Day Three of the Healthy Boomer 6 Pack Challenge – what an amazing day at Siesta Key beach.

It’s interesting what happens when we challenge each other in a healthy way – striving for excellence on a collective level. It’s a really positive thing to do on many levels. First and foremost, there is so much negative in the press, over the airwaves and in most conversation that counter balancing that negative with uplifting language, visuals and thoughts is so refreshing and empowering – in-powering actually. That is creating power from the inside out versus getting our power from a source outside ourselves.

By always speaking in language that enhances, we make a healthy contribution to the people and events around us. It costs nothing and it is contagious.

People like to feel good and it stands out clearly against so much negative.

Being a healthy boomer starts with thinking and speaking positively. All that is required is a choice. Making a habit out of it is what takes diligence. This is the fundamental precept in my challenge. Become a healthy baby boomer.

Start Thinking Healthy.

Start Speaking Healthy.

Start Acting Healthy.

Start Being Healthy.

This does not require a PhD in Physical Therapy or that you are working out like a professional athlete. You can start right this minute. Get up and stretch, take a walk, have a glass of water, smile about something, quiet yourself and enjoy the sunrise or go out and look at the moon for a while.

We can do many things to improve our health easily. Diminishing and virtually eliminating stress is a really good place to start. Make a choice to remove anger from your life. Smile and laugh more.

Watch a funny movie and laugh hard – often.

Quit sweating the small stuff.

If nothing else, take up the challenge strictly from the standpoint of making the determination within yourself that in 90 days you will be laughing more. That’s a huge step in the direction of health.

Whatever reason works for you – use it.

Maybe you have high blood pressure and you’re under a lot of stress and you have kids. Think about them being without a dad or a mom five or ten years down the road if you do nothing about your current situation. That’s a good motivator for many.

Think of it this way…

Life can be a lot more fun than it has been. Where do I start having fun?

Ask yourself:

Isn’t life more fun when I feel better physically?

Remember the tireless energy as a kid?

What happened to that?

Focus your attention on that to start with. Simply go into a place when you were small (in your mind and heart) and remember what that feels like. Think about what it used to feel like when you would sleep at night as a child.

How comfortable and safe you felt.

That memory and that knowledge is still locked deep within you – so you already know how to do what I am talking about.

Summon it forth.

Choose to start having fun and get a  new start enjoying your health.

Change what you think about health and take up the Healthy Wealthy Boomer: Healthy Boomer Six Pack Challenge whether you want six pack abs or not.

Choose to be a Healthy Wealthy Boomer and Make the Second Fifty Years Better Than the 1st. There is no asset of greater value than excellent health –  so starting developing that asset again and be a wealthy boomer too.

I AM Michael Barrett, I AM a Healthy Boomer and I AM a Core Health Facilitator

Healthy Wealthy Boomer: June 1 – Healthy Boomer Challenge

The Health Wealthy Boomer definition of health is being healthy mentally, emotionally, Spiritually, energetically, physically and financially. Inherent within this definition is the premise that total health is the single most important component of being a wealthy boomer – our most valuable asset.  Let’s look at this idea and expand it.

First a couple of statistics…

The U.S. Census Bureau says that by 2030, after all baby boomers (born from 1946 to 1964) have turned 65, more than 71 million senior citizens will be living in the USA.

Currently, more Americans than ever are obese: one-third of the adult population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Source: www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-06-05-obesity-age_x.htm

Whatever your personal situation is, far too many Baby Boomers are putting on weight and don’t exercise. Many of us who used to be in the 15% body fat (or lower) category are creeping up to the 25% range. There are much more in-powering choices and life patterns we can make than obesity, particularly as we age.

Many Boomers have decided that it’s  too late to do anything about it and believe they are stuck permanently with sore joints, weak legs and being tired all the time – because that what happens after 50.  Collectively, this is what we have been taught to accept as truth.

I disagree.

If you left a new car out in the elements and never waxed it from day one, eventually the paint would peel off. Who would ever treat a nice car that way – particularly at $25-40K+? You wash it and wax it regularly to protect the paint and to prevent oxidation. You change the oil and get the transmission serviced so it will last as long as possible.

Bodies need love too. If you are not already doing so, start loving your body and yourself. Treat yourself like an honored guest.

If you wait until 2030 to take action, it may be too late. On the positive side, you still have 20 years to become a healthy boomer. A few years ago at a Peak Potentials Train the Trainer 1 Certification intensive, Blair Singer made an interesting point via demonstration that puts 20 years into perspective.

Before I describe what Blair did, let me tell you a little about who Blair Singer is (in case you don’t know). Blair Singer is close friends with Robert Kiyosaki (author of Rich Dad Poor Dad,  a real estate investor and all around entrepreneur). Blair is a Rich Dad Adviser and a highly respected “sales trainer” – the guy companies call in to get results in sales by training their staff. Blair was also a student of Marshall Thurber, a genius in his own right and a protege of Bucky Fuller.

By the way, Blair Singer is a healthy wealthy boomer…

Here is a short video entitled Blair Singer: Secret Formula For Business Success that will give you a sense of how dynamic and talented Blair is and why he is such a successful trainer:

So back to my story…

Blair called volunteers to the front of the room ( we had about 600 attendees of which I was one) and had them line up facing the audience across the entire width of the room – and I would guess it was about 200 feet across. Then he had the volunteers stretch out a single rope all the way across the room each person in line holding the rope and keeping it level. He said that this rope represented a “whole lifetime”.

Next he talked about how a person can learn almost anything they need to in 90 days – with the right instruction, information and diligence.

Then Singer had another volunteer attach a piece of red string 3 feet long to the “life rope” and he asked the group,

“What do you all think that 3 feet of red string represents?”

He got all kinds of answers – and everybody’s attention.

Blair finally said,

“That 3 feet of string represents 90 days of your life. You can learn how to do just about anything in 90 days. And look what a tiny portion of your entire life that time really is. If you think about it, no matter how hard the challenge or how uncomfortable it makes you feel, you can both learn:

• whatever you want to learn, or
• need to learn or
• have to learn

and you can stand whatever it is for 90 days knowing it is such a small percentage of the total. Don’t you agree?”

He got absolute consensus from the group. In the big scheme of things, the time period is truly insignificant relative to your entire life. It really was an effective visual – and we often learn easier visually.

In this case, I certainly did.

Here is my Baby Boomer challenge to you:

Take the next 90 days and do something to improve your health.

Be realistic.

Take a step and start creating new habits.

Here are my basic suggestions:

• Start walking more…  Use the stairs at work, park in the far corner of the parking lot when you shop, walk to the store to get the paper or buy a quart of milk instead of driving 5 blocks. You get the idea. Start taking a walk everyday – intentionally. It relaxes you, it stretches your muscles and it activates your metabolism. Walking for health is something all of us can do.
• Keep a journal of what you do.  Keep tabs on what you are doing everyday so you can look at your progress on your self improvement journey. Not a big deal – maybe: “I walked 15 minutes today.”
• Find out about meditation – take a class or watch You Tube videos, or meet with a friend -  and if you already know about meditation, start doing it again.  Meditation is one of the best things you can do for your health. It improves so many things by default. And if nothing else, just sit quietly on the back porch for ten minutes (no phones, television or noise) and watch the sun come up or enjoy your garden or look at the moon. Getting quiet is a very good thing to do on a regular basis.
• Drink more clean water. Learn how to hydrate your body better.
• Stretch every day.
• Start going to bed earlier.

Do this for 90 days and you will feel significantly better than if you continue to postpone that period of time represented by the 3 feet of red string.

Why wait?

The purpose is to create new habits or re-create them…

If you choose to go further with this, we have created courses  and workshops that really work and help people learn how to walk their talk. Get in touch on our contact page and let’s move forward.

