The LifeQuake Blog

I just finished reading a fascinating article on the debate between selfishness and altruism in evolutionary theory.http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/altruism_vs._selfishness_case_closed/

Although the research shows that the selfish individual will out perform the altruistic individual when pitted against each other, once you put them in a group of selfish people versus a group of self sacrificing individuals, the altruistic group succeeds best. Now, this may seem obvious because it requires a certain amount of self sacrifice to be a team player but if we go into this further and look at banking institutions, car manufacturers, and government, you might wonder how those who act together in a group for the good of all people ever succeed at all.

And then there are all the non-profit groups all over the world and grass root efforts like the Green Movement, The Civil Rights Movement and The Women’s Movement that changed the world. So, which quality produces evolution, being self serving or serving the whole? I think the key to being one of those ‘Darwinian survivors of the fittest’ is to have a combination of qualities that allow you to promote and protect your own interests as well as knowing when to put aside what is good for you if it means the greater good of all humans might benefit.

In many ways, this is at the heart of the health care debate. Insurance companies have had an unchecked strangle hold on the American consumer and has taken the quality of once was the greatest health care in the world right into the toilet. That we are 37th on the list of countries is a travesty. If we don’t band together and demand more accountability, we deserve what will be a devolution not an evolution in the well being of our overall health. It cannot be an accident that obesity, cancer, and addiction are at an all time high under the current system that only supports sickness ( and even that is questionable) and not wellness education. Yes, the whole system needs an overhaul, but in reconstructing it if we don’t first educate people on eating better, penalize smokers and heavy drinkers by dropping them from being insured, or institute required courses in the same way that we require young people to take to get their drivers license, all that will happen with universal health care is more sickness and corruption at the top of whose managing it.

We know that the more educated you are, the greater your advantages. If in this new system, a wellness program is not mandated, their will continue to be a rise in disease and addiction and more importantly, corporate greed will continue. A young filmmaker I know, Cameron Pazirandeh is trying to put the word out to people to gather in their local communities in a town hall fashion like the conservatives have done and demand a better system. I want to go a step further. It is not enough to have a voice for universal health care. We need to act altruistically for the education of those who are ignorant of their health habits ( or in denial) and demand that anyone who receives national health care also go through a wellness education program to qualify. And yes, you and I will pay for it just like we’ve been paying exorbitant premiums for people who trash themselves and then need extensive medical care. However, anyone with a brain can see that requiring wellness education is far less expensive than the alternative.

Dr. Toni Galardi is a life coach, columnist, and author of The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive (not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval. Her website address is http://www.LifeQuake.net

Last night I was interviewed on Tom Cox’s radio show “Tom on Leadership” on the subject of procrastination. It got a huge response. My newsletter “Dr. Toni’s Five Minute Tips” also got a huge response so am including it here in my blog as well Tom’s blog which includes his summary of the four speakers on the subject. I have also included a link for downloading the whole show.

http://blog.thomasbcox.com/2009/09/procrastination-special.html

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Tom-on-Leadership/2009/09/22/Special-on-Procrastination

Procrastination – Habit or Addiction?

“Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.”
Wayne Gretsky (world famous hockey player)

An interesting synchronicity occurred for me last week. I was asked to be on Tom Cox’s radio show on the same day I received an email from a reader of my advice column at Vision magazine, both wanting my advice on how to deal with procrastination.

The irony here is that I put off writing my column and my newsletter this week until the last possible minute! Why do we procrastinate? Is it the fear of success or the fear of failure? I actually think it goes deeper than that. Most people think they procrastinate because they are just lazy or undisciplined.

I don’t think there is one answer for the why of this habit but I do think, most procrastinators share one belief: the fear of the unknown. If fear of success is truly about low self esteem and therefore self sabotage, at its heart is a small vision of what is possible. If you cannot hold a vision of yourself accomplishing tasks that lead to the expression of your full potential self, it is probably because you believe that operating from your full potential self is too much work, too much responsibility. If you wait until the very last minute to get things done, however, the deadline looming will propel you forward as a means of avoiding the pain that comes with the consequences of not doing rather than the doing of the task. In a way, it is all about avoiding pain, now or later.

