Nevertheless, I was absolutely ASTONISHED to have a large and beautiful butterfly join us at lunch and settle right on my champagne glass! (see picture)

That’s Vivien, by the way, in the background

It spent several minutes at our table and seemed to like us! I did not recognize the species but a quick Google image search told me it was the rare and beautiful Camberwell Beauty! Camberwell is a town now swallowed up by urban London but in the rest of Europe and the USA this beauty is known as the Mourning Cloak butterfly and its velvety coloring is GORGEOUS.

It is an unusual creature in many ways and incredibly, it can hibernate. It is seen sometimes even in Minnesota in winter, on warmer days. Most butterflies, you probably know, don’t make it through winter.

OK, so what? Why this story? I’m a doctor, not a biologist, even less an entomologist.

Let me tell you, it was a most magical moment. A real joy. It was a super-feelgood happening! That this lovely creature seemed to seek us out and join us, in such a relaxed state, made the moment seem very very special. Indeed the surrounding tables too got their moment of delight, just looking on.

In other words, we had the feeling of positive wellbeing and that’s precious. It’s worth a lot in terms of health. As I teach, wellbeing is one of the most important factors in how long you will live. Forget hormones, vitamins, supplements… well, perhaps not! But you can take all the anti-aging stuff you want—if you don’t have a REASON to live longer, why would you?

Yet this factor is so often ignored by researchers who cannot see further than their pet theories and it gets scant mention.

You know that the Mediterranean diet is famous for health and longevity, right? But most descriptions of the Mediterranean diet ignore the alcohol! Well, it couldn’t be that, could it? The truth is it has EVERYTHING to do with it.

My friend the late Stephen Sinatra and I talked together a lot about this. Wine at the table brings relaxation, camaraderie, yes, even love, to the meal. You probably know the famous Italian saying “A day without wine is a day without sunshine.”

That’s worth YEARS of life never mind the calories, the carbs and the fats, etc.

Typical descriptions of the Mediterranean diet are like that from the American Heart Association: “plenty of fruits, vegetables, bread and other grains, potatoes, beans, nuts and seeds; olive oil as a primary fat source; and. dairy products, eggs, fish and poultry in low to moderate amounts.” 

No mention of the fact that the average Italian, Spaniard or Frenchman drinks around a bottle of wine a day (women a bit less). The Harvard website tries to imply that it’s 1 to 2 glasses. That’s just not true; that’s American puritanism served up as science.

Now I notice Joe Mercola has taken up the story that there is no safe level of alcohol. This coincides with the news that scientists are proposing to re-visit the science that shows moderate alcohol is good for health and re-work it, so it is no longer favorable.

Trust me, there are a lot of biases in studies such as these, not least the fact that they make no allowance for what’s called “heavy episodic drinking”. Those who get bladdered out of their (tiny) brains distort the figures for what the rest of us do.

The fact remains: 

• teetotalers do not live as long as moderate drinkers.

• Italy and other Mediterranean countries drink a lot but have no excess deaths

• Usual studies never distinguish WHAT is being drunk and so lump beer (ugh!) and spirits (aagh!) with wine, which is technically a food.

• Wine, particularly red wine, has lots of good science, which I am not going to let get swept away

In fact some of you know I’m on record with the BBC in an interview in which I said, “Champagne is a whole food; there’s nothing in the bottle but grapes and bubbles”!

Look, here’s a brilliantly argued recent piece from Harvard Health (April 2024) that puts all the nonsense arguments and bigotry into proper perspective: https://harvardpublichealth.org/policy-practice/is-alcohol-bad-for-you-or-is-alcohol-good-for-you-yes/

Here’s What is Really Important

Another thing researchers rarely mention in this context: the meal, especially the midday meal, is a family affair. Grandma, Grandpa, husband and wife, the kids, and often neighbors dropping by too! You hear a lot about the Okinawans and Vilcabambans and extreme old age. But did you know that Italians are the 5th longest-lived country in the world today (82.5 years)? France has a pretty decent 82.3 years also. Remember Jeanne Calment, the French lady who lived to over 122 years, while smoking and drinking alcohol every day!

Meanwhile in the USA the average life expectancy is 76.3 (datacommons.org).

So forget the puritan nonsense, open a bottle of sunshine and relax with people you care about. THAT’S how you live long.

Contrast that with the typical American style—eating in a rush, eating manufactured garbage, wife can’t really cook to save her life (or her family’s) and bitterness often exploding at the table.

Just Enjoy It!

The point is to get more enjoyment out of life. If it’s not obvious, make a point of finding it! Don’t tell me pleasure costs money! It does if you are a spoiled brat and need sky diving, snowboarding or fast cars to feel alive. If that’s you, you have a problem.

Visits from butterflies are FREE! Flowers are everywhere FREE, the sudden smell of tasty food FREE, the stars (if you can see them in a city) FREE, even people watching can be great, if you approach it with the sense of Humankind’s vast array of shapes and sizes, faces and movements. Finally, (good) music is almost mystical in its power to charm.

Things NOT to do include: watching the news, surfing social media, answering emails if you have no professional need to, gambling, porn, lousy sick pop music and grumbling.

We really do influence ourselves with what we say about life. Wendell Johnson PhD wrote a book (1956) entitled Your Most Enchanted Listener, which is, of course, yourself! He used the word “enchanted” to maximize the point that we are actually hypnotized by what we ourselves say. What is really abundantly clear is that nobody else really listens to you—BUT you revel in your own voice. Haha!

Nasty secret. Anyway, the message is clear. If you moan and complain about all that is wrong with your world, you’ll feel down. You talked yourself into a depression. If you remark to yourself on all the beautiful things that are out there, you lift your spirits. 

It doesn’t need a beautiful butterfly to come to you but there’s a really BIG secret that most of you know already: if you look for beautiful things, they’ll come to you! You’ll see unexpected surprises, often. There were over 50 people having lunch in the square that day in Chamonix. But the butterfly came up over the roof and chose to come down to our table, first to Viv and then sat on the champagne glass. After that it flew to the nearby flower display boxes, not the other tables.

We were honored and it “made my day”. I’ll swear the champagne tasted better after that visit too! It had been blessed.

To Your Good Health,Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

Want an extra snippet? Years ago (around 1995) I was on a retreat and had been working on some advanced thoughts about what may be called God. In the break I felt refreshed and sat outside in the sunshine. Turning around I suddenly noticed that the shrub right behind me was awash with butterflies—I mean 50 or so—mostly red admirals. Alright, you may say it was a butterfly-friendly shrub (can’t remember, though it was definitely not a Buddleia). But what was still a miracle is that I reached out and touched several of them (very gently) and they did not seem to mind. I was allowed to join the party! It felt like an extension of the conversation about God!