In 20 years, you can actually be healthier than you have been in a long time and you can still become a healthy boomer. Why wait any longer to get started? You can do this incrementally gradually increasing the distance you walk and the intensity with which you exercise. Cut back on fried foods and start eating more Omega 3’s.

Start gradually and work up and in no time at all you’ll look forward to talking a brisk walk and having a tall glass of water. Think how much more energy you will have in 20 years compared to what you will feel like physically if you don’t start now. Many of the effects of aging can actually be reversed, so why wait?

Speaking of Boomer Health: What is your health worth to you?

As far as being healthy goes in 2030:

• what will that health be worth to you then? Or said differently,
• what will it be worth you in 2030 to get your health back?

To my way of thinking, being a healthy boomer is a really good investment in your future – and in your wealth – because the root of real wealth is based in pure health. It is one of those intangibles that you can control in your life. And in time, the results will become tangible – one way or the other.

When you are healthy, you have more creative energy, more energy to work, start new projects and build your wealth along the way. On the other hand, not only is it hard to work and be creative when you feel lousy, it’s no fun. How can you distinguish between wealthy boomer and a healthy one? Do you agree that health an essential component of abundance and wealth?

It’s amazing how many people I have met in the last couple of years – in their mid to late 60’s that wish they had taken better care of their bodies when they were younger. I have also met a number of people who are healthier now – in their 60’s and 70’s than many people I know in their 40’s.

• Will you be getting healthier all the time by the time you are 65?
• And will you be actively building your wealth and living the life you want, or
• Will you be working every day to pay the rent and eat like so many people in their 60’s today?

There’s no time like the present.

In fact there only is the present. The past is history and the future hasn’t come yet.

Wake up, tune it and get with it.  I double dare you…

The choices you make today will determine what you become in 20 years. When the time comes, don’t say “nobody told me”. Are you really too busy to care of your health?

Get started now on the Healthy Boomer Challenge.

I AM Michael Barrett and I AM a Core Health Facilitator and Boomer Health Coach

Strength is an important topic, particularly for Baby Boomers.

The good news is that age and genetics do not determine nor limit strength.

Look at the old gentleman in the following video. If he can do that, we can most certainly walk 3 miles a day – or whatever it takes – to get the metabolism going again and to get the job done. Watch this guy, it’s quite impressive.

Size and gender are not limiting factors either.

Have you ever seen a mother protect a young child?  Have you ever tried to take something out of a little baby’s hand when they get a grip on something – like an expensive earring?  It’s hard to take it out of their hand.

The baby can do this because they use all of the energy in their body and their consciousness at the same time. It is life force (chi in Chinese). As western adults, most of us have forgotten how to use our life force as the core of our strength. The old gentleman in the video hasn’t forgotten. And the infant knows nothing else but full expression of self.

Anyone can choose strength.

Strength is a Key Ingredient to Long Lasting Health

Strength is essential for physical alignment and daily life, yet is often overlooked as a key ingredient to long lasting health. As a rule, we tend to take strength for granted – until we don’t. In most cases, we miss strength most when we no longer have full command of it. Two common examples of the loss of strength are:

• trauma from injury or
• an illness that forces us to be sedentary or bed ridden during the recuperative time

More commonly, we become aware of the need for strength when we bend to lift something and twist and find ourselves struggling with both the load and the execution of the range of motion. Or when we notice how sore our lower back muscles are after we rake and bag the leaves in the back yard.

Muscle tone and adequately strong muscles make life easier as we age.

If we have been inactive for some time, we can reactivate our physical tone fairly easily by becoming active physically again. It does not take much to get the body awake and alert. It does take persistence.

The body actually likes it.

More than that, “waking the body back up” takes a new decision to do so. Once you focus your attention on the result and create a mandate for yourself – clearly and definitively – it will begin to manifest itself in physical form.

