I had been hiking for longer than planned when I passed the lake (shown in a previous video). I told myself to keep going, just five more minutes. Then I heard the water rushing a little faster down the mountain. When hiking through the mountains, in as little as five minutes, the scenery can dramatically change.
Often in life we get tired, feel like turning around, going home. But we will never really know where our journey might take us if we stop short.
Wherever you are in life, keep going, in a few minutes things can change and something spectacular may occur.
Metabolic switching shifts the body from using glucose for energy to using fatty acid-derived ketones for energy. The act of switching between these two fuel sources elicits a healing response in the body. The easiest way to induce this metabolic switch is through fasting. You can also use certain breathing techniques and ice baths or ice plunges. For now, let’s try fasting and maybe later we will plunge into breath work in an ice bath.
Trillions of cells acting as a unified team make up our body. Each cell produces energy by metabolizing glucose, burning fat, and manufacturing antioxidants. When food is not available the cells switch to an alternate fuel source to continue functioning. It takes about eight hours for this switch to occur. This metabolic switch at the cellular level increases the bodies ability to heal itself and burn fat.
We all fast while we sleep and by extending that fasting window we can help our cells stay in the healing phase a little longer each day. For example, stop eating a few hours before bed and delay breakfast until a few hours after waking. Try to have a total of at least thirteen hours of no food. That might look like no food between 7pm-8am; if that doesn’t work for you just adjust the window to fit into your lifestyle. If you can extend your fasting window to sixteen hours that’s even more beneficial.
Last week was outstanding This week will be too I hope what is true for me Goes doubly true for you
Last week our challenge was to use “Outstanding!” instead of our regular response to the question “How are you?”
The power of the spoken word creates. It creates worlds. It creates your world.
The spoken word begins with a thought. By changing our thoughts we can change our world. By using the spoken word we can speed up the change.
Set your mind on something you desire for yourself, pray for it, then speak as if you believe you have received it.
Recently I heard an evidence based story about a man (Jesse Itzler) training with a Navy Seal (Chadd Wright) for a difficult race (Last Man Standing) and how he was able to to get past his mental and physical blocks at mile 38. It made me think about how to apply some of the techniques to everyday life in order to live a more vibrant life. There were several phrases that I am turning into a weekly challenge for myself and I invite you to join me. Here is week two:
Spoken Word Challenge #2
Sometimes we get tired when we are trying to do something. The initial thought that we are tired can either make us end up on the couch or can be transmuted into energy to draw from.
Speaking our thoughts is like throwing an accelerant on them. It promulgates them, puts them into effect by decree. If we vocalize that we feel tired the feeling increases. If we instead say something like, “I can do it (define what it is). I have enough energy.“ We find that we are able to continue and we do in fact have more energy stores to draw from.
Our Provider has unlimited resources, that means we have unlimited resources.
For the next week I challenge myself and you to transmute thoughts of tiredness into energy. Choose a phrase that resonates and when thoughts of tiredness enter in say the phrase out loud:
I have limitless energy. I can do it (define what it is). I have enough energy. I have unlimited energy. I never get tired. I am feeling more energized every minute.
Do it. What have you got to gain? Gain it now. The power is in your words.
E.A. Fussell 08.20.2023
Isaiah 55:11 Proverbs 16:23 James 1:26 Matthew 7:7-12 Mark 11:22-24
In my teenage years I played flute in the LaBelle High School band and learned how to read music from the band teacher Mrs. Morgan. My dad purchased an electric organ for our home so I learned a little more about reading music on it. After high school playing musical instruments got left behind, shelved you might say.
In my late twenties I decided to take piano lessons. My teacher was an elderly lady from Jamaica. She was aware of my limited training. During our first lesson while I was playing the song she had placed on the music shelf of the piano, a song I had never seen before, she exclaimed in her heavy Jamaican accent, “OOOOH Child! You must have a Dubby attached to you!” I stopped playing and looked at her with surprise, “What is a Dubby?” She clasped her hands together with a big smile on her face. “In English you would call it a ghost.” She squeezed by shoulders, “Don’t worry child, it is a good one, no one could play like that without a good Dubby.”
Back then I was young and inexperienced in spiritual matters so it kind of freaked me out. I didn’t understand the magnitude of what she was telling me. I just thought of playing the piano as a fun hobby. Suddenly it felt scary and seemed like a lot of pressure. While I didn’t recognize the significance of my talent, I did recognize the amount of commitment that it would require to fully realize it’s potential and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice the time. It was easy to use work and family obligations as excuses to put playing music on a shelf again.
Walking away from the piano is a decision I still regret. I wish I had kept playing as a fun hobby, who knows, I might “coulda” been a great player.
We all have those moments in life. Those “coulda” moments. As we age they sometimes circle back to haunt us. But instead of getting lost in coulda, woulda, shoulda thoughts, whenever those thoughts blow into our mind we can choose to let them pass gently through. We can use them as encouragement, understanding that we still have many forms of untapped potential resting in our being. Each day we get to choose what we will pursue, what we will invest our time in, how we will think, what we will read, listen to, watch, what we will learn, what we will try.
We can choose not to worry about being great at something, just have fun doing it. It’s okay to try something, many things, and not be good at them. Heck, it’s okay to be bad at them. The point is to try whatever we feel our spirit is leading us toward. Just the experience of doing something new, or something old we have wanted to do, will give us fresh insight into ourselves and how we experience life.
We’ll never know what we “coulda” been if we don’t try.
Lord give me the inspiration and courage to try the things you send as my soul desires and help me to eliminate “coulda” from my remaining years.
E. A. Fussell 