Brighter Days Ahead for Gold

by Hard Assets Alliance:gold

“It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day.” —Nina Simone

Those lyrics from the timeless Nina Simone song Feeling Good certainly draw a parallel to the present state of gold.

After a rough couple of years, gold begins 2015 with a clean state. It will take time to shake off its hangover, but the yellow metal is looking good early into the new year.

Of course, gold still has its fair share of critics. Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup, recently referred to gold as a “shiny bitcoin.” Refuting such a ludicrous statement isn’t worth the digital ink. Instead, we’ll keep it short and simply say: Such a statement ignores 6,000 years of human history.

Not all gold bears are as controversial. Most analysts pessimistic about gold’s near-term outlook cite the strong dollar, rising interest rates, and deflated energy prices as headwinds, though we would argue that each of these factors actually reinforces the need to hold gold… but that’s a discussion for another day.

Rather, let’s take a look at what some of the sharpest financial minds are saying about gold:

• In terms of gold price expectations, it appears that the repair of technical picture is now behind us and that a stable bottom has formed. The next 12-month price target is the USD 1,500 level. Longer term, a parabolic trend acceleration, with a long-term target of USD 2,300 by the end of the cycle.—Ron Stoferle, Incrementum Lichtenstein

• In the long term, however, I am more bullish on the gold price than I have ever been. All central bankers want inflation, and one day they will get it. Betting on inflation is the surest thing I have ever bet on in my life.—Pierre Lassonde, Chairman of Franco-Nevada (FNV)

• The lengthy bottoming process in gold seems to be nearing its close. The conditions that led to a decade-long rise in the gold price in 1999 are quite similar to today. Gold is not just ignored but hated by mainstream investors—it’s the Rodney Dangerfield of investment concepts.—John Hathway, Comanager of Tocqueville Gold Fund

Optimism about gold is also showing up where it matters most: the spot price. Gold has climbed nearly 12% since its November low and is off to its hottest start since 2008. Last week’s surprise announcement by the Swiss government to sever its peg to the euro provided the latest boost. It’s yet another reminder to own gold, the only asset that isn’t somebody else’s liability. We see this as a recurring theme in 2015.

Article originally posted in the January issue of Smart Metals Investor at HardAssetsAlliance.com.

Caring for a Sick Child

by Pathways Magazine – ICPA.org:caring for a sick child

More important than how you care for a sick child is that you care for a sick child. Children need time and rest to fight off illness and to consolidate the physical and developmental changes that may be occurring. If given insufficient time to recuperate, their immune systems can weaken and become more prone to complications or future infections.

Many busy mothers are so harried that they do not think to call everything to a halt so they can keep their sick child at home and attend to his or her needs; they do not think to get help with the shopping or driving of other children or managing the many errands that arise each day. Mothers who work away from home are often tempted to give antibiotics immediately (suppressing symptoms) so that their children can be back in school or daycare within 24 hours. Those who cannot use their own sick days to stay home with a sick child are expected to take their children to unfamiliar daycare “infirmaries.” Clearly, our culture is not set up to meet the needs of children and working parents.

When a child is sick, one important principle must be kept in mind: the child needs reduced stimulation. A familiar setting and lots of quiet time can optimize the ability to regroup the inner forces needed to heal. This means quiet play, staying in bed if necessary, and eating lighter foods (usually less meat or egg, which most sick children desire less of instinctively). Television, because of the quality of stimulation it produces, is best avoided during an illness.

The importance of home care for a sick child cannot be overestimated. But what can you do at home? For one thing, you can observe your child, both physically and intuitively. With infants, note how they hold their body when they cry, observe the breathing and the nature of the cough, and note the eyes and facial expression. Try to feel what is happening and whether your child is getting better or worse.

All good pediatricians ask parents for their observations and intuitions about a sick child and take this information seriously. So be alert, and develop a relationship of trust with your child’s doctor, a feeling that you are both working toward healing of the whole person. Paracelsus, the renowned 16th-century healer, said, “Nature heals, the doctor nurses… Like each plant and metallic remedy, the doctor, too, must have a special virtue. He must be intimate with Nature. He must have the intuition which is necessary to understand the patient, his body, his disease. He must have the ‘feel’ and ‘touch’ which make it possible for him to be in sympathetic communication with the patient’s spirits.”
As parents, we too must develop the intuition and powers of observation that will help us see our children as more than machines that require a quick fix.

You can do much to help your child’s comfort and recovery at home. First, recognize the value of your care and love. All children, particularly when ill, need to be surrounded by warmth and love; but love and connectedness often tip the scales in the cases of seriously ill infants or premature babies. There is real healing power in love.

Next, look at your child’s surroundings. Putting the room in order, fluffing the pillows, and placing fresh flowers in a vase will enhance the impressions your child is taking in. Consider the air in the room and the amount of light coming through the curtains, and make adjustments that feel “right.” A bowl of water with a few aromatic drops of rosemary or other oil can add freshness to the air. Apply compresses and poultices, prepare special herbal teas, and offer therapeutic touch.

If your child is well enough to sit up, try setting a straightbacked chair upside down at the head of the bed to make a backrest. And maybe make a small lap table out of a cardboard box. Once your child is nearly recovered and eager to do things, you can provide quiet activities. Coloring or playing with small figures in the covers is engaging yet not over-stimulating.

If at all possible, do not send your child back to school or the usual routine until he or she has regained full strength. The old adage recommending one day of rest afterward for each day of fever is sound advice—even when your child is symptom-free. Children sometimes become ill because they need time to be quiet at home, time to “reorganize” before making the next developmental move forward. One boy in my kindergarten, for example, tested positive for strep throat but had no symptoms. By law, he was not allowed back in school until he had a negative throat culture. I had a sense that this particular child had gone through some “stretching” to be at kindergarten and to adapt to all the children and activity, and that he was telling us he had had enough for a while and needed 10 days at home with no discomfort!

The health and vitality of our children are our responsibility. Our children will benefit as we learn to view childhood illnesses as a developmental necessity and to regard fever as a serious but essential strengthening process. We can assist in this process by reaching out to healthcare providers and integrating their expertise with our own. Healing is a joint effort, combining the child’s inherent immune response, sensitive diagnosis, careful monitoring, and therapeutic home care.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Education is Too Important Not to Leave to the Marketplace

by Ron Paul – Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity:Ron Paul

This week, events around the country will highlight the importance of parental control of education as part of National School Choice Week. This year’s events should attract more attention than prior years because of the growing rebellion against centralized education sparked by the federal Common Core curriculum.

The movement against Common Core has the potential to change American education. However, anti-Common Core activists must not be misled by politicians promoting “reforms” of the federal education bureaucracy, or legislation ending Common Core while leaving all other federal education programs intact. The only way to protect American children from future Common Core-like programs is to permanently padlock the Department of Education.

Federal programs providing taxpayer funds to public schools give politicians and bureaucrats leverage to impose federal mandates on schools. So as long as federal education programs exist, school children will be used as guinea pigs for federal bureaucrats who think they are capable of creating a curriculum suitable for every child in the country.

Supporters of federal education mandates say they are necessary to hold schools “accountable.” Of course schools should be accountable, but accountable to whom?

Several studies, as well as common sense, show that greater parental control of education improves education quality. In contrast, bureaucratic control of education lowers education quality. Therefore, the key to improving education is to make schools accountable to parents, not bureaucrats.

The key to restoring parental control is giving parents control of the education dollar. If parents control the education dollar, school officials will strive to meet the parents’ demand that their children receive a quality education. If the federal government controls the education dollar, schools will bow to the demands of Congress and the Department of Education.

So if Congress was serious about improving education it would shut down the Department of Education. It would also shut down all other unconstitutional bureaucracies, end our interventionist foreign policy, and reform monetary policy so parents would have the resources to provide their children with an education that fits their children’s unique needs. Federal and state lawmakers must also repeal any laws that limit the education alternatives parents can choose for their children. The greater the options parents have and the greater the amount of control they exercise over education, the stronger the education system.

