Honoring the 11 Million - Planning Our Own Acts of Courage

In my spiritual practice today, I sent healing prayers to the survivors and descendants of the Nazi Holocaust.  Our new understanding of the science of epigenetics has sobering information on how traumas can shift gene expression, allowing the trauma to be transmitted to succeeding generations in the form of lowered immune system activity and other effects.  Reiki healing helps.

We can start, on this Holocaust Remembrance Day, with remembering all 11 million victims.  It always pains me when Jewish writers and speakers talk about 6 million, instead of 11 million.  Others quote that erroneous 6 million figure all the time.  But talking about 6 million Jews and ignoring the equally-tragic 5 million others is the worst kind of racism.  Those people were murdered once, and now the world is erasing their memory – as if their lives didn’t matter and their deaths aren’t tragedies.  Let’s stop it.  11 million.  The Roma people (aka gypsies) were almost exterminated, a percentage that exceeds any other targeted group by a huge margin.

What also helps is staying vigilant about pain and suffering today.  As people become emotionally overwhelmed, their empathy drops.  We have to avoid becoming overwhelmed, without unplugging completely.  So do Reiki, meditate, exercise, take creative arts time-outs, to renew and replenish yourselves for the long fight.

It might also be pertinent to consider what could be coming tomorrow.   Commentators in the USA and elsewhere have noted not only the appalling spectacle of white supremacists in the White House, but a worldwide rise in dictatorship-under-guise-of-democracy from Erdogan in Turkey and Putin in Russia, to possible (unimaginable) election of a fascist thug in France. 

In the 1930’s, people who noticed the rise of fascist dictators who made the trains run on time and got people back to work weren’t called “negative” of course, but that’s the response to “Uh, people, there’s a pattern here…” today.  Doing the “don’t worry, just mind your own life” dance, as far too many million Americans are doing, worries me.  This problem isn’t going to go away by prayer, or raising the vibrational energy of the room.  Our grandparents didn’t pay attention until it was too late.  I hope that we, with their example to learn from, will wake up and take action sooner.

Our species has much more DNA devoted to cooperation than competition.  Cooperation in early social groups – food sharing, with everyone who had a bad collecting day – is what propelled our lineage into planetary dominance.  Empathy is an advanced trait of primates and the most intelligent mammals, like elephants and cetaceans.  

On Nazi Holocaust Remembrance Day, let’s celebrate the good people of 70 years ago, many of whom died, all of whom risked their lives, to save or try to save the targeted people from death.  We are good people, most of us.  We can call on the better angels of our nature to stay on the path of courage as our own time of testing is upon us.  Who in your city or community needs saving?  Take action.

Key Components of HR Wellness and Motivation Programs: It's Not What You Think!

I was talking to a health and benefits manager about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. She is reading articles that tell her that only intrinsic motivations matter. But I know so much research that validates my instant-salivation when someone says $100 Amazon Gift-Card. So here's my take, in written form:

Extrinsic motivation is motivation that is focused outward, to the environment that the person is in. For example, you give people a $100 gift card or a reduction in their health insurance premiums if they get screened by their doctor and then talk with a health coach at least once a month, to focus on reducing weight, blood pressure or emotional stress in their lives - all factors that are known to lead to expensive illnesses. The person is taking action because you are dangling money (an external factor) or you are threatening them with a negative outcome (higher premiums).

Intrinsic motivation is motivation (desire) that stems from inside the person. The group increases the customer satisfaction by decreasing the fail rate of a product, and they do that because they are given more autonomy in their work and they are on fire to do a good job, because a good job reflects on their vision of themselves. They want to see themselves as Quality Performers, so they are internally-powered to think of new ideas and put them into practice. They take ownership of the result because they truly, deeply care (are motivated).

However, human beings are complex, and simple definitions don't model human beings very well. Most people take action or stop taking action, or shift their internal beliefs, because of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The most successful Human Resources changes include both intrinsic and extrinsic components. In the intrinsic example above, the professionals started to take more ownership of the final result (shifted to more intrinsic motivation) when they were given more power and autonomy to make changes; if the company just talks, or brings in a "motivational speaker," the results will not last, because deep desire isn't engaged by just talk.

One interesting result is that positive external incentives work more effectively than negative incentives. From a psychology perspective, consider that if you want people to change deeply ingrained habits, are they more likely to do so if they are cheerfully walking toward a reward, or are angry and resentful (you are increasing their premiums unless they comply)?

In the example of improving health outcomes, the best results seem to include both extrinsic factors (the positive financial incentives) and the addition of intrinsic motivation. The health coaches provide encouragement and inspiration, and the best coaches will stress the outcome of the changes: that the employee will be more likely to stay healthy for their children if they maintain a healthy weight and blood pressure. A strong desire to do the best for one's children is a common intrinsic motivation to get healthier.

Understanding that people are complex, that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations work best when both are active, and that carrots (positives) work better than sticks (negatives) can help guide a company to their true end goal - greater profits through more educated and trained, happier and more engaged workers.

