Question

One day, my niece asked me this question:

"Suppose a couple has driven their car out on one of those desolate roads in the middle of nowhere. They come to a four-way intersection and stop in the middle of the road.

What happens next?

Possibilities:

1.     They contemplate a moment and say, "This is an adventure, let's go that way. One points, and they laughingly go on their way.

2.     From out of the blue, another vehicle crashes into them.

3.     A devil appears and says he will give them their heart's desire (Maybe a recording contract), but in return, they must promise to give him their soul.

4.     They continue straight ahead in the direction they were going without much thought about it. They were only stopping for a breather.

5.     Can you think of another?

I'm thinking this is a road trip across the US, so there are many choices along the way.

If you are a writer, you might want angst like the crash. Or you might have been conditioned to expect the worst.

 You might be a person who thinks they must pay or suffer to get what they want.

You might be a person who takes a chance, or one who doesn't.

You might be part of a couple that gives in without expressing your opinion. Or you might be a couple who will argue endlessly and never come to an agreement. One person might give in to the other, then fume for the next 50 miles.

All this came up for me from this picture from an old blog, November 27, 2023

This picture struck me. It's of our yard, a Japanese maple, a fig tree, a St John's Wort. (The one with red berries.) Yet where did our eyes go? To that one little dead leaf up high in the fig tree. That's the way with people. We can't help it, we are built to find the broken, the moving, the different. It has survival value. 

It's the way our mind works.

"My mind is boggled." I wrote on that 2023 post. "I'm frustrated, disenchanted, disappointed, and when I tell my daughter of this, she says that others feel the same way.

"After all my grumbling, complaining, and ineptitude, I couldn't stand the News. And, as I like to keep a novel going most of the time, I was tired of trudging through pain, anguish, and grief to get to the happy ending. I was tired of movies that made me sad and publishers that want tension between lovers and angst in life because, without it, they have no story.

"I remembered a time when we were proud to be Americans, and when GI Joe was a good guy."

That gripe is two years old. That night, divine guidance led me to Louise Hay's book You Can Heal Your Life.

 She speaks of Affirmations. Well, Affirmations and I have a long history. I remember getting assignments to write an affirmation 100 times before bed.

That was penance.

I understand that an affirmation is meant to drum a new thought into our heads. (You never change an old thought without replacing it with a new.) But what if you plant the seed and then leave it to grow? A seed has its own internal guidance system, and that is, given the right conditions, like soil, minerals, and water, it will sprout. Love can help. But do not dig it up to see if it sprouted. (As with repeatedly writing the affirmation which is saying you don't believe it will happen unless you drum it into The Source.)

Trust that the seed will grow.

Think of affirmations this way: Every thought is an affirmation. (I know we have unwanted thoughts; don't beat yourself up. Be kind to yourself. We have a screwy brain. Yep, there are dead leaves, for heaven's sake climb up there and pluck them out, or wait, they will fall.

And remember, every moment is new. If we choose to believe we are helpless victims and that all is hopeless, the Universe will support that belief.

Every cell in our body responds to every single thought we think and every word we speak. Continuous modes of thinking and speaking produce body behaviors, postures, and ease or dis-ease.

Last week, I suggested that we get happy. And I was using Joseph McClendon III's definition of happiness:

"Happiness is a mental and emotional state of being where your internal focus is optimistic and the body produces positive energy."

It doesn't address Ha ha happy. It doesn't say  "Just think happy thoughts." It doesn't say that sometimes we need friction to get us motivated and off our butts. (or buts.)

Neither does it ignore that we read, hear, or see dire things. And we also see beautiful things. It means having the mental and physical capacity to carry us through.

To quote McClendon:

"Inside you is a warrior ready to conquer the world.

"You were wired for happiness, adventure, and abundance. Those attributes were embedded into your soul from birth. You didn't enter the world with a whimper. You entered it bold and defiant!"

Now sit up straight, hold your head up, look straight ahead, and put a big, stupid grin on your face.

Do you feel better? 

 

 P.S.

Do you have any suggestions for josnewsletter.com/

It is a babe in the woods barely digging its way out of its den, oh no, and with winter coming, well maybe we can snuggle in someplace else. Even Timberline Lodge at the base of Mt Hood in Oregon, has a gorgeous huge roaring fireplace.

A Survival Guide

 

Lowering your risk of catching Covid19, and/or recovering easily from it.