PLEASE SHARE YOUR DELIGHTS.

If you have had a “moment” of this sort (not just butterflies), do write and tell me, with permission to share, please.

One last photo of the Camberwell Beauty/Mourning Cloak:

You can enjoy an extra twelve to fourteen years of good life! No really! That’s a promise.

It’s not a pill or potion! You just have to take care of yourself properly. Deep down, we all know that if you follow healthy lifestyle options, you will live longer. Not just that but you will enjoy better health in your life.

Now we can boil it down to just 5 essential factors. In a large study, which followed over 78,000 women and over 44,000 men, researchers have shown that if you follow a healthy diet, exercise regularly, don’t smoke, drink moderate amounts of alcohol and maintain a healthy weight you could live more than a decade longer than those who don’t do any of these things.

To be more specific, they defined the five good health habits as never smoking; body mass index (BMI) of 18.5 to 24.9 kg/m2; 30 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous physical activity each day; a high-quality diet (top 40%); and moderate alcohol intake (up to one glass of wine daily for women and two glasses of wine daily for men). Personally, I would say that BMI is not such a good measure as percentage body fat, but that discussion can take place elsewhere.

The good news is that researchers found each factor added around 2 to 3 years of extra life. Cumulatively, that means that life expectancy at age 50 years was 14 years longer for women and 12.2 years extra for men (for women, that’s 93 years average, up from 79, and for men, 87.6 years, up from 74).

Put another way, compared with men and women who lacked any of the five healthy-lifestyle habits, those who had all five enjoyed an 82% lower risk for dying from cardiovascular disease, a 65% lower chance of dying from cancer, and a 74% lower risk of dying from all causes during follow-up. That’s awesome!

And, you know, so much better than popping pills, NONE of which add to your health span!

What you can potentially achieve is exciting. But almost as exciting is that, even by following some of these recommendation, you get measureable benefit, even if just a few extra years! In other words, just do as much as you can. Every step in the right direction will lengthen your life a little.

“Each single lifestyle change you make will help you live longer and better,” commented Jean-Pierre Després, PhD, cardiology research director at the Quebec Heart and Lung Institute at Laval University, Quebec, Canada, and chair of the American Heart Association (AHA) Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health.

If your life is really good—and it should be—then you will want to maximize your stay here on earth. In which case, commit to all five.

It’s Not Just About Lifespan (Longevity)

Lifespan is how long you can expect to live, on average. But there’s a better concept: “health span”. Lifespan is simply how many years you live and breathe. But for over a decade, the Longevity Institute of the University of Southern California (USC) a leading biomedical research center for aging and longevity, has been researching how to improve a person’s health span – the happy part of life prior to the onset of some calamity such as diabetes, heart attack, stroke, cancer, Alzheimer’s and auto-immune diseases.

It’s not the same as Lifespan, obviously. But hopefully nearly the same length of time. Our health span is critical and we want it as long as possible, staying healthy until the very end of life. This is a newer version of the old saying, that anti-aging is not so much about putting years into your life, as putting life into your years!

Many years ago (1997) I wrote a piece entitled “Do You Want To Be An Old Crock Or A Classic Car?” It may help to picture this in terms of the aging of a motor car. Typically, a well-used car will last 10- 20 years and then fall apart, unsafe to be repaired. The better the maintenance, the longer it takes to crumble, naturally; if you omit routine oil changes and other vital tasks, the car will soon fail mechanically. But then some cars, so-called Classic Cars, are in sweet running order and perform reliably when they are 80, 90 or even more than 100 years old. Why is that?

The answer is so obvious, it screams at you: they have been properly looked after.

It’s exactly the same with the human body. You have to ask yourself, do you want to be a classic car or an old “banger”, rusting and clanking away? I doubt anyone in their right mind would choose to be a banger. Yet that is the outlook mentality of anyone who doesn’t begin to take effective care of their health NOW.

Turning Back The Clock

We have one proven advantage over mechanical objects: our bodies can regenerate to a considerable degree. It has been a medical hoax of long standing, to tell people they have to put up with miserable health conditions, just because the doctors don’t know how to cure it. The fact is that if you turn to nature, instead of the drug industry, to look for answers, there are many exciting ways to gain back your health, even after many years of believing you were stuck with it. You probably already know of people curing themselves of arthritis, cancer, heart disease and so on, without resorting to any further drastic medical intervention. These results show the way for us all: you can recover your health! 

Add to this the many wonderful breakthroughs in the science of anti-aging, and there is really no good reason, other than self-neglect, to accept the breakdown of old age. People routinely feel a sense of complete life renewal, increased vigor, mental clarity and sexual pleasure. You can—literally—turn back the clock!

In the words of Dr Walter Pierpaoli and Dr William Regeleson: “Ours is the first generation that need not experience senescence, the dismal physical decline now associated with old age. We are the first generation that need not resign ourselves to accepting the fate that our later years will be filled with debility and disease. Ours is the first generation that has the capacity, by resetting our aging clocks, to actually prolong youthful health and vitality into our eighties, nineties, and possibly even our hundreds”.

The appalling toll of unnecessary deaths is simply a measure of the incompetence of a medical profession, which is obsessed with drugs and treating only symptoms, instead of taking effective and proven action directed towards the known causes of these conditions.

It really comes down to what does Nature want for us? As far as she’s concerned, we are supposed to be wandering around in the forest, or on the African veldt, where it all started. We are hunter-gatherers and should eat meat, fish, plants, nuts and seeds.

Sitting still all day long is very bad. So are burgers, pizza and donuts. Boozing isn’t natural, although even wild animals have access to alcoholic fermented fruits at least part of the year (for some fun, search on YouTube for “drunken elephants marula fruit”).

Drunken elephants smashed on fermented marula fruits

As for smoking, Nature doesn’t understand that at all. And being fat just doesn’t happen in the wild.

Sugar is the kiss of death—truly. But so are grains, which turn quickly to soft carbohydrates like glucose. Milk is good for infants; but after a few months it’s nothing more than a sugar food. Skim milk is even worse, by the way: take away the fats and milk is basically just sugar water.

Thing is, these are all what I call “farmer foods”; they have only been in our diet for a few thousand years. In evolutionary terms that’s no more than a blink of an eye.

Forget vegetarianism and veganism; those are cults, not science. We are built as hunter-gatherers and that’s the way to live. I dismiss arguments about teeth and intestinal patterns. The truth comes from archeology, not speculation. Looking at ancient middens we know exactly what paleolithic man ate. From skeletal remains we also know that true paleolithic man was superb physically: tall, muscular, healthy and without a trace of bony malformations, which all appeared when we started to eat more vegetables!

