ittakesgutstobeme.com

Hi everyone!

Not trying to be overtly offensive there but it’s true. We can all agree that as adults, we are responsible for our own actions, right? Just shy of prison, no one’s forcing us to do anything in day to day life.

Now, I understand more than most, that good thinkin’ and proper life perspective are not the key reasons why our illnesses are here. In my opinion, you’re out of luck until the nutritional deficiencies we all face, no matter how well we eat, are addressed and corrected.

But the way you think should be the very next item on your repair list. When I began piecing together my system via trial and error and self-experimentation, I did land some victories. But order of business became an important factor. 

I tried to do many “proper thinking” programs as a first step in easing my bipolar symptoms. I played around with a handful of spiritual programs as well. (This was before I realized my meds were utterly useless.) I figured that with proper medication, I could “shore up” the foundations of my wellness attack and get even better than I already was, which was not that well at all.

I found that none of these things worked even as I agreed with much of what many of these programs were saying.

Now, this is the interesting part: I knew my intuition and original rationalization in thinking I needed some sort of program like one of these in my life, were correct. I knew my head being messed up was more than just a broken tool sort of thing. I knew a lot of why my life didn’t work was because I didn’t think right about things. I was constructing a crap universe and I didn’t need to be told that.

So I went back to nutrition first, and later returned to my software issues of the mind. 

 Smart move on Kenny’s part.

Once I’d settled my mind enough to focus using nutritional approaches, I discovered the next saving grace step in my system. My best psychiatrist told me once to try meditation. But at the time I was frequently so manic that to sit still for as long as that required was unthinkable. Beyond that, the thought of meditation bugged me. Based on what I knew, which was very little, I wasn’t interested in even trying.

But my want and need for improvement in my life and the inner knowledge that I required more fixing, led me to Centerpointe.

I had read enough and listened to enough people smarter than I, or at least further ahead in life than I, to know I needed a new sense of direction. Centerpointe gave it to me. To attempt to lay out all that they do would be a Herculean ordeal. So here’s the short and sweet: Your mind is split in two halves. These two halves should be communicating an equal amount to each other at all times. But they don’t. One is usually hollering and the other is relatively silent. This unevenness causes chaos in your life. Sort of like having half the pistons in your car working and the rest just along for the ride.

On top of that, we ALL are going about our days with a set of rules hammered into us as children. They don’t serve us well or at all but we hang on to them, unconsciously. We never seem to get things right and we can’t tell why. Or worse, we blame some source outside of ourselves. Wrong. You are in control of your every action and reaction. 100%. Nothing is being done to you. Stuff happens but how you respond is totally in your control and makes up your very life experience.

And that’s the other layer to that last paragraph. You are unconscious of so much, if not all of life. Life is bigger and better than you realize. If you don’t think so now, just know that in time, you can make your life the way you want it. You’ll have to trust me on this if it’s too much right now. It’s already been proven true to me and I have a long way to go, which excites me!

Another issue is trauma and stress experienced earlier in life causing you to have a lower threshold, a lower tolerance for yet more trauma and stress. It takes less for you to pop off than the next guy. Things irritate you or cause you anxiety that don’t merit any notice from better adapted folks. This can be fixed.

If you go to Centerpointe’s website, you will see a great amount of information awaiting your review. I suggest you go there and begin studying with an open mind. You don’t have to commit to anything. You may not be able to afford it yet. No worries from my end. I’m just saying, begin helping yourself by looking into new areas without judgement. Centerpointe is one of them.

Almost immediately I noticed change for the better. Loads! And the process felt good. And it’s easy to do. You listen to a CD with headphones on. You do your best to hold still with your eyes closed. Done. You are getting better. It’s that easy. You don’t have to chant. No need to focus. No need to do anything but listen. Doesn’t matter what you may still be thinking as you meditate. You don’t even have to try and turn that off. You can’t do this wrong!

Bill also has a blog that is free. You might want to sign up and get a taste for the man as a way of researching his company. But I’ll tell you this: he’s the only guy I know who’s been invited to the United Nations to give a talk on how entire countries can get along better. He was just down in Manhattan doing that last Spring.

OK. That’s enough for now. There is so much more I’d like to share about Bill Harris and what he does but it can hold ’til next post.

Take care!

Ken

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I don’t want to beat the topic of fish oil right to death, so this will be the final post regarding omega-3s.

I wrapped up “The Omega Connection” today. Very in-depth book with its fair share of minutae regarding omega-3 and its component pieces, DHA and EPA. You need to be aware of why those last two matter. DHA is already in a lot of foods we eat and even more so in the bad foods some of us eat. The EPA is harder to come by.

