I am a recovering addict. I was totally addicted to a white crystalline substance. Sometimes I would “cut” it with other substances such as flour, eggs and baking powder to increase volume and reduce purity. It produced an intense, euphoric feeling followed by an equally intense “crash” or depressed feeling.

My dealer was the local Safeway. Sometimes, I would even show up at work with tell-tale white powder smudges near my nose and mouth…betrayed by the powdered-donut.

Then, nine months ago, I gave up sugar.

I am still alive.

So it CAN be done. Put “No Sugar Tonight” by The Guess Who on endless loop and it will distract you from the withdrawal process. I lie. NOTHING can distract you from the withdrawal process. It’s as much fun as having your nose hairs pulled out one by one. But unlike nose hair removal, it’s very much worth it.

Once I got through that (with the help of vitamins, water and incessant whining), I emerged happier, healthier and thinner. I’d heard about this book by Kathleen Desmaisons, which, in spite of its daft title, is brilliant. I read it. Three times. The case for giving up sugar was made.

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Learning to say no has been one of the most powerful lessons of our lives. No thank you. No way. Nope. When you learn how to apply it, life will send you send you great things to say yes to.

Nature is organic, and therefore the highest beauty is forever vegetative; and the same is true for morality and love.
~ Friedrich Von Schlegel

Excerpted from Style Statement: Live by your own design

*The first word is your foundation. The second is your twist. To read more about the Look, Feel and Spirit of structured, read on.

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Life does not accommodate you; it shatters you. Every seed destroys its container, or else there would be no fruition. - Florida Scott-Maxwell

“In terms of personal transformation, the self in not translated, the Self is made toast.”
- Ken Wilber

This is a big topic. But it’s Friday, and as you know, Fridays we go for broke in terms of pure soul content. Western spirituality is great at helping us to identify our wounds and ‘isms. After enough therapy we can honorably say, “I’m neurotic because of my mother,” or “I’m a bit selfish because I didn’t get enough attention as a child.” But identifying the source of your shit is only half the journey. The other half is composting it into something radically new.

So, like, what if you CHANGED? Today. What if you didn’t have your story and all it’s origins to cling to? (Look, we know it’s next to impossible, but just humor our experimental inquiry for a minute.) What if a really hip and glowing angel emerged from your computer screen right this second and said, “You are what you want to be from this day forward, and we’ll just forget about all the times you were less than your best, and the understandably manipulative ways you’ve tried to love and be loved.” So…

Who would you be if you were freed from your past?

“My girlfriend asked me, ‘Did you sleep well?” and I said, ‘No, I made a few mistakes.”
- Steven Wright

I live in envy of cats because they get, like, 23 hours sleep a day. Mind  you, they accomplish very little, but still….

My hope is that this article will put you into a lucid trance…..but if it helps you get some sleep, all the better.

There is an atrocious lack of sleep in our society! I am outraged. So outraged, I may have to take a nap. Parents of the world - unite! Med students in residence, stand firm (with a pillow). People with four jobs, sit down (I’d never ask you to stand.)

This has got to stop! The causes of sleep-deprivation are well known, and pointless to list here. Rather, these are my tips for getting some decent shut-eye:

• Any textbook you had in high school or college (I have some notes on back-up computer architecture I’m happy to lend out…)
• Any high-brow novel you think you ‘ought’ to read but don’t really want to. (Got some of those too.)
• Ear plugs (the squishy kind - keep away from curious two-year-olds - they’re not edible, it turns out)
• A villa in Tuscany far from the madding crowd

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