In the last 2 millennia humans had shrunk to a crippled and deformed dwarf status and only regained their average paleolithic height in the late 20^th century.

Take these science-based tips to heart and get to work building a vigorous future!

To your good health,

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

Source reference:

Circulation. 2018;CIRCULATIONAHA.117.032047. Originally published April 30, 2018

Everyone has a dream that, to them, is holier than holy. Just the GREATEST thing in life that could ever happen. I call it the Jerusalem Dream.

And, of course, 99.99% of people take no action whatever on this dream!

I’m using Jerusalem here, not to mean anything Christian or religious; just a metaphor for the person’s own “promised land”. Churches in general, and the Church of England in particular, have long used Jerusalem as a metaphor for Heaven, a place of universal love and peace (as opposed to the city in Israel).

18^th century genius, artist and poet William Blake wrote a poem which eventually became an English hymn “Jerusalem”, with music written by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916. You know, the one with the words about “dark satanic mills”, which became part of the popular vocabulary for a time…*

Verse 2, last line. Notice Blake also gave us the movie title “Chariots of Fire”

All very interesting but let us not forget the importance of Jerusalem to both Jews and Muslims too. In fact these so-called “Abrahamic religions” all share the Old Testament stories, including that of Abraham and Isaac, and consider these valid scriptures. Hence the label.

I repeat: my definition of the “Jerusalem Dream” just means the greatest thing that a person can conceive of. But what use is it, if you don’t strive towards it?

Not much.

You have to believe in it. That means WANTING it and taking action to get it.

But the thing you have to guard against is taking onboard other people’s dreams. By that I don’t mean just what they want for themselves but what they want FOR YOU! It’s very pernicious and easy to stumble in this hypno-driven propaganda politically-correct world.

There is an endless bombardment of values from the media, telling you what is right and proper, what you SHOULD want and what to do to be liked and loved. The inference is: nobody likes a loser. The definition of a loser? Someone who doesn’t want what everyone else wants; someone independent and single-minded.

There’s a veritable hurricane of insincerity, lies, clever marketing and phoney values out there. We are told that unless we serve the right food at table, our family will hate us; unless we drive the right car, no-one would take us seriously; unless we dress in a certain way or have hair of the right color, we will be a nobody; and unless we are “successful”, the best specimens of the opposite sex will refuse to mate with us.

It’s ghastly! But in its many forms that is what drives the aspirations and desires of most people. Even cults, societies and religions get into this; they tell you what you are supposed to think and feel about things! (group aspirations).

I hope for better things for you all. Don’t be suckered in. Just figure out your own, personal, REAL dream and go for it.

Of course if your Jerusalem Dream is to be a billionaire, you are going to find it tough going. Everyone and his dog wants it too… because that’s what people believe they want. But I doubt it, really.

If money seems strong on your dream-o-meter you should clarify this by asking: what would I do with that money? It can be a tough question, if you don’t really have an answer. But I’m betting that if you give yourself space and imagination, the real answer will come.

Another variation of this question, used by wise people is: if I was rich and didn’t need to work again for the rest of my life, WHAT WOULD I DO WITH THE TIME? The answer could be revealing: go to college and get an English literature degree; settle down on a tropical island and chill; learn to compose music; take up gardening; or leave my spouse and start a new life where neither of us need see each other again.

It’s really all about honesty; what really moves you in life. What are you working towards, if only you could save enough money to get it? Some dreams don’t even need money; Mother Teresa dreamed of helping the poor in a squalid Indian city. Well she got it.

Gladys Aylward saved up for years, to become a missionary in China. She got there. A book of her life written by Alan Burgess (The Small Woman) was made into the movie The Inn of The Sixth Happiness, starring Ingrid Bergman. That’s a life worth living, surely?

Amadeus Mozart dreamed of writing some of the greatest music of all time. He got it. Was it worth dying in poverty? You’ll have to dig him up and ask him. But I know what my answer would be if asked to choose: write some the greatest, most inspiring and beautiful thoughts of all time but die young? (yes, yes, I know: I’m too old to die young!)

Here’s another way to shake something loose, perhaps?

I read somewhere of a therapist working with a well-known author for overcoming her writer’s block. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But the writer actually voiced the thought, “I could be insanely creative if I knew no one else would ever criticize what I write.”

Her comment seemed odd for a successful author, but it got me thinking about how much our fear of judgment holds us back.

So take a moment to ask: If no consequences to my creation existed, if I only had to please myself, if I only had to do what I wanted (within the constraints of safety, harmony, and balance within the world) what would I create? . . .What if there was no judgment?

What if you could get away with ANYTHING? What would you attempt?

A Word About Be-Do-Have

Most people’s dreams are about HAVING: some physical gain, some possessions or facility for enjoyment. They dream away, talk excitedly and often reinforce their dream with repeated affirmations.

But there is always a DO! You have to do something, to get your dream. This is always a lot vaguer. But it is essential; just dreaming without DOING will get you nowhere.

But there is a yet more important step, which is invariably overlooked by wannabe gurus and trainers… What do you have to BE to create your dream? What kind of person would achieve that dream? This is followed by some hard thinking about how you can step into such a person’s role model.

You can’t go on being the same poor old you, dreaming of bigger and better things. The viewpoint is from that of a person who does not have the dream. Instead, you must morph into the person who takes on this dream, as of a right or a sense of entitlement! You must become that person, who is capable of achieving what you desire.

Such a person is bold, confident, assured of his or her own self and filled to overflowing with ideas to achieve the goal.

I would strongly urge anyone who is set on an altered direction in life to do affirmations of what kind of person you ARE. Cut the “I’m rich beyond my wildest dreams” crap affirmations and start on things like “I am fearless and will never stop” or “No matter the difficulties, I know I will always find a way round the blockage” type affirmations.

Actually, I prefer the term declarations, as in Daily Declarations. Make a list of all the character or personality characteristics you think will fit or help you on your way and start reciting them to yourself on a daily basis.

The point is this… “I am rich” declarations are false, because you are not! But “I am a person of good humor, good character, patience and kindness” becomes INSTANTLY true, if you let it! So my advice to you, Dreamer, is build yourself a new and better character, to play the part you will need to play, if your dream is to come true! Become a citizen of your own Jerusalem!

There’s a fabulous extra bonus in doing this: if you fail with the dream, you have still become a more powerful, loving and intelligent human being.

What’s not to like?

