Vitamins for Your Soul, Part VIII

If you've been practicing our vitamins for your soul tips, you've probably seen some major changes occurring in your life. Most of the change may be non-trading related, but overall, I believe they'll help you immensely as a trader because they'll help you lighten up.

Our last six vitamins have included:

1. Focus on the Moment;
2. Make Yourself Laugh;
3. If Something Bothers You, Give It To God;
4. Give Thanks Every Day for your Blessings;
5. Follow Your Bliss;
6. Commit to Love; and
7. Meditate and Listen

This week my I'm adding a difficult, but very beneficial one called fasting.

Fasting

I once did a 57 day fast. It started with three meals a day of just fresh fruit and vegetables. In between the meals, I took shakes with lots of fiber and barium to coat my system. In addition, I was taking special nutritional supplements.

When my system felt like it could tolerate it, I reduced by one meal and just substituted a shake. I continued this process until I was only doing the shakes, plus lots of water. The total experience was 57 days and the last 10 days involved no meals. I lost 33 lbs (which I gained back quickly) but by the end of the fast I had an amazing amount of energy. I felt clean and better than I've felt in a long time. However, I'm not recommended anything that strenuous.

Fasting is actually your body's way of cleansing itself. When you think about humans living with nature, they had to deal with the seasons. During the growing season there was plenty of food, but in the winter months there was nothing. People could only eat what they had managed to preserve and save from the growing season. So naturally there was probably a lot of fasting.

When you were fasting, the body would feed off of itself and it would eat those portions of the body that were the least useful - things that are actually harmful to the body. Today, of course, there is no need to ever fast. We have refrigeration and lots of preservatives, so there is always food - even in the depths of winter. However, much of that food is not very good for us. It contains food elements that have been refined out of much of the nutritional value (i.e., wheat) or preservatives which are designed to keep other things from eating your food (and thus are not good for you either) or chemicals. For example, the most nutritious food in nature was either sweet or salty. Those tastes basically meant that the food was full of essential minerals and vitamins. We crave those foods. However, modern man has figured out how to artificially produce those flavors (i.e. sugar and sugar substitutes) and has created massive addictions as a result. Sugar is not that different chemically from alcohol.

If you decided to try this vitamin for your soul, it probably will not be that pleasant. Within a day, you'll probably get either withdrawal reactions or side effects from some of the poisons that are already in your system. However, I'm not suggesting anything drastic. Just spend one day drinking lots of fresh water and fruit juice with no food. Notice your experience when you do that. Or, instead, spend three days on a fresh fruit and vegetable fast. Notice your experience then. This one is another exercise in self-discovery.

Vitamins for Your Soul, Part VI

If you've been "taking your vitamins" for your soul, since I started these tips, you've probably noticed some lightening and some expansion in yourself. And lightening up as a trader will help you immensely. So far your recommended vitamins have included:

1. Focus on the Moment;
2. Make Yourself Laugh;
3. If Something Bothers You, Give It To God;
4. Give Thanks Every Day for your Blessings; and
5. Follow Your Bliss

This week we will add another interesting tip, Commit to Love.

Commit to Love

Two months ago, I attended a self-improvement workshop given by someone that I considered to be very loving. Most of the workshop involved people bringing up problems and he would very lovingly help them release the problem. That was great, but I noticed that certain people would bring the same problem up over and over and over again. In fact, one person, who might be described as a "starving actor," had been to over ten of these workshops and he was still bringing up trivial stuff – almost as if he'd accomplished nothing. Nevertheless, the workshop guru laughed with him and gently took him through a release of his problem.

My initial thought was "how can he not react to that person bringing up the same stuff over and over again." In fact, I'm sure he got the workshop for free for being an assistant, but that means he's probably brought up the same stuff over and over again at each workshop. And again I thought, "how can he not react to this person's lack of progress?" And then he told me the secret. The secret was to love the person as he was. This means that he has no emotional investment on whether or not the person makes a change. He just loves him, which means he can respond lovingly, no matter what happens. And when I understood that, I really began to understand what unconditional love really means.

So this week's tip is all about being loving. That means loving everything exactly as it is without any judgment.

