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07 January 2013

A new year; a new way of living

Are you sitting near another person at the moment? Been talking to someone else recently? Thinking of someone else? On current estimates, one in nearly every two people alive today will develop cancer in their lifetime. That is way too many, but if you have someone else near to you, that is two people. Who might it be? How good would it be to save a life in 2013?

I suggest this can easily done when we put our minds to it.  Quite simply, in 2013 my intention is to do all I can to save lives and I reckon we can all save at least one. So lets go “Out on a Limb” and consider how each one of us can save a life or two, or three, or ??? But first

Thought for the Day
Yesterday I was clever
So I wanted to change the world
Today I am wise
So I am changing myself
                                  Rumi

So the first life to save is our own. This is a project worth putting effort into!

What I am talking about is helping people to avoid developing a disease that will kill them before their time – like cancer. What I am also talking about is helping more people to recover from cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.

Here are some suggestions.

To save your own life

1. Eat a plant based, wholefood diet
Six of the ten major diseases that kill people are powerfully related to poor nutrition – eating crap basically. The new version of You Can Conquer Cancer explains what is wrong with the average Western diet so many of us have been used to, and how we can easily remedy the problems and enjoy eating well.

The Wellness Diet as spelled out in the new book is highly anti-inflammatory, highly regenerative. Provides new levels of energy, you feel great and will look good. Eating well is the basis of a healthy, happy life.

2. Exercise for 30 minutes daily 
If you miss a day or two in the week, this amount of exercise is still pretty well guaranteed to make most things in your life better, from your physical health to your state of mind.

3. Set up a vegetable garden
Great exercise, get in touch with the rhythms and moods of nature, appreciate your food more, enjoy the organic taste sensations and know where your food has come from and what has happened to it. Also terrific for the environment; maybe one of the best things we can do personally to help our planet to survive.

4. Forgive someone, and practice gratitude 
Resentment eats at the heart, gratitude builds delight! Simple recipe. If all else fails, imagine you are on your deathbed and check out how it would feel to be dying in a bitter, resentful state of mind. Yuck! That cannot be good! Why wait? Forgive now and enjoy the interim. You may live for ages; all the more time to enjoy a peaceful, happy heart!

5. Meditate daily
Meditate and everything gets better. Clear mind, peaceful heart. Good decision making, the natural enthusiasm to look after yourself and to care for others. Meditation is at the core of a long, healthy and happy life - what we would wish for everyone.

To save someone else’s life

1. The easy option
Give them a book like You Can Conquer Cancer or Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis by George Jelinek. That might do it for thirty dollars or so. Now there is a bargain! And as easy as.

2. A little more demanding
Offer to walk with someone regularly

Offer to help someone set up their new veggie garden

Take them to a workshop or offer to accompany them on a retreat

3. Getting risky
Take time to talk with someone about real stuff, like who have you forgiven recently, what are you doing about being overweight, drinking too much, stressing out too much???

4. Full on
Become a wellness advocate; write to the local paper, the local MPs, speak to schools or service groups; find ways to share the positive reality that a healthy lifestyle prevents illness, generates good health and wellbeing, and accelerates healing.

Remember, those who have been through it become the most powerful advocates. I have had cancer. I do not want others to develop it; but those who do, like me, I want them to recover. If you have a personal story to share, when the time is right, when you feel ready, do consider how you can use that experience to good advantage – and help to save someone else’s life.

Speaking personally
This year I will be more diligent. I eat well but could exercise more. I meditate regularly but this year will do more.

This year my public speaking will focus on A New Way of Living. I intend to spread the good news regarding how we can best prevent cancer and recover from it as far and wide as possible.

I hope you too can get excited about saving a life in 2013; or maybe two, or three, or ???
Where will you start?

Love to hear suggestions, plans, accomplishments on the comment section. I am very happy to communicate personally on this matter, especially with anyone interested in, or needing help to speak in public: info@insighthealth.com.au

Please share this with a friend. Lets all aim to save a life in 2013!

RELATED BLOGS
A big mystery addressed

Food for life

NEWS 

1. My old friend and colleague, Peter Roberts, who has accompanied me on several of my meditation CDs and who will play his harp at the upcoming Surviving Cancer night in Melbourne in March, is organizing a major new conference that is easy to recommend highly:


THE INSTITUTE OF MUSIC IN MEDICINE INVITES YOU TO

‘Therapeutic Music: Let the love of beauty be what we do’


22 – 24TH MARCH 2013, GEELONG CONFERENCE CENTRE,

The Institute of Music in Medicine is pleased to announce our inaugural event
‘Therapeutic Music: Let the love of beauty be what we do’ which will be held
from Friday 22nd March to Sunday 24th March 2013.

Using music and ritual to create a peaceful, nurturing environment for personal
reflection and shared conversation with your peers, join us as we contemplate
our roles as helpers, carers and healers: those who assist others through their
words, their actions, their music or their presence.