On top of that, it appears that we need very little DHA and also hold on to it very well. No need to keep shoveling it in. EPA is used up by the body at a vastly higher rate and we hardly hang on to it at all. This, we should be shoveling in.  We should be using a large shovel, much like the one below, getting a lot in. A few grams is great but a truly bipolar or depressed person may need closer to 10 grams a day.  The doctor who wrote the book states that the Inuit Eskimos get around 19 grams per day so if you stay below 10, you should be fine. As far as that goes, no adverse reactions to omega-3 supplementation had been noted at the time of the writing and I imagine that still holds true. But, as always, check with your medical doctor to be safe.

Back to the particulars. O-3 is in high demand within your eyes. Your sight depends on it. You brain uses it to get anything and everything done. Men…big component of your sperm, whatever that may be worth to you.

It is critical for the development of newborns, too. Seems most of the other free countries make sure to put it in their baby formula but the US doesn’t. Maybe this has changed since the book was written. I don’t know but when it comes to caring for the body, the US is always lagging way behind Europe. Sometimes this lag is measured in decades. But I digress. Deprive your baby of omega-3s and you’ll have a less-than smart baby who develops slower in every area of life; mental, physical, and social. If you breast feed, you’re ok.  Mother’s milk is packed with it. But if the mom never had enough to begin with, her baby gets the lion’s share. She herself, may become deficient and this can play a part in post partum depression. Something to think about new moms.

Your blood will not clot as easily IF you have a problem with that. The normal route of treatment for this (sticky blood) is usually aspirin before beginning blood thinners. I don’t have this problem myself but I was told often to start aspirin as a necessary diet additive. I believe it was to help keep my arteries clear. I disagreed and later found the info in this book that verified my intuition. Yet another time I’m glad I listened to “the little voice.” I’m not saying to ignore your doctor’s advice. I’m just saying I have frequently disagreed with mine over the years only to learn later, I was correct. Not in every case but almost. Ever the anti-establishment figure am I.

The problem with aspirin in this case is that its action lasts for the lifetime of the platelet. It’s an “all or nothing” move. The omega-3 just does its job for the moment and backs off, naturally. Should you actually get a bad cut while full of aspirin, you’re going to bleed a lot. The same cannot be said of omega-3. It can be present in your blood but you will clot naturally, if cut.

There is a slew of data backing the protection O-3s provide for the heart. Too much to recount. So if you have heart issues or don’t want any, start consuming omega-3s. That’s just good news so be aware of it.

This oil even helps regulate blolod sugar to some degree. Anti-diabetes food! The explanation is a bit long so if you want the whole thing, get a copy of the book: The Omega-3 Connection: The Groundbreaking Antidepression Diet and Brain Program

Inflammatory illnesses get a helping hand from this, too: Crohn’s Disease, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, ASTHMA, and Rheumatoid Arthritis all can benefit by adding omega-3 to the diet. Does it cure all of this? No. But it helps ease the symptoms and doesn’t seem to interfere with any medications at all. This can possibly lead to less medication, always a good thing.

There is much, much more but I think you’re starting to see how great this food is for you overall health. Let me bring it back to bipolar and how it helped me. Honestly? I tried using Omegabrite caps first and separately as a way to save money and still fight my bipolar. No luck and I tried for a couple of months. I had to use EMPower Plus from Truehope before I felt any relief. There was no way around that simple fact. But I knew that this did not negate their value to my health.

Here’s how they directly helped me in a way I could feel: I suffered major panic. MAJOR!!! I knew fear on levels that boggled the mind. Over time, as I began fighting my bipolar, my way, I gained a sense of safety and peace of mind in knowing that I was doing absolutely every possible good health thing I could think of to get better. Just knowing these powerful nutrients were inside me would be enough to help me self-talk my way down out of a growing panic attack. I’d tell myself, “Calm down. We all know I’m doing all I can and good stuff is in there to protect my heart and my head. Give it time. Cool out.” I frequently worried about my heart in the panic days.

If you’re a panic type, how valuable do you think that same mind frame would be to you? Exactly. Priceless. And I eventually overcame my panic. A big part of it was taking solace in the fact that I was systematically beating my illness down with all the tools at my disposal. This is why I share these things with you, the world. Not to force you to spend more money. But because it works!

You don’t have a choice. If you’re not getting better and you’ve done everything any doctor’s told you to do, well, how about you open up a little and try my way. For a change. A beautiful change. One part of the puzzle is here: www.omegabrite.com

Take care everyone,

Ken

Hope that grabbed your eye! Today marks the beginning of my new batch of detailed info posts giving you more help for your fight against bipolar and depression.  You may already be aware of my resounding success with www.truehope.com but I also endorse www.omegabrite.com as a necessary nutritional adjunct in the fight against bipolar and depression. This is where we bring in the fish. 

