Your Mask

I left home without it.

Oh not to worry nobody will notice!

Oh my, look at him not wearing a mask.

He must have a dead wish!

Oh well it’s his life.

Oh and the lives of all those around him too!

No worries though, we need a few to die, the world is too crowded anyway…

But not in my family, I need to protect our elderly folks and those with complex health issues.

Yeah, but those over there can die, I don’t know them anyway.

Oh mind you, maybe they have families too, elderly folks and those with complex health issues too?

Maybe that’s not fair then.

Maybe I should remember to pick up my mask and indeed wear it!

Maybe if I want to save my family I should save other families too?

I left home today with my mask and I’m keeping one in my car and my pocket too just in case.

You never know who’s asymptomatic or who’s infected.

Or indeed if I am!

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Ode to the Mask!

Michael de Groot

Myself

More and more I am realising that my only focus should be on myself. When I focus on others, whether it’s judging them, observing them, wanting them to change, I go backwards. I go backwards in my goals, in my health and my general wellbeing.

It really is not difficult to focus on just yourself. I am not talking here about being selfish, more about noticing what you’re doing, what you’re thinking and how you’re showing up for yourself.

I know it is an overused analogy, but it’s the easiest one to relate to. If there’s an emergency on an airplane and you’re with a young child, who should you place the oxygen mask on first? Yourself, correct!

Well, when we look after ourselves first, we will be so much better placed to look after our family, our friends and colleagues.

I know the answers, I’ve known them for over 14 years, but it’s harder to tell yourself, so whilst being treated by an accupuncturist for some eczema on my lower legs that have been there for nearly 12 months, she shared with me some wisdom that I already knew but I wasn’t able to hear myself speak. It’s as if the brain doesn’t process it unless you hear someone tell you what needs to be done.

I believe I now know what I need to do, it’s not difficult I have done it before.

Happy caring!

Michael de Groot

Have you ever wanted to step off the world?

On the 8th December 2015 at 15:50 when I received a call from Clair, my darling wife, I certainly wanted to step off the world.

Luke, my 14-year old stepson, ran away from school apparently very upset, he ran for over a mile and jumped 40 feet of a structure to hit the ground with force to try and end his life. I will deal with the ’why’ later.

In case you're wondering, he is alive, but...

He has multiple injuries and has been in several hospitals every since, indeed so has Clair, nurturing, supporting and encouraging him back to life.

His injury list makes painful reading, multiple skull fractures, brain injury, eye socket fracture, multiple fractures in one elbow, punctured lung, pelvis fractures, spinal injury, nerve damage to his bladder (causing him to be currently incontinent), broken ankle, crushed heel. He's had major surgery to his pelvis and spine and to his elbow.

Needless to say he's receiving some counselling for his state of mind as well.

This is going to be a very very long journey and currently this is without doubt THE biggest mission Clair, Luke and I are facing so far during our lives.

We’d like to think that our thought process is different compared to most and indeed we have learnt a lot from many thought leaders over the years, which will help us to get through this very challenging episode of our lives. However nothing can prepare you for something like this, not even the most enlightened and trained. It certainly has knocked my positive mindset for six. I’m sure it will be back, but it will be a while that’s for sure.

We believe ’Intention’ is hugely powerful, we use it in our lives every single day and now more than ever in our lives we are asking everyone we know to hold an intention for Luke’s healing and recovery. The ’Intention’ is shown in the image below. If you are interested in joining us with this ’Intention’, we would of course be delighted.

We know that already in a very short period of time our ’Intention’ has resulted in a positive change in Luke’s condition. I wrote and circulated the ’Intention’ within hours of Luke's accident. Luke was placed into sedation to assist his pain and also prevent any brain damage, as he did have some bleeding on the brain. When after a few days they brought him out of sedation and then when he could communicate slightly, he was able to know who he was, how old he is, who his family members are and all their birth dates. The consultant doctors thought this kind of a recovery of his brain injury was nothing short of miraculous (their words). 

I first learnt about intention setting during the summer of 2006, where I participated in the first ever group ‘Intention Experiment’ hosted by Lynne McTaggart in London with very interesting and successful results. Lynne is the author of The Field, The Intention Experiment, What Doctors Don’t Tell You and The Bond. You can check out her website and learn more about her.  She certainly has done some fascinating research.

I won’t even try to explain how intention setting works, because I have no idea, except that I have read studies and witnessed many of my own personal examples. You can probably divide the world into 3 camps, the scientific, the religious and the spiritual (non-religious). And there are some that hover somewhere in-between. I completely acknowledge the fact that some of you will say that 'Intention’ is just ‘prayer’ and at some level I do agree with that too.

