Where focus goes, energy flows

Where focus goes, energy flows

“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.”  Aristotle 


Biodynamics is a world where the Macro-cosmos and Micro-cosmos align. The Macro-organisms are the stars, the cosmos, and the planets.The micro-cosmos are individual beings (plants, animals, humans). What all connects us is a kind of ‘electrical charge’.

We are all ‘electrical beings’.

The difference between a corpse and a human being is the ‘energy’ that keeps the person alive, keeps the body breathing, and the heart pumping.  In Biodynamics we call this energy ‘life force’ (derived from the Ancient Greek works bio – life and dunamis – energy). This concept of ‘life force’ has existed for thousands of years. In Ancient China it was known as qi. In fact, most civilizations had a similar explanation of how the world and all living entities interconnect with each other. What is clear is that we are all powered by the same ‘electrical charge’ and that this vast energy pool is shared.

The truth is, there is a lot of energy floating around and we all react differently to its influence.

The unconscious mind

Before you dismiss this all as ‘woohoo’, picture yourself in the middle of a dinner party, set in 1770. The scene is candlelit, everybody looks splendid with massive costumes and powdered wigs. At the table, you explain to other guests what a ‘radio’ is – yes there is a box and it has plenty of knobs and buttons. You can press one and listen to music or talk shows, made by people not even in your room, but sitting on the other side of the world. There are many channels and you can choose which one to listen to.

Guess what your audience would have made of you in 1770? Insane, absurd, and else. But here we are in the 21st century – all happily listening to podcasts, radios in our cars, and watching TV. Not so absurd anymore!

Well, the same goes for our ‘inbuild radio sets’. Everybody has one, but most people are absolutely not aware that it exists. Others are aware but have not found the manual yet and can’t switch it on.  There are also a few individuals who are not only aware that a radio exists, but they are also able to switch it on and tune into a specific channel.

This radio set is part of the ‘unconscious mind’. It is the large part of our brain that we don’t have conscious access to, but nevertheless, it exists. It occasionally surfaces in our dreams, inspirations, intuitions and gut feelings. Our brain is like a large computer and clocks millions of impressions every day. Some of these register as important, others are straight away forgotten or filed away. What is deemed important depends on our mindset.

One example would be when you buy a black car of a certain make – and all of a sudden you notice so many other black cars of this make. Were they here before you noticed them? Of course, they were. But only now your brain registers this information as important and shows it to your conscious mind.

Our brain is not a static organ, but a pool of different currents. It is primarily divided into the reptilian (survival brain) and the thinking brain. The survival brain will keep you alive by regulating breathing, and digestion. It also reacts to threats by either running away (flight) or facing the threat (fight). The ‘thinking brain’ is the big canopy above, where you process emotions, and feelings and where you connect to this higher energy via dreams, inspirations and thoughts.

Work with your unconscious mind

And here is the special thing – you can influence your thoughts and future behaviour. In fact, you must train your brain to become better with each day.  We are not the same every day, we are constantly in flux, and what we think/manifest does happen. Our brains are computers and what you feed in comes out. So you better make sure the thoughts (electrical impulses) you feed in are the ones you want to live with.

Knowing how our brain works, this function is super useful for setting and achieving goals.  Ever heard the phrase ‘ Where focus goes, energy flows’. It is your mindset that needs to tell your brain what is important, so it can recognize the information that propels your forward.

First of all, you have to stay clear of too much distraction. To achieve the best results you only want to feed in focused information that is relevant.
If you have a positive outlook, a can-do attitude, and look for like-minded individuals and opportunities guess what you will notice and interact with. On the other side, if you think of what you don’t want – being overweight, poor, unpopular, etc – you just notice more of this! And if all you feed in is irrelevant information, your brain will focus on this and that won’t get you further down the road of achieving your life goals. The brain does not distinguish what is good/healthy or the opposite. Like money, it is indifferent. It can be used for good or bad.

 It is all in your mindset and your thoughts determine what you focus on. And what you can see – you can achieve! What legacy do you want to leave behind?

So next time you fill in your LWTM LifeGoal Planner, get really specific about what you ‘really want’  and then visualize it. Tune ‘your own radio set’ to a channel that is a happy, fruitful place, and gets rid of all negative, destructive thoughts.

In today’s world, this advice is more important than ever! As I keep saying, you can’t change the macro cosmos, but you can change your own microcosmic world! Let’s start with a new mindset today!

Exercise Tip: I promise you if you do this consistently (daily for 90days straight !) you can reprogram your mindset. Find 10 minutes every day. For the first 5 minutes go in front of a mirror and repeat your most important goals and dreams, over and over again. Talk to your image in the mirror as if you were another person. You can set a timer, so you can stay fully focused on the message.

