“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” ~ Mother Teresa 

Imagine you buy four new tires for your car, but you hit a pothole in the road and get a blow-out on one. Can your car run smoothly with one flat tire?

Or, what if you put oil in your gas tank, or gas in your oil tank, will the car break down?

You might want to blame the tire, the car, the pothole, the city or your local government officials for not paving the potholes. But no matter who or what is to blame, irregardless of the reason, you’ve got a flat-tire that you need to repair.

The modern lifestyle has not been kind to the human body, and consequently, the human experience. Statistics of chronic disease today tell us so. But have you ever wondered how chronic disease affects us mentally and emotionally?

For many years, reports emerge telling us that mental illness is on the rise. The U.S. census says that in 2017, 8 million Americans suffer from serious psychological distress (SPD) — a term used to describe feelings of sadness, worthlessness, and restlessness that are hazardous enough to impair physical well being.

It’s fitting to wonder why so many people are suffering from serious psychological distress?

My research over the past 30 years shows that many of us are born with a bacterial imbalance in our body, the bacterial balance that keeps us physically, mentally and emotionally in check. Stable. Balanced.

If digestive health is out of balance, the balance of friendly bacteria and rogue bacteria are off, which impacts our overall wellbeing, including our mental and emotional wellbeing. The body is one unit. No system is a stand-alone unaffected by the other. Each system in the human body works synergistically with the other. If the digestive system is off, every other system is affected.

In my attempt to make sense of the tragedies from Columbine, Co, to Newtown, CT to now Las Vegas, NV, I’ve asked myself each time, would a physically, mentally and emotionally healthy person ever commit such a horrific act?

My response is the same every time, “of course not.”

But because I am a “lowest-common-denominator” kind of person, like, when I look for answers to big problems, like the rise of violence, injustice and hate in our country, I continue to break the question down for the lowest-common-denominator answer.

And every time, every single time, my response is the same common-denominator response: Where do I bring violence, injustice and hate into the world with my thoughts, words and actions? When do I act in ways less than who I am committed to being, because I didn’t good care of me? Violence is violence, yes?

I take my cue from Michael Jackson and begin with me. From this context I find my personal power and the action steps I can take that matter,

I’m starting with the woman in the mirror
I’m asking her to change her ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change…

From the context of wondering why violence, mass-shootings, injustice and hate are on the rise today, are the answers only stricter gun laws and overhauling the mental health care system? Or do we need to do the deeper work of looking at the ways we participate in perpetuating violence, injustice and hate, with our own thoughts, words and actions?

I don’t think there are any easy answers, in the face of the horrifying live-footage we’ve all seen in the news this week from Las Vegas, in the face of the deadliest mass-shooting in modern U.S. history.

But I think it’s fair to say that our country and communities are desperate for even the most simple expressions of kindness, if only a patient pause. I think it’s fair to say, that those who are different from us sorely need us to honor and love them for who they are, not who we think they should be. I think it’s fair to say that our families need our love more than ever, in spite of the gaping differences we might feel at times.

We need self-love… and sacred relationship with self too, to counter the rise of despair and sadness the U.S. census reports. How can we possibly hope to be a force for good in the world, if we carry self-loathing and violence in our hearts in an unhealthy body, instead of self-love and love for others in a healthy body?

The Buddha said,

Searching all directions
with one’s awareness,
one finds no one dearer
than oneself.
In the same way, others
are dear to themselves.
So one would not hurt others
if one loves oneself.

Again, there are no easy answers at times like this, but when I find myself judging any situation, tragedy or person, I always come back to me and ask lowest-common-denominator questions like, can I be kinder? Do I hurt others with harsh words, brash behavior, impatience or gossip? Is there another perspective? Can I be more loving? Can I be more generous? Can I take better care of me, so I can better take care of ‘you?’

I pray for all the families who lost loved ones in Las Vegas.

I pray for we who are charged with ending all the ways we contribute to judgement, hatred and malevolence in the world.

I pray that we learn better how to honor ourselves, our physical bodies, our emotional selves and our spiritual yearnings, so every choice we make flows from a clear and healthy body.

I pray that we learn better how to help each other care for each other.

I pray that we each seek ways to heal the our aching world.

I don’t think we can ever fully understand what happened in Las Vegas this past Sunday, October 1, 2017.

And while there are no easy answers, we can cast stones of patience, kindness and understanding.

If I do my part, by taking really good care of me (rather than looking everywhere outside myself for reasons, justifications and excuses why things are as they are), and you do your part, by taking really good care of you (fix the tire), we can join Mother Teresa and the efforts she began in sending ripples of change out into the world with every small act she extended. Surely that can make a difference. Yes?

If you were going to distill down into one sentence who you are, what would you say?

Me? I’ve always said, “I want to be the best version of me possible.”

Average never resonated.

Good enough felt mediocre.

Excellence? Excellence felt right.

Yes, illness brought me to my pursuit of excellence, but excellence took me over.

Why would you or I want average, when excellence is possible?

Why would you or I want good enough, when excellence is within our reach?

Which is why I ‘fell for’ consultant, writer, columnist, Tom Peters, in his wildly popular books, “In Search of Excellence,” and “The Little BIG Things – 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE.”

Both books are written for business leaders.

Both books speak to all of us.

Peters offers simple, but powerful messages.

Direct. Simple. No-nonsense.

Perfectly my style. The kind of messaging I get high on.

I think you’ll LOVE both books if you’re a no-nonsense, practical, pragmatic type too!

Peters shows how attention to small details creates a ripple effect in life (and business) (and health, I say).

That the solution to the big problems we face everyday is simple, go back to the basics — that the small stuff really matters.

That striving for excellence should be our way of life.

I agree. You?

The pursuit of excellence has the potential to change our health and our lives.

If you were committed to excellence in all you do, what would be different? Specifically, what would be different with your health and wellbeing? How would that difference impact how you move in the world, your career, your relationships?

I offer you here #8 of Peter’s 163 ways to pursue excellence as my rally cry for pursuing excellence:

Excellence Is …

Excellence is the best defense.

Excellence is the best offense.

Excellence is the answer in good times.

Excellence is the answer in tough times.

(Excellence is the answer in tough times.)

Excellence is about the big things.

Excellence is about the little things.

Excellence is a relationship.

Excellence is a philosophy.

Excellence is an aspiration.

Excellence is immoderate.

Excellence is a pragmatic standard.

Excellence is execution.

Excellence is selfish.

Excellence is selfless.

Excellence is what keeps you awake.

Excellence is what lets you sleep well.

Excellence is a moving target.

Excellence is that which … knows no bounds.

EXCELLENCE. Always.

If not EXCELLENCE, what?

If not EXCELLENCE now, when?

Pursue excellent health. It’s the single best investment you can make. Start now. Download Five To Thrive, 5 Daily Habits Top-Achievers Use to Increase Energy by 30%  In this guide, you’ll

• Discover the 5 common-sense things top-achievers do to create 30% more energy
• Learn the primary reasons you’re experiencing low energy and falling behind
• Start creating the energy you deserve, for increased focus and creativity

Do you ever wonder why you’ve got a dry cough all the time? Why you experience chronic headaches, allergies, repeated bouts of acid-reflux, inflammation in your knees or hands?

Do you know that symptoms like these are actually warning signs of imbalance, and that if you ignore them, your body will begin to speak louder, and escalate to more acute health diagnoses from your doctor?

Ah, but you say “I’m busy. There’s no time to slow down, not even for a diagnosis of an acute health problem.”

Alas, you may be unhappy and even inconvenienced with weight gain, low energy, and increasing brain fog, but you’ve got projects that demand your time and attention, and a team counting on you.

I get it, but aren’t you curious as to what will happen if you continue to ignore these symptoms? 

Plus, you’ve got medication that eliminates the symptoms you’d be experiencing otherwise.