These reforms would allow more parents access to education options such as private or religious schools, and also homeschooling. It would also expand the already growing market in homeschooling curriculums. I know a great deal about the homeschooling curriculum market, as I have my own homeschooling curriculum. The Ron Paul Curriculum provides students with a rigorous program of study in history, economics, mathematics, and the physical and natural sciences. It also provides intensive writing instruction and an opportunity for students to operate their own Internet businesses. Of course, my curriculum provides students with an introduction to the ideas of liberty, including Austrian economics. However, we do not sacrifice education quality for ideological indoctrination.

It is no coincidence that as the federal role in education has increased the quality of our education system has declined. Any “reforms” to federal education programs will not fix the fundamental flaw in the centralized model of education. The only way to improve education is to shut down the Department of Education and restore control of education to those with the greatest ability and incentive to choose the type of education that best meets the needs of American children — American parents.

Article originally posted at The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Fever Should Be Monitored Rather Than Suppressed

by Pathways Magazine – ICPA.org:fever thermometer

Hippocrates taught that fever is the helpful response of the body to the disease process—the body’s way of overcoming disease. About 150 years ago, this theory was replaced by the still prevalent opinion that fever itself is a disease and needs to be treated as such. The tendency today is to give antibiotics, or at least aspirin or acetaminophen, at the first sign of fever. However, recent studies show a strong connection between taking aspirin for viral illnesses, such as chickenpox or influenza, and the subsequent development of Reye’s syndrome. As a result, the Centers for Disease Control and the Committee on Infectious Diseases of the American Academy of Pediatrics now warn against giving aspirin to children. The approved choice, acetaminophen, as well as antibiotics, work to suppress fever “safely.” But when a fever is artificially suppressed in this way, the body’s defense system remains inactive.

Fever needs to be monitored, not suppressed. This allows the fever to mobilize the body’s immune system, which helps fight the disease at hand and is of possible long-range value in a world with immune-deficiency diseases. Monitoring the course of a fever is also a valuable diagnostic tool. Because certain illnesses have characteristic fever patterns, observing your child’s fever will help in a diagnosis. If your doctor advises bringing down the fever or you decide to do so, consider using some of the nonsuppressant therapies discussed later in this article.

Treating Febrile Seizures

What if the fever gets “too high”? When fever runs high, it can sometimes lead to a febrile seizure, or convulsion. Dr. Alvin N. Eden, whose point of view is representative of sound mainstream medical thinking, explains that a “simple febrile seizure” is a convulsion caused by a high fever from an infection anywhere in the body that does not primarily involve the brain. He notes, “Therefore, by definition, a child who has a fever during a seizure does not have epilepsy. Furthermore, simple febrile seizures do not lead to mental retardation.” He suggests that if a child has a febrile seizure, the parents consult with the physician to make sure the child does not have a “complex febrile seizure” which stems from infection in the brain.

What usually happens is that a healthy one or two year old becomes ill, often with a sore throat or ear infection, and starts to run a high fever. If the temperature reaches the child’s particular threshold for convulsions, it produces a seizure. The child may start to twitch and then shake violently all over. He or she loses consciousness, the eyes roll back, and often the child foams from the mouth. “These generalized convulsions, called simple febrile convulsions, rarely last longer than five minutes and stop by themselves without specific treatment. After it is over, the child frequently goes to sleep, and when he wakes up, he is fine. The first seizure is always a harrowing experience for parents, but no permanent damage results, and the baby will be fine.” In almost all cases, the convulsion occurs during the first day of the child’s illness and does not recur during the same illness.

It is important to know what the child’s temperature is at the time of a convulsion, for this is the “threshold convulsion temperature”—the temperature that you want to avoid in future illnesses! One child might have a convulsion at 103°F, while another might be fine until 106°F. The great majority of infants and children never have a febrile seizure.

If your child does have a febrile convulsion, Dr. Eden advises keeping calm, putting the child on his or her stomach, turning the head to one side, and making sure the mouth is empty. Once the seizure is over, you will want to start bringing down the temperature by giving the child a “sponge bath” with lukewarm water or by putting the child into a cool bath. The evaporation of the water causes the body to cool; however, if the water is too cold, shivering may occur, which increases muscular activity and raises the temperature.

