our most harmful habits?
How did we become so isolated,
and how do we find our way back?
There is an ever-increasing isolation in our culture. We are not only more isolated from nature, but also from each other.
The irony of modern society is that:
- ▸ people feel overworked, yet underutilized.
- ▸ we feel a lack of meaning, while simultaneously experiencing exhaustion.
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how we use technology can either increase our isolation or improve our connection to others
How can we be so busy — surrounded by so much noise, so much responsibility, and so many other people — yet still experience such disconnection? This is today’s baffling paradox of cultural advances and diminished community.The Importance of Authentic Connection
Being part of a community is not about how many tasks need tending-to throughout the day. Nor is it about how many people we encounter. It’s about the depth and quality of those enounters, and the opportunity to derive meaning from them.
We’ve largely lost sight of this fact. Or maybe it’s just been moved down on our priority lists? Either way it helps explain why we experience such feelings of isolation in modern times.Isolation in Modern Times
Isolation is not always the product of external forces. Sometimes it’s a defense mechanism. Other times, it’s just an insidious by-product of the activities we enjoy. Some of our favorite pastimes mimic intimacy, and it is only later that we feel empty and recognize the illusion for what it is.
“…social isolation has measurable biochemical effects on the body…
People who are socially disconnected are between two and five times more likely to die”
~ Robert PutnamBeware of Counterfeit Intimacy
After an hour of watching a quality show on television, you can feel inspired, touched, and even moved to tears. Then the credits roll and you are suddeny aware that you’re alone in a room, sitting in front of the eerie blue glow of a big screen TV. Your connection was with little pixels of light, not human beings (in such sobering moments, it is important to apply whatever you’ve taken from that past hour into the real world).
As a culture, we lost sight of the natural world long ago. But we’ve only lost sight of our communal world quite recently.
The sense of community found in tribal peoples is certainly not the same as the sense of community found in our culture 35 years ago. But, even within the confines of our own culture, the sense of community 35 years ago is nothing like the sense of community today.
Healthy Relationship Improve Health and Increase Prosperity
Extroverts (those are people who get their energy from being around others) are generally better at having more friendships and so they are challenged to make their existing relationships deeper.
On the other hand, introverts (those are people who best “recharge their batteries” in seclusion) are generally better at deeper relationships and so are challenged to cast a wider net.
Either way, what has been relentlessly established is that there is a correlation between the quantity and quality of healthy, intimate relationships in your life and your potential for prosperity. Basically, the more good people you know the greater your chances of increased success.
Included within the new Longevity Lifestyle Kit is a companion guide that provides you with a fun and fascinating experiment to help you assess the current quality of your tribe. The exercises included within this e-Guide are revelatory! Purchase the guide separately, or save money purchasing the complete Longevity Kit — all 5 life-improving items bundled together, for the low price of $14.95.
28 Best Friends:
A Unique Social Experiment ~ Companion e-Guide, $4.95
This e-Guide help make the healthy relationships in your life more reciprocal and abundant. It has been proven that healthy relationships are the key to improved health and prosperity.
“…ultimately, it all comes down to your relationships.
Healthy relationships are what are most responsible
for bringing joy and prosperity into your life.
I use the 28 Best Friends guide as my ‘recipe’
for cultivating the relationships in my life that matter most!
I feel so energized about bringing more of myself
to the time I spend with my close friends and family.
As a read through the guide, I started wondering,
“Would I be in my friends’ 9-givers list?”
I hope I add something meaningful to their lives,
so hopefully the answer is yes!”~ Jared Knickmeyer, Estate Homes Sales Specialist
28 Best Friends will help you to craft a relationship list and a relationship action plan. With those two things — plus a positive attitude — you’ll be well on your way to improving your relationships, and therefore you’ll also be improving your health and prosperity, too.
28 Best Friends is an important part of a puzzle that any individual needs to put together for a successful life. Regardless of the length of your life, these steps will make your time on earth pleasurable for yourself and others around you.
This booklet is very hands-on, specific and logical. After the first reading, you might feel that the content is obvious and common sense. And it is! Things become obvious and common sense once someone puts them in the right order and presents them pedagogically.
The list of “questions to ask” provides solid grounding and opens your mind to reflect. I read that part several times to see if it fits my situation and life. After a while I realized that the questions got me thinking in the right direction. This is a great effect of this booklet. It helps you to reflect over your tribe. What more can be done? How can I expand? How can I contribute even more and better?
Do the exercises, even if your first reaction is not to. The effect after doing that is mind-blowing. Regardless of your tribe being super small or metropolitan. You need to see it on paper.
A pleasurable read! There were so many gems for me to collect. Dane writes accessible yet simplified, and has a great sense and feeling for the topic. These skills come from life experience as well as having produced a lot of material in the subject. The content, length, composition and design is just perfect!
~ Shahram Khorsand, Sales Manager / CareFusion Sweden
If living a happy and healthy life is important to you — especially as you age — then you must pay attention to the relationships in your life.
Designed to help you do exactly that, 28 Best Friends: Your Own Social Experiment! is a practical companion guide to The Numinous Journey eBook and included within the new Longevity Lifestyle Kit:
While reading 28 Best Friends I got an a-Ha! moment — realizing that sometimes we experience unhealthy or unproductive relationships that affect our well-being. It is imperative to connect with the ones that matter and Dane profiles how to get it done beautifully and strategically in his book. Hands down, the book has the most effective tools in connecting with the ones that matter and eliminate the “junk” that affects us, preventing us from growing and living our best lives! For good friends and good times make Dane’s book your weekend read and improve your life!
~ Doina Oncel, Solutions Specialist for Non-Profits
I remember being a child and watching my father chat with the neighbor over the fence. We don’t see a lot of fence chats anymore.
research indicates deep connections with other humans are very good for health
Social networking in virtual reality has put us in touch with more people than ever. But as we’ve already discussed, increased encounters are not a cure for isolation. Depth is what we’re lacking.Technology isn’t to blame, however; it’s how we use it.
I passionately enjoy using the online social channels, and I’ve made some amazing friends that I later went on to meet in “real life,” face-to-face.
Similarly, I spend a little time each day on my own enrichment and self-education, reading up on the latest health and longevity research — but then, I take what I’ve learned and apply it with actual human beings in the real world to form deeper bonds. What’s the point of living in the Information Age if our brains are stuffed full of information that is never enlightened into experience?
Over the last 200 years our environment has changed outrageously. But — and it’s a big but — our human physiology remains comparatively unaltered, so in a sense we haven’t yet physically developed the coping skills to deal with all the noise, distractions, and craziness.
The problem with the rat race is that it has a tendency to be detrimental to our physical health and to our relationships. This is especially true for those of us over the age of 40. In a sense, everyone in the developed nations over age 40 has the same challenge: how to age successfully, gracefully, and with nobility. That is, how to enjoy increased prosperity while at the same time improving our physical health and deepening our relationships.
Anyone who has ever lost a friend or loved-one too young to cancer knows that if you keep putting your health and your relationships off until tomorrow, you will live — or die — to regret it. I realize that’s an intense thing to say, and it’s hard to say delicately, but someone has to say it: we all have the same problem. What makes it awkward is that it’s a problem few want to admit they have. Fortunately, there are solutions. In fact, I compiled solutions into a new book, The Numinous Journey — the book is just one of five items in the new Longevity Lifestyle Kit.
By utilizing principles of Success Psychology, the Longevity Lifestyle Kit ensures that your new, positive habits will “stick” (instead of having you start out with good intentions and then falling back into the same old habits).
Purchase the kit pieces separately, or save money purchasing the complete Kit for $14.95.
The Numinous Journey:
How to Age Successfully ~ eBook, $8.95“…The Numinous Journey is a well-written book
that thoughtfully merges ideas from psychology, spirituality,
and taking care of our physical bodies.
This is an incredible resource for anyone over 40
seeking to take control of their life and live with purpose and happiness.
If you want to teach an old dog (yourself) new tricks, THIS is the place to start!”
~ Paul Newton, corporate sales account managerThis will help motivate you to tailor a successful self-improvement strategy that is a uniquely good fit for you.
“The Numinous Journey really spoke to me.
Definitely a book to read to get you to think about why and how people live their lives.
I identified with being on auto-pilot;
I already knew this but had not fully admitted why this was bad for me in the longer term.
It also made me think about how how people really engage (or fail to engage) in conversations
as well as how I can take baby steps to make my life more fulfilling”
~ Nicky Hirst, Marketing ManagerThe final section of The Numinous Journey helps you to crystalize everything you’ve learned about yourself and hold dear, and then utilize this new awareness into creating a life map — a map that will help you to navigate this next phase of your life, so that your journey is passionate, joyful, and rich with meaning and purpose. This next phase of your life can be your most fascinating yet!
“…the opening chapters of The Numinous Journey are so powerful, I defy anyone truly interested in self-improvement to read no further! Compelling and wise, without thinking that you have just been put straight and told off!Dane complements his prose with those influential in both western and eastern philosophy, providing the reader with a wonderfully balanced view — sage advice and quotes that inspire and enlighten!
Chapter 6 is so vital. In discussing our eternal desires for that which lies outside of us, Dane reinforces the ancient philosophy: ‘all that we seek is within us.’
Chapter 7 reminds us of the foolishness of waiting to live, really live, until… until what? It is a sad indictment that so many start to live only when faced with a life-limiting illness!
Chapter 8 is about finding true inner peace. Mindfulness and meditation is no dark art. All that you seek is here. Priceless!
The closing chapters are a firestorm of brilliant advice and tips to (kindly) hammer home major — yet achievable — goals that will introduce you to paradigm shifts in family life, work-life and performance. The formula for creating meaningful, positive change is here …and it makes sense!
Being a man in his late 40s, I feel so fortunate to have read The Numinous Journey. As a psychotherapist I help others to walk their emotional fires — as I also walk my own — and this book could hardly have arrived at a better time!
~ Bob Brotchie, Anglia Counselling
We need that opportunity to develop records of trustworthiness with each other. We’ve taken the “kill or be killed” competitive interpretation of the world to such an extreme that we now conceptualize the neighbor on the other side of the fence as the enemy. So why would we talk to him?
It’s in our best interests to make the effort to reach out and connect with others, to be genuinely curious and interested in others’ feelings, thoughts, and experiences.
The more people with whom we interdepend, the greater potential for our health to improve and our prosperity to increase.
There are numerous factors that contribute to the modern trend toward isolation. It’s important that we be cognizant of them. Whether they’re economic or psychological, we need to understand why we have less intimate relationships. If we can’t understand the causes, we can’t effectively remedy the symptom.
I encourage you to pick up the Longevity Lifestyle Kit and experience the positive results it will have on your daily life. All five items in the kit are designed to work synchronistically.
Each items serve a specific purpose, and combined they become super powerful. Enjoy the value and savings of getting all 5 items together!
The kit includes a e-Book, an e-Guide, an e-Booklet, an e-List, and an e-Workbook. The anchor of the kit is The Numinous Journey, an eBook that utilizes principles of Success Psychology and is strategically crafted to facilitate an inner process, that will help make your exciting new lifestyle habits “stick!”
- ➊ How to Create a Strategy for Living a Fascinating Post-40 Life: The Numinous Journey
- ➋ A Unique Social Experiment: 28 Best Friends
- ➌ How to Get Seriously Organized Using Checklists: The Dane Technique
- ➍ Using Your Blender to Get Lean and Strong: 5 Best Smoothie Recipes
- ➎ Ingredients Guide for Freshly Made Green Smoothies: The Shopping List
Escapism Is the New Way that We Deal with Low-Level Anxiety
Most of us are drawn to activities that are relaxing and fun (TV, video games, etc.). But what happens when those activities gradually increase isolation? Researchers believe that depth of relationships suffer, and then health declines.
”…276 healthy volunteers [were exposed] to a cold virus,
the volunteers with the most diverse social networks were the most disease-resistant…
Most surprising of all was the finding that
those with close social ties and unhealthy lifestyles
actually lived longer than those with poor social ties but more healthful living habits”
~Wilcox and Suzuki
Genuine interaction reduces friction in society and achieve’s wonders for for people’s physical health. It’s time that we take a closer look at what’s happening to our deep, meaningful relationships. Our health could be at stake, and our happiness certainly is.