We’ve all attended funerals, told stories about the deceased and listened to a heartfelt eulogy by a family member or dear friend. But the most revealing things said probably came when some people went out back for a smoke.

That’s when things surface that would never be said inside.

It would be a great use of our imagination and a working compass for our lives if we could listen in now to what will be said about us outside.

We meet too few people who will share their real feelings about our behaviors, and what a pity that is. It gives us a false sense of acceptance and insulates us from finding a more workable way.

It seems that some authentic thoughts about us sneak out when another unleashes a moment of pent-up upset. That rarely works because it’s usually filled with accusatory vomit.

We tend not to listen when being attacked.

The real truth has no words, but our relative truths do point to this place of authenticity. Your feeling about someone and their behaviors is your relative truth. When we sugar coat or withhold it, we gulp down another dose of a universal drug called “mediocre relationships.” Life becomes your sugar coating interacting with their sugar coating and it has the sickenly sweet taste of saccharin.

WARNING: Please don’t confuse this with “speaking your mind.” That is just us telling the world how it should be. That’s a head trip that just feeds our sense of being right.

Telling the truth isn’t about right or wrong; it’s just communicating what is. It seems when we have all the information, we make better decisions. Hidden agendas bury the truth and keep us from truly connecting in this lifetime.

Any conversation that starts off with “you did” will mask the truth in anger. When you talk about another’s behaviors and how you feel when you encounter them, you’re communicating a personal truth and not a judgement.

The truth is about you, not them. Your verifiable truths are your feelings. If you don’t tell another about them, you are living a lie.

Deep connection can seem scary at first because we feel our vulnerability surface. If you’re not willing to show your underbelly to another, your relationship will stay mired in mediocrity. Vulnerability is the price of admission to see if we can make a true connection. If you’re not willing to ante up, all bets are off. Nobody wins.

You really decide how you relate to another. The only question is: “Will you offer another sugar cube or an authentic serving of you?”

All the best,

John

HOW HEALTHY CAN YOU BE?
LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

There’s a Bill of Goods we’ve been sold that doesn’t match up with the way things really work.

There is an ebb and flow quality to life and when we ignore that fact we get smacked down by an oncoming wave. This false Bill of Goods would encourage us to go out when the tide is coming in and vice-versa. That always has predictable consequences that we continually ignore.

When we force things in life, we go against the tide.

Nowhere is this truer than with our feelings. Everyone would intellectually agree that we cannot force feelings, yet we do it all the time.

How many times have you said, “I shouldn’t feel this way”? Then you make monumental efforts to feel some other way than you do. This is ignoring the tide of life known as reality. The unpainted truth is you DO feel this way.

Feelings, like tides, are meant to flow. One false bill of goods is that we can keep the tide we like in place for as long as we want. The oil that’s being sold with that philosophy has a little hiss to it.

The corollary is we can force the tide that we don’t like to go away. What’s that hiss I hear over in the dune grass?

The approach that we ignore is the one that works best – dig for clams when the tide is out and wax up the surfboard when it’s coming in.

You cannot legislate or negotiate tides or emotions. They are what they are and they crush all resistance.

Trying to force your feelings to be other than what they are is the largest cause of self-induced pain. The radiating pain you cause for others when you continue to entertain emotional denial is equally destructive.

Feelings are meant to be felt. That’s one of life’s truths occluded by society’s lie which is: You don’t have to feel your feelings. That’s like claiming there is no such thing as low tide.

If you are attempting to force or deny your feelings, you are drowning in your own fairy tale. It’s time for a re-write.

The new chapter of your life has you feel the feelings you have. Fully experience any feeling that shows up. Don’t have conversation with it, just sit in silence with it and allow it to flow where it naturally wants to go and keep your attention on it. Here’s the result: When you stop trying to force the tides, you get to calmer seas quicker.

I never got the logic that hiding under a thin bed sheet protected you from lightning, but that didn’t keep me from doing it.

No one yet has talked their way out of a feeling, but we continue the practice. It’s time to feel the storms that roil our emotional seas.

Take a dip into your emotions and feel them to the fullest. There are two benefits:

1. You know what it feels like to be human.
2. You can never again be sold a false Bill of Goods.

All the best,

John

HOW HEALTHY CAN YOU BE?
LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

We’ve all seen enough “Cops & Culprits” shows to have witnessed this plot line: A race against the clock to save some poor innocent soul who’s buried alive with only so much air left to breathe.

Most often they get found in time; sometimes they don’t.

Are you running out of air?

You are if you’ve buried your aliveness by smothering on superficiality.

How many of your highs lack depth?

Have you ever noticed that superficiality lacks an afterglow?

That causes us to seek another hit of it again, never noticing that the effects of it are so short-lived. This leads us to string together back-to-back moments like these and call it a life. It’s called being buried alive.

It’s searching for your aliveness through superficiality, which is a choking agent.

Every time you add another layer of it, it’s harder to breathe.

There comes a time when it’s time to get out your shovel and dig deeper. When you dig past superficiality, you find an escape tunnel filled with fresh air that gives you an opportunity to breathe deep – an action that provides an ongoing glow.

Notice that superficiality is a lousy bedfellow. It’s tossing and turning keeps you restless and searching for a breather.

The fear of those hooked on superficiality is that depth is dull. It’s anything but. Depth is rich with choice and not subject to the one destination that superficiality leads to – a magic carpet ride to nowhere that eventually runs out of air.

If you’re hooked on the idea that it’s the “next” thing that will rescue you, you’re buried alive and slowly smothering on superficiality.

You have to rescue yourself. It seems counter-intuitive but the way to dig out is to dig in.

When you get past the surface layer, you’ll find the air.

This search operation is called “Finding You.”

All the best,

John

HOW HEALTHY CAN YOU BE?
LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
VIRTUAL MASSAGE

I like the TV Show HOUSE. Last night was its season premier. The theme of the episode, for lack of a better term, was introspection – taking a visit inside.

I loved the episode because it demonstrated no matter how smart we are; we can’t figure it all out.

My observation is that we spend too much of our lifetime trying to figure it all out and we always come up short. Our goal seems to be on the end game and not the game itself.

It seldom occurs to us that we can’t get to the next moment without experiencing the moment we’re in.

Think of each moment as having its own little windstorm kicking up a bit of dust. We become covered in dust before too long because we carry it from one moment to the next, never taking time to dust ourselves off.

Dusting ourselves off is dealing with the debris that any current moment may bring. We hardly ever take time to process the moment. It becomes baggage we carry into each succeeding frame of our life’s movie.

We become covered in outside crud and rarely take the time to cleanse ourselves. Just like outside health begins from the inside so, too, does cleaning up your life.

It may be time to take a look inside.

It’s a quiet place filled with solvents of all sorts. Inside works its magic by first emptying the trash from our mind, and then it gently nudges us to apply elbow grease on the outside in places where we never did before. Before too long, we’re clean as a whistle.

If you haven’t already done so, find a mind quieting practice that takes you inside. There are so many to choose from and they’re all effective.

A note to the busy beavers: It’s not a one-time proposition. It takes regular visits inside to cleanse our accumulated rubbish.

We all get caught up in life’s dramas. This is just a reminder that from time to time we have to go inside and clean house.

All the best,

John

HOW HEALTHY CAN YOU BE?
LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES

Skeptic: Cynic, disbeliever, doubter, Doubting Thomas. That’s the dictionary definition.

I find skepticism to be a unique, doubled edged sword. One side quickly cuts through the BS and the other side is butter knife dull and can’t cut into to what’s possible.

The difficulty is that we generally only see ourselves as only using the sharp side of skepticism. We deem ourselves the ever present authority of what others miss.

Having been a world class skeptic myself, I can tell you that skeptics have a penchant for judging things in their head. That means they get in the habit of being right without sufficient evidence to back up their belief.

Skeptics miss a lot. We are so busy being right, that we often miss out on something that’s cutting edge.

Such was the case for me and vitamins. I was so sure that I could get everything I needed from the foods I ate that I didn’t need anything else. That may be true if I lived on a diet of plants, grains, water, nuts and seeds. That’s just not the case.

Then there was my evidence. I had tried high doses of Vitamin C about 30 years ago and got a kidney stone. Then I took more than the recommended daily requirement for Vitamin E and my hair began to fall out. I now had stories to back up my skepticism.

Skeptics not only anoint themselves as being right, they metaphorically put on a collar and begin to preach. I would tell my stories to anyone that would listen and would haughtily dismiss those that had other stories about vitamins as having the most expensive urine in town.

Older is also a double edged sword. It can mean wiser OR more set in your ways. It’s a choice we get to make. Set in your ways usually keeps skepticism in place keeping you from learning something new.

I got my skeptic’s cage rattled when I met Dr. David Lee. I had heard about Dr. Lee from our seminar coordinator, Hali. She would tell me lots of stories about Dr. Lee over the years that I thought were interesting but it was a comment she made in passing that caught my attention. She said that 80% of the patients that Dr. Lee sees have been told to get their affair in order by their physicians and are sent home to die. A number of these patients have gone on to live vibrant lives after experiencing Dr. Lee.

Being a skeptic, I had to go see for myself. I had to meet this person, in person, and look them in the eye. I also charged up the batteries of my BS detector for the trip.

I was blown away. Dr. Lee was the real deal and a real person. He was a Navy medic in the Vietnam War and afterward, came home and began his studies. During our time together, he told me that he never treats disease. He only treats the patient. He uses a multi-pronged approach – one of those prongs being a nutrient regiment that he’s been using successfully for years – both personally and professionally. I liked him already because he practiced what he preached.

My skepticism melted even more when Dr. Lee prescribed to take nothing he said on faith. He invited me to take home his daily vitamin packet and use it for 30 days. He said, “Let your body judge the results, not your head.”

The first thing I noticed after about a week was an increase in energy. Then I noticed that my nails were growing back more quickly. Then I noticed being more alert, especially during the parts of the day where I became somewhat drowsy in the past. These new found feelings and occurrences snuck up on me and I feel absolutely great!

Like Dr. Lee, I recommend that you don’t take what I say on faith. Investigate for yourself. I encourage you to read more about my experience with Dr. Lee and the great opportunity that came out of that meeting for all who visit my website. I request that you log on now to find out how healthy you can be with the assistance of Dr. Lee.

Click on the link below or copy it into your browser and find out what I did – that with the right formula even a skeptic can become healthier.

http://johnmorganseminars.com/ddl

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES

Here are 3 attitudes to take into the weekend with you.

Remember, “Attitude” is an aeronautical term which means “Angle of Approach.”

• Approach forgiveness with the attitude of a dog.
• Share laughter as though it was as plentiful as autumn acorns.
• Be kind to your body. It truly is your best friend.

All the best,

John

P.S. I have been waiting for 2 months to make the exciting announcement I will make here on Monday. Be sure to come back and find out the answer to the question, “How Healthy Can You Really Be?”

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES

Did you expect to be doing better at this stage in life? Me too.

There’s an old song by Creedence Clearwater Revival that addresses the topic of expectation so well. It’s called “Lodi.”

Just about a year ago,
I set out on the road,
Seeking my fame and fortune,
Looking for a pot of gold.
Things got bad, and things got worse,
I guess you will know the tune.
Oh ! Lord, Stuck in Lodi again.

If I only had a dollar, for ev’ry song I’ve sung.
And ev’ry time I’ve had to play
While people sat there drunk.
You know, I’d catch the next train back to where I live.
Oh ! Lord, I’m stuck in Lodi again.
Oh ! Lord, I’m stuck in Lodi again.

We all get stuck somewhere. Some of us learn to like it, or at least claim we do because we fear there is no alternative. Our main problem is our expectation.

“Shoot for the moon” is the carrot and stick philosophy we seem to follow. I’m sure that approach has worked for some to reach their expectations but most of us have come up short.

“She had such great potential” is what we often hear when we witness her fall on her rear. Not living up to expectations is a mental game that we play and it is one that’s played for us by others.

Expectation starts out as foresight but its sting is mainly felt in hindsight.

Expectation ignores the moment. It suggests that we should be somewhere where we’re not, whether looking forward or looking back.

No one ever taught us to expect to be where we are at any given moment. It’s the strategy that pulls out the stinger of expectation.

This by no means suggests that you give up on your dreams, just don’t attempt to live them by expectation. Expectation is entitlement by a different name. The only thing we are entitled to is the moment we’re in.

Making the most of the current moment is the real dream builder, not the diversion of expectation.

My wife from another life had this observation: “Fathers tend to tell their children what they can be and mothers accept them for who they are.” I’m sure the roles are reversed in some families but the premise of expectation, high or low, starts at home. We seem to all play the role of “Stage Mother” somewhere in our parenting – projecting onto them what was projected onto us – expectation.

When we don’t live up to that expectation, something seems to be missing. What’s missing is the life and opportunities the present moment brings. They’re sacrificed for expectations.

The building blocks for anyone’s future can only be found right here and right now. The only place you can start from is right now. When you slip into the world of expectation, you slip out of the only time you can accomplish something – right now.

Expecting and doing run on different tracks. One is a path to nowhere and the other is a pathway to your dreams.

Here is my suggestion: Go for your dreams, just don’t let expectation get in the way.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES

I was taught a lesson in reality last night while watching a football game – the difference between giving up and giving in.

I had given up on my team but the good news is they didn’t get my memo. They didn’t give in to what many fans like me may have felt – that time was too short to get a win.

I’m sure glad Thomas Edison didn’t give up. I’m sure other inventors had thrown in the towel much earlier in the process. They didn’t see the light that he saw.

Giving up is a state of mind; giving in is an action.

I think those that win more often than others have given up the notion of giving in while there is still time on the clock.

Some take a setback as the end of the game. That’s a losing strategy. That’s giving up.

Giving in only happens when reality physically surfaces. When the final whistle blows and your opponent is ahead, it’s time to give in. That’s called acceptance.

If the players on my team last night had adopted my give up attitude, we wouldn’t have won. There is no guarantee that your attitude gets you a win, it just increases the odds.

This is not a rose colored glasses approach. This is a reality based strategy. Optimism creates options. Negativity closes doors.

This is more than the trite maxim of “Think Positive.” That’s a directive with no instructions. The instructions are these:

Learn the difference between perceived reality and reality itself. Perception is never reality. Perception causes us to give up well before the game is over. Odds don’t win games; people do.

Remember this: If your parents’ reproductive cells had listened to the odds makers, you would have never been born.

I’ve given in to the fact that giving up has no basis in reality.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES

The Grasshopper visited over the weekend and left this definition:

WEAKNESS: Thinking you can outsmart your vices.

How profound, how universal, and how stupid.

The first sign of weakness being a weakness is denying our vice. We may artfully lump it into the category of “everyone does it,” but we never examine that explanation further. We never assess our degree of involvement. We fail to notice that everyone that does it to the degree we do, suffers.

Reminds me of a story . . .

Frank Layden, former coach of the Utah Jazz was a great motivator of people. He also weighed well over 300lbs. He had heard the speech from his doctor many times that he was endangering himself by carrying all that excess weight, especially in his mid 60’s. The logic never registered with him until . . .

Finally on one visit his doctor said, “Frank, I want you to go look for men over 300lbs that are your age when you leave here today.” Frank couldn’t find any. That became the motivation for him to finally get healthy.

Outsmarting your vices is called kidding yourself, but the jokes on you because no one is laughing.

Here’s a hint that your vice needs to be addressed: When you have a story at the ready to defend it. That indicates you’re neck deep in it.

Here’s another hint: When you say, “it’s none of your business,” especially to a friend or close family member who’s concerned.

My personal favorite is when we shift the onus to the worried person who points out our dilemma. “You have issues too.” The hope is they will go on to defend themselves about their issues so we can get the focus off of us.

There’s a reason Michael Jordan was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. It’s not that he didn’t have weaknesses, we all do. He just chose to identify his and go to work on them so he could be the best he could be.

People who decide to go to work on a weakness, don’t make excuses. They realize that only action works.

Our vices are patterns that need to be outgrown, not outsmarted. Every time you think of a creative way to defend what you do, you just add another glob of glue.

Weakness and Smartness is a deadly combination – one that lets stupid people outlive you.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES

Seems like Friday is just about everyone’s favorite weekday. More songs have been written about other days of the week, but Friday seems to be the hands down winner.

It’s easy to see why. Friday is the doorway to the weekend – the time when time is your time.

So the special thing about Friday is the wonderful anticipation it brings. Friday is a feeling!

What if we could isolate that feeling in our body and catalog it? Then we could literally Google that feeling any day of the week, even on a “Blue Monday.”

What does Friday feel like? It will be different for every-body, but quite useful to zero in on. What goes on in your body when you’re in a Friday frame of mind? Find out by taking time to notice.

Most will agree that good thoughts produce good feelings but not as much attention has been given to the corollary – good feelings produce good thoughts. Feelings last longer and so do the thoughts associated with them.

Think of thoughts as precision sports cars that can turn on a dime and dart away. Then think of feelings as cruise ships that take much longer to make a full turn and stay in place much longer.

If you pay attention to the feeling, you can get the full experience of the moment. The best news is you can recreate that moment when “hump day” seems like it will never end.

Most people know Abraham Lincoln’s observation that “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” They may not know there is another strategy – “Most folks are as happy as they feel in their body.”

Here’s a wacky suggestion: Make Friday “feel day.” Get to know what Friday feels like in your body. Then when you’re mentally having a “Terrible Tuesday” or a “Trying Thursday,” ask your body to serve up a slice of Friday.

This only seems silly until you do it. Did you ever notice that experience wipes out all debate?

Experience Friday!

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES