Wisdom to Cope With Cancer Fear

Wisdom to Cope with Cancer Fear

To be diagnosed with cancer is stressful. To cope with cancer stress, one needs wisdom--profound human wisdom.

Life is stressful, and thus many negative and unpleasant experiences are recorded in the subconscious mind as memories and thoughts of those experiences. According to James Allen, author of As A Man Thinketh, men are “makers of themselves,” and the human mind is the “master-weaver" of his future experiences; in other words, the thinking mind may make him become what he thinks.

Therefore, a toxic mind with toxic thoughts may have composed a toxic personality over the years. It begins with the ego-self, which is your self-identity—that is, who you “think” you are—based on your memories and past experiences. As a matter of fact, your whole being comes from your memories, which control your life by making you “believe” that you are really who you “think” you are.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), there are seven emotions that disharmonize the body and the mind: anger, fear, fright, grief, joy, worry, and pensiveness or over-concentration. At first glance, “joy” may seem to be the only positive emotion among the seven negative ones. However, even joy may also become toxic, especially in an inflated ego. A case in point, the once-celebrated-but-now-disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs to win his races in order to sustain and protect his ego of winning. It was his self-inflated ego that led to his ultimate downfall in his career.

Toxic emotions may also easily lead to the Seven Deadly Sins of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. Toxic thoughts from toxic emotions become toxic memories stored in the subconscious mind. Toxic memories cause the conscious mind to make toxic choices and decisions, leading to toxic behaviors, actions and reactions that further exacerbate the toxic mind.

All in all, stress is the underlying cause of many diseases, including cancer. Stress can often worsen the symptoms of cancer. Therefore, it is important to have good sleep to reduce the stress level. Sleep is vital to wellness. A gold fish deprived of sleep will remain still for a prolonged period to make up for its lack of sleep. Natural sleep holds the key to living a stress-free life. The paradox is that we cannot have natural sleep if there are too many stressors in our lives. Living in this day and age, stress is an everyday phenomenon. In contemporary living, nearly every aspect of life and living involves speed, so much so that many of us have become addicted speed, and thus become time-stressed.

Remember, the body and the mind are interconnected. If you continuously think of cancer or worry about getting cancer because of your family history, you may end up having cancer, because cancer is a disease that may be caused by many factors other than the genetic factor. As a matter of fact, cancer fear may lead to many actions taken, such as the actions taken by actress Angelina Jolie to remove her breasts because of cancer threat.

A cancer diagnosis may be stressful, but use your mind to overcome cancer stress.

Get your book on cancer: Congratulations! You've Got Cancer! Get the wisdom to cope with a devastating situation, such as a cancer diagnosis.

This 132-page book is about what to do when one is diagnosed with cancer. The author is neither a doctor nor an oncologist. He is simply showing the power of the mind not only in coping with the traumatic experience of cancer but also in overcoming the disease itself. In addition, he presents detailed information on what an individual must do on the cancer journey of cure and recovery. A cancer diagnosis is not a death sentence. Rather, it is an opportunity for growth and development. Harness mind power to combat cancer.

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Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Don’t Look Like Santa Claus

Don’t Look Like Santa Claus

Santa Claus is a mythical figure loved by children because he always brings presents during Christmas. Santa is imaginary and therefore he will be around next Christmas. However, if you wish to be around when he comes back next Christmas, then don’t look like Santa Claus. Your body shape is a good indicator of your current health conditions.

If your body shape is like that of an apple, that is, with extra weight in the midsection, you may have a propensity for diabetes, high blood pressure, and stroke further down the road. The reason is that in a beer belly, your abdominal fat is more easily converted into cholesterol, and hence ultimately affecting your heart health. On the other hand, if your body shape is like that of a pear, that is, with extra weight around the hips instead of in the midsection, you may be less at risk for heart disease.

If you don’t want to look like Santa Clause, be mindful of your body shape. Exercise your body and manage your body weight.

Yoga is the best exercise not only to normalize your muscle tone, as well as to balance the activity of opposing muscle groups, but also to enhance your physical and mental awareness. They all play a pivotal part in weight loss. Remember, effective weight management is more than about eating fewer calories through dieting; the mind and the spirit also contribute to your body metabolism.

Because of its holistic approach to wellness, Yoga exercise also requires the application of its basic principle of nutrition, which is the consumption of small quantities of high-quality life-giving foods, such as fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nuts, with meat in strict moderation.

