On pneumonia, car accident, and living life to the fullest (part 1)

I could not believe it. I was diagnosed with pneumonia on part of my left lung. Now, it’s been a relatively healthy 4 years for me (well, save for occasional common cold), with not a single GP visit. So naturally it was a bit of a shock to me. But I know I am responsible for catching it, and now I am responsible for healing it – so I accepted it. Read on…

If you’ve known me for the last few years you probably could tell that I’m not a big fan of the allopathic medicine and prefer natural approach to health. What I meant by natural approach is helping or creating the necessary conditions for the body to heal itself naturally, instead of bombarding it with synthetic pharmaceutical drugs that often only mask the symptoms instead of addressing the root cause, and have more harmful side effects than telling your local gang member he’s freakin’ ugly and his gang sucks :). Well that’s not a blanket statement however, as I believe pharmaceutical drugs has its place. In certain cases it may be what’s needed to safe life in life threatening situations. My concern is that it is too often used for everything, even for something as minor as headache, and when it is (mis)used for ‘invented diseases’ like ADD/ADHD when they do more harm than good, turning healthy kids into drugged zombies. I’ll elaborate a bit and share the links about this later on in this post…

However, two days ago I decided to visit my cheerful GP, Dr.Wong, as the fever seemed to come and go and the cough was persistent. Well my wife kinda pushed me too I must admit hehehe… He put me on antibiotics – I did not resist this because I believe this is one of the cases where it is appropriate. My wife and I then visited the pharmacy a few doors down from my GP’s. The friendly pharmacist recommended some pro-biotics to replace good bacteria that get killed by the antibiotics, so I got some too. This particular one claims that there are 25 billions good bacteria (with name like Acidophilus, I bet they are Greek :)) in one capsule.

Yep, so here I am resting at home (yeah now and then I do check my facebook or what have you, or even updating my blog heheheh), but admist my interrupted sleeps, meditation (to help me go back to sleep, worked 80% of the time), and simply the mind wandering when you are bed-ridden, I received insights and images that in turn made me even feeling grateful for this pneumonia.

Grateful? Well, the persistent coughing has exercised my muscles and made my six-pack a bit more like a Greek god’s :). Yeah that's something to be grateful for, but in all seriousness, the feeling of gratitude is deeper than that.

I’ve always believed that my outer world is merely a reflection of my inner world, and that there’s a mental pattern for every disease that manifests in my physical body. This time is no difference, I thought. So I pulled out the beautiful book called “You Can Heal Your Life” by Louise Hay from my bookshelf. I remember buying it at a neat bookshop at Gladstone Rd. Gisborne, on our first trip to that town in autumn 2007. This was actually the 2nd time I bought the book of the same title, I gave the first one to my mom 3 or 4 years ago. It really is a beautiful book, mine is a special edition with great illustrations and full colored pages! So I opened the pages and started to look up “pneumonia” and “lung problems” in the table.

For pneumonia, it is said that the mental patterns can be:

• Desperate? Hmmm, not that I can think of.
• Tired of life? Hmmm, nope… most of the time I think life is soooo good :). So this can’t be it.
• Emotional wounds that are not allowed to heal? Hmmm… maybe, but I can’t think of any of them yet.

And for lung problems they can be:

• Depression? Hmmm, nope. I’m a happy chappie, at least most of the time.
• Grief? Hmmm, not this either.
• Fear on taking in life? Hmmm, not really – I always welcome new experience. But I’ll dig deeper.
• Not feeling worthy of living life fully? Hmmm… perhaps we’re on to something here, because lately the desire to “live life to the fullest” was the driving force behind the choices I made.

(to be continued)…

What energies do you allow into your life?

Hello again my friends, I’ve been meaning to write a blog on this topic for awhile but never got around to it, until now! I was watching an introduction for a new video on "Psychic Self Defense" by Matt Furey (author, martial arts master, entrepreneur extraordinaire, among others) at http://www.psycho-cyb.com/psychic_self_defense.html when suddenly I felt that nudge to write. Thanks Matt!

Okay, back to the title. What kind of energies do you allow into your life?
Huh? That’s quite a common response I get when I ask this question.

Let me elaborate a bit… think of a day in your life, perhaps yesterday or even today. How did you feel at the end of that day? Happy? Sad? Angry? So-so?

• Remember the people you interacted with. Were the interactions pleasant? Were they supportive? Uplifting? Annoying? Utterly useless? How did these people make you feel?
• Did you watch the news? Was it mostly good news or bad news? How did the news make you feel?
• To relax, did you watch a movie or play a video game? What’s the movie / video game about? How did it make you feel after you watched / played?

Unless you live in a cave, you’ve probably heard this phrase “everything is energy”. Yes, when you come right down to it, everything in existence is made of energy. It is the “building block” if you will. Both the physical and non-physical – such as our mind, our thoughts – are no exception. Space and time are the dimensions within which energy moves.

Humans like you and me are complex energy systems that interact with everything around us, which are also energy systems. When you look at this ‘building block’ level, everything is connected. To illustrate, when a butterfly flaps its wing in Japan, it affects the wind blowing over Jakarta… and when you are angry with someone, it affects the universe as a whole, although you can’t really see it.

Earlier on I asked you to think about a day in your life, and how you felt at the end of that day. Did other people you interacted with, the news you listened, the movie you watched or video games you played, affect how you feel? If you answer honestly, if you are a flesh & blood human, you would say “of course”.

From my own observation, the mainstream media reports mainly the negative stuff – ironically - because it sells. Did you feel a bit depressed or heavy after hearing the news about the terrorist attacks, the state of the economy, accidents in places you probably never heard of? On a more positive note, did you smile when you recall that a kind stranger put a coin into your expired parking meter, or feel uplifted when you found your good old friend you haven’t met in 20 years in Facebook?

Indeed, back to the energy as the “building block” of the whole existence, everything you are interacting with, is energy. The people you meet and talk to, the news you listen, the movie you watched, the video games you play, affect your energy system whether you are conscious of it or not. In fact, our conscious mind is aware of a very very tiny portion (20 bits of information out of 20,000,000 might give you some idea) – the rest is absorbed into your subconscious without any filtering. In turn, it is what’s in your subconscious that largely affects how you feel, how you see the world, and how you react to experiences in your life. Is it any wonder that the level of crime and violence are escalating among young people – given the amount of the example given in the TV, movies and video games nowadays? Consider this fact:

• The average kid watches 4 hours of television each day.
• By age 18 the average child has seen 16,000 simulated murders and 200,000 acts of violence on TV.
• TV shows have an average of 40 acts of violence an hour.
• 40% of programs feature "bad" characters who are never or rarely punished

Before we can do something about anything, first we need the awareness. Now that we are aware that everything around us affects us, we can choose to be more selective of what kind of energies you allow to interact with your energy system.

I don’t know about you, but personally I prefer to feel happy than depressed. I notice that the happier I feel, the ‘luckier’ I am and the more I attract experiences to be happy about. Wouldn’t it be cool if we can be happy most (if not all) the time? The good news is that we absolutely can, if we take responsibility of our own life and choose to!

For a start, we can choose not to listen to negative news, not to watch movies or play video games that have violence, not to listen to music with negative lyrics etc. I now only look at the news online from time to time, because I can choose to just skim the headlines to see what’s happening without being spoon-fed the full blown negative news like on TV or radio. If it’s something really important I would hear about it from others anyway. Maybe it’s just me… but the less I watch TV, it is much easier for me to feel happy!

To take it further, surround yourself with positive people that support you. If someone is dragging you down, find a way of how to deal with that kind of person more effectively. There are countless books or articles that you can find on how to do that in the ‘self help’ section of your local library or bookstore, or even online.

If you know what you’re passionate about (your hobby is a very good clue), surround yourself with like-minded people, and get to know those who are already in a higher level so you can learn from them. This will keep you inspired and motivated, and it will be much easier to focus on the positive. I can guarantee that you will feel much happier too.

To increase your immunity to outside negative influences, have an open mind and get to know the clearing techniques like EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), The Sedona Method, or even some more unusual ones like Ho’oponopono – all these methods can help with clearing the subconscious from the clutter you’ve accumulated. Check out the books or audiobooks by Joe Vitale, Wayne Dyer etc – just do some Google-ing and you shall find! Explore the methods presented and find one that works for you – no one method is suitable to everyone. If it feels right for you, it probably is.

All this will help you to be more in control of what kind of energies you allow into your life, and over time you will become more ‘immune’ to the negative ones. It is your defense mechanism if you will.

Well, see if it works for you my friends… I consider myself a perpetual beginner in this matter and just barely scratch the surface but I know what I share has worked for me and I hope it can be of value to you too.

Ciao for now and be well!!

PS: I know my writing / blogging style so far is probably ‘atrocious’ :) but hey I’d rather start writing - and get better at it as I go - than waiting!

What recession?

In the last few months, pretty much every day I hear people mention the R word, talking about the tough times, etc. Sometimes it is tempting to join the conversation and rehash the ‘facts’ that support the mainstream opinion. But as I know better now, that it is better to focus on the solution rather than the problem, I now can consciously choose to refrain from such discussion.

On the introduction of “Life’s Missing Instruction Manual”, Joe Vitale ( www.mrfire.com ) gave several examples that collectively we all have got through ALL so called ‘bad times’. We got through the Great Depression of 1929, two World Wars, and recently the Y2K panic.

What appears to be gloom and doom is often just the focus of the media.

Gandhi once said “When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it… always.”

The point is, Joe said: Life will always have ups and downs. The secret is to flow with the tide as best we can. Complaining about what is keeps you from spotting or even creating new opportunities. In every panic, in every generation, men and women with eyes wide open saw and seized opportunities.

This “bad time” might become the greatest period of prosperity for us.

There are opportunities around us… it is up to us to choose. Do we listen to mainstream media with all those doom and gloom? Or do we keep our eyes wide open so we can act when new opportunities come up?

As Joe said, listen, act, and prosper.

Ciao for now and be well my friends!

What is your Prosperity IQ?

If you have followed my blog at http://zensei8.blogspot.com/ you may know that from meditation I often got inspired to write and share about something dear to my heart. Well, that’s what happened on my morning meditation today.

Out of nowhere I remembered this little Prosperity IQ Quiz, which I found in Joe Vitale’s audiobook “The Attractor Factor” I had been listening a lot. The quiz was not created by Joe, but by Randy Gage from Prosperity Power Institute http://www.myprosperitysecrets.com/

I did this quiz myself and the result was quite revealing. It has helped me gaining clarity in this particular area of my life. I became more aware that there are so many limiting beliefs I bought into while growing up… the deeper they are in the subconscious, the more powerful they are.
Oh well here is the quiz… see how you score and feel free to leave a comment!

The Prosperity IQ Quiz
1. Do you secretly fear that if you become wealthy your family and friends might not like you anymore?

2. When you grew up, were you ever told things like “We may not be rich, but at least we’re honest!”?

3. Did your religious upbringing teach you that it is noble to sacrifice now, and that your reward will come in the afterlife?

4. Did you (or do you) feel guilty when you started to earn more than your parents did?

5. Were you raised to fit in and not do anything to stand out?

6. Did you grow up liking shows like Dallas, Dynasty, Gilligan’s Island, MASH and the Beverly Hillbillies where rich people were always presented as unscrupulous and conniving, or pretentious and bumbling?

7. Do you have chronic health challenges that doctors can’t seem to solve?

8. Did you ever get jealous of people with expensive clothes, cars and houses–which may have led you to develop a subconscious “hate the rich” mentality?

9. On some level, do you think it is somehow noble, romantic or spiritual to be poor?

10. Did you ever end a negative relationship–then immediately replace it with another one with a person just like the last one?

11. Have you sometimes used judgemental expressions like “poor as a church mouse” “filthy rich” or “obscenely wealthy”?

12. Have you ever made excuses for failure by saying things like “you have to have money to make money” “you have to know someone” or “you have to get in at the top”?

13. Do you relish being the underdog and fighting against the odds all the time?

14. Is it possible that you are experiencing health challenges, financial challenges, or business failures in order to evoke sympathy and attention from the people you are close to?

15. Are you in a stable relationship, have enough money to meet your needs, and basically healthy–but just feel like life is passing you by?

What is your Score?
If you answered No to 13 to 15 questions: you have a very strong prosperity consciousness and can probably pass this quiz along to someone else.

