Ask the LifeQuake Doctor

Dear Dr. Toni:

I am currently a financial analyst and very successful at it but have been having physical symptoms of extreme fatigue. I have been to two doctors about this. One was an endocrinologist who found that although my thyroid tested slightly overactive, he thinks the problem is that I am not coping well with stress. I don’t really enjoy my work anymore but I find when I’m not at work, I am still very tired so I am confused as to how this can be purely psychological. What do you think, doc?

Tired wired

Dear Tired,

First of all, if there is a thyroid issue—even if it is has been induced by stress—it will still affect you even when you are not in the stressful situation because your entire constitution starts to wear down. Also, traditional endocrinologists do not look at blood work the same way that holistic MDs or naturopathic physicians do. Andrew Weil, the famous holistic doctor, asserts that he treats the thyroid on the basis of symptoms rather than test results because the thyroid often shows irregularities long before they actually show up in the blood.

The American College for Advancement in Medicine (www.acam.org) is one resource for finding a holistic doctor in your area. I would also suggest that you begin to notice when you experience joy or interest through the course of your day. This is both at work and in your personal time. Pay attention to when your energy is better. Who are you with? What are you doing? I would spend three weeks jotting down data of when you find yourself feeling most alive. Your dreams are also clues to a possible transition you may be entering. If your thyroid is off, from a body psychology point of view, we would look at what is it you are not expressing. The thyroid is in the throat so when we are not expressing our authentic voice or saying what we really think in life, it can have physical effects. I would urge you to work with a coach or therapist on the psychological aspects of your fatigue as well.

Ask the LifeQuake Doctor

Dear Dr. Toni:

I am currently a financial analyst and very successful at it but have been having physical symptoms of extreme fatigue. I have been to two doctors about this. One was an endocrinologist who found that although my thyroid tested slightly overactive, he thinks the problem is that I am not coping well with stress. I don’t really enjoy my work anymore but I find when I’m not at work, I am still very tired so I am confused as to how this can be purely psychological. What do you think, doc?

Tired wired

Dear Tired,

First of all, if there is a thyroid issue—even if it is has been induced by stress—it will still affect you even when you are not in the stressful situation because your entire constitution starts to wear down. Also, traditional endocrinologists do not look at blood work the same way that holistic MDs or naturopathic physicians do. Andrew Weil, the famous holistic doctor, asserts that he treats the thyroid on the basis of symptoms rather than test results because the thyroid often shows irregularities long before they actually show up in the blood.

The American College for Advancement in Medicine (www.acam.org) is one resource for finding a holistic doctor in your area. I would also suggest that you begin to notice when you experience joy or interest through the course of your day. This is both at work and in your personal time. Pay attention to when your energy is better. Who are you with? What are you doing? I would spend three weeks jotting down data of when you find yourself feeling most alive. Your dreams are also clues to a possible transition you may be entering. If your thyroid is off, from a body psychology point of view, we would look at what is it you are not expressing. The thyroid is in the throat so when we are not expressing our authentic voice or saying what we really think in life, it can have physical effects. I would urge you to work with a coach or therapist on the psychological aspects of your fatigue as well.

The LifeQuake™ Doctor

Here is a recent excerpt from my column, "Ask the LifeQuake™ Doctor," which is applicable to many people who are currently searching for new lines of work. Rather than pigeon-holing yourself into a particular job title, explore other opportunities to use your skill set.


Dear Dr. Toni:
I am a 65-year-old woman who has a passion for teaching foreign languages but no one will give me a job. I moved 3,000 miles away to care for my dying daughter and since her death seven years ago, everything has gone wrong for me. I go on countless interviews, but to no avail. I hate where I live and am barely making ends meet. I am ready to give up. I have completely lost faith in myself.

Can you help?

Hopeless

Dear Hopeless:

My heart goes out to you on the passing of your daughter. Losing a child is probably the most devastating thing that can happen to an individual. Having said that, I would encourage you to do some grief counseling if you can and release all this pain. Perhaps you are not getting a job because you are not meant to express your gift as a teacher in a formal academic setting.

There are plenty of students outside the classroom who struggle with learning a foreign language and parents today get a tutor for everything. You might consider going on craigslist.org and posting an ad. Also, there are many private language institutes that could use retired teachers. What is most important to manifesting your desire is to visualize yourself teaching with all that passion every day. Create an affirmation such as, “I am now teaching in the perfect environment where my skills are effortlessly supported and well remunerated.” Speak it out loud everyday.

Good luck and don’t give up. A change is just around the corner if you keep the fire of your passion burning in your heart.

The LifeQuake™ Rx for the Real Bailout

“Bail out.”

Webster defines this two ways: “To obtain someone’s release” and “to post security.”

Recently, a client came back to see me who had bailed her parents out by taking care of them both physically and financially for several months. The net effect of this was that she had practically bankrupted herself physically, emotionally and financially.

This got me to thinking: what does it mean to “post security or obtain someone else’s release” at the expense of your own and how prevalent is this as a sort of national personality tendency in the U.S.? I mean, after all, the Statue of Liberty’s mission statement (if she had one) set us up over 100 years ago to be pretty co-dependent, don’t you think?

Listen to these words – “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Aren’t we Americans constantly bailing out somebody in the world?

So what would it mean if we made a daily practice of bailing out ourselves?

Now, I don’t mean just eating right and actually using your gym membership. I mean what would it mean to actually check into your gut when someone asks you for a favor? What would it mean to check in with your heart when the school wants you to volunteer one more time when you are already overscheduled at work and church? What would it mean to check in with your bank account when your kids want to go out to eat and it’s Friday and you don’t want to cook anyway?

If the quantum physicists are correct and everything that happens to one effects the whole, then when we abandon ourselves to peer pressure, or guilt from our kids, there is a kind of emotional bankruptcy that translates into a national phenomenon. It is a well known fact that we are a sleep deprived nation so what is the effect of borrowing from the night and putting ourselves into long term energy debt? Is this a metaphor for the energy shortage of gas and fuel?

So my prescription for us all if we want to stop being forced to bail out the Wall Street titans is to stop overextending ourselves in our own lives first. That Reagan slogan for youth drug prevention - “ Just say no” - is fitting as we go into another recession. Say no to your kids, say no to your boss’ 70 hour work week demand, but, most importantly, say no to the voice in your head that is constantly pushing you to do more, more, more. Perhaps the gift inside this economic LifeQuake™ is that in cutting back our expenses, we’ll gear down the hyperactivity and actually be more present to life. I’m sure our nervous systems will be eternally grateful. And then maybe, just maybe we’ll get more sleep too…

To learn more tips and techniques, visit www.lifequake.net or email me at DrToni@lifequake.net.

Preparing for Autumn

As I was sitting at my favorite café reading my newspaper, the Italian owner shared with me that he was going to Italy for the first time in two years to celebrate his 40th birthday. I had just been reading of how the economic earthquake on Wall Street had started to reverberate in Europe. I asked him to report back when he returns on what the political climate is there and how they feel about us.

But he already knew.

He launched into a rant about what a super power America once was and now we are seen as lacking leadership and judgment. I know that since Bush was elected, we have steadily lost credibility with our European allies so this is no revelation, but perhaps there is another way to look at this.

Consistent with my LifeQuake™ philosophy - inside chaos lies the possibility of emerging a new system or structure - I speculate:

What happens here, so goes the world in some fashion. Imagine if we did have a financial LifeQuake™ here and used it as an opportunity to make life a bit more simple...

What if people figured out that eating high calorie low nutrition fast food was not the way to go as a steady diet, given the cumulative cost? What if we spent more time with our family at home watching a DVD instead of blowing $60 for a movie at the mall? And mostly, what if we discovered that what we need versus what we want is to focus more on giving than getting? Sounds utopian, right?

But, if it is true that the American value system has permeated European culture, than maybe what it means to be the leader of the free world is to step out of greed and show the world that we can best be represented by someone who doesn’t have 12 houses and whose skin color is more representative of most of the world. No matter who becomes President of the United States in November, we are going into difficult economic times.

So, let’s lead by example and use the metaphor of Autumn to shed the dead leaves in our own lives and get back to what is essential. True, winter is coming, but if we sow the seeds of the original values this country was built on – equality for all, freedom, and humanitarianism – Spring in a few years could be a garden where flowers occupying the same soil are blooming in many different colors!

I urge each of you that is experiencing the economic crisis to, instead, experience a LifeQuake™. Wake up and smell the opportunity! For more tips, visit my website at www.LifeQuake.net or email me at DrToni@LifeQuake.net.

Thriving, Not Just Surviving, an Economic LifeQuake™

The recent events at Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns have dangerously mirrored the historic market crash of 1929. The economy is in a sad state and it’s no secret: the dollar continues to suffer overseas while Americans keep their wallets tight domestically, real estate continues to plummet and the unemployment rate is affecting all strata of Americans. Loaded words like bankruptcy and financial crisis have been thrown around by the media. Keeping optimistic and viewing this unstable time as an opportunity for positive transformation is a challenge for most.

Dr. Toni Galardi, aka "The LifeQuake™ Doctor," has developed seven steps for preparing for and adapting to economic loss and, ultimately, using this as an opportunity for evolutionary change in your life. You can also learn more by visiting the LifeQuake™ website at www.LifeQuake.net.

1) Mastering the first stage of a LifeQuake™ requires developing the power of observation. Greed blinds people from seeing when a bull market is beginning its decline.
Developing keen observation allows you to anticipate when the tide is turning in the market.

2) Take an inventory of what is now ‘DEFUNCTIONAL’ and get rid of it. What aspects of your life are you spending money on that are no longer life giving?

3) Detach. What are you holding on to that could bring loss or crisis to your life? Let go of unneeded things before you are forced to.

4) After your life has gone through the radical change you feared, there is an opportunity to examine what security means to you. What beliefs do you hold about yourself that are being challenged by economic loss?

5) Design the new blueprint. We need to design our psyche so we have emotional retrofitting that helps us adapt to the rapid changes of 21st century. Create a lifestyle that has simplicity in both good and bad times.

6) Develop a fertile mind that views an economic LifeQuake™ the way a farmer looks at seasons. Before you go to sleep at night, come up with three things from that day that you are gaining out of the crisis you are in. This trains the mind to cultivate opportunity inside every loss. The cow manure of your life really can be fertilizer for manifesting a future harvest after the winter cycle.


7) Give back. Altruism pays off in the economic long term. It has been shown through numerous studies that charitable giving increases your immunity and overall health. The best way to pull out of an economic slump is to give of yourself. It actually feels good to do your part to make the world a better place and executing a practice of giving creates an expansion that draws positive thing to you.

Dr. Galardi was recently invited on Fox News 5 in San Diego to discuss her suggestions for surviving a LifeQuake™. Below is footage from the interview:



Dr. Toni Galardi is a columnist, public speaker, and licensed psychotherapist who coined the term LifeQuake™ to help individuals reframe crisis as an opportunity for rebirth. Her book The LifeQuake™ Phenomenon is due out in the Spring of ’09. Her website is LifeQuake.net She is available for phone consults and public speaking by calling 310-712-2600.

Visit the LifeQuake™ website at www.LifeQuake.net.

© 2008, Dr. Toni Galardi

Christmas neurosis

There is something synchronistic about Christmas coming at the end of the year. Christmas brings up everything that is missing or you've lost in the year gone by. And to make matter worse, Madison Avenue forces a picture of what it should be that few people really experience. So how do you survive Christmas and launch the new year with optimism?

Here are four steps to increasing your Christmas spirit:

1) Give back- volunteer some time to a charity, your church, or homeless shelter. If you don't have time for that, extend your christmas spirit to everyone you meet.

2) resist filling up on desserts. Sugar depresses the immune system as well as your mood and that includes alcohol.

3) Spend fifteen minutes a day in meditation. If you hate meditating, pray for peace on the planet.

4) Twelve days prior to X-mas, think of one person a day you have held some kind of grievance toward and forgive them.

On Dec 31, do a ritual in which you thank the universe for all the grace disguised as challenges you brought into your life this year. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Dr. Toni