genetic predisposition

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Believe What You Say! It Might Make a Difference.

If you want to get passionate about something, You have to believe it.  Many people speak it, read it, plan on it, but they don’t believe it.  Do you?  Do you believe that you can actually start doing what you want to do, feeling what you want to feel, become who you want to be?

And how bout the opposite?  Too many of us quietly or loudly hold our negative patterns.  A Heathcliff with Catherine scenario in Bronte‘s Wuthering Heights – slowly bringing on our own demise.  Reminds me of the mistletoe, a parasite on it’s host but accepted and beloved nonetheless.

MIT neuroscientist Sebastian Seung gave a wonderful TED conference, “I am my connectome.”  He tells us the good news that we are more than our genes. Our memories are not “stored” in our genes.  They live amongst the neuronal connections.  He empowers us saying that because we can change our neuronal connections, we can change our behaviors and habits – which are based on neuronal memory (indian trails.)  You see, because our habits are really memories ground into the fiber of our minds, and not into the constitution of our matter, we can make different ones.

Wow!

We may not have pixie dust or elf stones, but we do have power.  We can stop, drop and roll! to that destruction in our lives.  We can be friendly with ourselves at any level of our beings – neuronal to behavioral and emotional.  Mr. Seung, that is great news!

Self Care Tip #70 – If you are going to do it, have courage and believe it!  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  What do you think?  Please tell me your story.

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Do What You Were Designed to Do

Animation of the structure of a section of DNA...

Image via Wikipedia

Nike made it popular.  But did we ever take it and run with it?  “Just do it!”  My girlfriend and I were having lunch together and the topic about our life’s profession came up.  She is bored in her work and would like to get into something more creative and artistic.  In an ideal world, maybe she’d think, “Just do it!” and find congruence with her inner self “just” like that.

However, taking action isn’t only about energy, interest, boredom.  But what is it?  What is it that makes one person take action and another think about it and move on?

One answer has to do with hard wiring.  Some temperaments find that thinking about it is almost as good as doing it.  Imagining what they would have done pretty much satisfies their drive.  Others find that taking action that leads to completion, decisions, just doing “It”, feels like boxes, closing in, closed doors.  They feel separation anxiety just imagining the distance growing between them and their beloved Options.  For these people, maybe the perspective of “Just do it” should be different from our cultural definition.  For them, doing it may mean doing what they do best – grazing their ideas, options, journey.  They are best at playing through life so to speak.

Western culture measures work generally by the opposite of this, although the truth is, our life’s work is what we were designed to do and be best at.  What looks like play to someone is in fact “good work” for another.  What looks like work to another, looks like something they’d rather jump over a cliff than do.

If we want to really get something done in life, we will do best taking inventory of what we bring to life with us.

I haven’t touched on other reasons why many of us do or don’t take action to completion.  Things that have to do with different pathologies.  I’ve only talked about one paradigm of hard-wiring, genetics.  This paradigm is crucial though.  It permeates all others as it is about our architecture.

Self Care Tip # 44 – Just do what you were made to do.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question – What do you think?  Have you noticed this concept at play in yourself or others?

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Keep it Real

Smoke screens around our choices or rather lack of choices block our journey. It takes a lot of courage to look past defenses and see what we are ashamed of. Desires people call “base” or “primitive.”

Wanting to dominate sounds like someone trying to oppress the populace. However it is a core drive in people with testosterone. Wanting to purchase sounds superficial and greedy, no? Yet it is a genetic predisposition to the extroverted sensor personality type.

We waste our time being ashamed of things we never chose. Of things that in themselves aren’t shameful. And shame mixes us up. It influences our decisions. Important decisions like what to study. Who we should be friends with. When to get medical treatment. If we go where the shame is, it will

lose

lose some of its power over us. We will see more clearly what our options are.

Keeping it real improves quality of life. Our relationships are more connected, including with our own selves.

Self Care Tip #26 – Keep it real. Be a friend to yourself

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Keep It Simple

Being a friend to yourself is obviously a changing effort, depending on your needs. It includes many intersecting paradigms including physical health and biology, genetic predisposition, coping skills, what you do to your body, what is done to your body (such as trauma), emotional triggers, spirituality. I’m sure there are more that we will continue to learn about through the ages.

Deciding where your energies will go can be more objective when we tease apart these paradigms. For example, if I’m tired during the day, have irregular sleep hours, feeling emotional and irritable, I’d start with sleep hygiene. This basically says that if you aren’t having sex in your bed, all you get to do is sleep. No food, no phone, no tv, no reading; just sleep.

Where you are going to spend your energies should be as basic as possible. As preventative as possible. As elemental as possible to start out with. Although the efforts you make shift with your needs, being friendly with yourself means picking your battles wisely. You only have so much energy. Keep it simple.

Self Care Tip #13 – Keep it simple. Be a friend to yourself.