The Come Alive Project

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  • Energy Bite 282 – Comic Relief: Get Young Fast – The Dutch Way

    EB 282 – Comic Relief. Get Young FAST – the Dutch Way

    Just when you thought you’ve heard it all, along comes a new way to reverse the aging process that you may want to think about.

    It seems that there is this guy in the Netherlands who wants people to be able to legally change their age if they FEEL younger than their chronological age. There is this 69 year old Motivational Speaker who says he feels like he is in his 40s and wants to legally change his LEGAL age to 20 years younger. That would include change on all his legal documents.

    He says that he experiences “agism” when he signs up on Dutch dating sites; girls won’t go out with him because of his age. The dating site apparently told him to lie, but he says he has too much integrity for that. He also says he can’t get a mortgage or anything else that younger people can do, because of his age. He is self-employed.

    I should point out that he isn’t confused by his age. He acknowledges his chronological age. But he says his biological age and his emotional age are much younger. His biological age reflects the condition of his body. His emotional age is how he FEELS and chooses to identify. He says his doctor has told him he has the body of a 45 year old. According to local newspaper articles, he describes himself as a “young god”.

    He says that if he can change his chronological age on his legal documents, he will be able to get dates and a mortgage and other things.

    He feels so strongly about this that this past November, he filed a lawsuit in a Dutch court to have this age legally changed.

    The lawsuit got a lot of European TV time, and even prompted an academic paper by a Finnish scholar from the University of Oslo in Norway who has justified the reasoning as a social change that needs to be looked at as reasonable. His paper was published in the Journal of Medical Ethics.The scholar says that “people whose biological and emotional age do not match their chronological age should be allowed to change their legal age in order to secure relief from discrimination.”

    The scholar stipulates that there should be an limit put on the range of age that you can change to, so that you can still vote and drive a car.

    According to the Associated Press in the Hague, the 69 year old man claimed that his request was“consistent with other forms of personal transformation gaining acceptance around the world, such as the right to change name or gender.”

    So the takeaway is that exercise and nutrition are out the window, and all you have to to do to slow down or reverse aging is to go to court. I might as well shut down this blog now.

    But not so fast, the Dutch court rejected the request. It said, in a press statement that“Mr. ‘X’ is at liberty to feel 20 years younger than his real age and to act accordingly. But amending his date of birth would cause 20 years of records to vanish from the register for births, deaths, marriages and registered partnerships. This would have a variety of undesirable legal and societal implications.”

    According to the Associated Press article, the man vowed to appeal saying that “he was the first of ‘thousands of people who want to change their age.’ “

    Don’t believe it? Here are a couple of links to some videos. The last on is a Fox News video which is a bit tongue in cheek and irreverent — but funny:

    In his own words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=rAEmMWZkR0E

    Fox News Report (funny): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AflIJwq9GOA

    So, no more exercise. No more dieting. Just get a lawyer.

    Thank you for reading.

    NOTE: I credit a good friend and reader for sending me an article from a publication called The College Fix. I said “no way can this be real”, but I did some research and came up with the above. Thank you.

  • Energy Bite 281 – Your Virtual Reality System

    Virtual Reality (VR) is an emerging trend. You put on a pair of special lenses and you feel and believe you are in another world.

    Did you know that you have your own built in Virtual Reality Systems? They are called your Imagination and your Subconscious Mind. Together, they are capable of doing a lot more than any commercial VR system available, to let you create and feel a new reality for yourself.

    You can activate the Imagination and Subconscious mind through a process known as Visualization. That’s nothing new, and it can work to help you stay Healthy, get Fit, and help slow down or stop the aging process. The best form of Visualization is what I term: “Multi-Sensory Visualization”.

    Multi-Sensory Visualization is creating the reality you want through ALL your physical senses, and can even include an emotional feeling as well. Most people use only the visual part of Visualization. I suppose that’s why it’s called visualization. It is often said that the subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between something vividly imagined, and something real.

     Authors Michael Murphy and the late George Leonard were both principles of the famous Esalen Institute in the California Big Sur Region, where many pioneers of the Human Potential Movement in the United States got their start.  In their excellent book, The Live We are Given, they listed the three elements of Exercise, Meditation and Visualization as the three essential ingredients for a long life of Healthful Vitality and Personal Energy.

