A Book Review: The Inside Out Revolution

The author of this book is an established well known radio show host, transformational coach, and best-selling author of  the books, You Can Have What You Want, Supercoach, Feel Happy Now, and several others.

There are many books and seminars out there that claim to offer the secrets of living a more authentic, a more empowered, a more stress free life. I have read many of them and have attended a few of the seminars over the years. Each have a couple of things in common: focusing on developing a positive mental outlook, and putting into play many new external transformative action habits. What makes Michael Neill’s book unique and distinctive here is his approach. Inside out understanding is what he describes it as. A descriptive quote by his mentor, Syd Banks, about the approach is the following:  “The difference between riding on and down a twisting, jarring roller coaster and floating down a river.”

Michael Neill had this to say about our societies outside thinking mindset:

“The prevailing model in our culture is that our experience of life is created from the outside in - that is, what happens to us on the outside determines our experience on the inside. People or circumstances ‘make’ us happy, angry, sad, fearful, or loving, and the game of life is to find, attract, create, or manifest the right people and circumstances in order to have more of the good feelings and fewer of the bad ones.”

Author Neill bases his writing on what he calls The Three Principles. They are:

1.  Mind. 

There is an energy and intelligence behind life.

2.  Consciousness. 

The capacity to be aware and experience life is innate in human beings. It is a universal phenomenon. Our level of awareness in any given moment determines the quality of our experience.

3.  Thought. 

We create our individual experience of reality via the vehicle of thought. Thought is the missing link between the formless world of pure potentiality and the created world of form.

Remember- and this is very important - you’re only one thought away from happiness, you’re only one thought away from sadness. The secret lies in Thought. It’s the missing link that everybody in this world is looking for.

This last point is the secret missing link that bears repeating again. We have a selective choice by way of thought whether  to experience happiness, something positive and meaning ful, or, negative and sad, dragging you down emotionally. The element of thought is one of interpretation. What we choose to do with potential by then giving a form to it. 

I loved this next quote by Neill’s mentor, Syd Banks that has to do with that transformative moment: “When you are ready, you will find what you’re looking for. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care where you are. If you’re in the middle of the Sahara Desert...and it’s time for you to find the answer, the right person will appear in the middle of the desert and let you know.” 

At the end of each chapter, Michael Neil summarizes the points of that chapter. At the end of chapter eight, The Paradox of Results, he synthesizes what he has written about into these five points.

√   The moment we see that every feeling is just the shadow of a thought, we stop being scared of our feelings and just feel them.

√   We’re playing with the house’s money. There’s nothing real at stake. The only thing we have to loose is the illusion that something   outside us can make us happy, safe and secure.

√   When you’re playing to play, being alive is the best game in town.

√   Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less.

√   How things ultimately turn out isn’t up to us. It never was. But if we do our bit and play our part, it’s remarkable how far we can go.

The difference in making a change in one’s mindset in how we view things can indeed unchain us from limitations we bound ourselves up in. The following observation by Ludwig Wittgenstein offered in the book is a sublime one. “A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that’s unlocked and opens inwards as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.” 

I loved the simplified teachings of this book. Much of what Michael Neill writes about in The Inside Out Revolution has resonated for me in my journey as a family caregiver. Our strengths and attributes are to be found within, not externally. 

If you are a voracious reader as I am, move this book to the front of the line as the one you read next. Simple is often profound and  transformational. 

Jeff Dodson 

July 22nd 2013

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from Hay House Publishing for this review. The opinions expressed in this review are unbiased and reflect my honest judgment of the product.

Another One Is Called Home

Yesterday, July 13th 2013 my father, Alfred LeRoy Dodson passed away. He lived to be 85 years and 47 days of age.  

Dad was the third parent of ours to pass within the past ten months. Beatrice (Mom) Dodson went first on October 17th 2012. Marian (Penny’s Mom) Widdifield was the second parent to leave us for the journey home on March 23rd 2013. 

In the view of my wife Penny and I, he left our world on his own terms. Dad had become a resident of the Sherwood Nursing Center in December of 2012, having lost the ability to care for himself at home any more. Pop struggled with adult diabetes, cardiovascular issues and also was contending with what we believed to be stroke-induced dementia. Very recently, further cognitive testing disclosed the probability that it was Alzheimer’s dementia that was chipping away at him.