As someone who is a survivor of three near fatal experiences, I can tell you that when it comes to putting off the big tasks like life change, it can kill you or create lots of trauma and drama. My first near fatal experience happened because I needed to leave a job that no longer served me. I kept putting it off because I didn’t know what I was going to do to support myself and so an addict in the facility I was working in on skid row solved my problem: he flipped out and almost strangled me to death.

In incidence #2 , it involved a marriage I needed to leave and so I brought in three car accidents, and #3 was environmental poisoning in my home ( intuitively I knew I needed to move out a year before).

If we dont carry a big vision of ourselves and what we are capable of, we seek only comfort, the comfort in the short term of delaying making decisions. Isn’t this like so many addictions, the drive to not feel pain. So how does one go into recovery for procrastination addiction?

Here are some tips:
1) Go back to your earliest memory of a decision you made that didn’t turn out as you wanted. Was it trying out for sports, turning in a school assignment you had really worked hard on, or telling someone you had a crush on, that you liked them? As you recall this event, where do you feel the emotion in your body? Now, focus your breath on this spot. As you keep breathing into it, allow your body to surrender and receive your breath just as you would if you were stretching a muscle that was tight. As the feeling begins to change, notice what feeling is replacing it. Now think of a time that you committed to something 100% and it produced your desired effect. For example, you ate healthy and exercised and your body got stronger. Place that feeling of mastery in your non-dominant hand, the one you don’t’ write with. Take your hand and place it over the spot in your body that once held the fear of commitment. This will anchor that feeling.

2) Take one area of your life that you need to make a decision about that has the lowest level of anxiety connected to it. If you need to make a career change and have been dragging your feet because you don’t want to do the same thing you’ve been doing and you don’t know what you are passionate about, do one little thing like pay attention to everything you encounter in a day that produces great enthusiasm or even mild interest. Keep a journal of all of it. Risking change through deciding begins with experiencing a good feeling around low level change like just committing to observation.

3) Commit to 15 minutes a day of quiet contemplation. No tv, computer, or even reading. Sitting still and centering yourself through the breath work of step one from above and then asking the question of your intuition: what step would you have me take next? All you need to know is the next step. The answer may come right away or it may come spontaneously when you are doing something else like a house – hold chore or as you wake up from a dream. The key is to know that you don’t have to know the five year plan, just the next step. Healing the addiction to procrastination requires tolerance for the unknown future. If you focus just on the truth of the next step, you become more oriented toward the journey of life rather than an end goal. Remember, when you take your last breath on earth, your thoughts will be on did I give it my all, not, did I make all the right choices?

As we enter the season of harvest tomorrow, the summer cycle is officially ending. Perhaps today is the day you take on one ineffective habit or task you’ve been putting off and experience the opportunity that procrastination has buried.

For more on this subject, listen in tonight Sept 21 at 8:00 PM when Tom Cox interviews four thought leaders on this subject. I am on first from 8:00 – 8:15.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Tom-on-Leadership/2009/09/22/Special-on-Procrastination

call in number is (347) 838-8279.

And for those who wish personal consultation or to make direct contact with me, call:
PHONE: 310-712-2600
EMAIL: DrToni@LifeQuake.net
Sincerely,
Dr. Toni Galardi
“The LifeQuake Doctor”

Last night I watched the Emmy's and when Alec Baldwin won for Best Actor in a comedy series, he said first jokingly and then dead serious, he'd trade his Emmy if he could look like Rob Lowe. Here is a man who has more talent in his left pinky than Rob Lowe ( sorry, Rob but it's true) and he wanted to be the dashing, lean leading man. Now, he has been that in his younger days. Perhaps, his love affair with food ( yes, I've seen him from afar eat with great passion) and weight gain has had an upside to it. I think his acting has far more gravitas now than when he was making films like Prelude to a Kiss and Married to the Mob.

