Shining Light into the Darkness
Opening Hearts is a book I collaborated on with Lester R. Sauvage, MD in the last eighteen months of his long and fruitful life. The book was generated from Dr. Sauvage desire to leave an enduring healing legacy following an amazing career as a cardiovascular surgeon. In a series of posts, I have been sharing Chapter 5 of this …
Toxins Are Avoidable Deadly Foes, Especially Smoking From Opening Hearts Chapter 5 – Healing and Nurturing the Body Some people combat stress by ingesting toxins in a variety of ways and smoking cigarettes may be one of the worst of the bunch because the well-known dangers of smoking cigarettes greatly outweigh any relaxing effects of …
Rule 4: Manage Stress by Finding Balance and Inner Peace From Opening Hearts: Chapter 5 Five Cardinal Rules for Healthy Living Excessive, chronic stress can literally kill you. Our emotional, mental, and physical response to actual or perceived threats triggers the adrenal glands to release a flood of hormones including cortisol and adrenaline.42 [Footnote 42: …
From Opening Hearts, Chapter 5’s Cardinal rules for healthy living: Rule 3 Exercise Human beings are created for activity; our bodies are made to move. Yet in our technological world too many of us spend most of our lives sitting. We sit in cars, at computers, in front of televisions and desks, and at sporting …
Rule 2: Maintain a Healthy Weight From Opening Hearts: Chapter 5’s Five Cardinal Rules for Healthy Living; Weight – The Shape of Your Physical Self Weight literally shapes the person you see in the mirror. An underweight emaciated person appears gaunt or even skeletal while an obese person often resembles an apple or a pear. …
Opening Hearts: Chapter 5 Nutrition’s Nemesis: Sugar’s Outrageous Growth If I could select one substance to decrease in our diet it would be sugar. This unhealthy substance feeds the inflammation that damages arterial walls and has a long list of other harmful health consequences including cancer. Yet the average American consumes about 150 pounds of …
From Opening Hearts, Chapter 5’s Five Cardinal Rules for Healthy Living – Rule 1 Nutrition When we consider all the gifts and resources we have available to us, we begin to understand that our food choices have spiritual as well as health consequences. Mindfulness and intentionality are just two of the spiritual aspects of …
Recently I had the great honor of being a guest on Connie Whitman’s internet radio program, Architect of Change to talk about Opening Hearts, the book I co-created with the amazing cardiovascular surgeon Lester R. Sauvage, MD (1926-2015). Connie and I discussed the advice Dr. Sauvage shared about how to nurture the body as part of living a healthy …
Our Novena of Peace concludes with the realization that peace is the fruit of love. Love is expressed so many ways large and small. Love is mercy, gratitude, vulnerability, forgiveness, responsibility, awareness, and all the habits we consciously choose that reveal our belief in the sacredness of all life and of our world. It gives …
Like peacemaking, mercy is a habit of being. Conscious choice is the key to creating any new habit. Habits are the things we do repetitively. They are helpful to our being (such as exercise or meditation) or harmful (substance abuse or smoking). Habits are conscious or unconscious. To create peace we have to consciously choose …