Deadline for open enrollment in Obamacare’s health insurance exchange is December 15th,, 2017. Enroll now if you haven’t done so already - https://www.healthcare.gov
If you miss it, you will have to wait until the end of next year unless you fit certain criteria of exceptions
Are you in desperate need of healing? There are many aspects of healing
such as receiving the right medical treatment, keeping the whole in mind as well as the part you are healing, and releasing mental poison. I intend to
cover these and other aspects of healing in the future. However, there is one often neglected spiritual aspect in
healing I want to focus on here. You must not neglect it.It is this - getting the message God wants you specifically to get.
Is there a message God has been providing you,
but you have been ignoring (or closing your ears to)? You need to get this message already if you want to heal as
completely as possible and get out of the danger.
Most likely, God allowed you to go through this
storm so that you would listen to the message He has specifically for you.
Whatever message you are supposed to get, the sooner you get the message
(and act accordingly), the sooner you get out of the storm.
In 2004, I went through the toughest medical
crisis I had encountered so far. At the time, there was so much uncertainty of
how I would turn out physically. My eyesight was at risk. (For a better idea of what I went
through, feel free to visit my Facebook support group where I and many others
have shared our experiences at - https://www.facebook.com/eyedisease
).
I had a condition where I risk losing eyesight if
I didn’t have surgery.I would have one
eye surgery to keep me from losing eyesight.Then three weeks later, the doctor would see that the surgery didn’t
work.Then I would have another
surgery.They would see that it didn’t
work.Then it would be another one.Then another one.That lasted for almost a year.It was frustrating and scary with all the
uncertainty. I didn’t know how I was going to turn out and I didn’t know
when I would stop needing surgeries (or when the surgery after surgery after
surgery would end.)
Pretty much, it was the most fearful crisis not
only because of the uncertainty of my eyesight in jeopardy,
but there was the domino effect where the medical crisis caused other problems
such as my job being at jeopardy and therefore my health coverage from the job
being at jeopardy.Needless to say, I
must keep my health coverage at the time because I did not know when I would
stop needing surgeries. In addition, there were nuanced complexities with my health insurance I had to deal with and I had to deal with all that on my own (without family nearby) in California. I had to deal with all that while I am scrambling to heal and to come out of the crisis
safely.
Apparently, the solution is healing completely.
The physical or medical problem was the root of this crisis and healing
completely would be the start of the solution.
Again, there are many aspects of healing in
addition to medical treatment. (Notice I said in addition to, not in
place of, medical treatment.) Getting the message from God is the most important of these aspects of healing.My medical
crisis in 2004 pushed me to realize the importance of getting the message from
God when you desperately need healing (or desperately need to get out of
another type of crisis).
“Getting the message” involves doing whatever
the message is indicating. It’s not just hearing the message and not
doing anything (or not changing anything). You have to do whatever it
takes to heal (or get out of the crisis). Start with getting the message
and following the message.
There was a message I had been ignoring for at least two years prior to this medical crisis of
2004. For several years before this
medical crisis, I felt a message from above that was telling me to leave
the comfortable road I was on. At the time, I was working at the most flexible andcomfortable job (with great benefits) and
therefore, I was unwilling to move on. In my comfort, I had been ignoring
the message telling me to move on elsewhere.
When the crisis occurred, I was forced to
examine/contemplate what was going on with my life and where I should be going.
During that crisis, I had surgery after surgery. For some of the
surgeries, the doctor ordered me to lie down in a specific position 24/7
(required to increase the chances of regaining and keeping eye sight). Lying down in a specific position 24/7 forced me to
contemplate, and to talk to God.
Despite my back pain I was re-aggravating from lying down 24/7 in one specific position (in addition to the excruciating post-surgery pains in
my head and my eye), something good came out of this. It pushed me to
really get the message. It was during these times that moved me to (have
the resolve and) make a promise to act according to the message after healing.