Brilliant Yoga: A 200+page e-book with videos on body-mind-spirit transformation! There is all-in-one support you need in every chapter with comprehensive and easy-to-follow steps to guide you on how to make yourself look, feel, and live your life to the fullest. This is the perfect yoga program with everything you need to know about healing yoga. It is for everyone-from the beginner to the advanced learner-who believes that yoga is a science of health. Brilliant Yoga comes with additional bonus books on back pain, pilates, stretching, and weight loss.

Act and think like Santa Claus, but just don't look like him.

Your Golden Years and Santa Claus: This book is about the wisdom of living your golden years as if everything is a miracle, if you act and think like Santa Claus. Living in your senior years is always challenging, so you need the mindset of Santa Claus.

Stephen Lau

Copyright ©2018 by Stephen Lau

Imperfections of Life

Imperfections of Life

Life is always imperfect, and living is always a bed of roses with some thorns. We are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. As such, the art of living involves the wisdom of knowing who you really are, and how things happen and work in your life. Without this profound understanding, you will forever be haunted by the awareness of the darker side of life.

The Bible calls the darker side of human nature “sin.” None of us is exempt from sin. Life is always an inner struggle between what is perceived in an individual’s moral system as “right” and the dark opposing force inside to do just the opposite. To make matters worse, most of us are really quite good at self-deception. Either we deceive ourselves into thinking that the dark opposing force does not exist in ourselves, or we simply inflate our own personal virtues to overshadow the dark force within us.

Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous Scottish novelist, calls this darker side of human nature the duality of man. In his famous story of “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” he presents Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as both having a dark side within them, where evil is lurking to surface anytime. Both of them hide their evil away, pretending it never exists. In the end, it turns out that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are actually one and the same person.

If the darker of life is deemed as something “evil” as depicted by Robert Louis Stevenson, it may immediately lead to self-denial and downright rejection. The darker side is ideally described as a “not-so-good” quality, or just human flaws and weaknesses that we see in others as well as in ourselves. Whatever the definition may be, the darker of life, ironically enough, makes life wholesome, without which life is incomplete and unreal—at best, a self-delusion. Human darkness is part and parcel of human existence. Denying its existence only leads to more pain, regret, and resignation. But understanding the dualistic human nature offers a way to return to wholeness, which is an important ingredient in the art of living well.

Get the blueprint of life and living to live your life as if everything is a miracle: The Book of Life and Living.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Wisdom of Living for Life

The Wisdom of Living for Life

The Creator has given each of us a life to live. Each individual’s life is unique in itself, and everyone’s life journey is paved with his or her personal encounters and events to enrich that unique life experience. Therefore, there is no blueprint for living

Since the beginning of time, man has applied every means to attain longevity basically for two reasons—to defer the inevitable end; and to continue indulging in the pleasurable experiences along the life journey. Some prefer to ignore death and continue to indulge in life pleasures as if it would never come, while others are preoccupied with the impending fate that stresses the body and the mind. No matter what, death is inevitable.

Irrespective of the purpose of everyday living for any individual, the quintessence of living for life is health fitness, without which everyday living may become a daily struggle, a dream turned into a nightmare. Health fitness is a prerequisite for longevity.

Health fitness embraces physical fitness, mental fitness, and spiritual fitness—they impact how you think and what you do; they are the components of living for life. You need physical fitness to reduce the risks of becoming ill, disabled, or dying prematurely. Mental fitness enables you to adapt appropriately to negative changes brought on by diagnosis and treatment of chronic disease. Spiritual fitness may facilitate you to bounce back from the devastating effects brought on by sudden and unexpected changes, such as bereavement of spouse or loved ones.

Life is never static: everyday living is full of challenging changes from time to time. Many of these changes are welcomed and embraced, but some are dreaded and even painful. Being able to cope with these changes in life is fundamental to living for life. More importantly, the ability to bounce back from these undesirable negative changes holds the key to the art of living well.

What is living for life?

Living for life is living with passion and purpose. Nobody is born with the gift of living for life: there is no blueprint for this. It comes from thoughts, behaviors, and actions, and these attributes have to be acquired through mental and physical effort and deliberation. Only health fitness provides an environment for an individual to turn them into a reality.

Your Golden Years and Santa Claus shows you the wisdom in happy and successful aging through changing your perspectives in matters of aging, health, money, loss and bereavement issues. It is a holistic approach to living in simplicity with compassion and tranquility in the golden years.  

Stephen Lau

Copyright © Stephen Lau

The Science of Happiness about Health

The Science of Happiness about Health

There is no clear scientific consensus that health and happiness are inter-related. Of course, if you are more optimistic, you may have a greater sense of purpose to do what you want to do in life; however, that still does not guarantee greater happiness or better health.

Most researchers and psychologists believe that 50 percent of human happiness comes from genes, that 40 percent from human choice of behaviors in the form of exercising and socializing, and that only 10 percent from circumstances and external factors.

Remember:

Those who are happier are less likely to have a cold. Those who are obese are more likely to have a depression. Those who are happier may have a longer life. But they are no more than just assumptive predictions, and may not apply to YOU!

                                                                 

The bottom line: Get out of depression, not by avoiding it or suppressing it with medications, but by “going through it” with TAO wisdom in order to understand why you may have your depression in the first place. My Way! No Way! Tao Is the Way!

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Science of Happiness about Money and Relationships

The Science of Happiness about Spending Money

Money may not “buy” you happiness. But, according to Michael Norton of Harvard Business School, “happy money”—which is spending the money on a concert, a ball game, or a dinner in a restaurant—can create more happiness than buying a material possession, such as a dress, because the pleasure from an “experience” is much more lasting and memorable than that of a material possession.

According to Norton, “the anticipation of an experience can be as valuable as a source of happiness as the actual experience itself”, such as planning for a vacation; his recommendation is: buy now, and consume later.

Remember:

Money cannot buy happiness, but it may buy a memorable life experience.

The Science of Happiness about Relationships

Human actions, especially negative ones, are always based on the knowledge of self and others, which is often incomplete, inadequate, and inaccurate. Human perceptions are based on attitudes, beliefs, and habits, which may be  biased and distorted because they originate from an individual’s unique past experiences, and perceptions of those experiences.

To overcome the above obstacles in good human relationships, you need to harness the power of gratitude. 

According to a scientific study, for every 10 years of life, gratitude may increase by only 5 percent. Therefore, you need to consciously increase gratitude in order to change your life to have better relationships with others, given that human relationships play a pivotal role in the happiness or unhappiness of an individual.

Gratitude may change your character, more specifically, your perceptions of people and happenings around you; it is all about your mindfulness of the presence of gratitude.

According to Robert Emmons of University of California, in life, you should always express your gratitude for people and experiences, rather than just things. Professor Emmons also says, “Being personal and specific about gratitude is more important than expressing lots of it.” You can always express your gratitude for your families and friends, your freedom of living and worship in America, and your health. In other words, always count your blessings, and express your gratitude to others in the form of love and compassion—the key to having stronger and healthier relationships for greater happiness.

Having good human relationships with others may not only afford you joy and happiness, but also heal you mentally, physically, and spiritually through your own connections with others. On the other hand, having bad human relationships may only make you feel sad, lonely, hopeless, and unhappy.

Remember:

People can make you happy only if they consciously choose to. Gratitude is an in- dispensable element in any good human relationship, which is the foundation of human happiness.

Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Science of Happiness About Doing

The Science of Happiness

In this day and age of technology, there are many psychologists, researchers, and scientists dedicated to coming up with a comprehensive measure of human happiness aimed at helping the many who are unhappy. Understandably, there will never be a one-size-fits-all solution to the universal problem of unhappiness.

According to the science of happiness, there are certain aspects of life and living that not only involve happiness but also demand conventional wisdom in life choices and decisions to avoid any predictable unhappiness, as well as  to enhance any predisposition to happiness.

The Science of Happiness About Doing     

Life is meaningless without a purpose. To pursue that purpose, there must be goals, involving much doing. All contemporary experts have one consensus: happiness comes from doing certain things.

In the Stone Age, living was simple: survival of the fittest, which was hunting for food and running away from any external danger. Today, living is much more than just survival; it includes pursuing careers, making money, and doing many other related things that may bring happiness.

Today, living is all about doing this and that, while under-doing or non-doing is often frowned upon by the contemporary wise. For example, work hours nowadays have become increasingly longer; 24/7 has even become the norm for many jobs and professions. The conventional thinking is that doing more is always better than under-doing, not to mention non-doing.

Remember:

Happiness involves doing certain things in life, not necessarily doing more, but at least doing them right.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau