Caution Poisonous

By Dean Fraser

Dean Fraser

As we have already established, us humans are creatures of habit. And unless we get some kind of clarion wake up call, the chances are whatever neural pathways we have taken years to establish will continue to run the same programmes and patterns throughout our lives.

Many people do indeed spend small fortunes to self-inflict poisons upon their bodies in the full knowledge of the potential negative side effects of their lifestyle choice.

The only reason any of us continue with an action which is clearly against our self-interest is because we have not yet given ourselves a sufficiently good enough reason to not do!

Please understand I am not judging anyone’s actions. I am a passionate advocate of our right to complete freedom of choice, obviously as long our actions harm no others. And yet paradoxically some of the lifestyle choices we make for ourselves do indeed unintentionally have an all too real and sometimes devastating effect on those who love and care about us.

I feel particularly motivated to encourage any of you who do buy-into one or more of the following health-defeating lifestyle choices to look within yourself for your personal Good Enough Reason to change. Get your inner health mojo working in your own behalf in your own life; you can thank me later!

Every one of us already knows about all the self-inflicted poisons we are soon to be talking about. My wish is that we all now collectively achieve a different level of personal understanding through talking candidly about them.

I need to add, if you are addicted to any of these self-inflicted poisons be sure to take the advice of your chosen healthcare provider before making any changes; there is so much support and help available, take it all if you feel that you need it!

During each section I will detail one or two of my own personal Good Enough Reasons and suggest some emotional levers you can also use to bring a new paradigm to transform an old habit.

SMOKING
I am a bit of a non-smoker; well okay I never felt inclined to try it. As I mentioned, I am passionate about the freedom to make our decisions, mine has been to avoid tobacco. I personally always disliked the aroma of smoking, which was been enough to put me off ever wanting to become a smoker.

Throughout my childhood I could not eat if someone nearby smoked, and to be candid I still feel the same way today!

It has been known for certainly all of my lifetime that smoking is hardly beneficial to health in any way. On the contrary it creates as a by-product its own range of serious health problems and issues with the ingested carcinogens. I believe we are all responsible for our own actions, and in these times in which we live, everyone is fully aware of the health risks involved in choosing to smoke. The packaging on tobacco carries brutally graphic illustrations of the damage we will inflict upon our bodies when smoking, but this alone is not enough to persuade the passionate smoker to quit.

We all need Good Enough Reasons to change a habitual behaviour. If you are doing everything else right and still smoking, you already know you are making your body work so much harder to clear the associated toxins.

Cigarettes also contain sugar, this surprises many people, they indeed have remarkably high sugar content, up to 20%. Clearly health hazards needto be considered relating to a high sugar intake as well!

My mother had not smoked for well over two decades, but unfortunately as a previously heavy smoker the damage was already done. She died five years ago due to (amongst a few minor secondary issues) complications from her years of smoking; even though she had not touched a cigarette for so long. I can confirm for you, having been alongside her all the way, death from smoking is agonisingly slow and excruciatingly painful.

At an event I met a woman in her early twenties who during her lifetime had witnessed her great grandmother, great grandfather, grandmother, and tragically both of her parents all die due to smoking related cancers and bizarrely she also smoked! Clearly, she had yet to encounter her personal Good Enough Reason to make a new paradigm. No matter how much logic and common sense says otherwise or the emotional pain we experience; we are quite able to turn a blind eye to changing habitual behaviours so deeply embedded within our neural pathways.

The most effective way to transform any poor habit is to link pain or self-ridicule to it.

Take some photos of yourself smoking; really study these photos to see how incongruous with living a long and healthy life this action is.

In most first world countries, being a smoker in winter means standing outside in all weathers any time you feel the need to indulge. Take photos of this; standing outside shivering in minus temperatures or attempting to shelter from the gale force winds and icy rain, while you enjoy your smoke. See for yourself how switched on and intelligent you look…

Volunteer at your local hospice, freely giving of your time to help others, whilst also witnessing first-hand the far from beautiful final period of life endured by those with cancer caused by smoking. Find your own Good Enough Reason to quit.