As I was watching the first interview that Oprah did with Whitney Houston today, I found myself wondering about how women in our society deal with power. She portrays herself as the loyal wife but was it loyalty or fear of stepping into her real power, power that comes not from the media and the fans but from the feminine – her own soul. Did it just become too much to live up to as a symbol for young black women? Was bad boy Bobby Brown a self self sabotaging way out of the limelight? Although Oprah seems very comfortable with her iconic status, she continues to struggle with her food addiction. The limelight has become more like a vast flashlight projected by a harsh inquisitor.

If anything has come from the deaths of Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Ted Kennedy is the toll that drugs and alcohol can take. People thought
Dave Chappelle was crazy because he walked away from 50 million dollars and went to Africa. We are a fame driven society and when someone famous thumbs their nose at that much success, we call them crazy. That is real power. To know when you are losing yourself and to be willing to walk away from it without self destruction and re-invent your life on your own terms is real power.

Chappelle may not name it feminine power but it is feminine power. No matter what sex you are, when you listen to your body, your gut instinct no matter what the cost, you are accessing your authentic self. In Jungian psychology, the body is feminine and the mind is the masculine part of all human beings. I actually hope Andy Warhol’s famous prophesy that everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes comes true. Perhaps if enough people experience the dark side of fame, we’ll stop worshipping them as icons and more air time will be given to the people who are genuinely committed to an authentic expression of themselves and who are too busy making a difference in other people’s lives to sit around smoking cocaine and weed.Whitney Houston’s passion for Bobby Brown is a great cautionary tale.

We need icons like Martin Luther King in the limelight now more than ever. Oprah can’t carry the humanitarian banner for celebrities of iconic status alone. The weight of IT is probably what contributes to her own weight issues. But the truth is for us ordinary folks, the best way into recovery from addiction is to become passionate about yourself with yourself in moments of daily silence. That is real intimacy, the real power.

Dr. Toni Galardi is the author of The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive not Just Survive in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I have not lived.”
Henry Thoreau (1817-1862)

I took August off to recharge my batteries. After writing continually for three years on my new book and then articles to support it the last few months, it was time for a break. I didn’t go anywhere. I just rested more at home. For me, recharging my batteries involves periodic retreat from being in high performance. It allows me to then embrace gearing up again for a new cycle. Did you manage to get any down time over the summer?

As we enter mid September, my thoughts turn to my favorite season – Autumn, the season of change.

This season so fits with today’s topic – Preparing for the end of a cycle that is dying. Like the leaves in Fall, if we allow old parts of us to shed, to merely drop off, we can enter a new chapter without resistance.

In my last newsletter I wrote about the first stage of a LifeQuake, boredom. Today I am going to address the second stage – the death/preparation process for the severance from an old cycle of life. Some people respond to this stage by getting angry or frustrated and resistant that life has to change. Like a child who must face that summer is over and he/she is back in school, they refuse to face change. For others, it brings on grief and mourning and then there is the last group who become overwhelmed and confused by impending transition and become depressed. Any and all of these responses can trigger addiction issues.

Tomorrow we will commemorate the 8th anniversary of 9/11. We live in a different world since 2001. This was an example of how various people respond to crisis. Some take action to right the wrong that was done, some just complain, some mourn, and some turn to a bottle of pills or booze. There is no right way to prepare for change. There are however, more effective ways.

Robert came to me in the midst of Stage Two. He had put on some weight which for a successful actor on a hit tv series, can spell disaster. He and his wife had not had sex in a couple months. She had chronic bladder infections and kept their children in bed with them at night. Robert had experienced tremendous career success but was very unhappy in his marriage. However, he had small children at home and did not want to leave them. Trauma from his own childhood were uncovered. When he was four years old, his younger brother died and his mother never stopped grieving, so he was terrified of feeling sad.

