Offering fresh, paradigm-breaking solutions to living life to its fullest potential--through relationships, health, and self-expression--Dr. Null explains the many tools available to readers for achieving the balance, self-esteem, and passion missing from their lives.

Dubbed “The New Mr. Natural” by Time magazine, Gary Null, PhD, has written over seventy books on nutrition, self-empowerment, and public health issues, including two New York Times bestsellers. His work has been featured in the Daily News, Time, People, Fitness, Time Out, and Vegetarian Times. Also an award-winning documentary filmmaker, he lives in New York City.

FROM CHAPTER TWO: EMBRACING OUR BLISS

… Bliss is about having the courage to release immature notions that make us toxic to ourselves and others. I began to understand that bliss has more to do with what we must undo or not do than with what we must do. It’s about letting go of fear instead of drawing our defense mechanisms out like samurai swords. When we live in fear we tend to bury our head in the sand indefinitely like an ostrich. While taking a brief vacation to regain perspective can be helpful, like fasting from the news every so often, consistent withdrawal will soon leave you unprepared for the adventure of life as it unfolds.

Success in life is not just about making sound choices; it is often about rejecting choices that may defeat you and others. Compare this to your nutrition choices. By eliminating a few foods from your diet, such as meat, wheat, dairy, and sugar, you could feel better almost immediately. First you must find out what you do on automatic pilot that is harmful.

There are two ways of approaching health. One is to take supplements and add a host of activities that you wouldn’t normally do, such as lifting weights. Another approach is to simply stop doing things that destroy health. I find that people who stop doing things that are toxic remain just about as healthy as those who do damaging things and then try to compensate by detoxifying and supplementing. So if you don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t eat sugar, red meat, or processed foods, you’re likely to be about as healthy as someone working very hard to compensate for their bad habits. Removing toxic items from your diet and environment soon improves your health, even if you do nothing else. Apply that same concept to bliss by purging your preconceived notions, or conditioning, that narrow the mind and wreak havoc with your emotional states.

Bliss is a natural state, conditioning is not. Your conditioned responses act as a firewall to separate you from bliss. Bliss is like purity. No baby is ever born with a negative attitude, but over time fear, psychoses, neuroses, depression, and anxiety develop that give rise to limitations, biases, and prejudices, which are conditioned responses. Fortunately, anything that is a result of conditioning can be reversed.

I’m going to ask a series of questions so you can discover your own relationship to embracing your bliss. I’ll give you some of my own insights, but that’s my own particular view. It is no more valid than yours. It’s intended to prod you to think deeply. When you find a quiet moment, reflect and ask yourself what each question means.

First, are you willing to release your conditioned beliefs? We believe many things throughout our lives that may not be true. Sources of false information may include our families, teachers, friends, books, the media, and our own misinterpretation of our experiences.

Once you believe something, are you capable of changing your mind if evidence to the contrary becomes available? A renowned professor was visiting a Zen master, who asked, “Tea?” “Yes,” said the professor. The Zen master began to pour the tea, and continued pouring. As the hot tea began to run over the rim of the cup, the professor, shocked, cried, “Enough!” There was nothing that could be added to the professor’s cup. When our minds are full of dogma, like “professor-mind,” there is no room for fresh knowledge. Keep emptying. Is your cup already full, or are you ready for refreshing new insights?

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Excerpted from Living in the Moment: A Prescription for the Soul by Gary Null
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