Here’s what I resolved to do or promised to do when (not if, but when) I heal completely:
Get off the “common boulevard” that everyone’s always
known. (I will probably explain the "common boulevard" in another lesson/blog.) Quit my job when I am healed or when my condition stabilize.
I am to move on to something else God has in store for me.
Get on the uncommon (less known) path for the rest of
my life (even though the specifics were not clear at the time).What was clear was that I was meant to
serve a lot more people than I was doing in a research lab.
Shortly after deciding this (and making this
promise), I had another surgery. That one was successful and my medical
condition stabilized after this (although it took more months to complete
the recovery fully.)When my condition
stabilized, I quit my job and got off the “common boulevard”.
Again, this “getting the message” is only one
aspect of healing.However, it is a
crucial and often neglected part of healing (or of getting out of another type
of storm.)Get the message if you want to survive or to get
out of the storm unscathed (or safely in one piece). The sooner you get the
message, the sooner you get out of the storm, and the less permanent damage you
would sustain. Also, keep in mind that there may be more than one
message.
Homework for Healing (or surviving another type of crisis)
1. Write down (or list) two to three possible messages that God may be trying to get to you.
2. For each of these possible messages, what is it that you are supposed to do from this point forward. Visualize and plan what you are to do from this point forward, according to the message(s).
3. Put what you've written here somewhere that you would see every day. (It could be in your wallet. It could be on your mirror. It could be on your desktop of your computer. Whatever works for you.) Read it, think about it, and visualize it daily. (You may also tweak/revise what you've written down along the way, as the message would probably become more and more clear as time goes on.)
Anjelah Johnson was a cheerleader for the Oakland Raiders later turned standup Comedian. In the past, she often made fun of Christian rappers for laughs. Little did she know, joke's on her.
Long story short, she later married a Christian rapper.
When she first told her family and friends about this guy and they asked her “What does he do?” she reluctantly answered, “Um, he’s a Christian rapper.” That resulted in the biggest laughs.
As Anjelah Johnson now knows, God is probably saying, "The joke’s on you girl." But she too is laughing happily.
Dan Clark writes in a short story about his experience in college when he met an eighty-year-old student, Rose. Rose was cheery, humorous, and full of life. She was also full of wisdom from her life experiences. Dan Clark and Rose became good friends.
“Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this “time machine” as she shared her wisdom and experience with me,” wrote Clark.
Rose’s vibrant personality along with her wisdom did not only appeal to Clark, but she was magnetically attracting attention everywhere on campus. As Clark wrote, “Over the course of the school year, Rose became a campus icon and easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from other students. She was living it up.”
One lesson from Rose that stood out the most to Clark was from her speech at a football banquet. One of the most important point in that speech was: You have to have a dream [especially one tied to a greater purpose].
“You’ve got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die. We have so many people walking around who are dead and they don’t even know it!” exclaimed Rose with the attention of the whole audience.
Rose also noted a second point: When you have a dream and purpose you are striving toward, you should also “laugh and find humor each and every day.”
We need to continue playing in this game of life. This was a third important point in Rose’s speech. “We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
We need to continue to get better and better every day in this game of life, I like to add. (Also, it’s more about getting better than yourself - the self yesterday, last month, and last year rather than better than someone else.) If we want to be happy, we need to have progress and not be stagnant.
“If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don’t do one productive thing, you will [just] turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.” This is how you would become more and more miserable.
Just turning one year older doesn’t do anything. It’s when you change for the better having progress in some area; that’s what you need to do. If you just turn one year older year after year, with no improvement, no progress, and nothing to show for that year, you will not just be one year older, but you will be a little bit more miserable. If that’s the case year after year, the misery will multiply and you will end up a lot more miserable. Also, what you do and the progress you make should NOT be in an area determined by society, by anyone else, or by your ego (which is influenced by everyone else). What you do and your progress should be in an area determined by you and God (and no one else).