Stay safe,

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor

*William Blake may have been the greatest poet/artist of all time. Blake was a major influence on Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison, Van Morrison, Patti Smith, Neil Young, Robert Plant, Bono, Bruce Dickinson, Kris Kristofferson, Thom Yorke, Walt Whitman, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Allen Ginsberg, Pablo Neruda, Salman Rushdie, Jackson Pollock, Philip Pullman and many other poets, writers, artists and singer/songwriters.

love without suffering jealousy

Eat without ever indulging

Never argue

And once in a while, with great discretion, misbehave.”

Armando Fuentes Aguirre, El Catón (Mexico)

Some of you will remember my “silly science” newsletters of the past. Pearlers include the “proof” that football fans over-estimate their team’s chances of winning; a study that showed children who have less than 20 minutes to eat lunch at school end up eating less and wasting more healthy foods; and the shocking discovery that if you have bigger food portions, you eat more!

How about the staggering “discovery” that if you get hangovers you can solve it by drinking less? No really: it’s scientifically proven! Joris Verster, an assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences, pharmacology, and psychopharmacology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, tells us: “the more you drink, the more likely you are to get a hangover.”

As I said at the time, you couldn’t make this stuff up! I mean, is it really science?

Here’s another howler I quoted: apparently, a study showed that hopping for 2 minutes a day can help bone health in older men. Don’t snigger. The REAL laugh was in the second paragraph:

The research team says it’s too soon to recommend older people start hopping at home! It’ll need more studies before we are sure this is a good idea…

My point was mostly about the huge waste of money in doing “research” like this!

So today, when I saw a headline that science has proven that if you celebrate holidays, you are more likely to be happy, I thought: Here we go again!

I read that: Matthew Killingsworth, a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar and happiness researcher, has collected data from over 20,000 people who report how happy they feel at randomly selected moments during daily life. He noted that the data reveals people are actually happier than usual on holidays. Killingsworth says, “Spending time with our friends and family turns out to be a robustly positive predictor of our happiness.”

Hold on a minute, I thought: in the USA, homicides peak at Thanksgiving and Christmas, when families get together. They start killing each other! I write about it as a food and drink indulgence—food allergies can make people violent. There is also too much DNA in the room at these times. Hostilities are probably commoner than love and camaraderie!

In fact, a survey compiled last year (2018) found that 68% of individuals polled expected “trouble” during their Thanksgiving assemblage. Assaults and violence typically increase around 20% over the Thanksgiving holiday!

Take, for example, the case of Paul Merhige in 2009. After finishing off a traditional Thanksgiving meal, the family gathered around a piano to sing Christmas carols. No sooner had the piano fallboard closed that Merhige shot and killed his twin sisters—one of whom was pregnant—an aunt, and a six-year-old cousin and wounded a sister’s husband. “I have been waiting twenty years to do this!” Merhige confessed to Florida authorities with relief.

Read more here.

Fortunately, most of us are not crazy when we eat the wrong foods. But some people are. One of my most famous cases ever was an Irish boy allergic to potato. He had tried to strangle his step-father and was sent to me by the courts for evaluation. I made medico-legal history in 1986 when, for the first time in the world, a judge accepted that a food allergy could make someone murderously violent.

Of course the irony of an Irish lad being allergic to potato was not lost in the media. The story went “viral” as we say today and it was echoed and re-echoed around the planet. I did an hour of prime time television in the UK on this story.

The Good Stuff

Dr Erica Chadwick, a PhD researcher at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, spent more than three years studying people and what made them happy and she reckons family and friends, and savoring the little things score highest.

Dr Chadwick said the research clearly shows meaningful social connections with family and friends remain the most valuable tool for feeling happy and mentally well. So take a moment to appreciate the small moments in life that put a smile on your face, like a high-five, a radiant flower or a good mark.

Actually, this is useful science. I was just being a bit perverse earlier. For example, recent research published in the PLOS ONE (Public Library of Online Science) analyzed language patterns of volunteers on social media and found people who use words such as “weekend,” “coffee,” “holiday,” and “delicious,” score high for positive emotions. These are people who enjoy getting outside, celebrating holidays, and hanging out with their friends.

That’s something I’m glad to know.

We know that savoring the little things and having gratitude can lead to greater overall well-being. So celebrating for longer may extend those positive feelings. A study from the Journal of Environmental Psychology suggests that holiday decorations tell neighbors you’re accessible and friendly, open to socializing and making new friends.

Gratitude Wins The Day

Gratitude, as I have written often, is a MASSIVE healer. It doesn’t mean you give up on having more and being more successful. But it does mean you grasp at happiness NOW. Be happy with what you’ve got and tell yourself so!

It’s good to keep a gratitude journal and at the end of each day, write at least 3 telling things you have cause to be grateful for. That has GOOD science, not silly science, which says the effect on your well being will last for weeks, or even months.

The journal Psychology Today gives 7 scientifically-proven health benefits of intentional gratitude :

1. Gratitude opens the door to more relationships.
2. Gratitude improves physical health.
3. Gratitude improves psychological health.
4. Gratitude enhances empathy and reduces aggression.
5. Grateful people sleep better.
6. Gratitude improves self-esteem.
7. Gratitude increases mental strength.

I have a great gratitude track on my collection of “mind walks” for the Kasina device. You could do worse than get yourself one of these amazingly soothing instruments 

You can also build yourself a gratitude “wheel” like this (from mindsoother.com):

Or just take a notepad and start writing out things to be grateful for. The secret is to keep doing it beyond just a few days. Keep at it!

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby

The Alternative Doctor

Longest-surviving French woman, Jeanne Calment, for example, was a heavy smoker. And she enjoyed a drink; usually cheap red wine! Yet she lived to 123 years!

Centenarians, it seems, age more slowly than the rest of the population. Sardinia, a region of Italy, has the most centenarians per capita – 6 centenarians for every 3,000 people – 10 times more than in the US where the ratio is 1 per 5,000.

But, the health statistics for 100+ year olds may surprise you. For example:

• 37% were smokers for an average of 31 years
• 37% were overweight; 8% were obese
• 20% never exercised at all; 44% only moderately

Yet, these centenarians have lower rates of heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke. Psychiatric illnesses, such as depression, are almost nonexistent.

So Why?

According to research and interviews with centenarians themselves, the primary difference between them and the rest of us comes down to six key ingredients (no particular order)…

• Zest for life
• Strong family and social ties
• Optimism
• Sense of humor
• Eating real food
• Hard work

Centenarians tend to be exceptionally good at expressing love, nurturing others, working hard, being involved in their communities, and flat-out refusing to stress about the small stuff—or most anything for that matter!