    They are not alone. Many authors and personalities practice all three. Tony Robbins, tells about how he uses all three elements as part of his daily ritual to energize himself for his grueling weekend seminars.

    Bruce Lee the actor and martial artist told of how he used both meditation and visualization to both set and reach his goals, both as an actor and as a marital artist.

    Lindsay Vonn, the World Champion skier not only keeps mental images in her head, she physically and mentally visualizes the ski runs by shifting her weight back and forth, and simulates her breathing patterns, AS IF she were actually on skis.

    And Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of one of the more successful personal development books of all time, Psycho-Cybernetics, called using the imagination: “The theater of the mind”, and wrote that you can create your own mental movies of whatever you want your life to be, using this powerful tool.

    In my workshops for Seniors about discovering Your Own Fountain of Youth, you will learn and practice a form of guided, multi-sensory visualization – meditation, that will help motivate you toward adapting new physical movement, eating and breathing habits, making them an integral part of your personal identity.

    Some claim visualization to be a healing tool. While the medical science is still debating that, neuro-scientists are making new discoveries that seem to bear out the idea of healing through multi-sensory visualization and meditation techniques.

    Meditation and Visualizations are no longer reserved for practitioners of Eastern Philosophy or Yoga classes. They have become mainstream.  They are practiced as lifestyle tools by business leaders, champion athletes, musicians and other entertainers, and for the most part, anyone who wants the benefits of their own built in Virtual Reality system. Your imagination is a powerful tool.

    So why buy expensive Virtual Reality equipment when you already have it built into you —  your subconscious mind. It’s that part of you that vividly imagines the way your world can be. It sets the stage for your own future actions based on what your internal Virtual Reality system shows you is possible.

    Thank you for reading.

  • Energy Bite 280 – The Real Reason WHY?

    Exercise and Diet are not the end product.
    If not, what is    ?

    Look closely at most health and fitness websites and you will find they are promoting exercise programs or nutrition programs as the end product — an end unto itself. Most are either muscle building programs or pure weight loss programs. A few are some combination of the two. And that’s fine if your end goal is a lot of muscle or  quick weight loss. But as we’ll see, that’s probably not the end goal for most seniors.

    Chances are with those kinds of programs, one of two things will happen: 1. You get discouraged at your lack of progress and stop, or 2. You reach your goal and your mind tells you that now that you’ve reached it, you can stop. So you do. And your new muscles atrophy or the weight sneaks back on.

    Of course, nutrition is not a settled science. I am convinced that the diet industry thrives on confusion and once the science is really settled (I mean truly, honestly, unequivocally, totally settled), up will pop new authors, new theories, new programs and we will again spend our time and money searching for that everlasting quick fix that simply isn’t there.

    The goal of exercise and eating right is to recharge your personal battery,  your Energy Source, so you can continue living your life on your terms rather than living it dependent on someone or something else — on their terms.

     To continue to keep your physical batteries recharged, there are certain fundamental things you have to do. You must keep moving your body. You must fuel your body with high octane food, oxygen and fluids. You must get plenty of rest and sleep, consistent with your own, individual needs.

    And to keep your mental battery charged, you’ll need to add some meditation, visualization and affirmations into the mix, to tap into the energy of your subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is a powerful tool that is used to fortify your mindset. A mindset of energetic self-empowerment is every bit as important for Seniors, as the physical side.

    While muscle building and “program” diets can be useful, the results they offer are either temporary muscles or a temporarily skinny body — not the long term health and fitness improvements that you are most likely striving for. True Health and Fitness is a long term lifestyle “practice”. It must become part of your personal identity.

    So it’s not the activity itself (diet and exercise), it is the benefits of the activity that really matter. The main benefit  for us, as seniors, is to enjoy our senior years with gusto and meaning, on our own terms, and with a fully charged battery at all times. That feeling of being fully alive as you age is the real end product. And to get there you must move and eat healthfully.

    Yes, you’ll like it when people notice your energy and appearance. You can’t help but enjoy feeling better that you have in years. Those are nice benefits too.

    I have a gym friend in his 70s. He is an avid skier. But he doesn’t ski to stay healthy and fit, he gets healthy and fit so he can continue to ski. He is living life on his terms because of what he does to take care of himself.

    In the final analysis, it’s the end result that counts — a long, healthy, happy and productive life, a life you are fully able to live on your own terms, with the energy and gusto of a live well lived.

    Thank you for reading.