Technology is a big part of our lives and we often come across technical problems. The following is a solution for a common problem when you are watching a video on your computer from a website and it doesn't play. If it's a flash video, the following steps would most likely solve the problem:
A few weeks ago, I went into my Google Drive and opened an important folder (that contains years of my work) only to find that it's completely empty. I started to panic and tried different things. The following is what I did before all my files appeared again and I suggest you try this:
1. Click "Refresh" on the browser. (You can alternatively press the "F5" key if on a PC.) Most likely, this alone will make your files appear again.
2. Log out of Google.
3. Clear cache and history on your browser.
4. Check your internet connection and make sure your internet connection is not intermittent (on and off). Test other websites and application requiring internet connection to make sure there's no problem with your internet connection. [If you suddenly lose connection to the internet, naturally your Google Drive folder will appear empty because your files are stored online and not in your computer.]
5. Restart your computer.
6. Go into your Google Drive again.
7. If you still don't see your files, click "refresh" on your browser again.
After You Recover Your Files and Folders and Google Drive, Do the Following
For important folders and files that you put on, keep a backup elsewhere such as on your desktop computer or on a USB hard drive.
Other People's Experience as Posted on Discussions Online
Although my Google Drive is the free 15GB version, this sudden disappearance of files happened also to people with the PAID version of Google Drive, as I've searched them out online. Therefore, I strongly recommend that you have backup copies of your files elsewhere, even if you have the paid version of Google Drive.
If I want to be free, I got to be me. Not the me that you think I should be. Not the me that my wife or husband thinks I should be.
Not the me that people stereotypically thinks that an Asian man, a black woman, a black man, an Asian woman, a white woman, a Latina, a Latino, ... or a white man should be. Not the me that my kids think I should be. If I got to be free, I got to be me. But I better know who "me" is. The best way to know that is to connect to the Creator and keep asking Him.
Adapted from Bill Gove's speech with my own elaborations.
* By the time Francis Chan was sixteen, his mom is dead, his step mom is dead, and his dad is dead. (His mom died while giving birth to Francis. His step-mother died in a car accident. His dad died of cancer when he was twelve.) Then his remaining guardians Uncle George and Aunt Sandra also died (in a murder suicide.) At a young age, Francis Chan had experienced more instability than most of us have.
* When things around us become unstable, we tend to play it safe, and we hug and straddle the balance beam [instead of performing on it] as Francis demonstrated in his analogy of Olympics’ gymnastics.
After experiencing some instability, we tend to think, "This is crazy. I'm just going to have my nice little family. We're going to keep to ourselves. We're going to live in a gated community. I'm going to home school my kids [and] make them wear helmets everywhere. I'm not going to let them outside because the sun has bad rays... You just live your life in this - I don't want to do anything crazy for God. I just want to go to church and give maybe 2%, and may be serve/help the nursery (because I feel guilty.) You do this your whole life. Your greatest prayer is, "God, I would love to die in my sleep and not even feel it, and I would love to go to heaven."
Imagine watching the Olympics and the girl just straddles and hugs the balance beam for several minutes throughout the whole routine, and then gets off the balance beam in a pose of victory. What is the judge supposed to do? "Wow, well done!" Is the judge going to say that? "Well done!" You lived the safest life possible. You didn't slip. You didn't fall." This is what the majority will do with their life. Do you want to go where the majority goes? Are you going the same way as the majority?
* I don't want to go where the majority goes.
Contemplation/Free-writing Exercise
Write two or more paragraphs addressing one or more of the following questions. Do you think you will be happy and fulfilled just pursuing a safe comfortable life with money, a nice house, a nice car, a nice family with kids, and nice vacations periodically? Is this typical pursuit really going to make you happy when you obtain all of it? For those who already have attained all of these, are they truly fulfilled and happy? Not that we shouldn’t have this comfort and security. However, is there something else, something greater than yourself you should also pursue, alongside working for these necessities and amenities of life? How can you pursue something greater that would ironically also provide all these necessities and security in the long run? How can going where the majority does not, provide greater fulfillment (while also providing the lesser necessities and amenities most people pursue)? Are you currently going where the majority is going? Are you okay with that? If not, what do you need to do to change directions?