But not just any fish will do. Most fish is good food but we need the oily kind. Salmon is one of the best and most common but any oily fish will work.

Now, maybe you don’t like eating fish or it’s just impractical for some other reason. That’s a problem that works in your favor in this particular situation.

It’s not so much the fish we’re after but the omega-3 fats within the fish. There are so much data on the benefits of omega-3s to the entire body as to be ridiculous to put in one post or even a string of posts. It is a highly studied nutrient. The thing you want to be concerned with is why I’m sharing the omega-3 story.  This stuff helps to repair what’s wrong in the bipolar or depressed mind. It is a major building block in all cells throughout the body but in high concentrations in the brain and nerve cells. It has the potential to help diminish your symptoms all by its lonesome! I feel that for most people, it would not be enough, as bipolar and depression have many root causes that need addressing. But omega-3 is a biggie not to be skipped in your pursuit of wellness.

 It’s very easy to get your omega-3s by eating them in capsule form. www.omegabrite.com has them waiting for you. They even have a cream version for kids (or adults who don’t like capsules) that tastes good and is easy to swallow.

What we Americans in particular, and most of the rest of the world is up against, is a deficit of these nutrients in our diet. They belong in us but our bodies can’t produce them. We have to get them from our food. This is why they’re also called “Essential Fatty Acids.”  We used to eat them frequently, as a matter of course. Today’s modern diet has removed them from most prepared foods or we don’t eat much of what naturally contains them. The story worsens from here.

The omega-3s counterparts are the omega-6s. They have an important role to play inside us but we get too much of them in our diet. For optimal health we should get a 1:1 ratio of 6s to 3s. Our modern diet puts it closer to 20:1 in favor of the 6s. This is disastrous for our health, both mental and physical. The 6s are responsible for inflammations. They burn us up if allowed to run free. The 3s conterbalance them, IF the ratio is right. So, one way or the other, we all need a steady supply of extra omega-3s in our day.

There is much more to share about these wonderful nutrients but I’ll space it out.  Do yourself a great service by investigating www.omegabrite.com and consider becoming a customer. I’ve been a loyal customer for about three years now. I won’t be caught without these capsules on hand. 

If you want to really dig into the specifics (which is how I did it when first designing my program to save myself) then you’d do well to get a copy of this book:

The Omega-3 Connection: The Groundbreaking Antidepression Diet and Brain Program
 
Fight the good fight everyone!

Ken

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the long silent time between posts. My book is weathering the publishing process. Or I should say, I am weathering the publishing process. It’s taking a lot of time and concentration on my part so I haven’t been able to make any fresh noise over here.

So, thanks for your patience and as a gift, I give you my perfect day with my son, who I love more than air:

If you’re a bipolar parent, let me give you back to your kids too. The system that gave Christian his father back is in my book. The link is at the top left.

Take care,

Ken

Memorial Day is tomorrow. The article I am sharing is about a Marine who was burned over 97% of his body but refused to die. Eventually, he lost the fight but his ability to survive as long as he did inspired hundreds directly, and now thousands through his foundation. Please read the article at the following link:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jquSvmD8-4lUXtHoJfT7u-FEV2LgD90SR8NG1

This Marine’s story also serves as a strong inspiration to those of you deep in your own battles. He survived way longer than should have been possible because he believed he could.

I am a Marine war vet but I have no political agenda to share here. My aim is to help you beat your bipolar as I did. But Memorial Day is important. It matters that you recognize it. This is the day we remember our friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers who will never come home.

Regardless of your politics, these are our people and tomorrow is their day. Please remember.

A friend on MySpace inadvertently set of my cosmic deep self and I wrote the following:

I believe we are given exactly what we need to overcome and proceed to the next better level in life, whatever that level may be. We are given pain to test us and teach us something we desperately need to know. There is something we must accomplish and somehow, pain is needed to help us do it.

People frequently ask, “Why is there evil in the world?” I used to ask that myself, a lot. The only thing that ever made sense to me was without evil, you’d never appreciate good. Good is defined by the existence of evil. Up is only up because there’s a down. There’d be no light without dark to define it.  

Think about the old movie “The Time Machine.” The humans, who were kept aboveground in a paradise, were food for the mutants that shepherded them from belowground. The humans had no idea how good they had it because all they had was good. Therefore, good no longer even meant good! Not to them!

I have since given up thinking there is good and evil. There are just actions. Everything in the universe exists in opposition to something else. Otherwise, it wouldn’t exist in the first place.

Does any of this help when we are hurting? No. Definitely not. But it puts things in perspective. Gaining this perspective allows you to you calm down emotionally and begin using the rational part of your mind to survive and renew.

You are never given more than you can handle but you also need to know it is up to you to figure out how to learn from a disaster and use it to better your world.

Life is nothing but change. Everything changes. Everything has a beginning and an end. To think you can have any one thing stay just as it is, forever, is folly and setting you up for disappointment.

Is it easy to learn the lessons we must? Many times, no. It can be incredibly hard. It may take years, decades, or a lifetime to figure out the good side of a bad scene. And maybe that much struggle is what was meant for you. Maybe you need to know that much pain to figure out the larger life lesson it holds.

But you can’t accept the pain as a normal condition to be endured forever, never trying to rectify it, just because it hurts too much to deal with it. To do so would make you a martyr. But the cause you are being martyred for applies only to you. This nullifies any honor of playing the martyr.

Know this and begin to search within yourself for the answer that is already there. Your subconscious already knows what to do. It’s getting your conscious mind to understand that fact and pay attention that is the hard part.

The big win here is the journey that you will undertake to get this all done. Life is not a destination. It is a journey. All the little things that take place over time as you deal with this pain, is your life! To think you need to fix this one thing and everything will be all right again is setting yourself up for disappointment.

It is in your power to have a better life than most. You can actually have less pain than most, but to think pain won’t come back or to stop trying to heal after one big blow is foolish and tragic.

Having said all that, maybe it still takes a lifetime to get over a big hurt. But if you understand that you should be trying and if you keep in mind that one day, you’ll heal from this, well, the struggle will have transformed you into something different from what you are now and something better. You will be a more complete person for the effort.

The lesson will have been learned and you will be able to share that knowledge with someone else you care about and possibly help them overcome what you did, much faster than you did. And as far as I see it, none of us lives in a vacuum. We are all here to help someone else. It is the point of life. As you help others, you help yourself. You better their lives and you gain gifts you can’t possibly see coming from where you are right now.

Welcome to the large pile of you who’ve recently signed up! Now, let’s get right to it.

When bipolar was crippling me and the black energy in my mind would not let up, I drank. No meds ever given to me worked on the noise and pain in my head. Only drinking would turn it off.

Problem was, drinking would let something else take over in its place. My interior being was a battlefield of bad memories and barely restrained rage. All my hurts would come out when I drank. I fully knew this before I’d take my first gulp of beer, my first cocktail, but the pain in my brain from bipolar was bad enough that I didn’t care. All that mattered was turning it off.

When I drank, I knew it was just a matter of time before the cops would arrive. Almost every time. Or I’d at least get in a fight. Many times I’d wake up the next day bruised and red, obviously from getting hit, but not remember the details.

On one of these bleak days, I simply lost my mind. Word got to my mom, who enlisted Uncle Roy’s help in finding me before I did something unrepairable. They found me, eventually. Uncle Roy shares what he saw that day and what he sees now:

My system works. It’s kept me sane for more than two years without the use of medication. Not only sane but healthy and happy. I can show you how to do the same. Drop me an email and ask me anything you’d like, as much as you’d like: ken@ittakesgutstobeme.com

Take care!

Ken

Calm down. Nothing provocative today. But it brings up an important point. Some of you out there might prefer to learn about bipolar, the fight, the losses, the overcoming of it all, from a woman’s point of view, rather than a hard edged guy like myself.

Now imagine if you learned about it from the daughter of the man who saved my life! The daughter who caused the father to start the company that saved her life, thereby saving mine. And I thank all that is holy that he did.

Autumn Stringam wrote a book about bipolar and how it destroyed her family. She suffered fallout from her mother’s illness and then was blessed with her own personal case of bipolar.

She writes with a much different style than I do. But the pain is the same. The horror and despair is the same. And the triumphant victory over all of it is the same.

I was horrified to learn how close this wonderful thing came to not existing. The Canadian government fought against Autumn’s father, tooth and nail, to stop him from doing what I am now eternally grateful he did.

You can read the whole story by clicking on the link below. It is stunning and brutally honest. Like my work but with a definite feminine perspective. Please click below and gain your relief too:

And one did:

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080310/COLUMN0807/803100332/1064

But did she have to? No. Emphatically no!

Shelley Beattie was one of the original American Gladiators. But she was famous for her great looks, competing as a deaf person, and her kind heart.  I am not afraid to say I worshipped her from afar.

She was a true champion in every aspect of the word. But in the end, she committed suicide after 6 weeks in a hospital, fighting against her bipolar symptoms. I won’t rehash the story. It’s in the linkabove.

I recently met a person who was very frustrated with her friend’s husband’s behavior. He is being treated for depression but by the sounds of it, he’s bipolar or something damn close.

Much of what everyone thinks this man should do to feel better, is correct. Part of it had to do with the need for exercise. Correct again. But the mistake they, and so many others make, is in thinking bipolar or depressed people have a choice in deciding to take care of themselves. As if it’s a matter of discipline or will power.

Can a leaf in a hurricane decide to exit the storm? No. But that is what you’re expecting your sick loved one to do. A sick person is not even the SAME person, moment to moment. THEY don’t even know who they’ll actually be from one minute to the next. Happy, peppy, supercharged, achiever? Sad, mad, dejected, apathetic, fatigued, loser? Or, when Heaven’s Light shines on them for a moment - the normal person everyone knew before he or she got sick? The afflicted person does not even know. It’s completely unpredictable.

Worse, exercise, or any combination of good living practices alone, is never going to be enough. None of it addresses the root cause of the illness, which is chemical imbalance. Medicine doesn’t address it either, just quiets down the noisier aspects. Sort of like an angry, starving mob, rioting for free food. The cops subdue them, make them obeisant, quiet, controllable, but doesn’t fix the actual thing that made them riot, which would be to feed them.

What I do feeds your mind. If exercise and clean living habits were enough, Shellie would still be with us. She was one of the fittest athletes on the planet, leagues apart from any condition the rest of us could hope to attain. But the illness took her out, all the same.

She didn’t address the root cause.

But, to be clear, everything else she did with her life; all the good living practices, to include regular exercise ARE massively important to your gaining back your sanity. But to even be able to stick to a better life plan, you have to get that root problem in line first; feeding the mind what it needs.

Those of you who’ve followed me for awhile know I’m talking about Truehope and I wish Shellie had known about them. I was VERY close to the point Shellie apparently reached. Truehope saved me. They fed my mind what it needed so I could do all the things that were a major part of Shellie’s life. Then I got better. Think on that.

Rest in Peace, Shellie.  You were one of the best.

Hi everyone!                                                                                   

OK. Yesterday was simply unbelievable in scope. The life I dreamed about for more then ten years is finally taking shape.

Before you get to the links, know this: You don’t need to do what I do, specifically, to get what I am getting. But you’re good at something! Figure it out and then take the steps I’ve taken and watch your new life unfold. My system will work for you regardless of your end goal.

I haven’t arrived here alone. I couldn’t have done this by myself. Actually, I had to be prodded for years to do what I eventually did, which was to begin writing my book and that led to the help I now have to turn it into something great.

There is a lot of material to review in this post, so please bookmark it and return later, to go through the links at your leisure. This day of mine applies to all of you out there and you need to see what it looked like.

Here’s my take on it and a preview of what’s to come in the next two links. People, I’m so happy. And I want to share it with you in whatever way helps you most. This link will open in its own player for you:

http://www.ittakesgutstobeme.com/video/Big_Day.flv

This next piece is from my mentor, Glenn Dietzel. He explains my story and his part in it in a very powerful way. Be sure to watch the entire video. This can be you he is talking about:

http://glenndietzel.tv/2008/04/18/this-happened-at-times-square-in-nyc-yesterday-before-a-live-webcam/

What a fun afternoon that was and so satisfying to meet the man who has had the most to do with giving me the life I want. I’ll never get tired of thanking him for what he’s done for me and the skills he’s taught me.

After the Times Square gig, I rushed home ( but that took over two hours), freshened up, and called in to be interviewed by the next gentleman. Frank Gasiorowski does now, what I am learning how to do. He is a fine example of the type of quality people that have been pouring into my life.

Hear Frankand I discuss the success mindset and how my fight with bipolar disorder, was a gift in disguise:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/PowerTalk/2008/04/17/PowerTalk-Radio-welcomes-Ken-Jenson

People, my life really has transformed. Almost four years ago, I was looking at life in an institution. Whether it turned out to be a lockdown ward or prison was a toss up. Could have gone either way. And once my home was secured, death would not have been far off. That’s not dramatic license. I really was going to die from bipolar. I knew it and I’d already been in a 2-week coma from it, and had my heart restarted multiple times.

Before I took the step to start all this, my day consisted of waking up and enduring the horrific and painful sensations that pounded my mind all day, as it failed. That, without exaggeration, is where this all started.

So have hope. I made it out and if you let me, I’ll help you do the same.

Take care,

Ken