Hello, I am an outlier, a statistical anomaly that does not exist in today’s approach to science.
In a world where normal is defined by the number of people that experience a certain behaviour, condition or lifestyle, it would seem that there are many things in the world that we consider normal but point to a world that is not doing well.
Becoming overweight or even obese is becoming normal.
Being dependant on sugar or caffeine is normal.
Using alcohol or other recreational drugs is normal.
Yet based on the above I am an outlier, as none of these things are part of my life:
- I live without eating or craving sugar, caffeine, refined carbohydrate, salt or alcohol
- I am on the lower side of the normal weight range for my height
- I wake up without an alarm early in the morning, ready for the day after a solid night’s sleep
- I work with consistent energy throughout the day around the house and in my job.
This was not my experience of life 12 years ago. In fact, 12 years ago, I was pre-diabetic, overweight, using caffeine, sugar, and alcohol and not particularly happy in my job or within myself.
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So my NORMAL has changed, which means this is not a story of someone with a genetic predisposition to a certain mode of health. Any genuine scientific researcher would look at this change and want to study it because the changes I made were not ‘rocket science’ but observable, repeatable changes.
The changes were founded on the principles of The Way of The Livingness, a uniquely and truly holistic approach to life that presents a combination of science, religion and personal responsibility that is, in my experience, both profound and unique in the world.
The Science Part of The Way of The Livingness – involves studying the science of my body more closely and observing the repeatable experiences I have with certain foods, moods and lifestyle choices and how they affect me. It also involves respecting and working with my GP and other health practitioners to monitor my health to ensure I am not deluding myself.
The Religion Part of The Way of The Livingness – involves appreciating the fact that while my life has a practical quality, it also has an energetic quality as well. This energetic quality is about the way in which I define my relationship with God (where even denial is a relationship). Over time I have begun to accept the fact that I can and do have a very personal and real relationship with Divinity and that life has a sacredness that is worthy of respecting and honouring in my movement and actions. I have learnt that I do not need to be beholden to a particular person or congregation, but rather have defined success as the honesty of my personal relationship with God, as it defines everything else.
The Personal Responsibility Part of The Way of The Livingness – involves knowing that if I am choosing to eat or live in a way that is harmful to me or others, I need to look at why. It makes little sense that we would choose to ingest poisons (alcohol), smoke, over-eat or do a myriad of other things that modern science knows leads to poor health, but we do. The fact is, I matter in the world and my choices affect me and others. So personal responsibility is looking at the choice and the reason for it. In essence it is perpetual choice to either respond or ignore the Science and Religion I am still discovering.
And while science is consumed with trying to cope with the ever-increasing rates of obesity and other lifestyle diseases, here I am, the outlier – thanks to The Way of The Livingness –feeling very normal, but hardly a blip on the radar of conventional science.
You only need to visit the before and after project on UniMed Living, to see that I am not alone. In fact, people from around the world have begun to replicate these changes, across gender, age, race, income and demographics.
Hello, I am an outlier, why don’t you join me?
By Joel Levin, 47
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Joel Levin, is a student of life, himself and The Way of The Livingness. With a deep interest in what makes people and groups productive, effective and joyful to be around.
For the full back catalogue of Joel Levin’s writing, visit: www.joellevin.net |
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What is The Way of The Livingness |
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The Truth about Universal Medicine 
Energy speaks for itself. We could discuss and challenge the truth about Universal Medicine, but when I see the ‘before and after’ project on UniMed Living, I can feel the significant difference in the expression of everyone. This is very solid and clear proof that the whole process of healing our hurts and reconnecting back to our essence actually works.
Finding appreciation of our divine connection and thus the connection of others, opens us to our evolutionary path and thus we see the universality in everything and in being connected to the inner being, we reflect that quality to others.
“… life has a sacredness that is worthy of respecting and honouring in my movement and action.” It is a beautiful way to live, because if you look out there into life what you see is litter, abuse, destruction of nature, extinct species, harm of adults and children, etc, it’s anything but sacredness.
I like what is shared in this comment, in that how we are living now, and what we do, is surely lacking sacredness.
I have learnt a new word today ‘outlier’. Gosh the before and after just within your eyes alone is so revealing.
The more Outliers there are in this respect, the more normal and healthy life becomes.
The more we accept the abnormal as normal the more we disconnect from what is actually true.
The foundations of how we live today have changed enormously and have moved far away from being principles that honor who we are and that which supports us to live knowing who we are. The Way of The Livingness offers all a way of living in connection to our essence, our Soul, the truth of who we are, from which we are guided to live the true potential of our Godliness and with great honouring of not only our relationship with God and the universe, that which we are part of, but also with each other equally so.
Looking at your list of what is deemed normal in our current society, it becomes obvious that calling something ‘normal’ is just a very cheap way of accepting something as part of our standard when it makes no sense when every part of life and our entire being is taken into consideration. Interestingly, allowing our standard to slip is also a way of creating more jobs that never had to exist before hence contributing to validating and sustaining the overall trajectory the entire humanity is heading towards.