Dr. Eden then suggests having the illness diagnosed. He warns that “some doctors recommend that a child who has had a simple febrile seizure should be kept on daily doses of Phenobarbital for a period of two seizure-free years to help prevent any further trouble. If the child is under three years of age at the onset, these doctors recommend that Phenobarbital should be given until he is five years old. Most physicians do not agree with this approach, however.”

If your physician advises Phenobarbital for fever convulsions, seek a second opinion and research the matter yourself, rather than accepting a course of action on which even conventional physicians do not agree. My own experience with young children on Phenobarbital suggests that the drug’s effect is almost like a veil, keeping children from really being “present” in their bodies. As always, the decision and responsibility for your child rest with you. So, become informed of your options and the potential results of various courses of action.

Drawing Out the Fever

Several techniques are available that do not suppress fever but rather draw heat from the body. To help keep a fever from becoming too high, doctors recommend giving the child plenty of fluids (such as water, tea, or juice), keeping the child’s room relatively cool, and giving a sponge bath as mentioned above. Alcohol should not be used in a sponge bath for babies, because it is absorbed through the skin and can cause neurological damage.

A lemon wrap. This technique, described in the useful book, Caring for the Sick at Home, is designed to draw heat away from the head and out the feet. It should be used only if the feet are very hot. Gather long strips of cotton cloth for wrapping the legs. Then, cut a lemon in half and place it in a bowl of warm water. Reach into the water to make slits in the lemon, and then squeeze it by pressing it against the bottom of the bowl. Roll up the cotton strips and soak them in the lemon water.

Now, place a towel under each of your child’s legs. Remove one of the strips from the water, squeeze hard, and begin wrapping the first leg starting at the foot and wrapping from the inside of the arch to the outside of the foot. Continue with additional wraps working all the way up to just above the knee. Be sure to cover the entire foot and leg, without leaving any gaps. Immediately wrap the towel up around the foot and leg to prevent too-rapid chilling. (If you do not have a towel handy, wrap a wool shawl or strips of wool fabric over the wet cotton strips.)

Repeat the entire process on the second leg, working carefully but quickly. Immediately replace the covers. Leave the wraps on until the cotton strips dry. This may take about 20 to 25 minutes. If the fever is still high after half an hour, repeat the procedure.

In the absence of the materials described above, others will do. If cotton strips are unavailable when your child produces a high fever, you can substitute a pair of adult cotton tube socks or a pair of your own knee socks that can reach well up your child’s legs. In lieu of towels, simply cover your child’s wrapped legs and feet with a blanket to prevent too rapid cooling. If you do not have a fresh lemon, try adding vinegar to the water instead.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Chinese Gold Purchases Skyrocket on the Last Three Days of 2014

by Lawrence Williams – Mineweb.com:chinese gold

Traditionally Chinese New Year celebrations involve gold gifting, and January tends to be the month that gold traders and banks stock up ahead of the date.
In releasing the latest information on Chinese gold withdrawals, the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) both confirmed that total withdrawals for the year came to over 2,100 tonnes, only 3.6% down on the previous year’s record, but also that withdrawals for the final three trading days of the month amounted to some 29 tonnes suggesting that demand remains strong ahead of the Chinese New Year. Indeed with a longer run-up to the Lunar New Year this year – the actual date is February 19 – the second latest date in the Western calendar on which the Chinese New Year can fall, we can expect strong gold withdrawal figures out of the SGE for both January and February.

In the Chinese Zodiac 2015 is a Sheep year (also known as Goat or Ram year) and denotes both calmness and prosperity.

If last year’s pattern of gold buying ahead of this date is followed then January could be a very big month for Chinese gold demand indeed.  Last year gold withdrawals from the SGE that month were actually substantially higher than at the start of the record 2013 year – and if demand in the last quarter of 2014 is anything to go by, they could be at close to record levels again this year.

Traditionally Chinese New Year celebrations involve gold gifting, and January tends to be the month that gold traders and banks stock up ahead of the date and holiday period surrounding it.