More life lessons and other lessons at SpirFit.org
You'd be amazed that some not considered to be Christians actually have more faith than Christians who proclaim "I believe" on Sundays. This was also true when Jesus was physically down here on earth with us. Jesus came across some people who were not considered to be of God, but Jesus was amazed at their faith. (Matthew 8: 5 - 13; Matthew 15: 21- 28)
So, what is faith? Faith is belief, but it's more than that. In addition to belief, it's a knowing, but it's even more than that. It's also an absolute certainty. More than that, it's an expectation that what you know will come about, especially with God by your side.
One simple demonstration of faith is the example of you having strep throat and your doctor gives you the drug Amoxycillin. The drug is more likely to work if you have faith (a knowing and an expectation) that it will work. Believe it or not, it has actually been shown in studies that your expectation (or faith) in a drug actually can affect how well it works on you. They call this the placebo effect in science. Some studies have even shown that your negative expectation (or belief that the drug will not work) may actually decrease the effect, or effectiveness, of the drug.
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1 NET http://bible.com/107/heb.11.1.net
Faith is a knowing and a certainty of something even though we have not seen or experienced it yet. In the analogy of the Amoxycillin drug, you would have faith that the drug will work even though you have never taken it in the past. If only we can apply this faith when it comes to God.
Your faith in God (your absolute knowing and certainty of His existence and your expectation that He is with you as you incessantly talk/pray to Him daily) will allow God to work in your life. When you lack faith, you block God from working in your life. Then you say, "There is no God in my life," and you would be right, but that's your fault.
Whether God works in your life or not, it's up to you. He is ready to give when you are ready to receive. You have to be receptive and have faith deep within you subconsciously, consciously, preconsciously, unconsciously, and whatever other levels of mind there are. But this is the tricky part - getting that faith ingrained deep in you at every level. (It's not just saying you have faith, as many do but it's just all talk.)
To help you with getting the faith you need deep in your mind and heart at every level, I strongly recommend that you start with the following readings or videos for just 15 minutes each day (or longer if you can):
Choose one of the following to do for at least 15 minutes a day:
"Minding the millimeter" is a very important principle
you must understand in many areas of life.
It's something you need to understand if you are dealing with diseases
such as eye disease where your eye sight is in jeopardy (which I had experienced). It is something you must
understand if you are building a business, running a business, or fixing a
sinking business. You need to understand
this principle if you are training in sports, especially professional sports. It's also important to understand this if you
are developing software or writing code.
Whatever outcome you are striving toward, you need to understand the
importance of minding the millimeter.
So, what exactly is minding the millimeter? Minding the millimeter, to put it simply, is
minding or attending to the seemingly minor things that do not seem to matter
much. However, the "minor"
things add up to (or multiply into) major problems.
The otherend is also true where, if you attend to
the right "minor" things, they add up to the major accomplishment or
outcome you are aiming for.
When people suffer from a loss (such as loss of eye sight from a
disease, loss in business, loss in sports, or failure in school), often it
may have been prevented if they did not neglect the millimeters, or the
seemingly minor things. (Or they could've had a better chance if they did not neglect the millimeters.) Although
neglecting the millimeter is usually not the sole cause of the problem, it is
usually a contributing factor. Again, I
must reemphasize that minor things add up or multiply into major
things. Therefore, minding the
millimeter is a crucial principle to put to practice in many areas of life, to prevent
crises and to keep from disaster (or at least improve your chances).