Most of our decisions are made from fear and worry. I can remember numerous times in the past when I might have noticed that a future workshop we were doing had a very low enrollment. My natural tendency would be to start to worry about that. What if no more people enroll? What if there is not enough enrollments to pay for speakers fees much less the hotel? But what if we cancel? Then we have a bad reputation with the hotel because they cannot rely on us. We also lose all the marketing money we've already spent on the workshop. I could go on and on with that kind of dialogue and worry. When I do that, I'm operating out of fear and that's not useful. Instead, I elect to operate from love.

One way to operate out of love is to declare who you are. For example, you might make a declaration that says: "I'm a loving, kind, compassionate man." Write it out! Memorize it and declare it to yourself so that it becomes second nature to you. And, when you make decisions, you then begin to say, "What does a loving, kind, compassionate man do in this situation?" He certainly doesn't make decisions based upon fear. Instead, he makes decisions based upon love and compassion. And, of course, the first thing that pops into my mind when I say that is "How can I handle this situation so that everyone wins?" What more can I give to increase enrollment in this workshop? How can I add more value to this workshop so that more people can attend? And, of course, those responses get a much different response than saying to yourself, "We're going to lose a lot of money here even if I cancel the workshop."

So here's your next assignment: Start doing what you love to do. Notice what you love to do and what you dislike doing and move toward doing what you love. Even if it seems scary, try selecting what you love to do. And when you do that, notice the results you get.

Secondly, decide who you are and make a commitment statement that reflects who you are. That statement might go something like: "I'm a powerful, generous, kind leader!" Or, "I'm a courageous, loving, compassionate woman." Write down whatever you think might fit you. Put it on a sheet of paper and memorize it. And when you make decisions read your personal declaration and act as if it were true. Once you've done that, then make your decision. If you do, you'll probably find that your results are much different in all aspects of your life.

Vitamins for Your Soul, Part V

If you've been "taking your vitamins" for your soul, since I started these tips, you've probably noticed some lightening and some expansion in yourself. And lightening up as a trader will help you immensely. So far your recommended vitamins have included:

1. Focus on the Moment;
2. Make Yourself Laugh;
3. If Something Bothers You, Give It To God; and
4. Give Thanks Every Day for your Blessings.

This week we will add one of my favorites, Follow Your Bliss.

Follow Your Bliss

When I first went through A Course In Miracles, I made a commitment to follow my bliss. Joseph Campbell stated in his remarkable series The Power of Myth that following your bliss is essentially following God's path. And that seemed great to me: do what gives me joy, and my life would work better.

In 1986, I made a commitment to quit my part-time job. I was working one day a week on a job I hated, but that job was a security blanket. As long as I was part-time, I had medical benefits and the possibility of becoming full-time again. I quit the job and got rid of the security blanket. Two weeks later my wife unexpectedly lost her job and was not re-employed for about nine months. However, I made it through that year without even having to borrow much money.

By 1987 my own business was progressing. I decided that I needed to hire a secretary to keep up with the workload. However, I hadn't made that much money the prior year and a secretary's salary would take up most of that. Nevertheless, I took the plunge—another sign of commitment—and that year was the first year that I made a six-figure salary. My business really seemed to take off from there.

In each case, the decisions were difficult. I was giving up security and the status quo for something unknown. Even though I hated the known and loved what I was going into, it was very scary.

Along the way, through following this guidance of where joy seemed to be, I moved away from almost every attachment I had at the time—which included my marriage. It just wasn't working and we couldn't seem to fix it. Much of this was very scary, even though I was moving toward more joy. In the end, the results have been wonderful. It's a big step, but following your bliss is a very important vitamin for your soul.

What do you love to do? That's probably a sign that you should be doing more of that. What do you hate to do? That's probably a sign that you should be doing less of that. At one point, when my business was already quite successful, I made a note of all of the things I hated to do and all of the things I loved to do. Guess what? All of the things I loved to do were the things that probably made the most money for the business. They revolved around helping people, doing creative things, doing my workshop, developing new products, and trading. Those were all things that made money.

What I hated were the day to day routine of managing the business and all of the details I had to put up with by doing that. While I still have some of those tasks, I elected to find other people who do a much better job of doing those things than I could ever do. And now I totally concentrate on the things I love to do.

So this week's assignment is to make a list of what you love to do and what you dislike. If you love it, then decide how you can do more of it. If you dislike it, then determine how you can turn it over to someone else. You'll probably find that this simple act makes a tremendous difference in your life.