Effective Decision-Making

Every option seems to have a downside. How do I know what’s best? I’m so confused,” a friend recently complained.

My friend was caught in a quandary familiar to many of us. After losing a well-paying job and pounding the pavement for months to find another, an excellent opportunity had just come up – but it required moving out of state. Now a decision had to be made: stay on unemployment and hope for something to turn up locally, uproot the family to accept the offer out of state… or consider something different altogether?

Every option offered potential benefits as well as the potential for failure. The conversation reminded me of six principles of effective decision-making that the school of life taught me.

1.   Decision-making is easy when there are no discrepancies in your value system

Fact is, there are decisions to be made every moment of life. Over time, these choices tend to unfold as failure or success, fulfillment or disappointment, or any of the myriad choices in between. So how can we optimize decision-making and minimize the downside?

A clear understanding of your core values will help you choose well at the decision-making junctions of life. These inner values and your emotions around them form an integral part of the decision-making process. Awareness of your core values makes it easier for you to choose options that are in harmony with those values. In the example above, a bit of probing help my friend recognize her core values, which includes being able to provide for her family. Once she recognized this core value, it was easier for her to embrace the idea of working out of town for a while instead of clinging to the security of the known.

2.   Effective decision-making deals decisively with fear

I’ve found that most folk who cling to the comfort and security of their known environment, are doing so from fear: fear of the unknown, fear of failing, fear of making mistakes. If you want to make great decisions, you absolutely need to evict fear from your life. It is a dream killer and a useless waste of energy!

3.   Effective decision-making looks at content as well as context

Your inner values and desires constitute the immediate content of your decisions. Beyond that inner world of content, effective decision-making also requires you to consider relevant factors in your external environment. When external factors are ignored, even great decisions can lead to failure. In the example above, some of the external factors my friend needed to consider included the timing of the job offer, overall economic conditions, the availability of other opportunities, and how each decision might impact the family.

4.   Effective decision-making requires you to be truthful

Decisions based on inner truth lead to empowerment. Choices that compromise your truth, lead to conflict and confusion.

Socrates observed that each of us chooses what we believe to be optimal, given our level of awareness and insight at the time. Our choices create a resonant frequency field which attracts resonant energies and repels dissonant frequencies. Over time, particles of probability in this attractor field evolve into possibilities that manifest as reality. Our thoughts and choices ultimately manifest as things, so it behooves us to focus on truth!

You cannot live an authentic life while dishonoring your inner truth. There comes a time for each of us when we must choose to honor our truth and let the chips fall where they may. As Marianne Williamson has said, our playing small does not serve the world.

The Course in Miracles teaches that Truth is not frail. Truth can withstand the demands of the ego. It can surmount envy, misconceptions and judgment, because it needs no defense.

True power lies in choosing from within, from the strength of having owned your fears, from the gentleness that you carry with grace. Each time you choose to honor your truth, you are creating more resonance to empower your journey.

5.   Effective decision-making needs focused intention

Do you know what is really motivating you? A great way of drilling down to your true intention is by asking yourself effective questions. Answering these questions will help you uncover patterns of self-sabotage, fear or compromise so you can make clear decisions. Author Debbie Ford outlines great questions in her book, The Right Questions. Here are a few:

  • Will this choice propel me toward an inspiring future or keep me stuck in the past?
  • Will this choice bring me long-term fulfillment or short-term gratification?
  • Am I standing in my power or am I trying to please another?
  • Am I looking for what is right or for what is wrong?
  • Will this choice add to my life force or rob me of energy?
  • Will I use this situation as a catalyst to grow or as an excuse to beat myself up?
  • Does this choice empower or disempower me?
  • Is this an act of self-love or is it an act of self-sabotage?
  • Is this an act of faith or is it an act of fear?

6.   Effective decision-making requires involvement of body, mind and soul

Finally, sound decision-making requires that you listen to the subtle messages within you at all levels: body, mind and soul. You can learn to tap into your innate wisdom by cultivating healthy connections among your body, mind and soul. Each of these levels communicates in different ways. Take time for meditation or contemplation. It will help you stay centered and at peace. Remain aware of your spiritual core guiding you through the physical challenges of life, and you will become effective at decision-making.

Once you’ve made a decision, stay flexible and embrace ambiguity. As additional information surfaces, you may want to adapt to it. Remember, change is usually a messy process! Flexibility makes it easier to navigate through change so you can optimize outcomes.

©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.

Smart Meter Radiation Concerns

If you have been concerned about smart meter radiation, you’re in good company. Since electric utilities installed smart meters on consumers’ homes, many people are reporting symptoms of deteriorating health. And it’s not surprising: one smart meter emits hazardous radiation at levels between 60 and 150 times those of a cell phone, and up to 190,000 times per day!

These meters were marketed to consumers as a tool to monitor  electricity use, which would result in savings to consumers. The facts indicate otherwise: while smart meters transmit electric usage information directly to the power utility and save the utility the cost of sending out meter readers, many consumers are finding that their electricity bill spikes after installation of the smart meter. One of the reasons for this is that the smart meter uses electricity to transmit information to the utility every few seconds. These wireless signals penetrate walls and buildings and are re-radiated throughout homes and businesses by electrical wiring, metal plumbing, gas lines, metal fences, and more.

According to some scientists, smart meters radiation pushes the levels of electrosmog over the tolerable limit for many individuals. Other forms of electrosmog include dirty electricity, Wi-Fi and radiation from computers and cordless devices such as cell phones and laptops. At going rates of exposure, researchers expect to see an explosion in cancer rates over the next five years in the US – a rather dubious distinction in a country that already leads the western world in cancer rates.

Exposure to radiation from smart meters and other sources emitting electromagnetic frequencies, causes cumulative damage in the human body, including breakdown of the immune system, neurological system and more.

In a recent video interview, Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt from the Klinghardt Acadamy in Seattle, WA, who has pioneered research and treatment protocols for heavy metal toxicity, Lyme’s Disease and autism, calls electromagnetic pollution the silent health epidemic of our time.

General Symptoms of Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS)

Increasing numbers of individuals are experiencing electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS), a medical condition that develops in response to accumulation of smart meter radiation and EMFs in the body.

According to the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM), the cumulative damage caused by exposure to these sources of electrosmog tends to affect patients in the areas where they are most vulnerable. Symptoms include:

Neurological: headaches, dizziness, nausea, difficulty concentrating, memory loss, irritability, depression, anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, weakness, tremors, muscle spasms, numbness, tingling, altered reflexes, muscle/joint pain, leg/foot pain, flu-like symptoms, fever. More severe reactions can include seizures, paralysis, psychosis and stroke.

Cardiac: palpitations, arrhythmias, pain or pressure in chest, low or high blood pressure, slow or fast heart rate, shortness of breath.

Respiratory: sinusitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma.

Dermatological: skin rash, itching, burning, facial flushing.

Ophthalmologic: pain or burning in eyes, pressure in/behind eyes, deteriorating vision, floaters, cataracts.

Others: digestive problems; abdominal pain; enlarged thyroid, testicular/ovarian pain; dryness of lips, tongue, mouth, eyes; great thirst; dehydration; nosebleeds; internal bleeding; altered sugar metabolism; immune abnormalities; redistribution of metals within the body; hair loss; pain in the teeth; deteriorating fillings; impaired sense of smell; ringing in the ears, inflamed or swollen lymph nodes.

Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Facts:

• Most suffers tend to be women, often 40+
• Symptoms tend to worsen over time and with continued exposure
• Many EHS sufferers also suffer from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
• Children are significantly affected as they are still developing
• Many improve quickly when returned to an electrically clean environment

With continued exposure to smart meter radiation and other forms of electrosmog, people get progressively worse. According to expert Dr. Olle Johansson, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden who led a study on the issue, the best strategy for recovery is to eliminate and avoid exposure to EMFs:

“70% of respondents suffered from chronic fatigue, headache, concentration problems and other psychosomatic ailments. Somatic problems included impaired vision, smell and hearing as well as skin problems and pains in joints and muscles … we conclude from their information that the only effective protective strategy is avoiding the disturbing EMFs.”

Of all the  sources of EMFs in homes, smart meter radiation is the leading pollutant. A great deal of research has been done on the kind of radiation smart meters emit—and much of it is scary.

Radiation Linked To Numerous Health Issues

One comprehensive report is the BioInitiative Report 2012. Written by 29 independent scientists, researchers, and health policy professionals from 10 different countries, this 650-page report cites more than 1,800 recent studies with clear evidence that numerous health issues, including DNA breakage and cancer, are created by exposure to radiation from cell phones, cell towers, power lines and Wi-Fi. This report presents chilling evidence to the unseen dangers of electrosmog.

Smart Meters Often Violate FCC Standards

Sage Associates, an independent research team, published a report entitled “Assessment of Radiofrequency Microwave Radiation Emissions from Smart Meters.” They concluded that smart meter radiation often does not comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) safety standards — standards which are inherently insufficient for measuring radiation levels in smart meters.

Set back in 1996, FCC standards were based on studies with healthy 6’2”, 220 lb men exposed for short periods of time — very different from the situation with smart meter radiation, in which women, children and people in fragile health are continuously exposed to radiation, and often from more than one smart meter.

Furthermore, the regulations only tested for thermal damage — and the true health risks researchers are finding are from non-thermal effects. Also, other sources of radiation (such as Wi-Fi, cell phones, and other wireless devices present in today’s homes) were not present in the testing. For all these reasons, the Sage Associates report strongly cautions that smart meters are not safe.

Smart Meters Are NOT Smart!

There’s a growing body of research showing smart meters to emit between 60 and 150 times the frequencies of a single cell phone. Wireless smart meter radiation produces atypical, potent and very short pulsed radio frequencies and microwaves whose biological effects have never been fully tested. They emit these millisecond-long frequency bursts on average 9,600 times a day with a maximum of 190,000 daily transmissions and a peak level emission two and a half times higher than the stated safety signal, as acknowledged by the California utility Pacific Gas and Electric before that State’s Public Utilities Commission. Thus, people in proximity to a smart meter are at risk of significantly greater aggregate exposure than with a cell phone, not to mention the cumulative levels of radio and microwave frequencies affecting people living nearby.

International Organizations Warn About Radiation Health Risks

A number of international organizations have issued strong cautions about all technologies that emit radiation similar to smart meter radiation, including the Council of Europe, the European Environment Agency, UK Trades Union Congress, the International Commission for Electromagnetic Safety, and the Russian Commission for Electromagnetic Safety. The UK Report is calling for withdrawal of all wi-fi in schools because of numerous health risks to the developing brains and nervous systems of children.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Toxicology Program have also studied the effects of non-thermal radiation on human health. Their updated findings indicate that, among other things, radiation can significantly increase the risk of cancer, fetal abnormalities, neuro-degenerative disease and glioma, a deadly brain tumor. They have classified radio frequencies as a possible carcinogen in the same category as lead and DDT. You can access the complete WHO report here.

Most recently, citing the substantial scientific literature on the subject, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has called for an immediate moratorium on installing smart meters due to smart meter radiation health risks.

What Can You Do About Electrosmog?

Step 1: Educate yourself

The first step is to educate yourself on the facts.  If you care about your health and the health of your family, you cannot afford to blithely accept the public relations platitudes put out by utilities. What you don’t know, could kill you. 

Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt how smart meter radiation and other forms of electrosmog cause autism and permanent, irreversible cellular damage. Then dig into the archives at www.ElectromagneticHealth.org to discover the findings of leading scientists on the dangers of smart meter  radiation. Finally, go to Youtube to learn how Dr. David Gatoff, a naturopathic physician, found ways to help his patients protect themselves from smart meter radiation. The link will take you to the first of three videos by Dr. Gatoff.

The Center for Electrosmog Prevention, a non-profit organization, has a web site with current public health alerts for smart meter radiation and cell phone safety. You can also read more about the dark side of smart meters at www.smartmeterdangers.org.

Since many media outlets have refrained from reporting on the problem, crowd-funding made it possible for an independent documentary on the issue to be produced in 2013. Take Back your Power investigates the benefits and risks of the ubiquitous smart grid program being implemented internationally, with insight from expert researchers, politicians, insiders, physicians and concerned communities.

Step 2: Have your smart meter removed

Contact your power company and tell them how smart meter radiation has impacted your health. Get a letter from your doctor if you need to and insist they replace it with a non wi-fi or analog meter.

If your utility is not willing to work with you, you can take action by downloading legal documentation to give your power utility notice that the smart meter radiation violates your consumer rights, and give the utility a limited time to stop violating the law and your rights by replacing your smart meter with a safe analog unit.

This company, Freedom Taker, also sells analog meters for consumers to self-install, but more importantly, they provide the legal documentation for you as a consumer to send to your non-compliant utility company.

After receiving this notice, if the utility continues to violate the law and fail to provide a safe and lawful analog meter within a reasonable time, you then have the right to defend yourself against their violations of the law and replace the meter yourself.

If your utility is not willing to work with you, you can also join a citizens’ coalition near you to sign petitions to have smart meters removed. You can find grass roots support coalitions on EMF Safety Network here or at Take Back Your Power‘s worldwide directory here.

US citizens are encouraged file a complaint with the US Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC). If you have or had smart meter health problems call (800) 638-2772 Monday thru Friday from 8 AM-5:30 PM ET, or submit your complaint at http://SaferProducts.gov. They will record your complaint and pass along the information to the FCC and the FDA as well. Every complaint adds to the body of evidence needed at the government level to take action!

Step 3: Clean up dirty electricity input

Next, take action to clean up the global energy input to your home. Hire an electrician or buy an EF/RF/EMF meter and measure the levels of noise and static from dirty electricity in your home. The Cornet ED75 or ED78 are good multi-function units.

Install a Satic wired-in electricity capacitor on your breaker panel at the main electric inlet for the home to modulate all electric inputs and to clean up dirty electricity. You can also opt for one or more global plug-in units from the same company, Satic USA. Such units offer global surge protection, while they also condition your power lines, reduce electro-magnetic frequencies, regulate voltage, reduce negative harmonics and reduce electric consumption up to 30%. Learn more about Satic technology here or order a Satic capacitor for your home.

Step 4: Clean up radiation seepage from your outlets

Your home’s electrical wiring and copper water pipes can serve as an antenna to amplify electrical noise to dangerously high EMF levels. Use a Graham-Stetzer meter to determine remaining radiation levels from cables and electric outlets, and install plug-in Stetzer EMF filters at all areas where radiation still measures above 30 units on the G-S meter. You can order these items from Bio-Electric Shield.

Step 5: Eliminate Wi-Fi in your home

If you can pick up the Wi-Fi signals of six other neighbors, those emissions are also radiating into your space, adding to the cumulative radiation in your environment.  It is important to eliminate unnecessary exposure to Wi-Fi in your home and opt for Ethernet cable connections instead.  To learn how to protect yourself from Wi-Fi, computer and laptop emissions in your home, visit BioElectricShield.com.

Step 6: Get rid of cordless phones at home

As far as EMF pollution, the most important culprit at home and at the office, is the use of DECT cordless phones. These devices represent the third leading source of EMF pollution after smart meters and Wi-Fi. They continuously emit microwave signals between 1880 MHz and 1930 MHz around the clock, whereas you can turn your cell phone off or put it on airplane mode! If you want to sleep at night, you really need to eliminate these devices at home. If you really can’t live without your cordless phone, get a low EMF or eco-DECT cordless model such as the Siemens Gigaset S795 cordless phone. These phones still emit radiation, but have two advantages: the nearer the handset to the base when on eco mode, the less radiation is emitted and the less you are exposed; and the base does not emit radiation when the phone is on standby.

Step 7: Protect your personal energy field

So now you may have cleaned up your personal space at home. How can you protect yourself when you are in public spaces, near transmission towers, power lines or surrounded by Wi-Fi? It is essential to protect your body’s electro-magnetic field from these intrusions so they don’t scramble your innate frequencies, resulting in the symptoms or disease conditions discussed earlier.

You may need a personal bio-electric shield to protect your body’s energy field from the harmful interference patterns of electrosmog, both at home and elsewhere. Bio-electric shields are finely tuned modulating units that were developed using Bragg’s Law technology. A personal bioshield attunes to your body’s unique biomagnetic field, and then operates like a personalized Satic capacitor to modulate dissonant frequencies in your immediate environment. By doing that, your personal electromagnetic biofield is protected and strengthened – watch this video to learn how it works.

I have spent a lot of time researching and talking to various manufacturers and scientists about electrosmog in the past few months. I knew that whatever protection I had used in the past, was no longer sufficient and I needed something that can cope with the heightened electrosmog in my environment. In the past, I had taken to wearing not one, but two pendants and a bracelet from a well-known company that promised complete protection, to no avail. It was like a whisper in a storm! I don’t think that the company lied about their products; but rather that their basic copper wire technology is simply not able to cope with the EMF onslaught we are faced with today.

Step 8:  Get grounded

One of the factors of modern life is that we seldom experience the ground offered by being barefoot on the earth. Research indicates that symptoms of inflammation, sleep disturbances and electrosmog hypersensitivity can be alleviated by sleeping in a grounded environment.  You can get some of the beneficial effects of being in nature by sleeping grounded. The Earthing Starter Kit comes with a grounding sheet and pad which will allow you to be grounded as you sleep or work on a computer and you can purchase it here.

Conclusion

Escalating levels of electrosmog in our environment are affecting all of us – it is an invisible epidemic that can rob us of health, vitality and life force. The good news is that with the proper information, we can protect ourselves. I’m sharing what I learned in the process of reclaiming my health so you can have an easier learning curve than I did!

I had my smart meter removed as soon as I discovered its impact on my health. After a lot of research, I also purchased a Satic capacitor, personal bioshields, room protectors, and other EMF protection products for my home from Dr. Charles Brown and his wife Virginia at Bio Electric Shield. I was so impressed with the ethics and knowledge of Bio Electric Shield, Inc. that I offered to share their brochures with colleagues and clients. In turn, they will offer a 10% discount to everyone that tells them they were referred by Stillpoint Holistic Services.

To order EMF shielding products and/or a personal bioshield from Bio Electric Shield with the 10% discount, use this link www.bioelectricshield.com/Stillpoint and enter your discount code, STILLPOINT (all caps), at checkout or give it to Virginia when ordering by phone at tel. (541) 201-8878 PST.

©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.

App For Life

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

These words of poet Mary Oliver strike a cord with me. You see, I believe that you and I did not appear in this life by random chance. We are here to play a unique part in the ongoing circle of life. Whatever it is you plan to do, that path is already calling to you.

Question is, how do you find that path? How do you know where to go and what to do to have the most impact?

I’d like to offer you an app to help you find and stay the course.

This app is not for your Ipad or Android – it’s an app for your life. The acronym APP stands for ALIGNMENT, PASSION and PERSEVERANCE. Together, these three components will unlock the doors to success in your life, no matter where you go. Let’s take a look at each of them.

Alignment

The first part of the app is ALIGNMENT. It asks you to live a life that is aligned with your core values and goals. You will always have the most impact when you make decisions that are aligned with your core values and goals.

Betraying or compromising your core values may look like a shortcut. It may even bring the initial trappings of success, but it will always leave you feeling empty and unfulfilled. True peace of mind comes from living a life that is aligned with your values, truth and principles.

When you make choices that are aligned with your core values and goals, you’ll be in integrity; you’ll be strong, and you’ll find a way around every obstacle until you reach your goals.

Passion

The second part of the life app reminds you to pursue your dreams with PASSION.

What is it that you feel most passionate about? What gets you out of bed with enthusiasm, lighting up your face when you talk about it? Pay attention to these signs, because the very things you care about passionately, are also the things you are hardwired for.

Before you choose a path, listen to your heart and align with what you feel truly passionate about. When you do that, you will stay in harmony within yourself. You’ll find the energy, motivation and drive to reach your goals.

Perseverance

The third part of the life app deals with PERSEVERANCE. You see, life’s great results usually reward not those who dream big or get lucky, but those who persevere in actively pursuing their dream. It is how you follow through and persevere, that separates winners from losers.

Perseverance is the ingredient that converts dreams into reality. The more perseverance you develop, the better your chances of success. Perseverance will require you to go out of your comfort zone and to practice self-discipline; it will quietly demand that you keep on keeping on, even when all the odds seem to be stacked against you!

Winners know how to persevere: They stay focused, take action daily toward their goals, and press on until the results show up.

Together, alignment, passion and perseverance make for powerful results! Let’s look at a few examples:

Wangari Maathai used this APP to bring about incredible transformation in Africa. She felt passionate about destruction of the land caused by deforestation in Kenya. She was touched by the needs of rural women who reported that their streams and food supplies were drying up, and they had to walk further and further to get firewood.

Wangari Maathai developed a vision of reforestation to help her people. She started to plant trees, and recruited other women to join her in the effort.

At first, community leaders laughed at her and dismissed her. But Wangari had a vision. She passionately believed in her cause, and she persevered.

She established the Green Belt Movement to conserve the environment and improve livelihoods. She organized rural women to grow seedlings and plant trees to bind the soil and stop erosion, to find ways together to store rainwater, provide food and firewood, and earn a decent living.

Wangari also started community education programs to advocate for greater democracy and leadership accountability. Since 1977, the Green Belt Movement has planted over 51 million trees in Kenya, effectively reversing destruction of the ecosystem in east and central Africa.

It all started with one woman who was aligned with her core values, who passionately believed in her vision to alleviate human suffering, and who persevered until the results showed up. Her ALIGNMENT, PASSION AND PERSEVERANCE brought about powerful results.

Fulfilling your life purpose may not call you to distant lands, but it will call you to live from your heart’s truth.

That is what happened to Jessica Jackley shortly after she graduated from college.

Jessica Jackley heard a speech by an economist from Bangladesh who had developed the idea of micro financing: loans offered to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.

She was so completely blown away by this concept that she quit her job out, dropped everything and moved to East Africa to find out how she could help. There, she learned about the very real problems people face throughout the third world: A farmer in Tanzania who needs $25 for seeds to plant his crops, a seamstress in Peru who needs $100 for a new sewing machine to earn a living; a rice harvester in Cambodia who needs $50 for a bicycle to get his product to market.

Jessica saw the need, and she developed a vision to help. In 2005, she co-founded Kiva.org – an organization that allows people to lend money to entrepreneurs in the US and developing countries through the internet.

On Kiva, individual lenders like you and I can sort through profiles of potential borrowers and make loans to those we find most appealing. The minimum loan is only $25, and the interest rate is 0%. Risky loans? No, not really.

The repayment rate for loans is more than 99%, and since Kiva was founded in 2005 it has had an enormous impact: some 910,000 people have pledged almost 1/2 billion dollars in loans to more than 1 million people in 72 countries. About two-thirds of Kiva’s borrowers are women who are now able to break free from the cycle of poverty.

Jessica had a vision of how she could make a difference in the world. She used the APP of ALIGNMENT, PASSION and PERSEVERANCE to launch one of the fastest growing crowd-funding social benefit websites in history. Today, Kiva empowers people around the world to feed and educate their families, to make an honest living, and to restore their pride.

Wangari Maathai and Jessica Jackley have both made enormous contributions to society, and they used the same app I’m sharing with you now. They found something they felt PASSIONATE about, they made decisions that were ALIGNED with their core values, and they PERSEVERED until they succeeded.

If they could do it, so can you. Your future beckons, the choices are yours, and now you have this APP for life.

And so, in closing, I ask you again,

What is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

May you always live in alignment with your values, and may you pursue your dreams with passion and perseverance until they come true!

©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.