For Entrepreneurs: More Income + Life Satisfaction from Strategic Self-Care

Hey, I'M super-busy.  I barely stop on a daily basis.  

Except that I know that stopping for strategic self-care IS my road to income and to life satisfaction, which is why I started the business in the first place, right?

You don't need hours.  With 5 carefully chosen minutes a day - 5 MINUTES daily - you can have a tremendous impact on your income and your overall happiness.

I've researched and chosen the 5 elements with the most powerful and reliable ROI (return on investment) for your time.  Focus on them, make a commitment to every day - and watch your life blossom like all the spring flowers all around us.


https://blastthruthosebarriers.thinkific.com/courses/strategic-self-care-for-entrepreneurs-the-5-daily-tools-proven-to-lead-to-lots-more-income-and-life-satisfaction

Is Integrity Obsolete?

“Yeah, cash is great.  You don’t have to pay tax on that,” Sally said.

 

I just stared at her, stunned.   “I report all of my income.” 

Now it’s her turn to look at me like I’m an alien lizard from Alpha Centauri, or clinically insane.  “I prefer cash for my international clients because it’s easier, that’s all.”  Now she’s looking at me with pity.  I’m really, really stupid, she’s thinking. Could be.

I admit to disappointment in my friend.  Professors Kohlberg and Gilligan developed frameworks to explain the levels of sophistication of our human moral reasoning, and doing whatever you can get away with is the level typical of a 3^rd grader.  Later in our development, we grow through understanding that general lawfulness makes everyone safer, on up to doing The Right Thing just because it is The Right Thing, from focusing solely on yourself through level after level until you arrive at the place where all living creatures are your siblings and the earth itself is your mother and father, and you devote yourself completely to the alleviation of suffering in the world.  Nobody gets to that summit but some folks get closer than Sally seems to be aiming.

Then there’s another colleague, who changed her email signature to “Amazon Best-Selling Author” a month before she even finished writing the dang thing.  Her reasoning: she had hired someone who guaranteed to make her book a best-seller (it only sold 200 copies), and thus she was just jump-starting what WOULD be true.  Except that she didn’t change it when she saw the sales results.  [Which were totally predictable, for a newbie author tackling a popular topic that had dozens of real bestsellers to compete against.]  I’ll bet that “I’ll make you a star” charlatan suggested it, but it was my colleague who did it, and still refuses to own her lie.

And she’s not alone.  Everyone who releases a print or even an e-book these days claims it as an “Amazon Bestseller” before it’s even on the metaphorical shelves.

I pity the real bestselling authors, who have their hard work and quality product cheapened because everyone (including me) who knows about the “Amazon Bestseller” scam, assumes they are lying also.  Except Ian Brodie, who does such good work, he doesn’t have to lie to impress you.  I’d be willing to believe that his book really IS the best seller in its category of e-mail marketing.

That’s something that my blow-hard pals don’t seem to understand.  If you cheapen the status of an Amazon bestseller because everyone with any level of thrown-together product is claiming it, then when and if you ever do achieve that real pinnacle, no one will believe you.  It’s a short-sighted strategy, based on the belief that the rest of us are too stupid to see the pattern.  We’re not.  So cut it out, already.  Work for your accolades, like your pre-iPad ancestors’ generations did.

My colleague – whose name really isn’t Sally and isn't even a woman – who thinks that integrity is something you turn on and off, is an example of the driving force behind so much cheating, on every  level, these days.  You tell yourself [and there’s always at least a tiny grain of truth in here] that you have been cheated, or the whole system is unfair and corrupt; this belief and the resentment it generates frees you from your moral imperative to being fair and honest yourself.   And then anything is possible.

Many people have a situational-cheater’s response to taxes.  Taxes are, as my anthropology students learn [see my YouTube channel Anthroisfun], the way that complex societies make sure that resources are redistributed.  In small groups of 20-40 individuals, as our ancestors lived for millions of years, until around 7,000 years ago, we shared our good and bad fortune on a daily basis.  No one hoarded; you shared the food you gathered or scavenged (or later, hunted) and no one went hungry.  If you made two knives, you gave one to your sister or cousin-in-law.  Once a money economy emerged, people could contribute coins instead of wheat and barley and goats, and still no one went hungry.  

Modern Western societies have become so complex, and so many of them,  including the USA, are unequal, unfair oligarchies, that the original purpose of taxing – to share food and provide for common goals like roads, medical care, education of the young, and defense against enemies – can be ignored, while you focus on the things you don’t like or approve of.  It’s impossible to have 330 million people agree on anything, including “the sky is blue.”  For example, in Seattle, the sky is actually varying shades of grey.  If we get a tiny patch of blue sky, we all go nuts and stop talking about politics for the duration of the blessed event.  My otherwise-admirable colleague could give you a litany of things that she refuses to contribute to, and thus is morally justified, in her own mind at least – maybe in yours – in pocketing cash that she refuses to share.