Anyway for now you have to decide whether you believe or not.

Apart from creating some images with the intention words, I have also asked Lynne McTaggart if she could share the intention with her audience. She has very kindly agreed to send an email blast to her database asking them to take part. This will have potentially hundreds and maybe even thousands of people who are going to be taking part. Below are the two emails that went out her community, but there were many more things that she did, including writing about it in her book, The Power of Eight and also blogging about it at Thanksgiving in 2019 and in this article too.

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I have also created a meditation audio track, which you can listen to on Mixcloud or YouTube. The embedded tracks are below.

Luke Intention Meditation by Stayingaliveuk on Mixcloud

I promised to share with you why Luke decided to commit suicide.

Truthfully we will never really know, except to say that he had planned it and had even written a suicide letter, which he handed to his ex-girlfriend, who he had only 48 hours previously broken up with. This was Luke’s first ever proper girlfriend at the very young age of 14 years. Luke is a very balanced young man and committed to his word. We believe that he had to follow through with it because he had committed himself in writing. He has managed to briefly speak to Clair about it at times when he has wanted to. The good news is that he does want to get better and fit again.

Back in 2014, I wrote an article about suicide to highlight the dangers of those thoughts in young people. Far more needs to be done to help younger people have a better understanding about their emotions in early relationships and that they need to talk about their feelings. Easier said than done.

Thank you for reading and thank you so much if you are deciding to take part. I will of course post an update on Luke’s progress in the coming weeks and months.

Much love and gratitude ❤️

Re-Igniting my 'Juicy' Lifestyle!

I discovered the benefits of juicing back in 2004, when I attended Anthony Robbins Health Mastery event in Vieques, which is off the coast of Puerto Rico, it changed my life completely and I started juicing as soon as I got back home. This is 8 years ago. Following that I lost 44 pounds and I felt amazing. My weight has been an issue for me since I was 7 years old. My eldest brother Steven used to make fun of me and told me I looked like a 'Biafran'. These were the kids in Nigeria that were dying from famine in the mid 1960's, during the Nigerian Civil War and we saw photographs regularly on TV and in the press of starving children with huge distended stomachs from protein deficiency, which horrified people around the world.

Here's a photo of me when I was that younger skinny child!  I thought I looked healthy, what do you think?

Now, I am not blaming my brother, because I am the only one responsible for my decisions and what followed was, what I can now regard, as an 'eating disorder' and my addiction with sugar.

I slowly gathered extra kilos and didn't feel good about this, which made me eat more sugary sweets, to compensate for the feeling I had recognising that I was getting heavier and heavier (The Dutch are masters in liquorice and sweets and my Grandfather worked for the Dutch Sugar Company too!).

My Mum told me it was just 'Puppy-Fat' and that I shouldn't worry so much. I believed her although deep inside of me I realised that it wasn't going away.

Cut a long story short, I have struggled with my weight for decades and when I finally shifted the weight in 2004, I vowed that it would never ever happen again, but of course it did…

When I shared with people that I didn't 'do sugar' any longer and that I never wanted chocolate again, they told me not to be so silly and convinced me that I was taking too hard a stance with sugar and should relax a bit. So I did and that was a mistake!

You never tell an alcoholic that they should relax it a bit when they have stopped drinking, in fact we call them a recovering alcoholic and that's what they become for the rest of their lives. Well it's no different with sugar. In fact the issues that alcohol cause in the body, are virtually identical with sugar, see the image below.

Sugar (in the form of chocolate and sugary foods) entered my diet again and it slowly increased week on week, month on month, year on year. And in the past 3 years I have ensured I had my fair share of sugary foods on daily and regular basis.  Besides that most 'label foods' have added sugar to make you want to eat them even more!

I even stopped juicing, which had become part of my lifestyle for years and I was getting major regrets, which made it even worse.

And what's even more ridiculous, I studied this stuff. I am a trained Kinesiologist and I should know better! I also trained to be an exercise trainer in Psychocalisthenics, but gave it up, because I felt a fraud teaching people to exercise, when I was overweight myself.

So I started a new journey back in September 2011 to increase the amount of exercise and upped my cycling regime and I had great success, because I steadily increased my routes and kept adding mileage every week, accumulating 260 miles in a month and even more in October 2011.

But I hadn't changed my diet, so although I was getting fitter and my average heart rate was dropping, the weight wasn't shifting.

So the winter was upon us, my cycling slowed down, because of the weather and the food still hadn't changed. I did 'try' a couple of times to cut out sugary foods, but found it tough with two stepsons, who love sugary food and it's in the house. OK so I could have been disciplined and stop myself from eating it, but I just couldn't resist. Sugar has been an issue for me for over 45 years and the sugar terrorist within me demanded it!

Come January when everyone goes on a detox, weight loss and exercise regime of some kind, I did manage to get back on the bike again and managed 156 miles in the month. Not bad going I thought.  But the weight was still there!

I receive emails from Jason Vale 'The Juicemaster' and I saw that he was organising a worldwide juicefast in January. I didn't join it then and was disappointed that I hadn't. I know juicing works, because I have done it before in 2004/5. When I lost a massive 44 pounds, had a 32" waist, which I can't remember ever having in my adult life!  So why didn't I join in??

So I continued doing nothing about it.  No, it wasn't working, so when Jason Vale sent another email in April suggesting another worldwide event, this time it was called '14-day spring clean', I decided to join it.

I started on the 16th April and within a week lost 6.5 pounds, which I am delighted about. The most brilliant thing of juicing and following Jason's routine is that it stops all the cravings for sugary foods. Once you cut them out for 7 days (and as Jason says, we can all do something for 7 days), you just don't want them anymore. I can truly say that although the snacks, chocolate, donuts, crisps are everywhere around the kitchen for me to see, I just don't fancy them now and in fact, I know that I won't be going back there either, which is the best thing.

Furthermore the fact that this is a 14-day plan, means you are staying off these foods for even longer, reducing the cravings further, literally re-wiring your brain to say, I don't need those any longer in my life.

Here's my testimonial video for the 14-day spring clean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrtJeL5wEAI

I did it with alcohol back in 2004 and also with meat and I have never needed them again.

Now they say after 30 days whatever it is that you are doing, you will form a habit. So my decision was to continue on Jason Vale's 'Juice Yourself Slim' plan for an extra 16 days, which consists of juices during the day and soup in the evening.

I love the juices and soup has always been a favourite of mine, so I can't see that I will have an issue with it, in fact to be more positive, I will be very successful in doing it.

Of course I will be flexible, as I know I will have some business meetings to attend, which may include lunch, in which case I will just ensure I eat a salad or rice and vegetables. It's not rocket science is it, I just need to be sensible.

After an extra week after the 14-day plan, I was still on target, the weight loss continued and the soups were getting more varied and tastier. I have even begun making my own soup recipes. Making fresh soups is so delicious and healthy too. Jason talks about 'no label' foods and it makes so much sense.

I even found that I have more energy with my cycling, well I suppose you would have when you are roughly a stone lighter. I set myself a target to lose 10kgs or 22 pounds by the end of June. And I am already 60% there after just 3 weeks in early May, so I guess I need to revise my target to the end of May! At time of writing this, I have lost so far 16 pounds in just 3 weeks.  It really is amazing what you can achieve when your mind has decided to change forever!

Weight reduction chart in kgs.

Whilst doing this I also found some great videos to motivate me.

There is one by Robert Lustig, it's over and hour long but well worth it. Then the University of California also released a short series of videos by Robert Lustig. So I am sharing both of these with you here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Some fascinating new research on the effects of sugar on the brain and how in the past 30 years we have managed to switch off the hormone leptin, which tells the brain that we are full. This phenomena has been caused by the amount of insulin that gets secreted when we over eat sugar. But watch the videos and that will explain all.

My clothes are getting looser on me and I can already visualise the fact that I will be wearing those smaller clothes which are in storage. Thankfully I held on to them knowing that one day again I would fit in them again. And I know I will very soon.

Jason talks about 'Freedom from the Diet Trap' and he's absolutely right. I know in myself that I haven't been free for years and that now I know that I am free.

Watch Jason's video here;

It's taken me decades to get to this point and then again I am a classical case of going through the 6 stages of change, where I managed to change back in 2004, but relapsed and went back to the start of the 6 stages of change and my sugar addiction. This has been well researched and below is the link to the article to give you more insight about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtheoretical_model

Note: as with all these things, there are some criticisms on this, but you have to see if it makes sense and relates to you and certainly it relates to me perfectly.

I am pleased to say that I feel and know in myself that I have reached the final stage, which is described as;

'Individuals have zero temptation and they are sure they will not return to their old unhealthy habit as a way of coping'.

If you want to learn more on how to do this, please go to www.juicemaster.com and join the thousands of us that have become free from the 'diet trap'!

Success!