Anecdotal reports suggest that this is already the case with high demand levels already being seen at the beginning of the month. Reuters reports, for example, a Shanghai trader as saying “We saw consistently strong buying this week, premiums and volumes are better than what we saw in the last month.” As confirmation SGE premiums for gold have risen to $7 an ounce as demand grows.

Withdrawals from the SGE have been averaging over 50 tonnes a week for virtually all of the past three months. With the actual date of the Chinese New Year falling more than two weeks later than it did last year when it fell on January 31 we can probably expect a slower, but more prolonged, build-up this year. Judging by the increased premiums, if the Shanghai trader is correct we could see something of a boost in the early January figures.

Article originally posted at Mineweb.com.

How Big Pharma Disease Mongering Works

submitted by jwithrow.big pharma

To this day, a central disease-mongering tactic is to attach long, clinical-sounding names to what used to be seen as trivial, transient health problems. In most cases, the new, formidable names come complete with acronyms, which add even more gravitas.

How Big Pharma disease-mongering works:

– Occasional heartburn becomes “gastroesophageal reflux disease” or GERD
– Shyness becomes “social anxiety disorder” or SAD
– Restlessness due to boredom becomes “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder” or ADHD
– Fidgeting legs become “restless leg syndrome” or RLS
– Premenstrual tension becomes “premenstrual dysphoric disorder” or PMDD

The most famous example is from the 1920’s when, according to advertising scholar James Twitchell, the maker of Listerine mouthwash began to associate bad breath with the obscure medical term “halitosis”. Of course Listerine was marketed as the sole cure for this dreaded disease and revenues grew from $115,000 to more than $8 million in less than a decade.

Pharmaceuticals are designed only to treat the symptoms rather than to cure the underlying problems. Rather than drugs, the best remedies are almost always lifestyle modifications: eat healthier, exercise more, reduce stress, sleep eight hours a night.

True, the U.S. population has become very sickly but there are very logical reasons for this. A corrupted food culture featuring cheap, processed carbs and unnatural fats; sedentary screen-addicted lifestyles; chronic sleep deprivation; and other divergences from our evolutionary past have made diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other “diseases of civilization” skyrocket.

The Emerging Cultural Shift

submitted by jwithrow.cultural shift

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Emerging Cultural Shift

January 23, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $2,056 today. Gold is still at $1,296 per ounce. Oil is back down to $46 per barrel. Bitcoin is hanging around $233 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 1.82% today.

Yesterday we examined the cultural shift towards top-down authoritarianism that occurred in America during the 20th century. We also observed a promising new cultural shift beginning to emerge; this time away from politics and towards non-coercion and free markets.

Mind you, the emerging cultural shift is still quiet and small so few people are aware of it at this time. It is also non-uniform in nature which is somewhat foreign to our way of thinking about culture in modern times. We are accustomed to thinking along the lines of hard-coded doctrine that must be accepted, believed, and adhered to. Everyone must agree on the specific bullet points handed down to them: If you are “conservative” then you must agree on these issues; if you are “liberal” then you must agree on these other issues; if you are “green” then you must agree on these issues, and so forth.

The emerging cultural shift does not fit into that top-down paradigm – it is more holographic in nature. The shift is comprised of many different ideas, views, and philosophies that sometimes overlap in certain places and other times overlap in different places. The hologram is held together by one underlying sentiment: non-coercion. The individuals who make up this emerging shift share the understanding that it is neither right nor necessary to force your ideas upon others. The old “Do unto others…” philosophy is making a comeback. With this mindset firmly in place, individuals are free to come together in those places where they overlap and they are free to diverge in those places where they do not overlap.

Everyone wins.

R. Buckminster Fuller once said: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Guess what? The emerging cultural shift renders the current paradigm based on politics obsolete. Politics is nothing but a tool used by one group to force other groups to conform against their will. This is a win-lose model; politically connected groups win and all others lose. Politics is the almighty dragon within a top-down societal model; it is the shunned cockroach within a decentralized holographic model.

To some the holographic model sounds unrealistic. They just can’t fathom a community without a leader or a November without an election. They are like the Israelites in the book of Samuel who asked for a king to rule over them – they just couldn’t envision a better way. And who’s to blame them? For most of recorded human history people have identified with hierarchal institutional structures.

But the highest ‘entity’ in society is not the institution, it is the individual. All humans operate individually; there is no getting around that fact. Humans can choose to cooperate with one another but that is always an individual choice. All individuals are endowed with an indomitable will and they are left with the decision to either use their will or to subvert it. Institutions specialize in convincing individuals to subvert their own will for the benefit of the institution.

The emerging cultural shift is gaining steam for two reasons: ethics and economics.

Most of us are taught some variation of “love your neighbor as yourself” in our youth but we can very clearly see that this ideal is at odds with our authoritarian societal model. Political institutions litter the face of the Earth and they each subject individuals to all manner of taxes, regulations, mandates, restrictions, licenses, tags, identifying documents and they back these edicts with the threat of force and imprisonment. Sometimes these political institutions compete with each other and resort to violence as a resolution. Other times these institutions collude with each other to further enrich the ruling class at the expense of the public. It’s very difficult to expect individuals in society to exhibit a sound code of ethics when political aggression rules the day.

Further, most of us fundamentally understand we must produce before we can consume; there is no such thing as a free lunch as the old cliché goes. We also understand that if we consume less than we produce in the present then we have a surplus. That surplus can either be saved for future consumption, invested to increase future production, or it can be given to a neighbor in need. Each of these surplus scenarios is a win for both the individual and for society.

Our authoritarian society makes it extremely difficult for individuals to create a surplus, however, because it skims roughly 50% of individual production off the top via taxation. We are taxed on all income earned, all investment gains, all real estate owned, all vehicles owned, all gas purchased for those vehicles, all food and goods purchased, and any inheritance received. The political institutions then destroy all of the surplus skimmed from individual production on warfare, welfare, political favors, and unsustainable public works projects. This is why government buildings are always and everywhere the most prestigious buildings in existence – they are built with stolen money! To add insult to injury, the most powerful of our political institutions have not been content with their portion of the skim so they have borrowed massively against the production of future generations to enhance their spree of warfare, welfare, political favors, and public works. Such economic activity destroys capital and creates a net deficit which is a tremendous loss for both individuals and for society.

Free, innovative, entrepreneurial commerce creates an economic surplus while political intervention, aggression, and redistribution creates an economic deficit. Surpluses enrich while deficits impoverish. Factor in the ethical implications and the choice is clear, is it not?

More to come,

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Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and the paradigm shift underway please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/. The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.

Let the Children Be Children

by Rae Pica – ICPA:children free play

The stories I hear from parents never cease to amaze me. Like the one from the mom who was feeling pressured to enroll her two-and-a-half-year-old in the local soccer program—the local, competitive soccer program!

“Our town,” she said, “is very much into pushing children to compete and succeed. And I know other parents are looking at me as though I’m failing my child, but I’m not going to give in to the pressure.
I’m not enrolling her in all these programs at age two.”

Good for her! Whether it’s a fear that their children won’t get into the college of their choice, will never find their passions, or will become lazy and unmotivated if they aren’t constantly engaged in organized activities, too many of today’s parents are responsible for their children being overscheduled with no time just to be.

What happens when a child’s time is scheduled and programmed—directed by someone else—from morning ‘til night, day after day? One mother wrote to me, “If the parents work a full day and the children are in a traditional school, the child goes to care before school at around 7:30 AM, then goes to school, then goes to after-school care until around 5:30 PM. Then they have two hours of homework. If you add in one sport per season, they have two hours of practice or games once or twice a week. So the child’s ‘workday’ is more than twelve hours!”

In addition to the stress it causes, an over-scheduled, over-programmed life at an early age assures the child will never be able to entertain herself; she will never be able to live inside her own head; she will not be able to deal with solitude or quiet time. She may not get much of it as an adult, but for her sake I hope there will be some. And when there is, it would be awfully sad if she felt panicked at the idea of having to keep herself amused and therefore felt she absolutely had to be in the company of others.

If parents want their children to grow up to be resourceful, they have to make sure their kids start practicing now. That means they have to ensure their children have plenty of unstructured time, preferably in big, uninterrupted chunks of time.

Rebecca Isbell, early childhood educator and author, says that the chunks of time children need for uninterrupted play will vary according to their level of development. Toddlers, she maintains, require a minimum of 30 minutes to remain in play activities that interest them. Preschoolers need 45 to 60 minutes. And early elementary children who are focused on their play may need an hour or more to bring their work to a conclusion.

Here are some questions excerpted from my book,

A Running Start:

• If children begin living like adults in childhood, what will they have to look forward to?
• How can we ensure our children won’t be burned out from all the pushing and pressure before they’ve even reached puberty?
• If we’ve caused them to miss the magic of childhood, what will kids later draw upon to cope with the trials and tribulations of adulthood?
• What will become of the childlike nature adults call on when they need reminding of the delight found in simple things—when they need to bring out the playfulness that makes life worth living?
• What joy will our children find as adults if striving to “succeed” becomes life’s sole purpose?

Let’s rethink the values of unstructured, creative playtime compared with the all-too-common, scheduled and over-structured activities we have been led to believe are so beneficial.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Choosing a Wellness Mentality

by Kevin Donka, DC – ICPA.org:wellness mentality

One day not so long ago, a practice member named Craig walked into our center with a slight limp. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me that he had been wrestling with his son A.J. and had hurt his knee. When I told him we’d take a look at it he replied, “Oh that’s OK, it will be fine by the end of the week.” Just then, a woman walked in and I heard Amy at the front desk greet her and ask her how she was doing. She replied to Amy, “Oh I’m fine today, but I just know I’m going to be in bad shape by the end of the week with the storm that’s on its way!”

Albert Einstein once said, “The most important question you will ever ask yourself is whether this is or is not a friendly universe.” Dr. Einstein believed that your answer to this question would in fact be the most important decision you would ever make. The reason it would be so important is summed up in another of his famous quotations; “You cannot solve a problem with the same level of thinking that existed when it was created.” You see, Einstein knew that it is our deeply held BELIEFS about something that will determine which actions we will consistently take or avoid regarding that thing, and those actions or inactions will in turn determine the circumstances we will find ourselves in. So, your determination of whether we live in a friendly or hostile world will influence your actions in the world and bring about the circumstances of your life.

In our center for wholeness, we can see your answer to this question demonstrated in your attitude. You see, you either go through life with what we call a WELLNESS mentality, or an ILLNESS mentality. People with an illness mentality expect that mainly unpleasant things will happen to them because they believe that the world is basically hostile, unpredictable and out of their control. On the other hand, those with a wellness mentality expect that mainly good things will happen in their lives because they believe that the world is basically friendly, and that they control and attract to themselves most of what happens to them through each of their thoughts, words and actions. In the story above, Craig was in a state of dis-ease, and yet he had a WELLNESS mentality—a positive expectation that things would be good.

The other woman was actually in a state of ease, and yet had an illness mentality – a certainty that things would go downhill for her.

How do we develop, maintain and even expand a wellness mentality? Three things are necessary.

1. A deliberate focus on moving TOWARD what you want, as opposed to trying to move away from what you don’t want.

2. A healthy lifestyle that allows your body to function properly, heal and continue growing.

3. A clear neurological CONNECTION.

4. Where does chiropractic fit into this equation? Interference in your nerve system (what we call the subluxation process) causes your body to use energy at a much greater than normal rate. This rapid depletion of energy sends your body into SURVIVAL MODE and causes the highest thinking centers of your brain to shut down. With these parts of your brain shut down, do you think it is possible to see the world as friendly, or do you suppose that coming from a state of SURVIVAL that you might interpret many (if not all) things as threatening?

5. The chiropractic adjustment process restores the free flow of energy at a normal and natural rate; a rate that allows for EASE of function in every cell, tissue, organ and organ system—INCLUDING YOUR BRAIN! Your body goes out of survival mode and back into ease, allowing you to once again see the world as friendly.

6. You see, your adjustments don’t just help you feel better, they allow you to FEEL better—that is, they allow you to sense your environment in a totally different way than you would if you were subluxated and in survival mode. This is why we emphasize so strongly that everyone should get checked by a chiropractor regularly.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.