For the next 5 minutes, sit down in a quiet place, and take a few deep breaths. Then visualize one by one what would it look like if you had already achieved what you wished for. How does it feel, where do you live, what do you wear? Once you are crystal clear about what you want and how it looks and feels once you got there, you will notice a shift. It is not sudden, but a slow and constant change. Over time you will notice different people,places and new avenues will open up. You will attract new people into your life. Give it a try and stick with it daily for at least 90 days – daily! And most importantly, keep a diary of your goals and a log of how you implement your dreams by moving forward in small, achievable chunks.  Reading back old goal lists will provide you with a huge sense of fulfillment. Did you know that most people completely overestimate what they can achieve in one year, but completely underestimate what they can achieve long-term? Don’t fall into this trap, pace yourself and grow in a consistent and fulfilling way.

Remember: YOU alone are the master of your own destiny. Join our community below for more information.

 An Introduction to LWTM

Here is a link where you can download all our free resources to start building your new holistic life 

The holistic approach to weight management

The holistic approach to weight management

Liquid Fast Day     This article is for all of you who struggle to lose weight or have become eternal yo-yo dieters. 

In 2005 I conducted a small ‘diet trial’ in which I asked people to rotate their food intake and finish off with a ‘Liquid fast day’. At the time the 5:2 diet and intermittent fasting had not even entered the mainstream. But I had always thought it sensible to rotate food and add fasting to the mix. It was a real holistic approach to weight management. And this program I had in mind had to be easy with little time and no fuss.

After some research, I came up with a  food rotation program inspired by the Biodynamic calendar. I figured, so many civilizations had used this before and I wanted to find out if this method was still effective.

The trial run went well and afterwards, I gave everybody a simple questionnaire and debriefed them by phone. All participants reported feeling more aware of the food they were eating, most of them slept better and everybody reported much better energy levels. Which you would of course expect when you eat healthily.

But what stood out the most was how easy many of my testers found it to keep to the varied diet. Many reported it eliminated the eternal question of  – what shall they eat/cook today and it was easy to plan ahead.

This step is really important as in order to keep a healthy weight you need to find a way to progressively change your dietary habits. A week of calorie counting will not work.

When you look up and down the internet the advice is simple: Eat a healthy diet, exercise, and if you want to lose weight restrict your portion size and the frequency of food intake.  But despite all this sensible advice, we see obesity levels rise and rise. What is going so wrong for so many? Surely, this can’t just be a lack of willpower?

In my view, the way we approach ‘weight loss’, is completely wrong. It is always linked with pain/lack of food and is never associated with good quality food. The first piece of advice I would give is – Do something about your weight but do not stress about it! Stay relaxed and initially only concentrate on eating seasonal, good-quality produce that is organically grown. Food should be freshly prepared and eaten in good company. Once you have mastered that change, you can go further by adding a program that will keep you in good shape for life.

Looking around I noticed people who don’t care too much about their actual weight but do care a lot about eating good quality, preferably homemade food are on average much slimmer than people who fuss about calories and permanently seem to be on some kind of ‘diet’. Fortunately, science has rather recently backed up this observation. (Please find links to resources below this article).

Remember –  You are what you eat. But as we are all different,  it follows that we all also need to eat differently. One formula does not fit all.

What makes us so different from each other? 

For a start, we all have different circadian rhythms, and most importantly, everyone’s gut microbiome is different. 

Inside us live millions of little microbes, mainly situated in the large intestine. They can weigh up to 2kg and are responsible for what kind of food we crave, how easy or hard we find it to lose weight, and even influence our mindset and mood swings.

An embryo develops in a largely sterile womb. But as soon as the baby is born,  microbes start to populate the baby. It is therefore really important to expose your children to all kinds of foods and let them play in non-sterile environments, dig in fresh soil, play with animals, and experience all kinds of different environments. This will help build a strong and healthy gut.

Children digging with bare hands in the vegetable gardens don’t die. But children growing up in overly bleached homes who are given antibiotics for every little ailment end up with a largely compromised gut flora that can eventually lead to an increase in allergies and health problems. Add a sedentary lifestyle and a diet of overly processed food and you have the perfect storm. Once the microbiome has completely changed, it can be really hard to lose weight and a cycle of eternal fruitless diet attempts is the result.

The Biodynamic way of life always stresses the interconnectedness between the soil and the food we eat. We need these healthy gut microbes to come into our gut with organic fruit and vegetables. Believe it or not, it is these microbes that dictate what we crave. I for example, really crave fresh salads as these have always been part of my diet and my gut microbes ask for more and more of what they are used to.

Artificial fertilizers and pest control get rid of the healthy microbes in the soil. Therefore the food harvested from this kind of soil lacks any beneficial microbes and has very few nutrients.  Although we seem to eat a lot of ‘good stuff’, the gut is still a ‘microbial wasteland’  and can easily be colonized by strains of the sugar-craving ‘bad bacteria’. Once these take over your gut – guess what you crave? Sugar –  and so the vicious circle continues.

Next time you think about ‘going on a diet’, the first step is to sort out your cupboard and stock up with fresh, seasonal vegetables. But – and that is very important- don’t change your diet in one sweeping step. This will never work.  Your gut flora needs time to get used to your new diet. This can only happen very slowly and over time. So it is not a swooping step, rather a gentle nudge in the right direction and then a persistent plan to follow through and make it a permanent change.