Mark Cavendish is not alone as many past winners of the Tour
de France also mind the millimeter adjustments. Every millimeter and every gram on the bike
counts. Every second matters. Athletes who perform at the highest
level in other sports are also just as meticulous in the smallest adjustments. In other sports such as running or swimming, a fraction of a second
may mean the difference between a bronze medal and no medal at all.
Even one millimeter or one fraction of a second matters. It can mean the difference between getting a medal and losing a medal.
Phil Jackson, the former basketball coach who has won ten NBA championships, taught his players this importance of not neglecting the small things. He told them that a war is lost on a single nail of a ship. Apparently, this was programmed into the mind of Michael Jordan (the most notable player coached by Jackson). Michael Jordan won all six of his NBA championships under the leadership of Phil Jackson.
Even after Jordan retired from basketball and now running his own multi-million dollar company, he assures that the smallest details of the products with the Jordan brand are up to his standards. Also, he applies this same principle of minding the millimeter to other business entities he owns. Unbeknownst to many, Michael Jordan after retiring from basketball has now become just as successful in business as he was a basketball player. As a matter of fact, Jordan's net worth has risen astronomically from when he had retired completely from the NBA. While most retired professional athletes' net worth do not change much, Jordan's impressive business performance increased his net worth so much that he has become a billionaire recently. ( He was a multimillionaire as an athlete, but became a billionaire as a business man. I do not know of any other professional athlete who became a billionnaire ten years after their retirement.) Jordan's habit of minding the millimeter allowed him to produce intended results in basketball as well as in business.
Likewise, many of you are also great at your work in solving problems or in
building something, and you understand exactly how the minor factors can
synergistically add up (or multiply).
Others of you understand this for other areas in your life, and you are
great with those areas of your life.
However, those of you who understand how this principle applies to your work neglect this when it comes to
another area, such as your health (or the medical problem you're dealing with)
whether it is eye disease, a severe infection of an organ, or another disease. You neglect this principle of minding the
millimeter, and you erroneously think, "What does it matter? It's only one small thing."
As a result, you suffer unnecessarily, or you lose. For example, the eye patient who (after
retinal detachment surgery) neglects one small thing such as adhering closely
to the doctor's instructions of what position to lie down and for how
long. Or the patient not following the doctor's exact instructions in how to take the post-surgery eye drops, how
frequently to take them, and when to stop.
Another example would be the patient neglecting overall health and
nutritional practices (like adequate intake of fruits and vegetables known to
be good for overall health and health of the eyes) because he thinks such
indirectly related factors or "minor" factors don't matter.
When unexpected complications occur after the eye patient neglect
a millimeter here and a millimeter there, they end up losing eyesight. Neglecting small things may contribute to
losing big.
Is it for certain that minding every significant millimeter would solve a
problem or allow you to produce the desired outcome? No, it's not a guarantee, but it
significantly improves your chances if you mind the millimeter. Nothing in life is a guarantee. A professional athlete training for a
championship is not guaranteed to win the gold medal, but it would be foolish
for him to neglect the training and neglect the millimeter adjustments just
because there's no guarantee.
Unfortunately, people have the foolish logic of not minding the
millimeter just because there's no guarantee.
As foolish as this is in sports, it's even more foolish to
neglect this principle of minding the millimeter when it comes to dealing with
your medical problem, especially when what's at stake is losing or keeping your
eyesight, or when it's life or death.
Another reason for this common fallacy (or error in thinking) is that one adjustment in itself or a small millimeter in itself does not solve the problem and therefore, why bother. This logic is flawed.
In the cases of the professional cyclists, they mind the millimeter adjustments even though any one small adjustment by itself does not directly make an impact. Again, all the small adjustments would add up or multiply, to make an impact indirectly or directly.