Bill Bartmann, a Healthy Wealthy Boomer from Tulsa, made that choice a long time ago. He is a martial artist and takes care of himself although he wasn’t always in good shape.

Earlier in his life, he lay in a hospital bed after breaking his neck falling down stairs and was told by doctors he would never walk again. He made up his mind there and then that was not acceptable. Months later, he walked out of the hospital on his own. He used his determination to walk again and he used it to turn his life around from alcoholic, gang member, homeless high school drop out to billionaire and one of the wealthiest men in America.

Bill does not set goals:

“I don’t set goals. Instead I make promises because in my experience, we are far less likely to re-neg on a promise than a goal. The results are consistently better.”

This is a good approach. When it comes to setting up a personal set of protocols to get back in shape, Bartmann’s idea makes sense because not achieving a goal is one thing, breaking a promise is another.

When you make a promise to yourself – or someone else that you care about – you are more thoughtful about what you are committing to. When you treat your self as your best friend, you are less likely to promise something you do not intend to keep.

Treat your body as Your Best Friend.

This is the basis of health and strength – to love your body and groom it, care for it, feed it really good food and attend to it with loving attention – in the same way you would care for a championship show dog or a horse.

In many ways, strength is a measure of vitality and physical consciousness – a sort of gauge for aliveness. You can use it as a self-measurement tool for alignment and clarity.

Strength is what provides the support for the skeletal system in our body. It is an integral component of physical and postural integrity, and provides for efficient mobility. As such, it is our best natural defense against many common injuries.

Strength, coupled with flexibility, is the most effective counter measure against general aches and pain. These aspects of strength are valid at all ages but are particularly important as we get older.

Like the Baby, True Strength is Rooted in Life Energy

And strength is – in large part – the primary physical coordination function for the body. In general, a real misconception is that size is the key determinant of strength. True strength is a measure of the individual’s ability to use the entire body as a single unit – as opposed to muscle mass.

Strength in this context is integrated use of the skeletal system, connecting tissue and powered by “life energy” running through the whole system – simultaneously.

Once we achieve flexible strength, we rarely get sore when we use our muscles and our body.

What Prompted The Post…

Last month a baby boomer named Arnie started a new thread in our Facebook group Baby Boomer Health and Wealth: Healthy Wealthy Boomer, by asking this question:

“Hey what do you think is the best approach to maximize physical strength as we age?”
Here is what I wrote about to Arnie…

• Physical activity is essential we are too sedentary in today’s lifestyle.
• Walk everyday, stretch every morning, learn and practice the Tibetan Rites at least 3 times a week.
• Be physical again. Walk up the stairs at work. Park the car further away from the entrance at Costco and walk both ways.
• Take dance lessons and PRACTICE – it’s so much fun.
• Ride bicycles again.
• Learn Qigong or Tai Chi or one of the soft Kung fu systems from a qualified master. Take up yoga.
• Swim again.

When you choose an activity that’s fun for you, you will do it more often. Exercise should be an enjoyable experience, not a chore. Add the “fun back into it”. For example, take long walks with people whose company you enjoy and who you find interesting.

The key is activity:

• use your body,
• use your muscles.
• achieve a healthy tone over time.
• treat your body like your best friend.
• balance your exercise to match your lifestyle and vice versa.

Strength is a component of longevity and is a great anti-aging tool. It is a metaphor for the quality of life. Baby Boomer Health is all about choices.

Be healthy. Choose strength.

It is a better choice than choosing the alternative. Quit listening to the media and think about the old man and the bottle. You are never too old.

If you have been thinking about it, now is a good time to get started. You can do it.

I AM Michael Barrett. I Am a Healthy Boomer. I AM a Core Health Facilitator.

Are You a Healthy Boomer?

If you are – good for you. If you’re not yet, you can be. 2010 is the year for great possibilities.

New Years resolutions tend to be an annual ritual for many of us as we reflect upon the year that we are leaving behind and look forward to potential in the new year. Why do health club memberships skyrocket every year about this time and then peter out around March?

Basically new years resolutions never work and there is a good reason for that which I will address later in this post.

What gives ME the right to “preach”?

Because I AM a Healthy Boomer.

It is not an accident that guys half my age call me Mr. Energy. I have been focused on a healthy and natural lifestyle since 1971 – with some glitches and bumps along the way – but overall, throughout most of that time, I have chosen a path of “excellent health and vitality” as my standard. My lifelong motto has been this: I DON’T DO SICK. I have chosen a life of health as a conscious decision.

At age 18, I decided to take responsibility for my health. I made a choice to follow a path that would lead to longevity – and a vibrant, healthy life – not just a long one. I started looking at people around me and noticed how some older people had beautiful skin and bright shiny eyes and others seemed withered, with dry skin and dull eyes. Some had a bounce in their step with lots of energy, while for others, walking was difficult and labored.

I made a life choice – there and then – that I would be a member of the former group, and not the latter.

As a result of that life choice, my health journey began with the following questions emerging within my consciousness and becoming a dominant force in my life:

• How do I do that?
• How do I live a long and vibrantly healthy life?
• What constitutes this kind of lifestyle?
• How do I define this for myself?
• What rules do I need to live by?

That may not seem like a big deal to you – now – as you read this.

Consider this: On a personal level, what were you thinking about – around health - at age a 18?

In retrospect, for an invincible, highly energetic, 18 year old ‘hot shot’ – with a metabolism that required 6 full meals a day – that was a pretty profound choice and decision.

One of the things that had led up to that decision was the loss of my dearest and closest friend about a year earlier. He and his brother were both killed in a head-on by a drunk driver. His death forced me to consider mortality for the second time in my life.

Only this experience was different, it went to my core.

I went deep and sought resolution within myself. As I pondered life and death coherently and cogently, I chose to redirect my life towards another path. I withdrew from the circle of friends I had known and associated with – completely – and embarked upon my own path, alone. On some level I understood that if I did not, I would end up like my dear friend had.

Health became a driving force as a martial arts enthusiast and an “A” student in my first year of college, as a full time accounting major.

The regimen of rigorous training – 6 times a week at the dojo – and 3 to 4 hours of study daily quickly formed a solid pattern of self discipline – a skill that has been a real benefit since.

Self Discipline Is a Key Ingredient to Health…

Where it is most important – in my experience – is upholding our choices and being disciplined in our own willingness to follow through on those choices over the long haul. Consistency is what creates self discipline. And consistency in our attitude creates good health over time.

Over many years I have observed human behavior in a class and training environments – originally in martial arts and for the last 22 years, in qigong and the self development world. What I know is that people have to start where they are, with the existing skills they have – and build success upon those.

This is my mission with Baby Boomers to promote and in-power Baby Boomer health.

Why Don’t New Years Resolutions Work?

Here’s why.

Changing your mind does not change your energy body – your blueprint – until your mind and your energy body are in alignment. When you change in your root – in your energy – the change is permanent.

How do we do that?

I have looked for a method that works for everybody my whole life and in 2009 I found it. It’s called Core Health, a system of comprehensive kinesiology that both encompasses and expands upon:

• behavioral kinesiology and
• energy psychology

I liked it so much I moved from Montana to Florida and have just completed my certification as a Core Health Facilitator.

This is the most comprehensive and effective system I have ever studied and I want to teach anyone  – who is sincerely ready for a change in their life – how to change their lives with new energy decisions that are permanent.

Find out more about Core Health Workshops and Heart Forgiveness and Funny with Money for 2010 and make this the year you become a Healthy Boomer. Workshops forming right now in the Sarasota, Nokomis, St Petersburg and Tampa areas.

We travel to your city for group trainings. We also do corporate training to achieve enhanced workplace productivity through more conscious employees, better working relationships, less absenteeism, and increased energy levels.

Get in touch on the contact page and let’s talk.

We do win-win in a big way and we love our work.

I AM Michael Barrett. I AM a Core Health and Heart Forgiveness Facilitator and I AM Healthy Wealthy Boomer.

Baby Boomer balance has everything to do with alignment and walking our talk.

How many times in your life have you verbally committed to doing something and then reneged at some point because something came up – or the memory and focus of the original conversation faded and became a distant glimmer of muffled sound – like a silhouette of a campfire on the beach against a cliff late at night?

Was it your intention not to follow through? Did you actually make the commitment intending not to follow through?

In a peculiar way, this is the truth.

Recently, on a personal level, I have learned about authenticity – living it, speaking it and looking for it. This ties in directly to other aspects of what I am learning that I would like to share with you. See how it sits with you and maybe it will make sense to you the way it is beginning to in my life.

Lately many aspects of emotion are becoming clear in my life.

What emotion is, for example.

As far back as I can remember, emotion has been something usually associated with discomfort – something to “kind of walk around” or to be cautious about not stirring up the mud in the bottom of the pond, so to speak.

Because there was so much turmoil in my household as a boy, it became easier to avoid emotion than deal with it. As a memory, there is a great deal of fighting and negative emotion throughout much of the childhood experience. So looking back at the chain of events in my own experience, I see that inadvertently, as a young man my “internal” system gradually guided me in the direction of avoiding emotion as a survival tool, because many times this was easier than experiencing the emotion that was available there.

It was not a conscious choice, in retrospect.

And looking at that process, it becomes clear to me that a great deal of my subsequent experience around emotion was either directly – or indirectly – linked to the that “unconscious choice” so many years ago.

What is interesting about this scenario is that I have always been a highly sensitive human being with an singular sense of fairness and equity that has always been a major part of my personality. Being a “Cancer” with a heavy emphasis on emotion, this aspect has often been a double edged sword for me.

More often than not, I felt more than the others around me did. Many times it created a situation where I really felt like an outcast – the weirdo, the odd one – that got messages and direction that nobody else seemed to understand – or be aware of. At the age where peer approval was so important to a young man, this was often troubling and confusing. And yet on a certain level, I really didn’t care what they thought either. I rarely listened to what other people had to say.

Talk about confusion…

So here I am as a teenager:

• becoming a master of avoiding emotion while simultaneously
• being highly sensitive to the energy and emotion around me
• angry and aloof – getting tons of “downloads” encrypted in a language that only I seemed to understand

So back to the “truth” of not intending to follow commitments – of having intentions NOT to honor commitments we make – even though we are verbally nodding our heads.

In 2005, at a Peak Potentials Wizard Camp (a 5 day intensive seminar not to far from Whistler, BC) I had an epiphany. I learned first hand what commitment means. This took place in the form of a direct experience – but also, I actually saw commitment with my own eyes. I have written about this experience in depth in my book so I will not reiterate it here.

I really got something in that experience that I have carried forward with me since and have grown to realize that it affects everything we do in life – all the time.

To summarize, this is it:
Commitment does not exist in the cosmos as ‘partial’. It is all or nothing. We are either 100% committed or we are not committed. There is no such thing as “sort of committed”.

This is the crux of the theme of this post: Baby Boomer Balance.

Lately, as a I mentioned earlier, many aspects of “emotion” are becoming clear to me.

1. I have recently heard this: emotions are the way that God speaks to us.
2. Emotions are the internal guide posts that empower us to choose the right decision.
3. Emotions have nothing to do with pain or fear – both of which stem from our reaction to what our emotions are telling us – rather than what is actually being said.
4. Most of us avoid experiencing emotion like the plague because in much of our experience, when we feel emotion, we feel pain – so we associate it with pain.
5. Emotions are tools to guide us in the decision process. That decision process is very simple: Does this choice feel good? Or does this choice not feel good?

When we pull this understanding into our daily life as an operating tool, emotions make it easy to decide what to do. Esther Hicks and Abraham always talk about “going upstream or going downstream”.