Given that I work with dreams to transform the fear of change, I asked him to keep a record of them. He had a series of dreams whose theme was death. I counseled him to make no outer changes in his life. His only mandate was to release all judgments of his sadness and as the feelings came up, to breathe through them before he went in the kitchen to soothe himself.

As he spent more time just being with his feelings, anger started to emerge toward his wife. He requested that they seek marital counseling to deal with their lack of intimacy. She agreed. They came together and she openly admitted she was not prepared to make any changes. Eventually, Robert took action and filed for divorce but he first spent months learning to embrace all sadness from his childhood and the impending death of his marriage.

You might want to use the Fall season as a time to reflect on your own life. What is coming to an end that you have been avoiding facing? Do you need to make career changes, health habit changes, or not necessarily divorce, just re-negotiate the terms of your marriage? What feelings are coming up around this?

Allow for no outer change in the near future. Simply prepare through resting into the uncertainty and spending more time in stillness. If radical change is your destiny, you will need to conserve your energy so that your brain and nervous system is recharged and able to provide you with effective problem solving strategies when the time is right.

In my next newsletter, I will be addressing career change tips. In the meantime, look for signs of Fall. As you spend more time in reflection, watching the trees turn bright colors as they die is a great contemplation!

For those who wish personal consultation or to make direct contact with me, call:
PHONE: 310-712-2600
EMAIL: DrToni@LifeQuake.net
Sincerely,
Dr. Toni Galardi
“The LifeQuake Doctor”

Ask The LifeQuake Doctor
September, 2009

Dear Dr. Toni:
I am a very healthy fifty four year – old businessman. I exercise, eat a healthy diet, am not over weight, etc. I am financially successful and from the outside everything looks “right”. I went through a divorce a year ago and I spend a lot of mental time in the past and thinking how it used to be. From the outside, I am envied by many people and I do a lot to project and protect my “image”. I am currently taking Paxil, trying homeopathy, doing energy psychology and seeing an herbal MD who is giving me teas to take. I am still suffering and nothing seems to help. Do you have any other ideas or am I destined to this “life” forever? Any insight at all would be much appreciated.
Desperate in San Diego

Dear Desperate:
I can appreciate how difficult and frustrated you must be given that you are doing “all the right things”. I am not sure what “energy psychology” involves but there are two things you mention that bear addressing: “I spend a lot of time in the past and I do a lot to project and protect my image.”
How comfortable are you with vulnerability? SSRI’s like Paxil for depression do take you out of the depths of despair but actually sitting with your feelings right here and now, not the past can allow you to be more authentic and less prone to protecting your image. Do you let people get close? Part of intimacy is rooted in showing your humanity, warts and all.

If you are looking back a lot, perhaps you are filled with regret about your choices while you were married. I would encourage you to find a good psychotherapist to work with and do an evaluation with an orthomolecular psychiatrist – a physician who is trained in treating mood disorders with amino acid therapy, essential fatty acids and certain herbal remedies for brain balance. In Los Angeles, Hyla Cass, M.D. is the “go to doc” in this area and David Gersten, M.D. is located in Encinitas.
Good luck!

Hello Dr Toni :
I just read your column in VISION MAGAZINE. You are quite skilled and exceptionally compassionate. I seem to have the opposite dis-ease — I move and change CONSTANTLY. It is probably the same issue, just opposite side of the coin? i don’t have family, have WONDERFUL friends, not sure where I’m to be, how to ground and connect to the earth. I forever say — it will take a man to settle me down. Yet, I’m SUPER READY to ground. A friend thinks it’s a feeling of being trapped. help!!!!!!!
Thanks, Dr Toni –
Georgia

Dear Georgia:
If it is in your nature to constantly change, in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Most people have the opposite problem – fear of change. For them, change translates as loss. It sounds like from your description that staying rooted feels like you will lose something, such as freedom. Your possible solution of getting into a relationship as a way of grounding you is superficial at best and ineffective, if not downright, destructive at worst. Anytime we use something external to ground us, especially a person, we are at risk of then becoming ungrounded again if they leave. More importantly, relationships take a lot of work and commitment. You don’t always get the freedom you have as a single person so you really have to be ready to compromise some of your impulses for the sake of loving another, being in service to another human being as well as serving the relationship. It is definitely in and of itself a life path and for some, a spiritual path not to be taken cavalierly.

