for ANYONE who is currently battling cancer. Both of these interviews should be out before the end of the year. The first one should come out the last week of November, and best of all, you will be able to get it mailed to your U.S. home for FREE.

Read the entire article (registration required) in which Dr. Mercola discusses several ways to virtually eliminate your cancer risk.

I can’t wait to hear the interviews.

Meanwhile, here’s an interesting excerpt from the Reno Integrative Medical Center website. Dr. Holt works at the center.

In the Spring of 2006 we set out to prove that Dr. Hamer’s assertions regarding cancer (and most other disease) were incorrect. After having received some initial training and applying these concepts to our patients for several months we were confronted with an abundant amount of empirical evidence supporting Hamer’s ideas. Our most basic assumptions regarding cancer had been incorrect! This paradigm turns conventional medicine and even much of alternative medicine on its head, but once an understanding of the process is grasped, it points the way in terms of choosing various diagnostic or therapeutic interventions.

As I always say, we’re living in exciting times!

I just discovered this blog readability test, the level of education required to understand a particular blog. I am happy to report that my blog’s reading level is right where I want it: Junior High School. I don’t want to strain anyone’s brain while they’re here.

I don’t know the source, but I’m assuming it’s based on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level readability index.

Thanks goes to Reasonable Robinson at Gullibility for blogging about this test. By the way, be sure to read his 101 Ways to Avoid Being Gullible.

And thanks to Cosmic Connie, I learned about a test to give your blog a “film” rating. So kids, be warned! Grab a parent before continuing…

[Heads up: If you run either test and get the link code for your blog, note that the code includes an additional link to an ad. You can delete the ad link code.]

Update 11/25: Hey! We graduated to High School!

There was a time when I became afraid to think. I knew that just about every thought I thunk was flawed. I had recently taken logic classes and learned the common fallacies of logic and rhetoric.

At first I reveled in learning this system of thinking and reasoning. I enjoyed dissecting arguments and discovering how fallacious reasoning is de facto in our society. I passed Logic 101 with flying colors. Logic 102, not so flying — analyzing lengthy arguments is extremely hard work. My brain kept running out of glucose.

As much as I loved recognizing my own flawed reasoning, it became a burden. I also had to learn to bite my tongue as my unenlightened friends and family blithely engaged in fallacious reasoning. Eventually a lot of what I learned faded away. I retained enough, however, to notice or sense violations. I can usually tell when someone is full of it — but I won’t necessarily be able to tell you which fallacies are in play.

Which leads me to this — I don’t like to participate in lengthy debates. Constructive, fact-based debating takes a lot of time and effort. It is an art and science. And it requires more brain nutrients than I have available at the moment!

Sure, I’ll discuss some issues on my blog. Most of the discussions are simply opinions anyway and don’t go much further. And that’s how I want to keep it. This is a personal blog that serves as a digital record of my thoughts, musings, research and journeys around the Internet. That’s it. My posts are not op-eds for the media; they are not journalistic pieces.

I like sharing information and pointing people to what I think are interesting or valuable resources. I like friendly discussions. And, yes, I like to persuasively give my two cents about things that I think are harmful or need to be investigated.

So. What is behind this post today? A post and discussion on Steve Salerno’s blog. I decided to drop out because I don’t want to spend the time and effort required for constructive debate. And I certainly don’t want Steve to have me for lunch, or a snack.

On Debating

The Talking Stick

A couple of assistant professors at UCSD and Yale have concluded that a preference for our own names and initials can spell trouble for ourselves.

“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” He certainly didn’t have an easy life. I guess this study makes sense…

Blame game: My name made me do it
By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY

Your name made you do it, albeit unconsciously, suggests new research that finds your name can negatively undermine your goals.

Psychologists in marketing at Yale and the University of California, San Diego studying the unconscious influence of names say a preference for our own names and initials — the “name-letter effect” — can have some negative consequences.

Students whose names begin with C or D get lower grades than those whose names begin with A or B; major league baseball players whose first or last names began with K (the strikeout-signifying letter) are significantly more likely to strike out, according to the report published in the December issue of Psychological Science.

“We found that our own-name liking sabotages success for people whose initials match negative performance labels,” the report says.

Assistant professors Leif Nelson of UCSD and Joseph Simmons of Yale conducted five studies over five years (including one lab experiment) using information from thousands of individuals: 6,398 baseball players (377 had K as either a first or last initial); 15,000 MBA students; 294 undergraduate students; 170 law schools with more than 390,000 lawyers; and 284 participants in their laboratory experiment.

Read the entire article

Lana Walker… L.W… lives in Arizona… loves to walk (but that’s a good thing)… is a writer… drives a Saturn… married to a guy named Jon…

Okay, I’m not gettin’ it. Do you?

You’ve probably read about the recent call to investigate what the government ain’t tellin’ us about ET visitations. If you’ve been worrying about a coverup or that you may be next on the list for a very special visit, you can rest easy. Dr. David Morrison, Senior Scientist of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, provides reassuring answers here.

My two cents:

Is alien life possible? Sure. Is there evidence that ETs have entered Earth’s atmosphere? No. Is there evidence that ETs or nonphysical beings from another place or dimension communicate with Earthlings? No.

While we’re on the subject:

Does the channeling craze drive me nuts? Yes. Do we know what channeling really is? No. Should we dismiss it? No, because studying the phenomena will provide more insight into what it means to be human, ironically enough.

Does the stuff about the so-called Galactic Federation drive me nuts? Yes. And it scares the tar out of me to know that people believe it.

It never fails. Whenever I spend an inordinate amount of time reading, discussing or watching stuff about The Secret or its ilLUSTtrious stars or its debatable teachings, I start feeling depressed. Some unfinished business in play here? Most likely.

So I’m going to do my best to figure out what’s really bugging me. Deciding to “let it go” isn’t the goal right now.

Who knows what I’ll discover. Probably that I’m some kind of fruit. We’re talking about someone who thinks most of the Rorschach inkblots look like a partly eaten apple with wings.

This is a public service announcement for New Zealanders. Australian David “Squirmer” Schirmer, who appeared in The Secret, is in your country to teach how to create unlimited wealth. Before you plunk down your money to learn his secrets, be sure to watch these news programs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuGK9JnZAAw

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/497100/1445281

Thinking requires energy. And I’m running dangerously low!

I’m literally exhausted from researching, thinking, thinking about thinking, studying human nature and the human condition, connecting the dots from various sources, creating new patterns and ideas from connecting the dots, and blogging about life’s greatest questions.

What can I say? I’m an information addict with a philosophical streak. This always happens. Eventually I reach the point of burnout. Sometimes I spin out. And sometimes I freak out upon encountering something really bizarre

But I’ll be okay after a little rest and a box of chocolate (my other obsession).

Thoughts are… things. They are sculptors of the brain. And, dare I say, they are sculptors of the body.

Eight Buddhist adepts and 10 volunteers who had had a crash course in meditation engaged in the form of meditation called nonreferential compassion. In this state, the meditator focuses on unlimited compassion and loving kindness toward all living beings.

As the volunteers began meditating, one kind of brain wave grew exceptionally strong: gamma waves. These, scientists believe, are a signature of neuronal activity that knits together far-flung circuits — consciousness, in a sense. Gamma waves appear when the brain brings together different features of an object, such as look, feel, sound and other attributes that lead the brain to its aha moment of, yup, that’s an armadillo.

Some of the novices “showed a slight but significant increase in the gamma signal,” Prof. Davidson explained to the Dalai Lama. But at the moment the monks switched on compassion meditation, the gamma signal began rising and kept rising. On its own, that is hardly astounding: Everything the mind does has a physical correlate, so the gamma waves (much more intense than in the novice meditators) might just have been the mark of compassion meditation.

Except for one thing. In between meditations, the gamma signal in the monks never died down. Even when they were not meditating, their brains were different from the novices’ brains, marked by waves associated with perception, problem solving and consciousness. Moreover, the more hours of meditation training a monk had had, the stronger and more enduring the gamma signal.

It was something Prof. Davidson had been seeking since he trekked into the hills above Dharamsala to study lamas and monks: evidence that mental training can create an enduring brain trait.

From LifeTrek Provision 11/11/07: Empathy Wiring

Bill Harris, the director of Centerpointe Research Institute, appeared in The Secret film. After I read his views about the magical thinking found in The Secret, I wondered why he agreed to be in the film. I no longer need to wonder. He explains it in his blog post dated November 9.

He also explains how the film teaches magical thinking. And he says, “And don’t even get me started on the idea that people in Africa are starving because they are thinking the wrong thoughts.” Right on!

Read the blog post

Update 11/14: Lots of interesting comments on Bill’s post.

Update 11/15: Bill continues…

Well, how do you like that. Yesterday I was wondering why a study showed that overweight people have a decreased death risk from disease. This morning I found an article in the latest issue of Spirituality & Health about — get this — the unappreciated, wonderful role of fat — the fatty layer of fascia just beneath the skin.

After marveling for a few seconds about the synchronicity, which happens a lot in my life with written material, I dove in. The author, Gil Hedley, is an anatomist and former Certified Rolfer, who teaches human dissection workshops. It is a breathtaking article about how he confronted his own fear and came to see fat as a “rare vision of beauty: a glorious, shapely yellow fleece…something elemental, an essential aspect of our bodily life previously under appreciated.”

The following excerpts describe what the adipose is and its key role in the body. (I recommend reading the entire article to see the incredible picture Hedley paints.)

The energy of the adipose

The specific vibrational quality of each layer of the body — whether adipose or skin, muscle or bone — contributes essentially to the harmony comprising an integrated, embodied person. In the same way that your eyes and ears and nose interpret particular frequencies of vibration, the varying composition of your skin, adipose, deep fascia, muscle, membranes, organs, bones, and nerves both emit and absorb frequencies in a manner characteristic of their particular structure.

I had the privilege of observing many groups of professionals working intently to dissect a given layer. When they do, there is a distinct quality to the experience generated by different tissues. Before I had much consciousness of the powerful charge carried by the adipose layer, we would remove it mainly by hand….

When the tearing of the adipose began, some in the group would become possessed with the mission to see the job through, while others would be reeling from the pace, or need to cry, or even sense pain in their own adipose….

A different kind of sense organ

The living adipose is basically liquid energy and raw power suspended in a web of piezoelectrically conductive collagen fibers. Through it are transmitted fields of information from our external environment to the depths of our bodies at all times. The adipose layer is replete with specialized smooth muscle cells, whereby the tissue tone is maintained and adjusted. It is as if our soft coating of fat is a living antenna of the most sensitive kind, receiving from without and broadcasting within the waves of information that surround us. Like the skin, it is a great sense organ, a sensual wrap. But I posit that rather than conducting the signals it picks up primarily along electrochemical pathways to the brain in our skull, it is primarily conducting its signals electrochemically to the brain in our gut….

Likewise, a pregnant woman’s adipose layer grows not only as a resource to support and nourish her baby but also to heighten her sensitivity to the baby’s coos and cries and to any potential danger in their environment. She grows her inner pillow to comfort her child and also to resonate more perfectly with her baby’s body, the lines of whose form are a delicious portrait of the fat beneath the skin…

The issues that surround fat in our culture involve our health, politics, the balance of power, economics, class, race, gender, discrimination, and more. By studying the adipose layer as a gift rather than a curse, a different set of questions can emerge beyond “Am I thin enough?” “How can I lose 10 pounds?” “How can I control my weight?” and “How fat is too fat?”

Source: “How to Fall in Love With Your Fat,” Spirituality & Health, November/December 2007

Fat as an information system for survival and growth. Quite something to ponder!

Ruh roh. As one who the researchers would classify as underweight, this study caught my attention.

The new study began several years ago when the investigators used national data to look at death risks according to body weight. They concluded that, compared with people of normal weight, the overweight had a decreased death risk and the underweight and obese had increased risk….

They do not yet know, precisely, what it is about being underweight, for instance, that increases the death rate from everything except heart disease and cancer.

Source

That does it! I’m definitely going on a chocolate-several-times-a-day diet. Oops, did I say chocolate… again?

All kidding aside, this study is so intriguing. What are the common denominators for the decreased death risk in the overweight group? My head is spinning as I factor in what I know about epigenetics and German New Medicine.

Here’s a great introduction to epigenetics on PBS.org. The video there is amazing. Toward the end of the video, you’ll learn about using epigenetic medicine to give instructions to the epigenome. Now imagine using the power of the mind to give instructions to the epigenome. Then consider reading two extremely interesting books:

The Genie in Your Genes: Epigenetic Medicine and the Biology of Intention

The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles

We are living in such exciting times!