Maybe you are a computer programmer and you know that neglecting, or leaving out, a little part of the code can mean major problems, such as the whole application not working at all. Leaving out a small part of the code in one place, neglecting another small part here, and adding a wrong part there - would all add up to disaster. This is apparent if you are a good computer programmer or developer. Therefore, you are mindful of any "small" part of the code. Whatever it is you are facing or whatever it is you are building or striving for, you must mind the millimeter. When you adjust for one millimeter here, another millimeter there, and one gram here, they will all contribute toward the outcome you want (whether it is to heal from a disease, to keep your eyesight, or to turn a profit for your business.)
In your life right now, is there a bad
habit or a bad pattern that you are trying to break, such as stuttering, eating too
much unhealthy foods, overeating in general, or any recurring
behavior that is causing you misery in the long run?Is there an addiction that you are trying to
rid, such as smoking, cutting, drinking, drug addiction, or any other type of
common or uncommon addictions?
One of the first
things you need to do before you break a pattern is to go back in time in your
mind and remember when the pattern began.
The following video
shows a thirty-year-old man, Rechaud, who has severely stuttered speech for most of his
life and how he was guided by Anthony Robbins to think back and remember the
time when his speech impediment started.The stuttering man remembered the time when he was around three years
old when he watched a cartoon in the mornings where one of the characters with a
speech impediment often yelled for help.During this time of this man’s early life, his father was physically
beating his mom.As a child, he
subconsciously started stuttering which presented a problem to distract his
father from physically beating his mother.
Remembering this
childhood memory was an important step toward stopping his lifelong pattern of
severe stuttering.As a matter of fact, this
man stopped stuttering from that day forward, after remembering when the
stuttering started.
Remembering and
Writing Exercise
For whatever
pattern or habit you are trying to break:
Think
back to the very first moment (or the time period) the pattern started and the
brief period AFTER the pattern started.Even if you can’t remember a specific moment, remember the approximate
time period.How old were you?Picture the environment you were in and the
people around you.What did you look
like?What did the people around you
look like?What was happening in your
life at the time?What were you
doing?What were people around you
doing?What or how were you feeling at
the time?Remember and describe as much
as possible.
Now
think back at the time period BEFORE the pattern started that may have contributed
to your unintentional adaptation of this pattern (or caused you to subsconsciously
adapt this pattern.)What was happening
in your life before the pattern started.Usually, we adapt these bad patterns to get away from pain or to survive
(and also probably to obtain ephemeral pleasure).
If you
want me to guide you with the next steps to break your bad habit or pattern,
feel free to email me at healthsciencewriter@gmail.comwith
what you’ve written here.Be sure to
title the email “Breaking a Pattern or Habit”.
Clarification for Possible Misunderstanding
Let me be clear in case there’s any misunderstanding. Not everyone will get results this quickly with just one step. Some will, but not everyone will. In other words, I am not saying that this exercise in remembering (and writing) is all you need to stop addictions or stuttering in all cases. Not at all. I am merely saying that this exercise is one step or one part of a whole set of strategies. Although this stuttering man was cured with this one step, many will require additional strategies. This is especially true with patterns like addictions. If you are trying to break your pattern of any type of addiction, this exercise in remembering should not replace conventional medical treatment. Instead, it should be used in addition to conventional and medically recognized treatment.
Note for Coaches, Teachers, Advisors, and Trainers
• Put
attention on what you want whenever it shows up. Notice when Rechaud said one phrase
without stuttering, “Sign me up for that,” Tony stopped immediately to put both
their attention on it.
“Say that again,” requested Tony.Tony was applying the principle of focusing on the behavior they want to grow (instead of focusing on what they don't want) .In this case, you want the normal non-stuttering speech to grow (not the stuttered speech).
• Get
your client or student to put his mind on a model he wants to become (whether
it’s a metaphorical model or an actual person).After Rechaud remembered the genesis of the problem (in his childhood)
and after some strategies in releasing (that in Rechaud’s unconscious mind that
had bound him in severely stuttered speech), Tony guided Rechaud to put Rechaud’s
mind on the metaphorical model of person Rechaud wants to be, like the warrior “and
the warrior never stutters.”
