Unlearning and Relearning to Heal

 Unlearning and Relearning Pharmaceutical Drugs

On your healing journey, take the step to unlearn and relearn many things related to your autoimmune disease, such as myasthenia gravis.  

To heal, you must unlearn what you have previously learned, that is, letting go of all your preconceptions related to all the hows and the whys you might have got your myasthenia gravis in the first place. Remember, the knowledge you are currently having may have been generated by the limited and the finite material world you are living in.

Life itself is a sacred journey involving change, growth, and self-discovery. Knowledge is self-empowering, but it has to be distilled by true human wisdom. Therefore, to deepen your love of heath and your quest for health and healing, you must seek not just knowledge but also wisdom in order to expand your vision and stretch your soul so that you may stay both physically healthy and spiritually wise. Your knowledge and wisdom may provide you with meaning and direction to continue with every step of your long healing journey.

Unlearning Pharmaceutical Drugs

As we age, our self-made energy from the food we have consumed over the years begins to decline, and this is evidenced by our inability or difficulty to cope with the stressors of life. These stressors may have come in many different forms, such as overexposure to sunlight, polluted air, contaminated water, and a host of other lifestyle factors of modern life. After decades of abuse to our bodies, our choices—whether we have made them knowingly, or they have been imposed unwittingly on ourselves—begin to take their toll, resulting in the development of chronic conditions and degenerative diseases. To add insult to injury, our metabolic slowdown that comes with the natural process of aging makes it even more difficult to maintain our health and energy.

To deal with our health issues, many of us may desire a quick-fix, and thus turn to pharmaceutical drugs, which are toxic chemicals that only address the symptoms but without removing the causes of the health conditions.

Unfortunately, unsafe and toxic pharmaceutical drugs are prevalent. This is an indisputable fact! Unreliable drug tests abound in the medical and pharmaceutical research communities. Drug tests prior to their FDA approval may not be reliable due to the following reasons:

• Pharmaceutical companies may often influence medical researchers, through coercion, incentive, and even threat, to produce the desired results in clinical trials. There have been many cases of data fabrication in clinical trials of drugs in order to facilitate their intended applications.

• Clinical trials usually involve a small number of people, and may not truly reflect the outcome of those who will ultimately be using those drugs after their approval by FDA.

• Drugs tested on animal models may be biased and even irrelevant. An artificially-induced disease in non-human animals may not yield results relevant to a spontaneous, naturally-occurring human disease.

 Relearning Pharmaceutical Drugs

Regularly taking pharmaceutical drugs does not make you live longer because longevity is always drug-free. This makes sense: taking too many pharmaceutical drugs means your body is already stressed by many physical ailments. Ironically, these drugs may do a further disservice to you by ingesting more toxins into your already toxic body.

Pharmaceutical drugs do not heal a disease; they only temporarily suppress the disease symptoms.   Remember, when you give your body a drug to replace a substance that your body is capable of making itself, you body then becomes weaker and will begin not only to manufacture less of that substance, but also to become more dependent on the outside source, which is usually the drug itself. Over time, you will become no longer drug-free.

Unfortunately, no drug can give you insight into the circumstance that created your problems in the first place. At best, it can only temporarily assuage the physical pain created by your situation. Remember, there are no miracle drugs—only wholesome natural self-healing. Utilize your body’s natural self-healing power, rather than relying on those unsafe pharmaceutical drugs. Keep yourself drug-free as much as and as long as possible!

However, it does not imply that you must desist from taking your medications prescribed by your doctor. Rather, it suggests you should always be more alert to the side effects of the drugs you are currently taking; you should not readily reach out for unsafe pharmaceutical drugs, especially over-the-counter ones, without any second thought as if they were coupons or silver bullets.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

  

 To download the e-book, click here; to get the paperback copy, click here.

The Healing Journey

The Healing Journey

One of Lao Tzu’s famous sayings is “A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” The TAO journey of healing myasthenia gravis, or any autoimmune disease, is a great undertaking: every step is as important as the first; and each step is as firm as the previous one. The Chinese often like to say “feet stepping on solid and steady ground.” Your healing journey is the sum of all the steps you are going to take.

Before you take your first step, ponder on this reality: in life, all humans have two desires or pursuits—happiness and healthiness, which not only often come with many delusions and illusions but also always are unattainable and unsustainable. But the TAO may give you self-intuition and self-enlightenment to help you along your own journey of healing myasthenia gravis.

The Step of No Desire and No Intent

It is your healing journey, and only you can take your first step. So, you must choose to take your first step to go on that healing journey.

To continue on your journey, paradoxically, you must show no desire to heal and no intent to reach your destination.

But why?

The desire for good health may be difficult to sustain for someone who is currently confronted with the many health issues related to myasthenia gravis. It may seem not only difficult but almost impossible for that individual to restore natural health and get well again. Worse, ill health may even make that individual feel depressed and forget to take care of the body, and thus allowing the body's malfunctions to continue and deteriorate further.

A wise traveler on a long journey has no fixed plans, and is not intent upon arriving the destination within a certain time frame. But that traveler is ready to use all the situations and all the people encountered to help him along the long journey.

               

Likewise, healing is a long, on-going process, and not a destination. With innate and inexplicable power, it may appear that everyone and everything along your journey are also playing a part in facilitating in your favor all your endeavors in healing your myasthenia gravis.

The bottom line: take your first step of no desire and no intent for healing so as to change and to overcome any attitude of confusion and even despair related to the trauma of your myasthenia gravis diagnosis. On your healing journey, with no intent upon arriving at the destination any time soon, you will continue to keep yourself moving forward, and you will then go the long distance on your long healing journey.

The TAO

According to the TAO, being free of desires is your path to detachment, and thus giving you clarity of thinking to start your own healing journey.

Paradoxically, if you have no desire to desire for change or healing, there is stillness, in which you may see yourself gradually changing for the better in order to slowly heal yourself:

“To live a life of harmony, we need letting life live by itself. . .

So, follow the Way.

Stop striving to change ourselves: we are naturally changing.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 57)

“Accordingly, we do not rush into things.

We neither strain nor stress.

We let go of success and failure.

We patiently take the next necessary step, a small step and one step at a time.

We relinquish our conditioned thinking. Being our true nature, we help all beings

return to their own nature too.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64)

According to the TAO, a good traveler neither has fixed plans, nor shows any effort to arrive at the destination:

“The softest thing in the world

overcomes what seems to be the hardest.

       

That which has no form

penetrates what seems to be impenetrable.

That is why we exert effortless effort.

We act without over-doing.

We teach without arguing.

This is the Way to true wisdom.

This is not a popular way

because people prefer over-doing.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 43)

Begin your healing journey, and take your first step with effortless effort and humble simplicity:

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

To download the e-book, click here; to get the paperback copy, click here.

Healing with Knowledge and Wisdom

If you or your loved ones have been diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, one of the autoimmune diseases, it must have been a devastating experience, especially if the neurologist has said that there is no known cure, except using medications to control and manage the many debilitating disease symptoms associated with myasthenia gravis.

A traumatic experience may have a prolonged effect on the human mind: having overwhelming negative emotions; feeling numb and unable to experience pleasure or even pain over a long period of time. The ultimate impact is that it may affect how you think, feel, act, and react in every aspect of your daily life and living.

To heal yourself of myasthenia gravis or any illness, you must be both knowledgeable and wise.

Knowledge and Wisdom

Knowledge comes from how your mind perceives and processes any information available. Wisdom, on the other hand, is how you apply the knowledge acquired to cope with any disease and disorder you may have, as well as your everyday life and living. The important implication: being knowledgeable may not  necessarily make you wise or wiser.

The bottom line: you need both knowledge and wisdom to heal yourself of myasthenia gravis.

Given that both knowledge and wisdom come from the thinking mind, your brain is, therefore, the most important of all your body organs. With its billions of brain cells, your brain is not only most complicated but also major source of all your health issues and problems related to myasthenia gravis.

So, it is important to keep your brain healthy as much as possible in order to be capable of acquiring the knowledge and attaining the wisdom to heal your myasthenia gravis.

The Healthy Brain

This is how you may keep your brain healthy:

·      Keep yourself hydrated because 80 percent of your brain is water. Drink at least 7-8 cups of water per day.

·      Keep healthy gums, and floss your teeth regularly to prevent any gum disease.

·      Enhance and improve blood flow to your brain with your 30-minute exercise at least several times a week.

·      Eat a healthy diet: high-quality lean protein; low-glycemic and high-fiber carbohydrates; natural and not processed foods.

·      Avoid inflammation and the formation of free radicals in your body.

·      Avoid sugar and sugary drinks, including all sodas and diet sodas.

·      Quit smoking, and limit your alcohol consumption to no more than 5 glasses per week.

·      Manage your blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

·      Maintain healthy levels of nutrients, e.g. vitamin D and omega-3s.

·      Maintain healthy hormones of the thyroid and the testosterone.

·      Promote good mental health, and avoid anxiety and depression.

·      De-stress yourself with correct breathing and daily meditation.

·      Get quality sleep of at least 7-8 hours a night without the help of medication.

·      Develop meaning and purpose in your life.

In addition to having a healthy brain, you must learn how to empower your thinking mind to seek and acquire the knowledge to heal your myasthenia gravis.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

To download the e-book, click here; to get the paperback copy, click here.

Vision Loss

Your eyes are one of the most important organs in your body. It is through your vision that you mainly perceive the world and what is happening around you. However, as you get into your golden years (that is 65 and beyond), you will have some deterioration in your vision. As a matter of fact, vision loss begins as early as in the 30s, and its initial deterioration is gradual and almost unnoticeable. But it begins to accelerate in the 40s and 50s. Now, if you are already in your golden years, you might have much impaired vision, especially they could have been aggravated by your decline in health, such as getting diabetes. Getting older will take its toll on your body in many ways and your vision loss is just one thing that will start to deteriorate noticeably with age.

Some of the obvious signs and symptoms of vision loss are: difficulty in focusing (slower and less accurate)—a condition known as presbyopia, which is caused by the hardening of the eyes’ lenses; difficulty in seeing either long or short distances—these eye conditions that are known as either nearsightedness or farsightedness.

Presbyopia will result in difficulty to read or doing work that requires accurate focus; nearsightedness or farsightedness may require you to wear bifocals or different eyeglasses.

Other problematic issues with vision loss include an increased risk of age-related eye diseases, such as glaucoma, macular degeneration and cataracts. These eye problems can lead to severe eyesight issues, even blindness, if they are not taken care of immediately.

In your golden years, take extra care of your vision health and eyesight issues to reduce the risk of blindness further down the road. Check your health, especially your eye health, on a regular basis. This may play a pivotal role in preventing further deterioration or even blindness. Prevention is always better than a cure. Eat a healthy diet to get all the nutrients to your eyes. Do eye exercises; if you exercise the muscles in your body, you should also exercise the muscles in your eyes, because they are responsible for your vision health. Use eye exercises to help correct nearsightedness, farsightedness or presbyopia. Eye exercises are easy and simple to do and you can even do them in your own home. For eye exercises to work, you must be persistent

Make sure that you have eye tests done at least twice a year and if you start to notice a decline in your ability to focus or see clearly.

Most vision problems, whether nearsightedness, farsightedness, or presbyopia, have to do with eye stress and strain affecting the shape of the eyes, and hence their capability to focus correctly. Of course, the eyes cannot be relaxed if the body and mind are not.