FEATURED PRESENTERS
Peter Roberts, Lawrence Duncan. USA, and Mary Werner. USA, music‐thanatologists, Emeritus Professor Helen Cox, director of the Institute of Music in Medicine. She and Peter have recently coauthored the newly released book The Harp and the Ferryman which will be on sale at the venue.

EVENT REGISTRATION
To register for this event click here
Presented by: The Institute of Music in Medicine PO Box 1480, Geelong 3220 www.imim.com.au

2. Pt Stephens workshop is on soon -  Tuesday, January 15th, title is Health, Healing and Wellbeing, the focus on the principles and techniques that generate and sustain good health and happiness. Great way to start the year with a new way of living!
Details, click here.

3. Meditation in the Forest: Yarra Junction; March 22nd - 28th, 2013
Ready to join Ruth and myself, take some time out and experience deep natural peace - amidst the majestic forests of the Upper Yarra Valley.

This retreat will take you deep into the essence of meditation - the direct experience. As well as being restful and regenerative, in this retreat I will be introducing and guiding a structured series of breathing exercises that enhance concentration, deepen meditation and facilitate healing and wellbeing.

For details and to book, click here

RESOURCES

You Can Conquer Cancer – fully rewritten and recently released, intended to help with cancer prevention as well as recovery.

Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis - by George jelinek - one of the best self help books there is. read it and give it to a friend.

10 comments:

  1. I believe we now have the knowledge and should be able to get the incidence of cancer at least back to where it was in the 1950's.... about 1 in 12.... not about 1 in 2-3 as it is today.

    I look forward to working with you to do spread the word.

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  2. Great post Ian I will share it on my facebook page. I find the statistics so disheartening at times and when I look around and see so many people who are overweight I can't believe as a society we have become so unhealthy!! My health goals this year are to return to regular meditation, keep up my yoga practice, schedule in regular massages and build some muscle! I am really inspired to share my growing knowledge about wholefoods and health with families, children deserve a great nutritional foundation to build their lives on. I do this via my blog The Wholefood Mama. Wishing you and Ruth and your families the very best for 2013.

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  3. WOW Ian one of the best blogs I have read for a while! I really enjoyed reading your intentions . Thankyou for being such a n inspiration. Kindest Regards Caroline

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  4. I'm on it, Ian. Starting within my family inner circle, then beyond where I can. Lee S.

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  5. I have found it difficult watching family and friends trash themselves through eating badly. In the past it has not been easy to even speak with them about this, they often seem so defensive. So I had pretty much given up. Thanks Ian for this blog and reminder that it is important to speak up. Any ideas on how to overcome people's defences and help them?

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    1. This seems like a good topic for another blog - soon

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  6. A great blog, as always. And there are certainly recommendations I can follow that cost little or no money (I've already been doing most of them, though not as regularly as I should). But the truth of the matter is that, unless you are financially reasonably well off, you simply cannot afford treatments outside the mainstream. Because of a series of financial mishaps, bad luck (maybe), and just plain stupidity or naivete, my husband and I (aged 72 and 71) are now dependent on the age pension, with no other resources whatsoever. I am currently coping with a metastatic brain tumour, plus possible tumours in other parts of the body. At the moment, it's being managed. Thanks to the generosity of friends I've been able to add helpful natural supplements to my diet, and visit a number of natural practitioners, but soon there just won't be money for that. I'd LIKE to eat organic food only ... but it's much more costly. I'd LIKE to grow my own vegetables, but this requires time and skill which I don't seem to have (I've tried in the past, but my plants always die). I'd like to see someone produce an anti-cancer program for people who don't have any money.

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    1. Thanks for the heartfelt feedback. The challenge is always to be affordable, I will reflect on this and write more on it soon. Of course, mainstream medical treatment of cancer is getting more and more expensive and while much of it is covered by benefits and insurance, as a community , it is getting to towards the limits of what is affordable. i will comment on this son too as there have been a lot of mutterings about it in the medical press.

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  7. Thank you so much Ian for the positive hope, excitement and interest in health and healing you brought to Port Stephens. The success of the Port Stephens workshop with 150 people attending was not an accident. With no start up funds, no sponsors, no upmarket venue plus mid week, mid summer, mid school holidays we needed a committed, consistent, recognised and respected author and speaker with a very supportive partner. Many people travelled great distances to be there because it was a rare event.
    Ian will it ever be possible to train more health workers who could qualify to present Gawler workshops to other regions like ours and bring the same knowledge, commitment and consistency? Or will you never be able to retire?

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Liz, you did an amazing job , bringing so many people together with an interest in looking after their own health. I am certainly interested to hear from any health professionals interested in trainings for 2014; maybe I could add something for that year. For this year, there is the training with Nimrod Scheinman that Ruth and I will present in October on Imagery, therapeutic language and meditation - see my website for details : www.iangawler.com

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