Happiness, say centenarians, is the real key to a long life, and research backs them up. In fact, happy people tend to live about 35 percent longer. Makes sense; who would want to live 100 years if your life was lousy?

Positive thoughts and attitudes seem to somehow strengthen the immune system, boost positive emotions, and decrease pain and inflammation.

Sadly, though, life expectancy worldwide is now on the decline. Modern conveniences and technologies have left us stressed-out, unhappy, unhealthy, chronically tired, and disconnected from each other.

Yuckkk!

They say that if you want to live to 100 and enjoy the happy, healthy lifestyle they had, you must be proactive every day and that managing stress is vital. Most importantly, they all agree that the keys to living to 100 are available to everyone, everywhere. And, as you can see, they’re not complicated.

I have some KILLER ideas to enhance such a program. I love sharing these ideas and I myself benefit from them.

I wrote a book about it, if you are interested:

http://www.outinfrontmedicine.com/1sc/

If not, live long, live well and enjoy every precious moment on earth!

Prof, Keith Scott-Mumby

The Official Alternative Doctor

Stress is probably the number one killer of all. If you are not happy, balanced, centered and grounded, you are likely subject to stress. Remember my own definition of stress, which “the difference between what you’ve got and what you wanted.” The wider the gap, the more stress you are subject to. We can say the same about love… and there’s a science to go with it. Those who are loved, or FEEL that they are loved, live longer and enjoy better health.

That’s why we sometimes talk about “vitamin L”!

So why not Love as Healer, Love as Slayer? Except that love can never slay. Only lack of love (which is one of the worst imaginable stresses) can hurt you. So we are left with just Love as Healer! That’s what I want to talk about.

First of all, what is love? We all think we know… Then on closer questioning, or deeper introspection, the honest ones among us realize we know nothing. Let’s take a shot at defining it.

First, what love is not: Love is not need, longing or desire. To need or desire is to WANT. It basically means lack. Love is not lack.

Love is a fullness and outgoing, a giving and enfolding. There is no lack. It is a state of abundance.

That’s the difference between love in the spiritual or philosophical sense and love in the biological or sexual sense. That kind of “love” can be very needy and demanding. It’s more of a craving than a fulfillment. Lust more than satisfaction.

Nothing wrong with lust and desire… Everything in its place; but to consider that to be pure love, just because it’s intense, is probably misleading. If you keep these two poles well apart in your own mind, then a lot of talk and emotions surrounding love begin to clarify somewhat.

Religious Ecstasy

The highest kind of spiritual love may have no sexual element but can be extremely intense; ecstasy even. That’s the kind of love those deeply engaged in the pursuit of Being and deeper knowledge are likely to encounter or manifest. It shows as love of God, love of The Buddha, love of The One True God, Yahweh, Aphrodite, the love of Christ, or love of the truth.

These are the religious adepts and mystics; Their kind of love is at the ultimate upper end of Being: serene contemplation, thrill, ecstasy and self death.

St. Teresa de Avila, Hildegard of Bingen and St. Francis lived many years in close contact with this level of enlightenment.

13th Century poet and mystic, Rumi, wrote of it in his ecstatic love poems (written for a man, Shams of Tabriz.) John Donne (pronounced Dunn), the Elizabethan poet, hovers over it without actually pressing the GO button!

Artists can manifest it. Michelangelo’s terribilità (driven force, almost madness) was clearly of that order of ecstasy and engagement.

Dance: If you’ve ever seen the “whirling dervishes” (Mevlevi Dervishes), a Muslim sufi sect, you’ll not doubt that a person can pass into ecstasy, simply by prolonged, rhythmical whirling. The Mevlevi, by the way, owe a lot to Rumi.

Let’s come back to earth and consider love for the ‘Everyman.’

As I said, need and desire point to a different phenomenon, most typically the “love” that arises from sexual attachment. It has a place, but it can hurt like hell, as we all know. The pain of love is built into a language and proverbs: “You always hurt the one you love,” or “Love is the most beautiful of dreams and the worst of nightmares,” or “Where there is love, there is pain.” [Spanish Proverb]

The Everly Brothers hit it beautifully with their song, which speaks to every tortured teenage heart, sick with love:

Love hurts, love scars, love wounds and mars
Any heart not tough, nor strong enough
To take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain
Love is like a cloud, holds a lot of rain
Love hurts…

Let me sum it up by saying that kind of love is driven by hormones and pheromones. It’s chemical. We are looking for something better.

Not just romantic, sexual love.

Broken Heart Syndrome

Have you heard of broken heart syndrome? It’s real. Its other name is ‘stress-induced cardiomyopathy’ and a new study shows that an actual heart attack can result from life tragedy, such as losing a loved one.

Imran Arif, MD, UC Health interventional cardiologist, says the symptoms of broken-heart syndrome may be brought on by the heart’s reaction to a surge of stress hormones, and as a result, part of the heart muscle suffers damage.

The newest study by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston shows that the day following the loss of a loved one, a person is 21 times more likely to suffer a heart attack, and the spike occurs even in people at a low risk for heart attack.[1]

The Healing Power Of Love

We’ll pass on from sexual love to the “real” thing! Perhaps it is, as Ethel Specter Person tells us, “An act of imagination.” For some of us, it will be the great creative triumph of our lives. In its very nature as an act of the imagination lies the source of its power for both good and ill, for it can indeed exploit the lover’s illusions or delusions, but alternately can lead the lover to transcending truths.” [Love and Fateful Encounters, 1989]

This is the kind of love that can heal, can save lives, can create wonder and delight. It’s true! I’ve quoted several times previously the interesting bit of research:

In a Harvard study, researchers discovered that married men who felt loved by their wives experienced 50 percent fewer heart issues, despite having high risk factors like high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes.[2]

Not just men, either. A study from the University of Pittsburgh found that women in happy marriages have a much lower risk of cardiovascular disease than those in high-stress ones. Love really is good for your heart.

Prevention online magazine tells us that the benefits of love are explicit and measurable:

The National Longitudinal Mortality Study, which has been tracking more than a million subjects since 1979, shows that married people live longer. Plus, they have fewer heart attacks and lower cancer rates, and even get pneumonia less frequently than singles.[3]

Put another way, a study done by UCLA researchers found that unmarried people had a “significantly higher” death rate than married couples who live together. Harvard University researchers also found that married women are 20 percent less likely than single women die of stress-related causes like heart disease, suicide and cirrhosis of the liver.

As for married men, they’re 100 to 200 percent times less likely to die of these causes than single men are. Love is healing!

Some experts think it won’t be long before doctors prescribe steamy sex, romantic getaways, and caring communication!

That’s a whole lot better idea than pills and exercise! Yay!

Have fun! (wink!)

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby

The Official Alternative Doctor

Sources:

1. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-emotional-grief-heart.html

2. https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/marriage-and-mens-health

3. https://www.prevention.com/sex/relationships/a20435514/how-love-keeps-you-healthy/#ixzz2Zt8bXeaV

To some, this is “progress” and I’m not against new developments. But it seems to me that the simple things have been lost in the haze and confusion. The patient has now become almost a supernumerary! He or she is “in the way” of important work to be done. There are tubes, pills, enemas, trolleys, endless x-rays and endless staring at the MRI scan screens to be carried out.

We haven’t time for the damned patient and his or her fads!

Certainly there is little or no time to see he or she is comfortable, less fearful, assured and calm.

Images like these are more often than not just advertising puff, rather than real

More drugs, more science, more labs, more tests, is the cry. It’s a kind of techno frenzy. Everything is made worse by the fact there is little time, in truth, to spend with each patient. In the doctor’s office, time is often down to a few minutes. Sometimes a VERY few minutes…

Certainly no time for good old-fashioned TLC. The patient doesn’t need TLC, the doctors and nurses think: he/she needs such and such a drug or such and such procedure. Just talking to the patient is a waste of time. It’s the first thing to go out the window.

Why bother? Only the “treatment” is going to fix him or her.

Well, that shows a laudable—but highly misguided—reliance on what they consider to be the “correct” treatment, or at least the generally-agreed treatment. It’s got to the stage where doctors don’t even LISTEN to the patient. “What does he or she know?” That’s very arrogant and, again, foolish. The patient is the source of all knowledge, whether it’s something he or she describes, or a test carried out on the patient’s body.

I don’t think doctors think of the patient as the center of action any more. Their labs and THEIR ideas and opinions are what really count. The patient is just a name and a case number.

Rude and Revolting

It has reached the point where doctors are verbally abusive to their patients. I have to say this is, regretfully, largely a phenomenon in the USA, where every doctor is in a rush to grab as many dollars as possible, before the lights go out!

Patients can be so difficult! They want your time, they want answers, they want to “discuss” their case, for Gawd’s sake! Who puts them up to these jumped up ideas? Those damned chiros and osteopaths, no doubt.

[Don’t write to me! I’m making up dialogue to illustrate my point!]

I have countless reports of patients being shouted at when they express reservations about suggested treatment. This becomes particularly acute when discussing cancer treatments. The business model is to corral the patient, heighten their fear, create urgency and demand a quick commitment.

They don’t like hesitation. It gives the patient time to think things through! Maybe he or she might even change their mind, or refuse to become a cash cow… Ooops, sorry, a quiet obedient chemo patient.

Getting engaged, talking things through answering questions, being reassuring instead of demanding and threatening, cuts completely across this business model.

Consider this report I received from a nice lady called Susann:

In 2016, after the death of my daughter and best friend, events caught up with me and I had a “cardiac event” sending me to the Heart Hospital. I was thrown into Western Medicine after 30 years of choosing alternative and holistic health care.

My almost 2 years was searching for a cardiologist to assist me in keeping an eye on things – I fired 5 before I found one that would “co-create” a healing plan with me and allow me to work with Holistic 1st. I knew he couldn’t “advise” me and that was okay – I was my own “advisor” – I just needed him to know. I wasn’t there to ask his permission – just make him aware of what I was doing and why.

I had not 1, but 2 physicians literally get in my face and SCREAM at me because I refused statins – I had already done my due diligence and researched statins. One cardiologist (when I attempted to talk to him about alternative methods that I had read up on) not only dismissed me but said and I quote (you don’t forget things like this) – “WHEN YOU GET ANOTHER HEART ATTACK – AND YOU WILL! DO NOT COME CRYING TO ME!”

Yet another literally got up from her chair and into my face and screamed – (yes – screamed) YOU’RE GOING TO DIE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!!! Not once, not twice but 3 TIMES upon which I just got up and walked out. I ended up with an anxiety attack from her verbal battering and yes, I did report her.

One cardiologist told me when I shared with her the side effects of a Beta Blocker & ACE Inhibitor she had me on – I couldn’t even take a shower without getting out of breath – walking to the car a short distance to my office door had me stopping twice to catch my breath – I researched the meds – “side effects include” – she said to me “No it ISN’T the medication – “I have a patient on this that plays tennis every week and he’s FINE!” –

Really? Dismissed – again – that was Cardiologist #5. By the way, I stopped the med and regained my capacity to walk and breathe without feeling as if I was going to pass out from extensive wheezing.

Well I found one who was kind enough to listen – allowed me to follow my own healing path and a subsequent follow up catheterization and echo showed – not only could he NOT find any issues – he had to look at the notes of the “event” to see where the damage was on that fateful day – he couldn’t. So he said he was “there for me” but whatever it was I was doing – keep it up.

I went on KETO, have done Intermittent Fasting and Extended Fasting (Autophagy) and did a lot of emotional work because healing truly is a “Mind, Body, Spirit” process – and within a few months of being “allowed” to follow my own path with extensive research – all my labs came back within normal range. I am still working on some other issues as a result of all this – but the drugs they put me on after this event did more harm than good.

So, Dr. Keith, today I follow physicians like you who are trained in the “Western” medical model but who have taken it a step further into a more Holistic approach. I keep files handy to refer to them when something pops up and I SO appreciate those who are braving the status quo and I do see it as bravery because I know what Big Pharma and the AMA does to those who “don’t toe the line.”

Just wanted to share my appreciation for your choice in helping people.

Susann.

Memory loss is considered a “normal” part of aging but that isn’t entirely true.

Scientists still don’t know the exact cause of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia but there are clear risk factors you need to keep in mind.  Some – such as age and genetics – cannot be controlled but the ones listed below are within your power to influence.

Risk Factors for Dementia

• Smoking and other tobacco use damages tissues all over your body and your brain is not immune to the effects.
• Alcohol use in greater consumption than recommended (1 drink per day for women, 2 drinks a day for men) has been shown to contribute to problems learning and retaining new information as well as gaps in short and long-term memory.
• Obesity increases your risk of heart disease, diabetes, as well as numerous neurological and physiological conditions.  
• Traumatic brain injury has been connected to a greater risk of dementia later in life.  Wearing protective gear during physical activities (cycling, rollerblading, etc) and wearing a seatbelt in motor vehicles decreases your chance of sustaining damage to your brain.
• Atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) restricts blood and oxygen flow to the brain.  There’s also a link between LDL (bad) cholesterol and this process.
• Diabetes increases your risk of both atherosclerosis and stroke – which in turn raises your risk of vascular dementia.

Along with a healthy diet and lifestyle choices, there are many “memory enhancement” techniques you can implement in your daily life to protect your memory now and well into the future.  One of them could be the job you do!

Long-Term Study Links Jobs and Memory

A study published in Neurology from researchers with the University of Edinburgh found a connection between retaining memory skills and job complexity.  In fact, the more complex your job, the better chance you have of keeping your memory and general cognitive skills sharp for many decades.  

The research centered around participants born in Scotland in 1936.  At age 11, the then-children were tested to measure IQ. At age 70, they were tested again.  

It was discovered that subjects who held jobs high in complex interaction with people (such as doctors and law enforcement), things (such as engineers and machinists), and data (such as architects, musicians, and computer analysts) ranked higher in memory retention, speed of processing information, and overall cognition.  

There is also a strong link to intellect early in life to what job you might choose, which would then influence cognitive skills throughout your life into later years.  

Lower intellect or a simplistic job may lead to faster erosion of the neuropathways the brain uses to signal the body, retain information, and control higher-level thinking.  

In other words, the more you think and learn, the stronger those neural connections will remain.  In effect, you’re “working out” your brain.

Protecting Your Memory Depends on Many Factors

The more you do right now to preserve cognition, the better.  Starting as young as possible is wonderful but it is never too late to exercise your brain.  Here are a few ideas proven to engage your mind and get the neurons firing.

• Social interaction with friends and family keeps your mind from becoming stagnant and isolated.  Conversation, laughter, and even debate keep your mind “involved” in life.
• Get plenty of sleep so your brain has time to process ideas and information.  
• Exercise regularly for improved thinking and better blood flow to the entire central nervous system.
• Continue to learn – how to cook, a new language, or a hobby you’ve never tried – which helps your brain stay alert and constantly stretching.  
• Explore new places, music, and ideas to give your brain fresh input.  
• Get some sunshine to keep your vitamin D levels up.  
• Play brain games that include puzzles and riddles.  
• Write things down with pen and paper or say them aloud to improve memory.  

As with everything else, what you eat matters when you want to protect your memory.  Giving your brain the right fuel is crucial to keeping it healthy and strong well into your elder years.  

Brain-Boosting Foods To Include In Your Diet

• Nuts and Seeds are abundant in vitamin E and omega-3s, shown to help prevent age-related cognitive decline.  
• Celery is rich in luteolin, shown to lower brain inflammation.
• Blueberries have been proven in several studies to protect the brain from free radicals, which lead to oxidative stress, inflammation, and neurodegenerative disease.
• Avocados contain healthy fat that improves overall blood flow to the heart and brain.  
• Fatty fish is high in omega-3s, one of your brain’s favorite foods.  40% of your brain is comprised of fatty acids. Salmon, mackerel, tuna, and trout are just a few excellent choices.  Other good sources are walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and flax seeds.
• Broccoli is rich in vitamin K and choline.  It has shown incredible results in boosting overall cognitive function in the brains of unborn children.  
• Beans are a great source of magnesium.  Your brain needs plenty of magnesium to improve signal transmission to the rest of your body.  It also improves blood flow.
• Dark Chocolate that is 70% cacao or higher contains caffeine and antioxidants that release powerful endorphins to improve concentration and mood.
• Curcumin is the primary compound in turmeric and known best for giving curried foods their flavor and color.  Several studies have found that curcumin prevents the buildup of plaque (beta amyloids) found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.  
• Healthy Fats such as olive oil, organic butter, and coconut oil are perfect fuel for your brain – which represents 25% of the cholesterol in your body.  The right fats improve your HDL (good) cholesterol and lower LDL (bad) cholesterol. A recent study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that elderly participants with the highest levels of cholesterol had the best memory.

Don’t neglect water!  Dehydration (which you might not recognize) makes it difficult for your brain to focus on the tasks at hand.  

Positive thinking as well as keeping your life organized, centered, and busy will increase your chances of keeping your brain strong.  Make protecting your memory part of your health regimen now to benefit your overall quality of life for years to come.

It’s never too late…start right now.  

REFERENCES

http://time.com/3595997/complex-jobs-mental-cognition/
https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/what-is-alzheimers/causes-and-risk-factors
https://www.healthline.com/health/dementia-risk-factors
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/foods-linked-to-better-brainpower

The secret is all about finishing what you start.

It might seem too simple to work but when I tell you just how simple it really is, you’ll likely wonder why you didn’t think of it before this moment.  

The Inside of Your Head

Your mind is filled with clutter that you don’t even realize you have.  It messes up your moments, your days, your years, your decades because all that clutter is inefficient (as most clutter tends to be).  

Everything that happens in life is a cycle.  A well-known philosopher named Alfred North Whitehead defined this as an action loop.  There is a start, a finish, and the part in the middle that is the process or the action.  

This applies to small processes such as, “I need to organize the linen closet” to much bigger tasks such as, “I need to go back to school so I can change my career.”  These loops are part of your home, your profession, your personal relationships, your health, and even your meals.

They can be tasks you recognized needed doing today or unfinished business from thirty years ago.  The more “open” loops you have, the less efficient you are on a daily basis because your mind is littered with information that is outdated, chores that were never done but remain in the back of your mind, and even people who are no longer part of your life.  

Open loops = time slows.

Closed loops = time progresses.

In order to change your life, you have to close out your unfinished business!

Make a list of your own “unfinished” business.  Separate them into categories and label them by importance.  Take the least important open loop on your list and complete it today.  If that open loop is “clean out the freezer,” then get up, do that task, and close that loop for good.  Then take the next least important task that might be “send a card to so-and-so for their birthday,” and then the next “take clothes to charity,” until you have several smaller, less critical loops closed.  

Why go in order of least important to most important?  To train your mind to close loops, you must have practice.  The best practice is to conquer small bites of clutter.

In my teachings, I stress that there are two very distinct aspects of these action loops that makes them such an important part of your daily existence.  They also define whether your life is well planned and focused or filled with random disorder that gets you nowhere you want to be.

Efficiency: the orderly way in which you complete your action loops.

Power: the speed at which you complete your action loops.  

If you planned to organize your filled attic, you wouldn’t start in the middle of the room and try to carry a big piece of furniture downstairs.  You wouldn’t have the space to maneuver it! You have to work your way to that large armoire or table by organizing the stacks of boxes and clearing room for you to work.  

That is how to change your thoughts to be efficient and close loops in an orderly fashion.

When you start with small tasks, you are able to close more loops in less time.  The more clutter you clear away, the faster you will become at removing the cobwebs of random information and responsibilities from your mind.  

You alter your thinking to a place of power and close loops more quickly.

When you do not have control over your own thoughts, you feel sluggish, disoriented, and disconnected.  As you close loops, you gain strength and focus.

That is when things truly get interesting.  You see, most of mankind “goes with the flow,” doing the same things that everyone else does because that is what is considered “normal.”  Normal is also “average.”

If you are content in your life, without the desire to do more than what you are doing right now, then you are a normal, average person who can close loops and improve efficiency in your daily life.  It will make you feel more energetic and likely happier.

However, if you’re someone looking to change your life…

If you’re a person who is driven, who is always looking to do more, be more, and accomplish more, then the next step is learning how to manipulate your action loops.  

There will still be a start and an end, but the process in the middle will now be filled with your “willful intent” to complete specific actions while also actively foreseeing and stopping those things that you do not want in the process.  

Cause: starting a process with the willful mindset that you will accomplish it.

Prevention: preventing those pitfalls in the process that will derail you.

Desired Transformation: getting the results you want.

Producing real, measurable change in your life is not difficult.  It simply takes practice and concentration.

Make your list of open loops, start with the smallest items on your list, begin closing those loops, and then apply that process to the larger, more complex unfinished business.  

Once you’ve closed as many loops as you can – no matter how old or the level of importance – you can begin to actively open loops with your willful intent, affect change in your life, see them through to completion, and close those loops with your desired transformation in hand.  

It may seem too simple but once you make your list, once you see how many open loops you have in your house, your job, your relationships, and so on, you’re going to understand why you can’t seem to get anything done.  

Clear the clutter.  Change your life.  Embrace the magnificent potential of your mind.  

How do you know you are loved? No, that’s not such a silly question. Love is very abstract. Someone can say “I love you” but how do you recognize it is true?

Let’s start with the example of happiness. Happiness too is rather abstract. How you do you know you are experiencing happiness instead of, say, fear or depression? It’s not just a theoretical question. Something you experience tells you it’s happiness that is where you are! Most people would say there is a warmth, relaxedness, a lightness in the head and chest, an energy that feels good and an outgoing feeling that embraces most of the current experience without flinching or censorship.

But then what’s a “good energy feeling”? Note that all these references for happiness are feelings. You experience something that you know means you are happy.

Try to figure out for yourself what you experience that tells you that you’re are happy! You can begin to comprehend how we create and structure our own reality, how we choose what is right or wrong for us, what is good or bad for us, what is pleasant and unpleasant for us, and so on. This is an important lesson.

Now, to return to the main question of this section: how do I know I am loved? What has to happen in the real universe for this sensation to cease being just an idea and become concrete reality for you? This is obviously a very important question for anyone alive. Yet it is one that most people have never even considered.

The necessary internal signaling-structure varies greatly. For some, it’s a certain way of touching or feeling; for others it’s the words – what is being said, or the way it is being said (the sound of the voice); yet another group responds to gestures, posture or emotions (all related). Of course this is all mixed up with eroticism and biology – nothing wrong with that.

It is still crucial to feeling fulfilled in love that we get what we want; not just what someone else wants to give us. See the difference?

It is vital to share our love signaling language with each other and take on board what our beloved partner is asking for. If not, you face the rather sad situation of him saying repeatedly “I love you”, yet she isn’t listening or responding because, for her, that isn’t the critical signal that moves her.  Maybe she is longing to be touched in a certain way or a certain place. But he doesn’t know that, so he isn’t giving her what she wants. So both partners flounder around and feel frustrated. They may even begin to feel “this relationship isn’t working”.

But all it means is that they are not both speaking the same “language of love”!

That’s relatively easy and great fun to put right!

Learning Another’s Love Language

For a feast of delight, do the following: in bed, in the jacuzzi or sauna, any place where you can respond at once in the manner desired…

Both read or have read this piece. Make sure you are each clear about your own message box: how do you know you are loved? What gives you that ever-so-special feeling? Tell your loved one and have him or her do it to/for you until you are sure they have it right. Discover their magic secret in turn and reciprocate.

If you get it right you will both melt into each others’ arms in a frenzy of delight. Those of you who saw the movie A Fish Called Wanda will remember the scene where John Cleese’s character is talking to Jamie Lee Curtis’ character in Russian. The effect of his spoken accent on her is devastating, she falls apart morally and mentally and is ravening for his caress; yet the man doesn’t even notice he’s thrilling her body and soul. We don’t share that signal and so we laugh; that’s the joke. But it is her representation of love and it is a good example of what is meant.

If you think you’ve got it, list your personal representations of feeling loved. These feelings or signals are unlikely to change much over a lifetime, so it’s important!

Note 1:

Note that you are not asking the person to like you any more or less, or differently. You are just asking him or her to do something that makes you feel hugely loved. This goes from him or her, to you. It could even seem like a chore for your partner but if they are loving and sincere, he or she will not show it and deliver the goods for you. In the end, the reward is what comes back from the other person, when he or she has been melted into the floor.

By the same logic, if you are representing for another person, you may not feel comfortable that this is the way you personally would choose to show your affection. But you must grasp that he or she may not respond well to what you choose to give out. For better strategies in life we need to change our maps, remember? This is an important shift from your viewpoint to your partner’s and you will find it incredibly rewarding.

Get a better map. Indeed, draw up the map for your lover’s heart territory, maybe for the first time.

Note 2:

This is not the same list as “What turns you on”, despite the film example above. There is nothing wrong in being clear with your partner what these arousal reactions are, however. If you haven’t addressed the issue together before, it’s time you did. Making love without such a list is like driving a car without knowing the Highway Code.

Finally, A Book I Recommend

It’s a gushering, almost threatening book, which uses language and metaphors that may be unfamiliar to you. Its title is DESIRE, which some people are taught is naughty. But it is an exciting and honest book and touches on longing and desire in a frank and open way. It has rightly attracted a lot of positive reviews and admiration.

You can get your copy by clicking here!

I actually met the author, Dr. Saida Désilets at a spiritual workshop in Vancouver and we made an agreement then and there to work together, to open up more pathways for women to establish their own, true sovereignty. That means we’ll probably do a webinar or workshop together. But for now I’d like you to know about her book and bring its racy, pacy message into your life!

Dr. Saida Désilets wants to live in a world filled with audacious, sexually sovereign people, living life on their own terms.

Well, I’m all for that, as you can see from my notes on The Language Of Love! Let’s have fun.