Happy New Year!

I like what Mike Rails said, that he's shared Intermittent Fasting with family and friends, and they are too frightened to try. Note this carefully. AFRAID. Look into the science of it, and you'll see that our bodies don't start cannibalizing muscle tissue until about 50 hours of fasting. For a normal healthy person (and even for many types of illness--but check with your doctor!) there is just no serious downside other than discomfort and emotional distress. Imagine if our ancestors really had to eat every day, let alone five times a day. None of us would still be alive. But there is deep, wide cultural agreement that we have to eat every day, and three times a day. Why? Because most of our history as a species, food was scarce. It made sense to eat as much as possible, and store as much fat as possible. Oh, yes, and burn as few calories as possible.

This drive (Eat! Store! Laze!) is, in my mind, precisely why we are getting so fat as a culture. And it breaks my heart how many people cannot look directly at the calories in-out equation, instead looking at the micronutrients, birth signs, blood types, time of day they eat, yada yada yada. The diet industry thrives on tis kind of misinformation.

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The 101 program

The concept of "Triangle Goals" is a natural extension of the core concepts involved here: that if you move toward goals in all three basic arenas (fitness, career, relationship) we will run into every demon, negative belief, poisonous emotion, value conflict and shoddy perception we have. It simply isn't possible to address all three simultaneously without waking up. Or at least, becoming aware of the percentage of humanity that spends their entire existence dreaming.

I don't specifically address "spirit" because that quality cannot be measured cognitively. But the Chakra model suggests very seriously that a human being with a healthy, balanced foundation will automatically evolve toward the spiritual. Everything is spirit, from that perspective: Earthly existence, time and matter are the dream, and balance is the key to awakening to that reality--within the dream. This is why Lucid Dreaming, training yourself to awaken inside dreams, is an excellent training for "awakening" within life itself, by the way.

To create Triangle Goals, just pick five-year goals in each of the major arenas. For a person who is broke, alone, and sick, such goals might be:

1) By Dec 31, 2015, All of my bills and debts will be paid off, and I will have a net worth of 100,000$

2) I will celebrate my second anniversary with my soul mate, in Hawaii.

3) I am in perfect health, and complete a 10K.

Once you have your five year goals, check to be certain they are in alignment with your conscious values and beliefs. Back up and determine what you will need to have in place in three years. One year. Six months. Three months. One month. One week.

What will you have to do tomorrow?

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Morning and night, you should visualize your goals, and the flow along that path. If you cannot visualize the intervening steps, you have work to do. If you feel anything but pleasure in connection with the intermediate actions, you have work to do. When you have the goals and steps laid out, the questions becomes simple:

1) Do you tell the truth?

2) Do you keep your promises to yourself?

3) Do you see the world, and yourself, clearly?

As you move toward the goals, you learn things about yourself and the environment. You learn that there is conflict between your conscious and unconscious beliefs and values, and will have the opportunity to adjust those things. Wisdom certainly encompasses the ability to control wants and desires. The wise person desires nothing he cannot have. What is the point of the wasted energy? But how can you learn what you can or cannot have without actually exploring your psyche and environment? Nice Catch-22. This is why we get to be young. It is expected that we won't make the same mistakes again and again.

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Last Day of the Year. How many of you set goals? If so, would you be willing to share them? What were your experiences with goal-setting last time you tried? And...do any of you have questions about these issues?