I get this too, but isn’t ignoring symptoms like gambling, with too high a risk? 

But business as usual continues, with 5:00 a.m. team-meetings, stressful deadlines, intense negotiations and regular late-night business dinners… though you intuitively know something is not quite right with your health. 

As Voltaire said, “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”

I offer you a list of 12 questions to gage what you intuitively know is best for you against all the reasons why you’ve not begun to take care of you and your health and wellbeing:

• How is your energy? Is your energy consistent during the day, or do you notice variations?
• Do crave sugar?
• Can you function without coffee?
• How do you sleep? Do you wake during the night or sleep like a baby?
• Do you feel productive through the day?
• Do you experience brain fog?
• Do you feel unmotivated, even apathetic?
• Do you feel hungry, even though you just ate?
• Do you experience gas and/or bloating?
• Do you exercise?
• Do you feel inflamed in your body? Joint pain? Chronic headaches?
• Do you experience food or environmental allergies or sensitivities?

How did you fare in your responses?

Do you feel like your body is telling you through the symptoms you experience something is off with your health? That you need to start taking better care of you?

Isn’t it better to be curious and ask these questions, than to gamble with your health?

Isn’t it better to know that the symptoms you experience are like an alarm you need to answer, rather than ignoring them?

Let me know how I can help in the comments below. You want to nail down these symptoms now…

You can begin with my Five To Thrive, 5 Daily Habits Top-Achievers Use to Increase Energy by 30%  In this guide, you’ll

• Discover the 5 common-sense things top-achievers do to create 30% more energy
• Learn the primary reasons you’re experiencing low energy and falling behind
• Start creating the energy you deserve, for increased focus and creativity

You’re busy, with little to no time to decompress. Life feels like a series of deadlines, long days, team-meetings and stress.

You love to work, challenge yourself and you get high on exceeding the goals you set, but you know your life is out of balance. You know this, because when you don’t take time to slow down you feel burned-out and irritable, your productivity suffers and your team is unhappy.

Nothing smart or healthy can come from exhaustion, stress and burnout. You know it.

Here are 5 simple ways to decompress, so you feel re-charged, less-stressed and more productive… and all the benefits it reaps!

1. Breathe deeply. Breathing deeply lowers stress because you bring in more oxygen and release more carbon dioxide. This sets off a cascade of chemical reactions that inhibit stress-producing responses between your brain and your central nervous system, for increased inner calm, focus, concentration and better decision-making.

2. Spend time in Nature. A simple walk in the woods, swim in the ocean, or a bike ride on a nearby trail can restore your mental energy, improve your short term memory and concentration, stimulate your creative thinking and improve your mood. Naturalist, John Muir said, “In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

3. Turn off electronics 45-60 minutes before you go to bed. The National Sleep Foundation shows that light interferes with the natural circadian rhythms of the day-night cycle. When you safeguard your sleep hours, you safeguard the hours your body heals, regenerates and detoxifies. Arianna Huffington says, “It’s time to sleep your way to the top,” that exhaustion and burnout get in the way of great leadership and innovative thinking.

4. Time Blocking:

• Gives you greater control of your schedule, which reduces the stress you feel from your demanding lifestyle
• Blocks the many distractions that get in your way of focusing on your work, which reduces stress, increases productivity and gives you greater results

5. Laugh. Research from the University of Maryland Medical Center shows that if you laugh more, you’ll feel more emotionally balanced, productive and creative — laughter can offset the impact of mental stress because it releases a flood of neurotransmitters that stimulates your brain, your immune system and your nervous system. Laughter can even impact your team’s productivity and your company’s bottom!

Your Turn:

Which idea resonates most?

Will you take action with that idea today?

What will you do to make sure that action happens?

Let me know in the comments below.

And… if you enjoyed these ideas, you might also enjoy Five To Thrive, 5 Daily Habits Top-Achievers Use to Increase Energy by 30%  In this guide, you’ll

• Discover the 5 common-sense things top-achievers do to create 30% more energy
• Learn the primary reasons you’re experiencing low energy and falling behind
• Start creating the energy you deserve, for increased focus and creativity

Like you, I hear all the dietary theories many espouse today. Worse? Many call themselves experts though they have little to no training. One course, or even notoriety seems to bestow “expert” status these days.

Beware. Many of these dietary theoreticians want to let you off the hook from creating a diet based on foods that you intuitively know are best for you, your body and your God-given radiant self… with theories laden with excuses, reasons, justifications, limitations. 

You hear all that I hear, it’s in the airwaves, “you can eat bread and lose 26 pounds,” “you can lose 3x more weight than ever (while eating sugary and processed, nutrient devoid foods),” “you can eat everything in moderation,” all the while recommending highly inflammatory foods and in in poor combinations, which cause stagnation, calcification and obstruction in your one and only Sacred body!

Add to that a world that is telling you that processed foods are food (but really only food-like substances!), and worse, good for you, when in fact they provide no vital nutrition whatsoever and simultaneously break down your digestive wall. Your body needs the live, vital electricity that raw vegetables and fruits provide to rev you body up! It is the electricity in these foods that turns your cells and systems on, which is all happening at the subatomic level.

Think about it like this,

Do you think that the Creator of life thought you’d get more vital nutrition from a tomato you pick fresh off the vine from your garden, or after it’s been picked, processed, preserved-for-long-shelf-life, put into a can and then shipped?

In the fast-paced ways most of us move today, with businesses competing to manufacture the“best” quick-and-easy products that accommodate our hurried lifestyles, our food is not the only thing that has become denigrated, but our relationship to how we think about what we eat.

Rather than bending towards nature and our innate commonsense, we are bending towards a fast-paced, fragmented, constantly-on-the-go lifestyle seeking anything and everything that makes life easier, rather than better.

But you can shift your relationship to the food you eat by taking time to turn inward and question why you eat what you eat and what the impact of your food choices is having on your health and wellbeing, your mindset and potential and even your outlook on life.

I write about themes like this extensively. But learning more is often not your first best action. Learning more can and often does pull you away from what you intuitively know is best.

For example, a client of mine recently said, “someone said this allergy test would be good for me.”

I said think about this question with me, “If you someone you know suffers from ulcerative colitis, Irritable Bowel Syndrome or a leaky gut, which means the gut wall is highly inflamed and irritated, do you think you can get a fair reading from that test?”

The nature of life today is so fast moving that your best first action is to turn within, to reconnect to you, so you can access your intuition, smartest thinking and deepest knowing.

Not in a woo-woo, airy-fairy way, but in a smart and feel-it-in-your-bones kind of way.

To create clarity about what to eat,

Take time to slow down. Commonsense lives and breathes in the white spaces of life.

Take time to think. New ways of seeing things emerge with reflection, meditation and deliberate time to process and reflect.

Take time to regroup. When you’re calm and centered, your smart Self and best intuition will lead you back to the food choices you know are best for the body.

You are the expert of your body. Yes, there are some who’ve studied healing for years, if not their whole life, like me, who guide many in healing life-long health problems. But separate from the zillions of conflicting and confusing theories and star-struck “sages” out there, you know what is best for the body to thrive — your commonsense tells you so. Create time to slow down, to think, to regroup, to access your intuition, to clear confusion about what foods really serve your big goals in life!

Your turn.

Have you tried many dietary styles, and still suffer from chronic symptoms?

Even though you may feel as though you’ve made great progress, do you intuitively sense you’re not yet experiencing your peak health and energy?

Have you tried turning inward, but still feel utterly confused?

Please post your comments below. I’d love to share what I know about best choices, healing and turning inward. And… if you know you’d like a little support, check out my new mini program, HOT: Health On Track! I LOVE this little “foot on your fanny” program! It will help you get back on track and clarify what foods are best for you to be eating, and why!