Stumbling really works…how I found this guy, I’ll never know, but I stumbled into him, and he blew me away. I have to share a bit of medical advice. It’s just snippets, I don’t know what I’m talking about all that much, but this interviewer and interviewee does. And I bet many of you, like me, want to survive this Covid19 invasion.

I had to search massively to find out who I was listening to, for he slipped his intro passed me so fast I couldn’t catch it.

He was interviewing Dr. Ron Sinha—I got that, but who was the interviewer? He understood physiology so well, I wondered who in the heck he was. And talk about upbeat. I loved him.

I found the Interviewer Ito be a DOCTOR, comedian, and Internet celebrity who goes by the name Dr. Z. His show is Z DoggMD, and his name is Zubin Damania.

Okay, let’s get on with it. I’ll post a few gleanings from the interview, and if you want to watch the entire show, I’ll give the link.

How to Survive Covid19:

First, a little background.  Covid19 is a metabolic disease.

That means it enters the cell and does it’s dirty work there in the mitochondria of the cell. If you remember, the mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell. They are little organelles that float about in the cytoplasm of the cell. Dr Sinha used a cut-open watermelon to demonstrate the cell. The red is the cytoplasm (imbued with sugar of course), and a cut Persimmon stuck into the red is the mitochondria.

When the mitochondria become overworked, it shuts down, so the invading virus changes the cells metabolism. The mitochondria can actually die, and with that comes a decrease in ATP, a chemical-carrying molecule that transforms food chemicals into energy. 

Without the work of the mitochondria, the cell relies on the inefficacy of that red watermelon, uh cytoplasm, to do the work, and it does a poor job of it.

The overall density of the mitochondria increases with aerobic exercise. (Aerobic, means with air. It is exercise like walking, swimming, etc. vs anaerobic–that is fast intense exercise that, can’t be sustained for long like weight-lifting.) There can be many mitochondria in a cell. The greater their density, the more ATP produced, thus more energy. (There are a multitude of mitochondria is a sperm cell. That little bugger needs a lot of energy for his uphill swim.)

The reason some people get sick, or die from Covid19 is that their mitochondria is already compromised, and adding another attack overwhelms it.

There is a phenomenon in India called “India Enigma,” where people have very little reaction to the Covid19 virus. They are so resilient to pathogens that the body says, “What another one? Throw it at me.”

The reason old-folks and people with heart disease and diabetes contract or die of Covid19, is that, one, they usually live a sedentary life, probably don’t eat that healthily, and often have some health condition, thus their poor little mitochondria are maxed out.

Oh dear, and here comes the “Sedentary life-style. In the last few years, I have become so computer oriented that I sit a lot. Sitting is dangerous. However, you don’t have to rush outside and do manic exercise, just stand up every thirty minutes. So, I guess getting up to let the dog out 50 times a day is good for me. And now I’m going for a cup of coffee. You stand up. I’ll be right back.

I’m back. Regarding exercise, go at a level that would give you around 141 blood pressure, not up to 161 as in biking up hills. Although you might feel great afterward a push up a hill, that’s an Adrenalin rush, and the following day you won’t feel so great. Dr. Sinha says to exercise for fast recovery.

Dr. Sinha also uses an elastic band around his thighs when sitting so he can press outward against it, and thus increase his core strength. It’s one exercise you can do while sitting down.

When you begin to do more exercise and you get twiggy that’s good. It means your metabolism has sped up.

Tense muscles = tense mind. Try to relax the tension in your body.

You need a good Nitric Oxide level for heart health and circulation. Look for red fruits, and vegetables, and don’t use mouthwash. It kills your nitric oxide.

Vitamin D 3, has anecdotal evidence that it’s helpful in combating Covid19. Take 2,000 mg.

If you use sun exposure to obtain Vitamin D, go for one-half your burn time, and wear minimal clothing.

Dr, Sinha said he used to mistrust woo-woo, but now he is looking to ancient wisdom considering how much they knew without the use of modern equipment.

Regarding kids staying home: Many are learning resilience. Dr. Z says his daughter has been happy not to have to choose clothing every morning, and then face the judgment.

 Now she says she could go to school in a garbage bag.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQN6Wds_YSw

 Now, take a lesson from your kitty. Lie on your back with all four paws in the air, and say, “I’m worthy.”