But taxes support children and disabled people, and I’ve been both. You have been a child.  If you are blessed to live a long life, you will be too old to earn a salary.  Taxes fix the roads, provide fire protection and libraries, and you need those things.  Taxes provide Sesame Street and Nova, the National Weather Service and Meals on Wheels; I’ve learned from the former and may live long enough to need the latter.  We all may.

 

I know how selective resentment can make nearly anything seem morally acceptable – and I am asking you all to become aware of it, too.  I have a class that brings people into connection with all the components of their ancestry (Meet Your Ancestors, launching on www.soaringdragon.biz/classes) including the noble and heroic.  These heroes are the parts of your DNA that you can tap into when you feel yourself getting up a head of steam around justifications for resentments.  A new class on Freeing Your Soul From the Poison of Resentment is debuting soon to give you tools for this.  

It all starts with awareness of what is really going on inside your thinking, and a commitment to listen to the better angels of your nature.  Deep breath and make a choice.  Pay your taxes, on all your income.  Give generously to those who have less than you do.  Realize what a hero you are for doing both.  YOU, my friend, are protecting seniors and children, and the disabled, and you are the guardian and protector of your community.  Be proud of yourself.  

And remember the Hindu scripture, “Do not despise your neighbors who are poor, for many poor people were once well-off.  And you may someday be poor.”  We’re all in this together, my friends, we truly are.

If we all learn how to call on our inner hero, regardless of the choices that the swamp around us makes, we will have a roadmap to creating a paradise out of this Earth that we have inherited. 

  Take a step on that path today.  Take another step tomorrow.  Repeat until the day you die.

Harness the Energy of Nature for Your Own Transformation!

The sun is just starting to climb over the horizon.  Dawn is here.  In the same way, Spring is the season for beginnings.  As the Light begins to return, more and more each day, our human bodies get more serotonin, and more dopamine.  We have a surge of energy.  We are throwing off the lethargy of winter.  Harness this natural biological surge and move forward.  Do the 5 Breaths meditation listed earlier, or another free guided journey from my website www.soaringdragon.biz/classes, and when you are deeply relaxed, softly and gently ask your deep unconscious what it really wants.  This is the part of you that always knows what you really want the meaning of your life to be.

Pick one small change - perhaps in your health or how you spend your life - and make a commitment to yourself.  Start walking every day for 20 minutes.  Check out my recipes and ideas for healthier eating.  Read my blog for steps to take for more self-love and self-respect.  Start Dumping the Garbage every night (see 101 Stress Busters).  Just one small thing, not a major make-over, because that can scare your unhealed inner child so much she starts sabotaging - and it scares other people into sabotage as well.  Just one small thing.  Commit to it utterly.

Set up rewards for yourself (not food-related, please; meditate until you know what you really want and aren't giving yourself permission to have), when you do your one small thing every day for a week.  And keep your word to yourself. You're a person of integrity.  You deserve to be able to rely on your word.  Give yourself that reward - perhaps time to yourself.  I have a client who went to her sister's house for 90 minutes every Saturday, just for Me Time, because she could not trust her family to respect her boundaries.  Eventually, she was able to have Me Time at home, and also Creative Time when the whole family did various art projects together - bliss!  Whatever your rewards are, know that you CAN brainstorm the rewards that are small in cost but huge in meaning and personal value.

Everywhere, plant life is coming into exuberant form, pushing up through the earth, bursting into colorful bloom or lush foliage.  You are part of this ageless rhythm as well.  Let the energy of spring flow through your veins and answer the call with a clear and exultant YES!  The journey of a lifetime is accomplished step by step.  Take a step and commit to another one every day....

Have you Heard?? Moderately Overweight Is Healthier Than Being Slim!

Except that it's not true.....

There was a big flurry of reporting about a meta-study that seemed to indicate that being a bit chub was better than being slim. A bunch of doctors thought that there was an unseen factor at work: many illnesses cause loss of weight. Were some of those slim people really ill with things that only showed up later ?

New study says yes: if you eliminate the people who recently lost weight due to illness, and just look at longer-term trends, then the "advantage" of moderate chub disappears and you are left with the same message that we've been hating.....

Overweight kills. It takes years off your healthy potential lifespan, either by making you ill & miserable or by killing you outright.

We're not talking about 10 pounds for a woman of average height. If you are over 60, 10 pounds has a very small impact on mortality or morbidity (getting sick with a serious disease), and even at a younger age, it's not worth heroic measures to get that gone. But DON'T LET IT GET OVER 10 POUNDS.

I know that many of my clients and friends are sick of the weight/fat issue. Fair enough. But I have to keep banging on about it, because my work is about facts and truth. I have to tell you what is true, not what you want to hear, as a matter of ethics.

And the more fun you're having, the easier everything else is, including eating kale and working out every single day, if you choose the path of health and longevity. I put together a whole lotta fun in 101 Stress Busters (Amazon or your local bookseller) and I have some very relaxing journeys (FREE) on the Classes tab of soaringdragon.biz.

Make your life joyous, whatever life path you choose!