I believe that, faced with a diagnosis of AD and contemplating how AD would devastate his life even further, pop chose to surrender to  his cardiovascular problems. We learned that he sustained a massive heart attack while taking a midmorning nap and never felt a thing. To pass away and make the journey home after dying in one’s sleep is the private hoped-for exit strategy of virtually most humans living upon our planet.

Dad had been right in the middle of caregiving duties himself with Beatrice Dodson (his wife and my mother) from perhaps 2007 up through late September 2011 when we were compelled to place mom in a nursing facility because of her dual fight with adult diabetes and advancing Alzheimer’s.

Caring for mom while she was still at home took a lot out of dad. Though from the old school and not well informed about what AD can take away from someone, dad gave everything he had towards mom’s care and attention at home. Penny and I became progressively more engaged with dad, helping him in caring for mom as her health issues became more pronounced. 

The price he paid in the process was to often neglect his own nutrition, forget to take his own medications or otherwise feel the suffocating effects of the stress of caring for a wife who’s dementia behaviors were often odd, sometimes hostile and completely unpredictable. 

In late September of 2011, Mom Dodson had to finally be placed in a skilled 24-hour nursing facility for the kind of care she required. For the following nearly thirteen months that mom resided at Sherwood, dad faithfully made the multiple weekly trips back and forth to visit with and spend time with his wife of sixty three years. Even when the AD brought out some of the ugliest, most hurtful behaviors in mom towards dad, he weathered the storm and soldiered on.

Mom’s passing away in October of 2012 was a mixed blessing. Her battle with diabetes and the corrosive battery acid effects of AD finally ended. Dad handled her loss well but beneath the surface, you could sense the vast empty hollow place that now resided where the warmth and kinship of a decades-long marriage once existed. Pop missed mom.

It was in mid December 2012 that we finally had to place dad, by his own choice, up at the Sherwood Nursing Facility for his continued long-term care. He could no longer take his medications, remember when to eat and was stumbling and falling down too often.

Through  all of his own seven month stay at Sherwood, dad held onto his own sense of humor, his penchant for being sociable and chivalrous as well as being cooperative with the nursing staff of the place. Quite a few nurses and cna’s became attached to pop in the short time that he was there. They all mourn and are saddened by his passing. 

Penny and I are pleased to the extent that he has rejoined mom, has now re-connected with my middle brother Tim whom we lost in 2005 as well as the spirits of his parents, his sister and ancestors. 

He is whole and infused with boundless energy and vitality once again...just like he was before he chose to come down here the first time. 

Thank You for the privilege of being born and raised as one of your three sons. Thank You for your loving  devotion, your parenting, your ass-kicking when it needed to be measured out, and all of those other unforgettable moments that you handled in consummate fashion as my father.

There will never be another one that comes along quite like you.

Jeff Dodson

July 14th 2013

Eight Behaviors Dementia Caregivers Should Avoid

On November 30th 2011, I posted a blog entitled “Twelve Words That Describe The Best Caregivers.” Little did I realize at that time  this blog posting would eventually go on to become,  as of July 1st 2013, my most read, most visited and, most copied article on caregiving. My gratitude goes out to all of those curious readers and caregivers who made it so.

I prepared and wrote that piece as a synthesis of my own firsthand experiences as a caregiver along with those of my wife Penny and of several other remarkable caregivers we had contact with or had read about.  It’s popularity in readership told me that folks were finding some takeaway value in maybe how to improve their own approach to the formidable challenge of caring for another with a terminal dementia disease.

It  recently occurred to me that my readers might also be open to learning about those behaviors and practices of a caregiver that do not work!  What are the do-nots and no-no’s of dementia caregiving to avoid?

I composed a list of eight of the  most harmful and/or unproductive caregiver behaviors. To be candid, when I started as a caregiver, I fully owned perhaps half of the negative behaviors on this list. Frustration, a proverbial bloody nose and hitting that brick wall in each instance finally wised me up that a different approach was called for.

Before getting into the list of eight, one must first get a grasp on the kind of world your patient or your family member has fallen into.

Rationality, order, what makes sense, established personality traits, etc. all start to disintegrate. AD does this by killing off a few hundred thousand or so neuron cells each week. Irrevocably.

In the world of Alzheimer’s, fear, unpredictability, nightmares, anxieties and lots of frustration abound. Aside from this, your loved one, your patient, also looses their higher cognitive ability to sort out, make sense of or remotely comprehend what is going on with them. No pain, no warning signs of when something is going to no longer be there. It (that memory) is simply gone.

They have slipped into a different and alien world. Alzheimer’s World. Once a person does, they no longer own the capacity or wherewith all to step back into our ‘normal’ world.

You alone are left with the ability and choice of being able to step back and forth between your world and their world each day.

They cannot rejoin our world no matter how hard they might want to. Someday, medical science may change this. While it may be on the horizon it is not here now.

It is up to you now as the caregiver to wrap your mind around this and move forward. If you choose to stay with them as a caregiver, you must realize that there is no middle ground. It is ‘an all-in’ proposition. Affirm to yourself that you are going to  to learn how to step into their realm and learn the “language, customs and practices of Alzheimer’s World.”

Now, it’s time to  talk about the eight behaviors to avoid.

Correcting
A couple members of our family were great for this their interaction with others. One could never cut it as a caregiver and remains distant to this day. So be it. The other eventually was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and thereafter, was them self subjected to  the bee sting of others correcting him. Shoe on the other foot time.

It would happen in conversation with another person in a public forum. A family member or friend would utter an incorrect statement or mispronounce a word or term in their presence. Sure enough, Bob or Suzie would react with a remark correcting the unintentional offender. On a good day, no one likes being corrected in a public setting. For a person afflicted with AD, it merely jacks up their stress level much higher than it already is.

If you are one of these types that likes to or has a history of correcting others around you, I pose this question to you. What the hell does it really matter? Especially so with someone who is cognitively compromised? It is not going to be the first time you hear mispronunciations or misstated facts out of their mouths. In the long run, you are going to hear a lot more of these kinds of mistakes. They cannot be helped. Let go of the need to be in control or known as the biggest smarty-pants!

Belittling/Embarrassing
An example of this of this might be:
“Mom, why in the hell did you cram our checkbook and all of our bank statements into the refrigerator vegetable crisper? What were you thinking?”

All this will do is set off hurt, humiliation and anger in the poor soul. For starters, they most likely already forgot about their ‘rearrangement action’ earlier  in the day and won’t connect your accusation to something that they did.

Another example goes like this:
A husband responds to cries for help or a screech from his wife in another part of their house. He enters their bedroom to witness his wife with both of her arms and head twisted up and partially covered with a garment that looks like a brassiere. She  is upset, sobbing and trapped within and needs help getting herself extricated.

The husband blurts out with: “How in the hell did you wind up like this?”

Guess what? Her best, most valiant efforts' at helping herself get dressed went awry. Remember once again, she is no longer completely in our rational world anymore. Putting  on such a garment as this which would be tricky for menfolk were they compelled to wear one as part of their attire.

Patience and compassion is called for here, not crushing her fragile ego and making matters worse.

Lecturing or Telling Someone Off
Their exists a substantial number of folks in our society who subscribe to the notion that telling someone off or “putting them in their place,” is an appropriate behavior to pull the trigger on. It rarely works with someone who is otherwise rational and possesses all of their cognitive skills.

It does not work at all with an AD afflicted person. Suddenly, you are in their face yelling at them or scolding them with a pointed finger about something they can neither comprehend nor remember. Up goes the anger and frustration gauge needle for them. Maybe a curse word or phrase comes your way next. Now an argument breaks out. The price paid for your negative ego thrill of telling that person off accomplishes nothing positive.

Let go of this ego centered need (on your part) to tell your patient or family member off.

Frightening or Startling
I learned early on with both my own deceased mother and mother-in-law (bless them both) about approaching them too quickly or without warning. The startle reaction with AD folks is much more pronounced and deeply felt than for you or I. Probably because so much of what is happening in their world already is frightening and doesn’t make sense anymore.

I learned to enter the room or into their presence slowly. Give them time to take you into their range of view at their own pace. We forget that we will often appear to them as a stranger, or, as AD progresses, as perhaps a person but with features altered that might remind them of that Zombie movie that scared the dickens out of them when they were a child.

Most of us do not realize that the simple act of recalling who somebody is by just looking at them is a complex process. Our brain stores the memories of a person in basically four different file cabinets. Not all in one. Facial feature memory is in cabinet number one. The name associated with that face is stored in cabinet number two. The  unique sound of that person’s voice is stored in file cabinet number three. Finally, the smell or scent of that person, is stored in file cabinet number four. The recognition process requires acccessing and integrating the memories from all of these file cabinets in order for it to be successful.

With AD, the part of the brain that recalls and puts all of these memories together, (the hippocampus) is under attack or already compromised. Imagine your AD brain, in a damaged state, trying to integrate the memory of your voice, with the face of your loved one's sister, matched to the name of a college roommate, and coupled up with the scent or smell of a chipmunk pet from childhood!  It all may very well wind up scrambled up just like that. How would you come to make sense of all of that?

Take your time when approaching. Give your loved one time to take you in and get used to your presence. When and if you do speak, do so softly, slowly and clearly.

Impatience
This one was one of my own worst behaviors. I held little tolerance for those slower than I, less organized or those who chose to sleep in on some mornings. For me, it was all about getting up early every day, having a game plan established and attacking that plan to completion.

None of these expectations worked well with my introduction to AD caregiving. It drove me nuts. It caused heartburn and frustration. It made me want to throw or break things (thankfully I did not).  A defining moment arose for me: change the way I was doing things cause what I was doing wasn’t working for ----!

I slowly learned to overcome these unachievable expectations by telling myself: “They don’t know how to work like I expect them to anymore. It’s not their fault. I am now their to act as their cheerleader, their advocate. Give them a chance...give them a break.”

Stage Managing/Scripting
If you are one of the many millions of Baby Boomer caregivers out there for a parent or two, then you know how limited your blocks of time can be. Whether paying a visit to the folks’ house to check on them, take one to the doctors, assist them on an errand or accompany them to the bank: it all takes up time that you must allow for.

My experience taught me this:
It’s OK to plan for a specific activity on the way to, say dad’s place, but once there, be ready to adapt and improvise. You just never know what you are going to run into.

Many a time, I’d burn a day off devoted to taking the folks (they both had the same Medicare primary physician) to their doctor for checkups. The trip to their physician took about thirty minutes. So I’d arrive at their place an hour ahead of their scheduled appointment time. This allowed a half hour to make sure they were dressed, had taken their medications and were ready (bathroom visits for both out of the way).  Often as not, one would have eaten and was dressing while the other was still in bed with neither having taken their morning medications or shots. Plus, for one of the parents, indecision would arise as to what outfit were they going to choose and wear.

The lessons:
Make your plan but plan for contingencies: every time. And also: show up 2 hours earlier than you need to make sure they are moving along with their morning routines. Lastly, have in mind one or two outfits or ensembles in mind and ready to produce to make the issue of selection more simplified.

When it comes to choosing the clothing, I learned a persuasive technique that helped such as:
Me: “Last time, Mom, you picked the tan slacks and top because you said it was your most comfortable casual outfit.”

Mom: “Oh, I did, well...OK then, let’s go with the tan outfit.”

Obsessive punctuality
Time  is valuable; time is money. The meter is running man. That was once my mantra. Being punctual was being productive and efficient. In my world view, that was the natural order of things both in my personal and business life.

Not so when it came to working with dementia diagnosed parents. Not their fault.

At one time, when both were healthy years ago, one was very punctual. Even arriving early at their commitments. The other, well, the other was always a procrastinator. Dementia sneaked into the lives of both. The punctual one became lethargic and lost track of time. The procrastinator then began to set new world records for procrastination. Not a choice deal for either. Consequences of the disease that had claimed them.

Again, my adaptive choice to make here was to show up early and allow for two or three times what I thought it would normally take to handle their business, their errand, their care on that day.

This one was a hard one for me to let go of and it took nearly a year for me to make the adaptation. 25 mph. was my new 65 mph. Forward motion was better than no motion at all.

Inflexibility
Learn to have an alternative route to getting done what you want. There will be days when your family member or patient will not be agreeable to what you want done, even showing defiance or belligerence.  NO to sitting down for lunch, NO to taking their pills, NO to going to bed, etc.

The solution to this is what I call pivoting or what dementia caregiving  experts call “redirecting.” You  change  the subject or change the direction of what you are doing to break the focus of what they are resistant to. It creates a mental disruption or disconnect for them by the introduction of something new that you offer or show them.

Example:
You: “Dad, it’s time to get up out of your chair, put that book down, and get in the car so we can go to the bank.”

Dad: “No, (Defiantly) I’m not done with the book yet. When I’m done, we’ll go.”

You: “OK, (Cheerfully) that’s fine. But say dad, have you seen the new seat covers that I installed in my car?”

Dad: “No, (Surprised) I don’t think I have.”

You: “Wanna go take a quick peek?”

Dad: “Oh, (Curiosity aroused) I guess I could.”

In this instance, after showing them the seat covers, you invite them to have a seat on one as you prepare to leave and go to that bank appointment. You broke their focus of defiance with something new that actually steered them out to the car which is where you wanted them to go in the first place.

Another example involved my own mom. As she slide deeper under the influence of  Alzheimer’s but while she was still living at home, she hated to bathe or shower. She would not let dad near her to assist in this chore. To hell with personal grooming.

Our solution (between Penny and I) was to hold out the promise of a warm robe and an amateur pedicure after the bath. That one always met with cooperation.

As a sixty something Baby Boomer, I never imagined myself providing pedicures someday to an eighty four year old mother. Guess what? You step up and do what you gotta do!

You can insist on being rigid, being inflexible in the plan of action you have for your loved one. The chances are excellent that it will  lead to a stalemate or angry standoff. Rock against rock. Lots of chaffing , heat and sparks but no movement.

In making the choice to walk down the path of a caregiver, there are many changes that you will be faced with that you have to make. It is called adaptation. Your loved one has been kidnapped by a disease that has every malevolent intention of rubbing out every one of their memories and most all of the personality that once made them unique and cherished.  Like it or not, someone has to step up and be their lifeguard, their chaperone and travel between our world and theirs.

Affirm that you are going to be the one that chooses to walk a part of each day in Alzheimer’s World and the other part of the day in our world.

My wife and I are over nine years into it at our end and still have two remaining parents to be mindful of. The rewards and transformational blessings we have experienced on the journey have been worth it all.


Jeff Dodson
July 1st 2013

Mental Health: Time For A Change In How We View It All

On Monday June 3rd 2013, President Barack Obama hosted a White House conference on mental health. Participants in the conference included celebrities, veterans groups, mental health advocates and psychologists. At that conference the President announced that the Department of Veterans Affairs would conduct their own nationwide mental health summit conferences from July 1st through September 15th 2013 to focus on support for our veterans and their families as well as increasing awareness about mental health programs that are currently available.

In that conference, President Obama called for an end to the stigma that has been associated with mental health issues in our country. What does stigma mean? Consider the following definitions.

Stigma. Defined by dictionary.com as:
1. a mark of disgrace or infamy; a stain or reproach, as on one’s reputation.
2. medicine
a mental or physical mark that is characteristic of a defect or disease.

Stigma. Defined by the World English Dictionary as:
a.  distinguishing mark of social disgrace
b.  any sign of a mental deficiency or emotional upset

Stigma. Defined by the American Heritage Medical Dictionary as:
a.  mark of shame or discredit.

Noted 20th Century Sociologist Erving Goffman offered this definition of stigma:
“The phenomenon whereby an individual with an attribute is deeply discredited by his/her society is rejected as a result of the attribute. Stigma is a process by which the reaction of others spoils normal identity.”

These are the kinds of terms and words used to describe a kind of collective attitude many of us have held towards those afflicted with mental illness. Our jaundiced and arms-length view of mental illness has been this way for centuries. We fear what we don’t understand.  It is way beyond time for a change in how we view those in our society who suffer from a mental illness or disease.

Diseases such as Leprosy and AIDs were once looked upon in this fashion until the bright spotlight of education and empowerment along with improvements in treatable medications turned discrimination and devaluation into compassion and understanding.

A quick visit to the newly launched web site of the US Dept. of Health & Human Services, mentalhealth.gov, revealed the following statistics:

√  In 2011 one in five American adults experienced a mental health issue.

√  One in ten young people experienced a period of major depression.

√  One in twenty Americans lived with a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar  disorder or major depression.

√  Disorders such as schizophrenia and manic-depression cannot be ‘caught.’ They are genetic diseases that run in families.

√  Half of all mental health disorders show first signs before a person turns 14 years old, and three quarters of mental health disorders begin before age 24.

The above noted statistics referenced from mentalhealth.gov regarding mental health issues among our younger population members was sobering to contemplate.

As an active caregiver for the past nine years of aging parents, two of whom have passed away as a result of Alzheimer’s disease, I thought I had become used to a number of frightening stats as they pertained to AD. My own firsthand experience as a caregiver for three of four aging parents who were stricken with dementia taught me a profound lesson in compassion, patience and nonjudgmental interaction with each of them. I have now come to view others who are afflicted with mental diseases that are different from Alzheimer’s with the same compassionate, non judging mindset.

An old saying, “people are down on what they are not up on,” comes to mind here. Now is the time to educate ourselves more about mental illnesses, many of which are quite treatable and controllable, and to learn of just how many people can then lead successful lives in spite of living with  an underlying disorder.

In preparing this article, each of the following web sites were visited.

mentalhealth.gov
This is a newly created federal government level web site resource. It offers a wide variety of in-depth material including education, wellness and prevention, and what to look for signs in many of the anxiety, eating, mood, personality, psychotic, and substance use disorders.

BringChange2Mind.org
This is the site that award winning actress Glenn Close launched in an effort to bring education and empowerment to those families who have members among them struggling with a mental health challenge.

www.FoundationHouse.com
This is a web page for the renowned Foundation House Extended Care Sober Living Facilities in Portland, Maine. Their specialty is treatment of the diseases of alcohol and drug addiction.

TheBalancedMindFoundation.org
A web site dedicated to families of children and teens with mood disorders. It offers an educational library, forums and blogs for parents, support groups,  and professional resources.

EachMindMatters.org
Developed by the California Mental Health Movement, this web site is substantial, featuring a blog page and a get-help-now page link. It also features links to these other related and helpful web sites:

1. SuicideisPreventable.org
A resource web site for help with desperate folks contemplating suicide or merely exhibiting the early signs of this mindset.

2. ReachOut.com
A web site designed for young folks in mind with links and information pertaining to anxieties, eating issues, loss and grief, drugs and alcohol addiction, depression and self harm.

3. SpeakOurMinds.org.
A resource that features a statewide speakers bureau that can provide speakers to your business, school or organization.

Make the decision today  to empower yourself with straightforward knowledge about mental health. Get the facts instead of walking about harboring  ignorance and fear.


Jeff Dodson
June 29th 2013

The Honeymoon Effect: A Book Review

As a long time fan and reader of the writings of Dr. Wayne Dyer, I first learned of author Bruce Lipton and his book, The Biology of Belief, from him. Curiosity got the best of me, so when a chance came up to review Dr. Lipton’s new book, The Honeymoon Effect, I pursued it.

The author invites us to look back upon our  most memorable and unforgettable love affair and to recall all of those electrifying emotions and the sense of bliss that it instilled within us.  What was it that was going on with us neurologically and hormonally that accounted for that profound lasting experience? How might that same experience be relived once again in a new relationship or within one you are already in?

The Honeymoon Effect is a book that lays out the compelling and factual science of why and how we became so smitten and entranced with that other person in that love affair of long ago. It all comes down to how we have evolved at the biochemical  and cellular level while residing on our planet.

Some  of the underlying science in this book includes:
Nature’s drive to form community among its many species. Pair coupling. The drive to bond trumps the drive to procreate. This is true for all the mammalian species of earth include ourselves.

The most fundamental form of communication among organisms are energy vibrations. The catchy  “good vibes”, or “bad vibes” slang of the Sixties turns out to be rooted in hard science and physics. Positive outgoing enthusiastic people generate higher level attracting energy vibrations while negative, unhappy and/or deceitful individuals emanate lower negative energy vibrations. As young children, we all intuitively sensed this distinction in others. It was only when we entered adulthood that many of us learned to ignore messages we received energetically: “Don’t listen to your feelings. Listen to the words.”

Brain waves. There are five different frequencies. Our ability to learn, to imagine as children, to relax, and to operate at an optimum or peak performance level (in what some athletes refer to as ‘the zone’) is all related to which specific brain wave frequency state we are in and how we can alter them.

The biochemistry of love. We are “self-biologists” who create with the thoughts in our minds the love potions that control the cells and tissues in our bodies. Whether you’re in love or running from danger, your mind calibrates your blood’s biochemistry, which in turn controls your biology and genetics. The mind interprets your perceptions of the world, and your brain goes to work to produce the biochemistry that compliments your perceptions.

Between couples, you actually have four minds to contend with. Your conscious and unconscious minds and her conscious and unconscious minds. It is when the subconscious mind arises after a blissful love relationship that the glow begins to fade. Neuroscientists have found that we are able to utilize our creative conscious minds to control our behavior regulating cognitive activities about 5 percent of the time. The remaining 95 percent  remains within the control of the subconscious mind.

I was surprised to learn about this conscious/unconscious mental tug-of-war that goes on in our minds and the disparity ratio of power each holds over us.

The conscious mind’s prefrontal cortex can process and manage a relatively measly 40 nerve impulses per second. The 90 percent of the brain that constitutes the subconscious mind’s platform can process 40 million nerve impulses per second. The subconscious mind’s processing ability is thus 1 million times more powerful than the conscious mind.

The subconscious mind is primarily a record/playback mechanism, unlike the conscious mind, expresses little creativity and has no sense of time. It operates always in the present moment, doesn’t see a future, and doesn’t listen or care when you yell at it.

The challenge is to bring your two subconscious minds into alignment with the conscious ones. Though the subconscious mind is a very powerful part of each of us, Dr. Lipton shows us how to set about re programming the subconscious mind via habituation , hypnosis, subliminal tapes, and energy psychology.

At the end of his book Dr. Lipton lists twenty seven different resource web sites to visit that offer tools and assistance in changing the accumulation of negative, disempowering  beliefs that we have filed away in the subconscious mind cabinetry.

The factual science behind how we have evolved, how we are wired and why we teeter-totter between conscious and unconscious minds in our relationships is all presented in understandable and often humorous terms.

The Honeymoon Effect is a thought provoking and educational book that offers the promise and the tools necessary for recapturing and injecting the emotional supercharging of an unforgettable love affair into relationships we now are in or wish to initiate.

This is a great read for couples, for singles and even for parents who want to know how to better parent and nurture their children.


Jeff Dodson
June 17th 2013

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from Hay House Publishing for this review. The opinions expressed in this review are unbiased and reflect my honest judgment of the product.

The Importance of Being Extraordinary: A Live Lecture Review

This is a review of a lecture presentation featuring two of our most recognized and influential spiritual teachers in our world today; Dr. Wayne Dyer and Elkhart Tolle.

Dr. Dyer is a world renowned writer and speaker on self-development and spirituality, having authored over 30 books and has appeared on thousands of radio programs and television shows. Dr. Dyer’s most recent works include, Wishes Fulfilled, Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life, and Excuses Begone!

Elkhart Tolle is the author of the best-selling book, The Power of Now and his followup book, A New Earth, which was chosen by Oprah Winfrey as one of her book club favorites.

The taped presentation is about being or becoming extraordinary. That is, learning how to both appreciate your own unique and wondrous personal and private spirit in addition to aligning your daily actions to act in congruence with it.

Both of these enlightened teachers advocate:
Living in the present moment. Shut out and disregard the many  distractive thoughts involving either the past or the future.

Coming to understand and how to avoid the temptations that are placed upon our ego as our culture bombards it with messages and advertisements promoting the external accumulation of things, objects, notoriety and the outward trappings of societies vision of success.

Go internal. Let yourself be guided by your soul, your spirit. According to Eckhart Tolle, you will not find meaning (including your own purpose) on the level of mental concepts.

Expand your awareness. We all spend a substantial amount of time each day navigating through our lives with just the use of our five senses (hearing, sight, sound, smell and taste). The  simple activation of one’s imagination does not require the use of any of these five senses. Using the imagination is a way of becoming a multi-sensory individual, bringing you closer to your purpose.

Forgiveness. Letting go of anger and grudges you have held against others is important in a person’s  transition towards extraordinary. With respect to this ability,  I loved the quote that Dr. Dyer shared, attributing it to Mark Twain: “ Forgiveness is the fragrance that is shed from the vial as a result of the heel that has crushed it.”

The listener of this two CD set will better appreciate and understand the material after reading at least one of more of the books of these two authors beforehand. I would suggest Eckhart’s A New Earth, and Dr. Dyer’s The Power of Intention first.

As a parent, caregiver and blogger, I have found the books and teachings of both of these inspiring men to be transformative in my personal life. Embracing their philosophies has provided me with a positive and successful coping approach to the Alzheimer’s caregiving work I have been engaged in over the past nine years in addition to inspiring me to continue my writing and blogging.  Thank You Dr. Dyer and Elkhart Tolle.


Jeffrey Dodson
May 5th 2013

FTC Disclosure: I received this book free from Hay House Publishing for this review. The opinions expressed in this review are unbiased and reflect my honest judgment of the product.

Life’s Been On Hold: I’m On My Way To Self Storage To Reclaim A Piece

A humorous title that popped into my head this morning.

The everyday simple home maintenance projects and activities have definitely been subject to fits, starts and a lot of stops for a long time now.

Why so long? The cyclical demands and unexpected emergencies of caregiving are like that.

It’s a Sunday afternoon and I made headway this morning on replanting our front flower bed. Purple flowering, low spreading perennial Lithodoras backed up and intermixed with taller bright California Poppies. Our front yard planter will have a new reclaimed look. I finally had both the time and the motivational energy today to execute one of the kind of landscape projects I used to love working at.

It’s has been ages since I cleared out the last stand of perennials & annuals, leaving  the soil bare of any new planting.  It has been fallow looking for perhaps the past year or so.

The front yard is just one example of the home improvement projects that my wife and I started that got put on hold and never restarted. That is how it has been for us for quite some time and we have accepted it.

The last major project we began but have yet to complete was a ceramic tile floor job in our family room. Began that one in the Fall of 2009. The floor is all done. We just need to finish up the adjoining kitchen floor, walls and moulding work.

The Call to  Duty Of Caregiving eventually transforms most of what you do into a well-rehearsed series of choreographed actions; much like paramedics or EMT’s. You become accustomed to dropping whatever you were doing and saddle up for that family assist, a doctor’s visit, grocery run, ER visit, etc.

Within the past 25 weeks, my wife and I said goodbye to both of our mothers who were beset by Alzheimer’s disease. That’s two out of the four that we have been caring for. This leaves the two dads, one of which we were compelled to place in a nursing home in December 2012, while the other staunchly retains his freedom and remains living within his own home.

My modest project this morning represents for me, a small beginning of reclaiming back one of the activities that I used to have time for. One of those enjoyments that had to be placed on hold and gone into the self storage locker.

Today, I visited that self storage locker. Once there, I rummaged through the many boxes labeled hobbies, likes, vacations, and home projects. Then I chose one of the smaller boxes with the handwritten lettering upon it called "Home Gardening." It was fun to open it and empty it’s contents back into my hands and mind. Oh yes, and it was fun getting all grimy with potting soil once again!

Maybe in the coming weeks, I’ll find some time to  visit my self storage locker again and dust off another pastime to put into use once again.

Caregiving doesn’t mean an end to hobbies and projects you once loved and relished. It sometimes simply means they get put away someplace...like a self storage locker for a long stretch.


Jeff Dodson
April 15th 2013