Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1 1
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+ Understanding Health What Is Holistic Health? Our Human Needs 8 Stress and Balance 10
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Your Biography Becomes Your Biology Let It Begin with Me! 17 2
+ Being Self-Aware
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You Are a Magnificent Masterpiece! The Six F’s of Health and Well-Being Is “Normal” Healthy? 26 Learning How to Live 27 Developing Self-Awareness 31 What’s in It for Me? 38 You Have Choices 39 3
+ Faith
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Faith as Part of Your Health- and Life-Care Systems FEAR 47 Faith in Self: The Relationship You Have with Yourself 52
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Faith in Others: The Relationship You Have with the People in Your Life 55 Faith in Life Processes: Patience 57 Faith in a Higher Spirit 60 Faith Takes Action 68 Embracing Health, Balance and Abundance through Your Faith 70 4
+ Family
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What Is FAMILY? 73 What Does LOVE Look Like? 76 Building Strong Family Relationships
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Couplehood: Love Is Not Enough 82 Intimacy in Couplehood 87 Advice from Marriage Counselors 88 Taking Time for Ourselves in Our Relationships 91 It Takes a Village to Raise a Child 92 Time and the Family Meal 96 How Do You Communicate? 98 Setting Boundaries 101 A Wounded Child 103 A Family Disease 107 Abusive Relationships 110 Forgive Them! 112 Embracing Health, Balance and Abundance with Your Family 115 5
+ Fitness
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How Do You Treat Your Body, Mind and Soul? Physical Fitness
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Nutritional Fitness 128 Environmental Fitness 135 Mental Fitness 137 Emotional Fitness 144 Spiritual Fitness 151 Embracing Health, Balance and Abundance with a Fit Body, Mind and Soul 154 6
+ Friends
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The Need for Friends 155 BFF: Best Friends Forever 157 Ladies, Keep Your Girlfriends 159 Pick Your Friends Wisely 160 The No-Friends-Left (NFL) Club 164 Making New Friends 166 Good Conflict 168 SERVICE Work: It’s in You to Give 172 The Joy of Working 175 Embracing Health, Balance and Abundance with Your Friends 178 7
+ Finance
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Financial Health 179 What’s Your KASH Flow? 182 Do You Have PMS? 184 How Much Money Passes through Your Hands? 186 How Much Money Is Enough? 188 LUCK Improves Your Financial Well-Being 191 Staying Debt-Free 199 Teach Your Children to Be Self-Supporting 200
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Embracing Health, Balance and Abundance with Financial Fitness 203 8
+ Death and Taxes
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Talking about Death and Dying 205 Experiencing Death 209 Hospice Palliative Care 213 Sustaining Life, Delaying Death 215 Leaving a Legacy of Your Life 219 Planning for Your Passing 221 Giving to Others 225 You Don’t Need to Be Rich to Give 226 The Charity Child 231 Giving to the Government While Cutting Your Tax Bill 232 Embracing Health, Balance and Abundance as You Prepare for Death and Taxes 235 9
+ Fun
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What Is FUN? 237 It’s a Laughing Matter 241 Principles and Values to Live By 243 Having the Right Attitude 246 In This World You Will Have Trouble! 248 Stop and Rest for a While 250 Excuses 251 Letting Go 253 Worry, Anxiety and Depression 255 “I Have a Secret!” 259 Gossip 261
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Addictive Behavior 263 Gratitude Changes Your Attitude 265 Embracing Health, Balance and Abundance through Fun 267 10
+ Life Is a Do-It-Yourself Project You Are Responsible for You! “I Can Do This!” 273 The Buddy System 277
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“I Have a Dream!” 279 Say Yes! 283 Persistence 285 Let It Begin with Me! 289 Appendix I: Acronyms 293 Appendix II: Pearls of Wisdom 297 Appendix III: Resources 303 Appendix IV: The “I” Statement Exercise 309 Appendix V: The Balance Wheel of Health and Well-Being Exercise 315 Selected Bibliography 317 Index 325
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When your belief system is put to the test, do you have the faith to persevere? Can you hold onto your faith in spite of difficulty, believing in new possibilities and finding comfort despite the unknowns? Do you believe events will work themselves out for the benefit of all concerned?
Faith
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“Faith is the refusal to panic.” — David Martyn LloydJones (1899–1991), Welsh Protestant minister and medical doctor
FEAR Many of our beliefs are based in fear, stop“The only thing that ping us from believing in positive outcomes. separates any one of Fear is an unpleasant, often strong emous from excellence is tion caused by the anticipation or awareness fear, and the opposite of danger or harm. Fear holds us back, of fear is faith.” limiting the way we respond to life and — Michael J. Fox, its challenges. Our beliefs concerning our Canadian actor, author, possibilities, or their lack, control what we producer and activist for accomplish in life. When faced with difParkinson’s disease ficulty, one person will say, “Let’s work to find a solution,” whereas many others will say, “It’s impossible.” Many of us walk away from doing more because we’re told we are not capable and we believe it to be true. Fear affects our Faith. It prevents us from trusting and believing our challenges will turn out well. Fear affects how we relate to our Families and Friends, how we handle our Fitness and Finances and how we have Fun. Anytime we allow fear to get a grip on us, we become immobile instead of active. Fear freezes us in place, preventing progress and keeping us from stepping forward. Fear is not simply an emotion or feeling. Fear affects us physically. In Who Switched Off My Brain? Controlling Toxic Thoughts and Emotions, Dr. Caroline Leaf reports that fear “triggers more than 1,400 known physical and chemical responses, activates more than 30
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Knowing and accepting family members and others as fundamentally different from us fortifies trust, love and appreciation in our homes. To restate Thomas Merton, “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” “Marriage is just an elaborate game that allows two selfish people to periodically feel that they’re not.”
Couplehood: Love Is Not Enough
The family unit begins with a couple. Their relationship is the bedrock on which the entire family is built. — Paul Reiser, American Couplehood is a primary source of hapcomedian, actor, author piness, sharing and intimacy for many of and musician us. It is a stronghold reminding us we are loved and urging us to love in return. Even though we are individuals in our own right, being part of a couple can often make our lives more enjoyable. Science shows that committed, healthy relationships increase longevity, reduce blood pressure and even speed up the healing of wounds. But being and staying part of a supportive and healthy couple takes work and commitment. The rose-colored glasses we often wear when we first fall in love can stop us from clearly seeing our beloved’s true character. There is truth to the statement “Love is blind”! In time, the qualities first attracting us to each other may no longer be appealing. Learning to co-exist under one roof can be difficult. For our relationships to work and last “till death do us part” requires the same time, energy and commitment we had for each other when we were dating. A friend of mine advises family and friends who are considering a long-term couple relationship, “You know what you like about them because that’s what attracted you in the first place. Find out what you
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Nutritional Fitness What we eat and drink provides energy for our bodies’ growth, maintenance and repair, and for physical and mental activity. Our bodies are like high-powered, finely engineered vehicles, but instead of being powered by gasoline, they are powered by the food we eat. What we put into our fuel tanks is burned by our activity; however, low-octane fuel—or “You are what junk food—clogs up our bodies—or our you eat!” engines. Eating healthful food keeps our — Victor Hugo Lindlahr, bodies functioning at a higher level. (1897–1969), American Just like finely engineered vehicles, our health food and bodies speak to us when something is weight-loss pioneer wrong. We may notice problems only once our bodies are not operating well or are completely damaged. But unlike vehicles, acquiring spare parts for our bodies is not a viable option. Healthful food choices help control cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure. They help us maintain a healthy weight, prevent heart disease and cancer and have a major impact on degenerative diseases. Healthful foods give us more energy and stabilize us emotionally and mentally so we can perform at optimal levels. “He who takes Often, the more convenient the food, medicine and neglects the less healthful it is. A diet low in fats to diet wastes the with sufficient protein and high in fiber, skill of his doctors.” fruits and vegetables protects us against — Chinese proverb disease. Junk and processed foods, which are low in fiber and high in fats, sugar and chemical additives, do not protect us. Unhealthful foods affect the way we feel, think and respond to life’s challenges. Following are nutritional TIPs To Improve your Performance in avoiding the effects of the Modern American Diet, or MAD:
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• Share your wealth, as giving will pay back huge dividends. • Credit card interest charges are a bad sign. • Payday loans are worse than credit cards. Engaging the expertise, support and guidance of financial advisors who are good teachers and see your financial health from a holistic perspective will ensure you reach your KASH flow goals sooner and with greater peace of mind.
Do You Have PMS? What is your relationship with money? What does money mean to you? What drives you when it comes to money? Some people are critical of those who earn high incomes, claiming unfairness, yet they do not work hard or develop the skills and habits required to gain financial independence and security for themselves. Some may even believe that those who are financially secure and independent are just LUCKy. But it is by Laboring Under the Correct Knowledge of managing and growing money that most successful people reach financial security and independence. Becoming financially fit requires a positive mind-set, and eliminating any “scarcity mentality,” or Poverty Mentality Syndrome (PMS), we may have. Some of us grew up in households where finances were discussed. Others grew up in homes where money was never spoken about openly. In some families and social circles, discussing personal finances may be considered to be rude and a taboo subject, whereas in others it is perfectly acceptable. Our early conditioning and environments play a role in determining our attitude toward money, as many of our financial habits and attitudes are influenced by our parents. If your parents believed they had to work hard for their money, you may believe the same. If your parents believed it is unwise to spend money on anything “extra,” this too would affect your attitude. Other attitudes that demonstrate a scarcity mentality include the following:
Death and Taxes
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Do not shut your eyes and pray to God that I’ll come back, but open your eyes and see all that I have left behind. I know your heart will be empty because you cannot see me, but still I want you to be full of the love we shared. You can turn your back on tomorrow and live only for yesterday, or you can be happy for tomorrow because of what happened between us yesterday. You can remember me and grieve that I have gone, or you can cherish my memory and let it live on. You can cry and lose yourself, become distraught and turn your back on the world, Or you can do what I want – smile, wipe away the tears, learn to love again and go on. — David Harkins, English painter and poet
Sustaining Life, Delaying Death Modern medicine has remarkable powers to prolong life. People with cancer or progressive diseases, accident victims and our frail, elderly parents live longer with the aid of machines and modern medicine. Today, people who would have died live weeks, months, even years longer. For many, this is wonderful. But even though modern medicine and technology can bring us amazing benefits, these interventions also have consequences. Knowing when to say, “That’s enough,” “No more” or “Let’s pull the plug” has many ramifications. What are the emotional costs to family members when medical intervention is not used to prolong life? What are the physical, emotional and financial costs to families and the healthcare system when life is prolonged? Are costs for sustaining life worth the price we pay? But what are the emotional,
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Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist at Weill Cornell Medical College and authority on the role secrets play in our lives, states, “Secrets are a fact of life. Everyone has them. But some secrets can carry a hidden price that affects both our psychological and physical health.” She goes on to say that keeping some thoughts and actions private helps us maintain the feeling that we are unique, but we may also keep secrets to avoid critical judgments by others and negative consequences. When we feel we cannot reveal some secrets, we begin to lead a secret life, and that becomes dangerous. Sonya Visor, author of Who I’ve Become Is Not Who I Am, writes that “secrets cause inner conflict, creating anxiety, stress and worry.” She says secrets affect us physically. They cause headaches, back pain, high blood pressure, digestive problems and depression. In extreme cases secrets lead to suicide. A secret life develops when shame or guilt, along with the fear of consequences, creates a desperate need to keep aspects of our lives from becoming known. The problem with keeping others from discovering our secrets is that it requires constant vigilance. It leads to a life that revolves around various maneuvers to maintain a facade of normality. Hiding the fact that we did not give up smoking years ago and still have several cigarettes a day, that we lied on our résumés and never did go to college, that we have an addiction to Internet pornography or we cheated on our taxes requires a lot of energy. Saltz says, “Self-exploration is the antidote to secrecy.” She describes self-exploration as discovering our feelings and memories around our troubling behavior and understanding past events and relationships that may be controlling our behavior in the present. Another key to successfully freeing ourselves from our secrets is to choose the right person to be our confidant. We need someone we can trust who can also bring new insight into our secrets. We need a person who will listen, be nonjudgmental and discreet, think constructively and help us get through the process of righting any wrongs the secrets may have caused.