We will go more into how crucial it is to replace any poor life-choices with something more pleasurable at the end of the chapter…in the meantime, let’s talk…

ALCOHOL

Often considered fine in moderation, some health experts even going so far as to suggest that a glass of excellent quality organic red wine or beer is health beneficial. A good rule of thumb is if we avoid overburdening our body with anything that requires a recovery time from eating or drinking we are on the right track.

During my brief encounter with the biggest publishing company in town during my first job, I met two engagingly witty salesmen, Tim and Larry. They were both kind to my sixteen-year-old self and spending some time laughing with them certainly brightened the few dull weeks I spent at that company. After I left, we still crossed paths occasionally, but sadly not for too long. Tim and Larry were both functioning alcoholics; they had seemed old to me when I was sixteen, but in reality were only in their mid-forties when liver disease claimed both of them within a few months of one another. Consequently, since then my personal association with alcohol etched into my belief system, is the premature ending of life. My Good Enough Reason is an over-riding emotion relating to alcohol that it robs us of authentically living life to the full, as epitomized in the case of my two late friends whose intellect had burned so brightly.

The guy finally gets his long sought-after promotion at work or is about to get married the next day. Cue taking on-board industrial quantities of alcohol to celebrate the occasion. This one has mystified me for years; surely some awesome news worth celebrating is a time to savour? Rather than making it into an occasion we will more than likely not actually remember or perhaps would even prefer to forget!

To change any habit we need to transform the emotional way we view it, how it makes us feel. Having photos of ourselves to reflect upon are wonderfully eye-opening!

As I suggested with smoking, if you habitually over-indulge in alcohol be sure to take plenty of selfies during the process of becoming inebriated. The following day take a good long look to study just how you looked and behaved during the previous evening.

Better still take photos of how awesome you looked waking first thing in the morning after that heavy night before! When you are on your way for another night-out keep one particularly stinking photo of what alcohol does to you as the home-screen on your phone as a poignant reminder to yourself.

We only need to check-out any news blog or newspaper to read of the latest family to have been devastated by alcohol, through a drunk-driver or someone passing away far before their time (as with my two friends) due to liver damage.

If you drink every day it is worth considering that you could well have an issue with alcohol. To confirm this go for three days without touching an alcoholic drink. If this is a struggle or turns out to be impossible, seek out what support or help is available locally.

JUNK FOOD

This is not called junk for nothing! An occasional junky indulgence our bodies just about cope with. Living off the stuff constantly is inevitably self-damaging. Deep fried food is universally recognised by nutritional experts as increasing the likelihood of heart disease, high cholesterol and diabetes. Moderation or avoidance all together must be the sensible option for any of us interested in a long and healthy life.

Food products are generally advertised in terms of the lifestyle eating them will offer. Not much attention on the product, it is far more about the cool happy people in the adverts who are having a wonderful life and all because they eat the advertised food or soft drink.

I met Shane after he had already suffered a serious heart attack, he was burdened with diabetes and grossly overweight. His career as an airline l pilot far behind him through his physical health issues, nevertheless Shane still found it challenging to eat healthily, claiming junky food gave him pleasure. Frankly seeing where his eating habits had taken him it was more challenging for his family and friends to understand exactly what pleasure he derived…we all have a choice.

Junk food is packed full of flavour enhancers such as MSG, e-numbers, sugar in its myriad of forms, and artificial colours to make it look more attractive. Is it any wonder wholefoods and more natural dietary options can seem a little bland comparatively? We need to reset our taste buds. If we do this after a short while purer eating will begin to taste delicious.

As a teenager I indulged in junky delights. I can confirm that gradually transforming the way we eat does indeed also change the way we taste food in a positive sense. I guess you have to give this a go to experience it.

My Good Enough Reason came through the irrefutable visual evidence of how my energy levels increased, and the way my skin and hair looked after cutting out poor quality foodstuff sand switching over to a more natural way of eating.

In youth our bodies recover from over-indulgence in poor foodstuffs quickly, although the results are generally still there in dermatological evidence or cholesterol levels.

It bears remembering that according to Zen every front will have a back, therefore if we spend our youth eating and drinking junk, somewhere further down our timeline payback day will arrive. This could manifest as later in life being faced with serious health issues we now need to deal with, those which might have been easily avoided with different lifestyle choices earlier.

If you know your diet consists of a greater proportion of highly processed or junk food, why not take yourself off to your chosen healthcare provider for a full physical examination? Ask them to not only test for the usual stuff such as cholesterol, body mass index and vit levels; also find out the condition and real-time age of your skin through dermatological profiling and your level of physical fitness.

RECREATIONAL DRUGS

Offer an artificial form of escapism. Regular users of recreational drugs claim their habit does no harm. Medical statistics would say otherwise. Long-term use of recreational drugs can affect us through psychological issues such as creating paranoia, difficulty in concentrating and if over-used death!

There is a tradition within artistic and creative endeavours for some to use so called soft drugs as a means to access ways of expanding their consciousness (as shamans traditionally also do to enter other realms). Yet how real are the results of all this artificially induced music or art? The guy who cannot get artistically inspired without smoking drugs must not be naturally a creative type of person…meditation equally also allows us to expand our conscious awareness…

Far too many amazing singers and actors have been lost to drugs. All the commercial success they attained and adulation of the public failed to fulfil their emotional needs and they chose to ease their pain through drugs.

If you have children and want to raise awareness in them about the reality of drugs, get them involved in donating food or clothing to a drug rehab centre. Make it your family centred project, then all of you visit the rehab centre to personally give them your donation, allow your children to see first-hand the stark reality of drug use.

If you are a creative person who extensively uses drugs as a part of your artistic process I am going to get a bit in your face to call you out, and challenge you right now to see what you produce without any artificial high. You might well surprise yourself…

CAFFEINE

Coffee gives us an energy rush, increases our heartbeat and too much caffeine causes stomach upsets. In my corporate days I would regularly drink over twenty cups of coffee a day! Not surprisingly I suffered from insomnia and irritability daily. A routine blood-test showed up practically caffeine running through my veins, definitely my overdue wake-up call and Good Enough Reason to adopt an instant new paradigm!

Too much caffeine risks many more possible side-effects than we can cover, you know the ones we are talking about –kidney issues, high blood pressure; and painful withdrawal symptoms such as cluster headaches.

I recently enjoyed a detailed conversation with a brain surgeon who stated neither he nor any of his colleagues drink coffee or caffeine rich drinks. Enough validation for any of us against caffeine I would say…

YOU DESERVE TO FEEL AWESOME!

Feeling personally motivated is essential to make any kind of change in life. We need to link pain or better still self-ridicule related to continuing with our existing paradigm. I cannot tell you exactly what’s going to push your buttons; you are going to have to work that one out for yourself…

What we can all do though, when deeply desiring to transform away from indulging in any type of action we unconditionally know makes no sense at all (such as intentionally self-poisoning) is to firstly get our inner health mojo working for us.

And secondly replace the negative action with something awesome we would love to do instead.

This feel-good action can be anything that feels amazing to you; walking within nature, making love, getting a pet, spending quality time with family, studying something new, taking up woodwork, origami, writing poetry, volunteering of our time, going to the gym, swimming, travel, cooking deliciously healthy meals, running or meditating.

When we actually improve our quality of life by taking on something new we love to do as part of the process of discarding an old paradigm, we gift ourselves the best possible opportunity for our desired changes to stick.

ABOUT DEAN FRASER
I began my quest to learn more about human potential well over three decades ago. Taking a year out from my corporate life, I read hundreds of books, travelled to visit ancient sacred sites and networked with fellow seekers of wisdom from around the world. I qualified in Body Language Psychology which acted as a springboard to my life's quest to help others discover the reason they incarnated on this beautiful planet of ours at this time. I never returned to the corporate world. Each year I write for thirty magazines across the world on ways of living in harmony and wellbeing with ourselves.

https://www.deanfrasercentral.com

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