If you answered Yes to three or more questions: You likely have some issues of worthiness on a subconscious level. You may be in a holding pattern, afraid to leave your comfort zone. You’re probably not radically unhappy, but there is no passion and excitement in your life. You know something is missing, but you may not know what.

If you answered yes to five or more questions: you are quite likely in a stagnancy cycle. You make small advances, but also experience set-backs, so that you are not really breaking through to the real success and happiness and desire and deserve.

If you answer Yes to seven or more questions: You are headed toward, or already experiencing, a definite downward track toward serious emotional, physical and financial challenges. This is the kind of “victim cycle” Randy Gage was on when he lost everything when he was 30 before transforming his life and becoming a multimillionaire. It is imperative that you take immediate action to break the pattern and stop the failure cycle. This will involve uncovering the limiting beliefs you possess on a subconscious level and radically reprogramming yourself with positive ones.

This quiz was from Randy Gage http://www.myprosperitysecrets.com/

How do you score?
Ciao for now and be well my friends! :)

Look inside...

And a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.
And he answered, saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasures;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
Say not, "I have found the path of the soul."
Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."
For the soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

I have always loved this particular poem from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran as it contains profound spiritual truths.

As Carl Jung says
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes

2008 almost ends… a perfect time to get quiet, look inside and listen – what does your heart tell you?

Ciao and be well my friends!

What you see in others is inside you

Hello again my friends! I feel like sharing some of my experiences so here it is... Last Saturday, together with friends from our Heart Meditation group, we went to visit a number of pensioner housing complexes in West Auckland. The mission was simple… to give a small gift to those less fortunate to cheer up their day, as a way of giving back to the community and as an exercise in opening your heart to fellow human. Plus this is nearing Christmas time so we think it was a perfect time. Well I’ve never done this before so it was kinda stepping outside my comfort zone too…

These pensioner housing complexes are block of units purpose built to house the elderly after they left the workforce, maintained by Housing New Zealand who provides affordable housing for those considered on low income bracket. These units are modestly sized and pretty basic, but I think the standard is actually quite good. The more affluent retirees usually live in private retirement villages with better condition and facilities. In the complexes that we went to, most of the occupants live alone and most of them are over 60s – some of them are still very healthy with clear mind and cheerful, some are less mobile and/or look depressed.

There was one old war veteran that struggles to walk (he has one of those mobility scooters to get around), that still proudly wears his veteran jacket with various badges and pins. He looked a bit confused at first but soon began to light up. From what he told us and the photos he showed us, he seemed to have fond memories of his time in the service, and of his late wife who was once Miss Wanganui – it seems that he misses the ‘good old days’ much. At some point in our conversation, he pointed to a small wooden statue that he carved himself, and asked us to ‘pick it up from the head’. You might have seen something like this before. The statue was made of two parts, the bottom one is the base and glued to the table and the upper part (head & upper body) is hollow and encloses the bottom one. So normally the bottom part is hidden inside the upper one. Now this bottom part has a spring mechanism so that when the upper part is lifted up, this statue’s “thingy” suddenly springs to life! Well we all had a good laugh… and when we moved on to the next unit, he looked obviously happier than when we first saw him… that made us happy too :).

Another one is a classic example of ‘the attractor factor’ or ‘the law of attraction’ at work. This guy was quite a character – he’s an upbeat person and has a bright yellow van with big writing “I SUPPORT RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS” and even gave us a business card that has the same statement and his phone number. He just moved to one of the units in the complex, in fact he was still moving his stuff from his van to his unit. We all found it uncanny that he attracted the ‘random act of kindness’, or rather, we co-created that very event!

Going from door to door in three different housing complexes, we noticed that were met with different responses – from the very happy and grateful, to the folks that answered the door with reservation and suspicion, to the chatty ones, to those who won’t open the door, and those who chose not to receive for whatever reason. However, at least we were able to elicit a sincere smile from every single one of them… even one who chose not to receive the gift! For us that’s a priceless reward in itself.

Well, I think it was an interesting experience (plus the nice lady at the bakery we visited on the way back gave us a free muffin too heheheh). Everyone from our group enjoyed it for what it was and afterwards we talked about making it more regular. One observation I made is that what we notice in others’ behaviour or reaction is because we have it inside ourselves. For example, what I saw in the reactions of the people we met are in me too:
- I feel happy to receive unexpected gifts
- Sometimes I can be unwilling to receive something given to me for free, for whatever reason I then justify
- I see others with suspicion, or I reject other people without first finding out what they want

each of these actions has an underlying beliefs behind them:
- I believe that giving is good
- I believe that there is no such thing as a free lunch
- I believe there are many bad people and they’re out to get me

These beliefs frame my experiences into perceptions that make sense to me – they make me feel certain ways, and the feeling then shapes my actions.

Talking about beliefs, in “The Key”, Joe Vitale says that we are living in a belief-driven universe. Our beliefs as to what is possible, our realities, and our worthiness, etc., filters what comes to us. What we believe, consciously and unconsciously, is what we get.

By understanding that our beliefs shape our reality, we can be more aware of self-limiting ones and work on clearing them. I will elaborate more on beliefs and the clearing methods in my next blogs when I got around to it (I'll be having a well-deserved holiday to Gisborne and Napier on Monday, yaaay!)… so stay tuned!

I hope you all have a safe and wonderful Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year! Ciao and be well! :)

T I I S G - Turn it into something good

Gidday! My old best friend Denny posted a photo of him with Nick Vujicic (The Man Without Limbs, http://www.lifewithoutlimbs.org/ ) in Facebook this morning… and I suddenly felt the nudge to write up this short blog. Well I’m officially working from home today doing server migration, but since I’m waiting for the data to be transferred from the old server to the new one, I might as well use the waiting time to do something productive hehehe.

Anyway, back to Nick Vujicic. This guy is 25 years old and was born without arms or legs – something that, for most of us, is unthinkable and would probably crush our spirit or zest for life if it happened to us.

But for Nick, with his apparent love and surrender to God, the countless challenges and obstacles does not matter – he uses his condition to rise above and inspire people. In fact, his personal story helps him to be able to speak to groups of all kinds – young and old, impoverished, imprisoned, business people, children, people of all races, those with disabilities and those without them. He now travels extensively around the world, to share his testimony and love of God and inspire people from all walks of life.

Nick is an embodiment of the TIISG principle, which stands for Turn It Into Something Good. I first heard about this principle in Joe Vitale’s audiobook “The Attractor Factor”, which earlier version was called “Spiritual Marketing”. In the audiobook Joe shared the life story of Napoleon Hill and P.T. Barnum on how they turned something “negative” into something positive – just like Nick Vujicic does. You can read the article at http://www.soaringprofits.com/secretofnapoleonhill.shtml

We are often unaware that we have the ability to do this too. It is a choice. No matter what happens, take a deep breath and ask, “How can I turn this into something good?”

This question redirects your mind, because instead of looking at the problem, you are now looking for solutions. Isn’t this a brilliant way to learn how to operate your own brain? You become the master, not the slave, of your life.

The answer to the question will bring you new choices, happiness, and may lead you to wealth you never dreamed of before.

Ciao and be well my friends!

The Final Analysis

Perhaps you have similar experience too. For some reason, I always wake up around an hour earlier on weekends. Instead of going back to sleep (and feeling sluggish and spacey afterwards), often I choose to sit down and meditate for around 20 mins.

That's exactly what happened this morning, though I slept quite late last night after coming back from Flamenco Del Sur concert - which was fantastic. The concert itself finished around 10pm but some of us hang around at Rod Capper's house where the concert was held, to chat and network with fellow classical guitarists, learning new tricks from others, and trying some of Rod's new and not so new guitars (yep, guitarists LOVES to try other's guitars ;)). Oh perhaps I should mention too that Rod is a luthier (guitar maker) based here in Auckland , check out his website at http://www.capperguitars.com/

Sorry I digressed. Toward the end this morning's meditation, I suddenly remembered about this poem I've known for many years, which used to grace my fridge's door :). Somehow I felt the nudge to share it with you... so here it is!

You may have read it before. Little known fact is that it was written by Dr. Kent M. Keith, not Mother Teresa. It is frequently attributed to Mother Teresa as she had it posted on her wall.

The Final Analysis

People are often unreasonable, illogical,
and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, People may accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some
false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone
could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today,
people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the FINAL analysis,
it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway


Ciao & be well!!