I would recommend getting into some counseling to examine what your fears are of staying in one place and not moving on so quickly. There are also certain physical practices such as Qi Gong that can help with grounding your body to the earth’s energy once you have emotionally decided you really want this. Try this: Imagine you are a tree. What tree would you be? A willow that bends with the winds of change but still has deep roots in the earth or an oak that provides shade for both the planet and humans who want to sit under it and be protected from the sun. Think about all the trees you’ve enjoyed. Which one attracts you most? There is a Qi Gong exercise called standing tree that can help with staying grounded through the day. Google it for instructions.

Dear readers:
Well, the summer is almost over and the season of change is about to begin – Autumn. I love this time of year. Like the leaves that turn color as they begin to die, letting go of old defunct habits and/or life circumstances can have the same effect. Recognizing that a cycle is ending can bring color back to your life where it might have grown stale.

Dr. Toni Galardi is a licensed psychotherapist, career coach, and author of The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive (not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval. Her website address is www. LifeQuake.net. For personal consultation , please call 310-712-2600.

When Barack Obama got elected as our president, everyone was expecting great change to come to America and I said then, it would depend on us as a mass consciousness, not one man or his administration or even a democratic congress. We are a nation that predominantly fears change if it means we have to disrupt the familiarity of our own lives. We want the world to change and keep our creature comforts in place. Statistically, we know that as the economy is shrinking, addiction is skyrocketing. The first inpatient facility devoted to internet addiction opened recently and that is just one of the many ways people are using external substances to distract themselves from making radical internal changes.

If you really want to see the health care issue resolved, clean up your own health habits. Instead of thinking you need a new job, come up with a new idea People who come to me seeking my advice as a career coach, get panicked over sending hundreds of resumes out and getting nowhere. I cannot tell you how many times I have assisted a client in thinking outside the box as to how to make more money and live even better than when they were working for someone else. Itis common to want to reach for the comfort ( there is that word again) of a paycheck beleiving you have to get a job right away to handle your nut. Six months pass and no job and you’re even worse off. Now you’re depressed and defeated and have no creative energy to consider another way to begin your next career chapter.
Here are some tips for career change in tough economic times:
1) begin the day ( before moving into action) with your eyes closed by visualizing yourself working in an environment where you are happy. you dont need big details right now: just your three must haves like: Here is an affirmation from the Depression era of the 1930’s that people used to have financial breakthroughs when everyone else was buying into the economy: “I am doing joyous work in a joyous way.I give joyous service for joyous pay.”
2) expect success and watch your mind so when self defeating statements begin, you can simply witness them and choose to let them go.

3) Set an intention for looking for evidence that your life is changing in a positive direction. A smile from a stranger, an extra bagel given to you by the guy behind the counter, finding a quarter on the sidewalk. It starts with little pieces of grace and gets bigger as you notice more of that than you do what is lacking in your life.

4) Before you go to sleep at night, scan the day for moments when you felt enthusiasm. write it down. then ask your unconscious to bring you a dream that guides you toward your next step. Many famous inventors and scientists discovered the solutions to problems in a dream. When you awaken, write down anything you remember, even if it doesn’t make sense yet. Set an intention for your mind to be open to new ideas throughout the day. A great idea may come from over hearing a conversation in line at the local coffee house.

5) Count your blessings three times over the course of the day. In the middle east, they stop and pray five times a day, well there is something to be said by this.

Look for signs of change. Autumn is just around the corner!

Dr. Toni Galardi is a career coach, columnist and author of her new book, The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive ( not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval