Find yourself in the flesh-colored middle row of the flowchart.  Here are nine assets we all need to enjoy life:   ·  truth ·  peace ·  respect ·  love ·  mercy ·  sexuality ·  wealth ·  purpose and · bodily health.  Life offers both healthy and toxic expressions of each asset.  To see the difference, don’t study the green or red yet, the rows above and below you.  Just focus on one issue/asset where you struggle.  Think of situations where you often feel drained of this asset, feeling like you don’t have enough, as if you are leaking, or somebody is taking it out of you. 

 

Think of your mindsets and lifestyles that act like whirlpools – your beliefs and habits that end up making you feel more and more drained of this asset.  Supernaturally, the more you give or get of it, the more mysteriously it leaks out, leaving you always needing more.  And look for whirlpools around you, in the People, Associations, and Dreams (PADs):  which ones seem to be draining that asset out of you and others?  Note who expects you to give them more and more of this asset as time passes, while somehow putting less and less back into you.  Where are your whirlpools that consume that asset?

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Now staying in the flesh-colored middle row, look at the other columns.  Pick another issue you feel good about, one where you feel you have plenty of that asset inside you, enough to give away to others without expecting anything in return.  Look inside you for wellsprings – beliefs and habits that seem to work supernaturally, to create the asset.  When you believe and live as a wellspring, it seems as if the more you give that asset away, the easier it seems to be to keep on giving. 

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Also look for wellsprings outside you, coming from PADs that work the same way.  Think of who always seems to have plenty of this asset to share freely with you and others.  Somehow, they seem to be helping you to be a wellspring, and you seem to be helping them.  You come out of this relationship or group ready to share more of this asset with others.

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Discerning which beliefs and habits are healthy  

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How do we know what is good and bad for us, and for and others?  Let’s use some common sense to answer this.  Little children everywhere tend to want and choose whatever helps THEM to FEEL better NOW.  Those who stay spoiled and immature that way as adults have mindsets and lifestyles that are sickening to them, and to others.  It would seem that healthier, more mature choices are whatever DOES MORE GOOD and less harm to MOST PEOPLE in the LONG RUN. 

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Why do other people matter for our health?  We reap what we sow. We grow in ourselves and feed back to others what we eat from their hands.  Think of the beliefs we express in our words and lifestyles as traits or attitudes that we show.  We pass our traits on to others with our choices, and they pass theirs back to us.  That’s why sickness and health are contagious, and well-being comes into and out of us in our relationships. 

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Now look at the green and red rows of personality traits, pictured above and below you in the flow chart.  The red, rotten, sickening traits are selfish (or self-punitive) attitudes.  The fresh, green, and healthy traits are the more edifying beliefs and habits for ourselves and others. 

 

Common sense confirms these groupings by giving us invisible signs to look for.  People and groups are healthy if they bring to you and others more signs of life:   freedom, strength, growth, caring, cooperation, health, and liveliness.  The best things in life are free.  Wellsprings bring more of these things to more people in the long run, and don’t seem to run out.  Genuine, healthy versions of these assets are described in the beliefs and habits printed in green above, to show go – there’s fresh growth here. 

 

By contrast, toxic beliefs and habits are printed in red below, to show stop – there’s dangerous inflammation here.  See how these red whirlpools bring you and others the opposite of healthy:  more bondage, weakness, decay, apathy, divisiveness, illness, and death.  Whirlpools are black holes for the healthy, life-giving stuff – they keep sucking it out of others, and can’t hang onto it themselves, so they’re always needing more.  Instead they offer counterfeit imitations of the good stuff, often visible goods and services, often for sale.

 

Where did this model/outline come from?

 

For the last 3000 years, the vast majority of western civilization’s leaders in religion, philosophy, and government have taught that these same nine healthy traits work for the common good, and that the nine toxic traits work against what people need.  More significantly, 50 years of solid scientific research has now confirmed that illness and wellness both grow and move just like the flowchart shows.  And 12-step recovery teaches addicts to take inventory and change these very same pairs of traits.

 

See how sickness and health flow invisibly, vertically, and horizontally.  Within columns, everything green avoids or fights the red, and vice versa.  Everything in the rows above and below is contagious:  growing anything green grows other greens, and all the reds fertilize the other reds.  All 18 red and green mindsets and lifestyles are factors that naturally affect medical compliance!  Published research has proved all these patterns to be true.

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This flow chart is also dynamic.  Four decisions control how things flow.  First you pay attention to something or someone, depending on their healthiness, life flows into you or out of you.  It pulls you further in when you give it your acceptance, deciding that it is natural, normal, and not harmful.  Then you give it your affection, allowing yourself to enjoy it and like it.  Finally you give your allegiance, by committing yourself to keep making these choices.  Every single step changes your beliefs, and then your actions, which in turn affects those around you.  Their reactions affect you, as the cycle continues. 

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If you want to apply these insights to your life, to see new solutions for your problems, if you want personal growth, or if you need emotional healing, stay on this website and take the free, anonymous, 15-minute test with instant online feedback, the Better Life Test – mini (BLTm).  The feedback will show you how to make your life better.

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  This material is licensed by Creative Commons Copyright   BY-NC-SA 4.0.            

  It can legally be shared, copied, and published with this notation, but not sold.

  Wellness Education for Living and Loving, Inc.      www.to-the-well.org

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