Your Golden Years and Santa Claus shows you the wisdom in happy and successful aging in the golden years. It is a holistic and comprehensive approach to dealing with vision loss and other health issues, as well as changes and challenges, encountered late in life.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Reading Correctly for Better Vision

Biologically, you eyes are designed to adjust from close to distant focus, back and forth, continually. But, in reality, you focus your eyes for a long span of time at close distance when you read. This is one of the main causes of nearsightedness. Your vision health has much to do how you read.

Reading causes eyestrain, which results in the constriction of eye muscles. Prolonged eye muscle constriction distorts the shape of the eye. Eyestrain is due to the following conditions: 

• Reading material being too close (less than 20 inches), and not parallel to the eye

• Insufficient lighting or too bright artificial lights (fluorescent lights)

• Poor posture in reading, such as slumping or neck-bending-downward position, leading to lengthening of the eyeball

• Reading while eating: digestion drawing blood to the digestive system, thereby temporarily depriving the eye of nutrients 

To overcome eyestrain during reading, do the following:

• Breathe naturally; do not hold your breath.

• Take a meaningful break every 20 minutes or so, and blink your eyes repeatedly.

• Make sure the lighting is sufficient. Inadequate light is the first factor that tires the eye.

• Make sure the print is large enough.

It should be pointed out that speed reading may be damaging to the eye, because in speed reading the eye tends to take in a large visual field without focusing on any specific word. Remember, the macula can see small details only one at a time, that is, moving from one point to another. If the macula cannot focus, it does less work, leading to more blurry vision, which ultimately increases eyestrain—and thus a vicious circle of eyestrain and weak vision.

To enhance vision in reading, do the following to focus on the physical aspect of reading:

Occasionally read a page upside down, one letter at a time, moving from one point to another.

Increase your peripheral vision and stimulate your macula by wearing black cardboard paper to partially cover the eyes.

Adjusting the Eye to Light

Given that light is the essence of good vision, it is therefore important that you train your eyes to adjust comfortably to light, otherwise you may have a tendency to squint your eyes when the light is too bright or too dim.

Eye sunning

Sunning the eye is an exercise that utilizes the energy from the sun for healing the eye and improving vision. The healing power of sunlight should come into the eye at a diagonal angle, and the sunlight should not be too strong (i.e. early in the morning, before 10 a.m. and late in the evening, after 5 p.m.). 

• Sit or stand outdoors, your body facing the sun. You can also sit or stand at an open window, but do not let the sun come through glass.

• Close your eyes; do not wear sunglasses. Let the warm sunlight bathe your eyes.

• Now, move your head slowly but constantly from side to side.

• Breathe deeply and slowly.

• Relax your head, shoulders, and eyes, while continuing the body motion.

• Turn your back to the sun, and briefly palm your eyes for a few minutes during which you visualize black in your mind’s eye.

• Return to the original position, and resume your eye sunning.

• Alternate between sunning and palming. You will notice that during sunning, the color seems brighter, while the black seems blacker during palming.

• Practice this for 10 to 20 minutes a day, if the weather permits.

Sun flashing

Flashing stimulates retinal activity.    

• Sit or stand with closed eyes facing the sun.

• Spread your fingers apart, and wave your hands back and forth across each other in front of your closed yes.

• Wave your hands more rapidly up and down past each other. You will see the interplay of darkness and light.

• Do palming for a few minutes, while visualizing black.

• Blink your closed eyes before you open them so they can readjust to light. 

It is important that you never look directly into the sun, and that you do not practice sunning when the sunlight is too strong so as not to damage the eye.

Do you know that your eyes are connected with your mind? You see not just through your eyes, but also through your mind!

Take care of your vision health!

To get your copy, click here.  

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Get Your FREE Book on Your Money Wisdom

We are living in a world wanting wisdom. The majority of people experience the lack and not the abundance, while only a small number of people feel both the affluence and the wealth. Surviving and navigating in this world of money disparity require profound wisdom—the perspectives of human wisdom, Biblical wisdom, and the TAO wisdom from ancient China.

This 141-page book is about asking many questions regarding money wisdom, given that money always plays a pivotal role in this world of both lack and abundance. Charles Proteus Steinmetz, a German-born American mathematician and electrical engineer, once said: “There are no foolish questions and no one becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.”

So, it is important to ask many self-intuitive questions to enhance your money wisdom. The spirit of wisdom demands you to ask as many questions as possible on how you view the world today based on your own past and present life experiences. Your perceptions of those experiences affect your attitudes, prejudices, and presumptions that may change your perspectives of money. Your money wisdom is your need to think about money more. Don’t bury your head on the sand! Be wise on all your money matters!

Click here to get your FREE copy. It’s FREE only on April 3-April 5 (Friday to Sunday!Don’t miss this opportunity to get YOUR MONEY WISDOM.

The Miracle of Better Vision

Stress affects every aspect of you health, including your vision

Believe in the miracle of better vision through vision self-healing. Vision deterioration is sometimes due to stresses in life. If you live a stress-free life, you may have better vision. But how is it possible to live without stress in a stressful world? Learn how to live your life as if everything is a miracle.

As If Everything Is A Miracle: This 125-page book is about the wisdom in living as if everything is a miracle, just as Albert Einstein once said: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is to live as if nothing is a miracle. The other is to live as if everything is a miracle."

This 125-page book is about the wisdom to rethink your mind, renew your body, and reconnect your soul to realign your being for total wellness and well-being to live stress-free as if everything is a miracle. In this day and age, living in different phases of life is challenging. For one thing, in this world of technology and information, many of us are addicted to speed, which seems like a prerequisite for success in career and in many others facets of life. As a result, stress is unduly created, which may lead to toxic actions, reactions, thoughts and emotions.

Consciously and subconsciously we have created for ourselves a world in which our bodies, our minds, and souls have become toxic and we live as if nothing is a miracle. To do just the opposite—living as if everything is a miracle—we have to renew the mind, renew the body, and reconnect the soul, and realign the being so that we know who we really are, instead of who we "think" we are.

Believe in yourself: believe that you can be a better, happier, and healthier you. Believe that you can be a centenarian, if you choose to. The only hurdle is stress in contemporary living. Learn how to overcome your stress by letting go your ego-self. No Ego No Stress!

Stephen Lau

 Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Your Ego and Your Vision

Get rid of your ego first for better vision health.

This is what stress can do to your body and health:

1. Chronic stress, which causes your body to maintain physiological reactions for long periods of time, especially with respect to the release of hormones, can lead to depletion of vital nutrients in your body, particularly DHEA (a hormone critical to aging and longevity), vitamin C, and the B-complex vitamins.

2. During stress, your body uses its DHEA supply and impairs the functioning of your body’s hormonal glands. According to scientific research, your DHEA levels decrease as you age. Stress is adding insult to injury.

3. Too much stress increases the production of hormone epinephrine, which wears out your hormonal glands.

NO EGO NO STRESS

PART ONE: An Introduction to Stress:

It explains how and where stress comes from; the damage and devastation of stress to human health, including vision. 

PART TWO: Conventional Wisdom:

All the major life stressors may have come from career, money, relationship, adversity, and time. Conventional wisdom offers many strategies for stress relief, such as exercise, herbs, medications, meditation, and psychotherapies, among many others. Conventional wisdom may reduce stress levels, but it does not eradicate stress completely. Conventional wisdom only complements the ancient Tao wisdom for ultimate stress relief.

PART THREE: Tao Wisdom:

This part not only explains what Tao wisdom is all about, but also contains the complete translation in simple English of all the 81 short chapters of “Tao Te Ching” which is one of the most translated works in world literature. Going through the whole script, interpreted and translated by the author, will enable you to understand the essentials of Tao wisdom for stress-free contemporary living.

PART FOUR: No Ego No Stress:

Stress originates from the human mind: how it perceives and processes life experiences. What is stress to one individual may not be stress to another. This part explains in detail how having no ego can eradicate all stress related to career, relationship, money, adversity, and time.

Stephen Lau

Copyright©  by Stephen Lau