I am learning how simple this is – but it took a long time for me to “get it”.

I am learning to use this tool frequently throughout the day. Any time I start to feel agitation about something I am hearing, or about something I am thinking or a choice I am about to make, I ask myself:

Does this feel upstream or downstream? If I get the feeling that the “thing” is upstream ( a choice that will take me into a situation that will mean “fighting my way upstream”), I choose consciously not to do that thing, or say those words or go that direction. No explanation, no argument and no rhetoric.

If this thing makes me feel “downstream” – like flowing with the current and really going with the flow, that is the choice I make. I find that as soon as I identify internally what feels good and what feels downstream, all sense of agitation and discomfort – in the bottom of my stomach immediately fades away and I feel good.

What a cool way to deal with emotion. It now becomes a tool for choosing our path and for making decisions all the time. And it is so simple – as long as we just listen and do not resist or react.

Now more about balance…

I am finding that living our truth is all about balance.

To be authentic we must live our truth. That means we can not go against what we know is right within us. In other words, we must always choose what feels downstream in order to follow “what feels right for us”. Any time we make a choice other than this, it means that we are making a choice out of alignment with who we are.

Maybe this is to please others whom we admire and whose approval we are seeking. Maybe we want a different outcome to be our reality so we think that if we ignore that “feeling” it will come out the way we really want it to happen.

The truth is that we can only make choices in alignment with our “authenticity” if we want to be authentic. Nothing else makes sense. The interesting part is that as soon as we choose this, everybody else around us identifies our authenticity and starts to respect it.

Now how does commitment fit into this picture?

It is very simple yet subtle – much in the same way how easy it is to choose “upstream or downstream”. Yet, perhaps commitment is one of the most misunderstood concepts in modern society at this point. Truly most of us think we are committed when we are not.

Because being committed means that no matter what we will follow through. It means our word is our bond, it is an extension of our truth and it is a big part of being authentic.

How is this so?

If we are truly being authentic, we follow through on our commitments because when we are following our inner truth, we only commit to those things that make us feel “downstream:” We choose what is right for us at all times and we choose to be in the flow.

When we are authentic, we are choosing that which is alignment with our higher self – which also means we are choosing that which is in alignment with the part of us which is Divine.

When we are authentic, we only agree to commit to anything that we choose to be in alignment with. What this means, therefore, is that it is really ok to say NO.

Simply go inside and ask yourself: If I commit to this does it make me feel downstream or upstream? Then base your commitment on that feeling – one way or the other.

If we commit to something and we do not follow through, either we were not being authentic when we entered into the commitment, or we are not being true to ourselves when we do not follow through to that commitment.

We are the leaders for future generations. What happens is our responsibility. How can we lead these kids and guide the flow “downstream” in the bigger picture if we are not committed to our principles, our values and our integrity?

And how can we expect those who are so desperately needing our leadership to believe us and follow our direction if:

• our walk is not in alignment with our talk and
• if we are not being authentic

We cannot expect them to listen because it will not feel “downstream” to them. And they will blow us off.

We have a chance to make a real change as we head into the magnificent transition into the new paradigm that is coming.

Commit to your own alignment and your Baby Boomer Balance.
Being in alignment is a big part of Baby Boomer Balance as well as a major ingredient in Baby Boomer Health. Coming to grips with these issues are not only a component of who were are becoming as leaders, it is also a big part of choosing emotional cleansing and self esteem on a conscious level – instead of an unconscious one.

Are you ready to see it all in a different light and quit fighting the inevitable – upstream?

I am.

Blessings.

Michael Barrett

You know I just Googled “Boomer Health” and I was appalled at the titles of two of the top four pages:

Here are the search results:

1. Boomers Biggest Health Mistakes
2. 12 Risks of Aging that Boomers Can Avoid
3. Boomer Health
4. Boomer Health Care Dilemma