If your current diet consists of mostly ready-made meals, please don’t stop eating them! Just introduce 1 freshly cooked, healthy meal per week. That’s all. Once this feels effortless, make it 2 and slowly 3. And over time you will have cleaned up your diet, but more importantly, you will have given your gut microbiome time to adapt and endorse your new way of eating. Write down which food you crave. If these are all of the salty, heavily processed kind, make an effort to cut out just one of these foods and replace it with your favorite healthy snack. Then slowly move on and replace another item with another healthy snack. You will see that your taste buds will change over time as well.

Believe it or not, once you live with freshly cooked, healthy meals you will struggle to eat greasy ready-made meals as your gut flora has now changed, and you will now crave this ‘new diet’ (meaning here the food we eat and not a term for losing weight).

Finally, try to add in some fasting days. This can be very hard at first, but please do persevere. Again this habit needs to be built up slowly. If you have never done this before, please follow a good program and don’t overdo it! If you are on the mailing list (your can sign up via the Freebies), we send out occasionally a blueprint of a fasting regime.

Once you have listened to your body and have found your own individual food program, you will be able to keep your weight forever- with no stress and drama. If you have never heard of ‘microbiome’ here are 2 useful videos from Kings College, London where Prof Tim Spector led much of its research program.

1.Discovery of the microbiome                                2. Microbes, diet and health  

For more information about LWTM and holistic lifestyle planning pleas  download our freebies 

 

 An Introduction to LWTM

The Holistic Life

The Holistic Life

Holistic Lifestyle      I started LIVING  WITH   THE  MOON a few years ago with my basic Biodynamic calendar charts and a handful of tips. books and recipes from my grandmother.

This lifestyle system – what I now call  LIVING WITH THE MOON – has always been in my life. It is my little ‘magic carpet’. Invisible, but it gives me grounding and purpose and has been my foundation for as long as I can remember. 

In essence, Living With The Moon is based on my grandmother’s biodynamic lifestyle tips and recipes mixed with my own research. But more recently I added another dimension to it – Holistic Life Planning

The first person who coined the holistic approach was Aristotle. This Ancient Greek philosopher (born in 385 B.C.) wrote
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts’. A simple sentence with a complex sentiment and totally symbiotic with the Biodynamic view of the world. The idea that all living beings are interconnected and part of a large macro-organism is nothing new. It is even more incomprehensible that we are so hell-bent on damaging/compromising nature and its ecosystems.  As the inevitable consequence is that by hurting the system as a whole we will hurt ourselves, too. It is basically self-harm.

It is hard for one individual to change the world. But there is one area you can have a total, direct influence on – and this is YOU. Now imagine everybody would strive and be ‘the best version of themselves – can you see what a big impact that would have?

When you are healthy, happy and in balance, you radiate. In fact, this is predominately a mental ‘state of mind’. With a bit of exercise, everybody can achieve this state of mind. Regardless of income, sex, or where they live.

Some people seem to have ‘everything’ – seen from the outside. But inside they are far from happy, balanced, and of course, don’t radiate.

The LWTM Holistic Lifegoal Planner helps you dig deeper, rekindle this life-affirming ‘spark’, and will keep you on track to reach your set goals. Once you know who you really are, you can rebuild your life in this image. 

The LWTM Lifestyle Calendar will help you to keep your life in balance. We have included symbols with varying colored backgrounds. These represent different topics, like Health and Beauty, Home and Garden, Relationships, and other topics. On the calendar we keep these topics separated – as it is easier to look up more specific information, tips, and recipes.   But of course, all of these areas form part of the overall LWTM Holistic Lifestyle.  You  can find out more about this system when you download our FREEBIES 

The essence of a great lifestyle design is the way we arrange these areas and how we balance them.

When I was little, I was told  ‘You can have everything, but not all at the same time’. As a child, you don’t pay much attention to sayings like this. Only once I grew older (and hopefully wiser) did I realize how true this statement is, even though I am still grappling with the 100% perfect formula for my own personal life. But at least I consider myself lucky to have been given a head start from a very young age when I was introduced to the Biodynamic philosophy and lifestyle by my grandmother. 

The holistic lifegoal planner – will help you find an answer to the question ” How do you want to build a happy and fulfilled life”. We all have vague ideas of what we want to do. But only once you drill down to  – what really does matters – will you be able to successfully re-arrange your life. 

 I think this old system’s most under-rated strength is its usefulness when it comes to balancing the areas of your life. Once you are familiar with its formula and you personalize it to your own individual circumstances, this system will throw out dates, symbols, and suggestions of what to do on each day and how to structure and plan your life ahead!

If you are new to holistic lifegoal planning and “How Biodynamics work” please start by downloading our free introduction package LWTM freebies download link 

Once you have familiarized yourself with the offered and you put it all into practice, you will see that all areas of your life will pull together in the same direction.  Over time a wholesome, well-balanced picture will emerge. Applied consistently and over time it will give you great results and will lead to a well-balanced, productive and happy life. 

 

 An Introduction to LWTM

Here is a link where you can download all our free resources to start building your new holistic life 

 

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