Red-hot, fiery, steamed-up

In the darkness, they tried their best to not fall over the rocks standing in their way as the Nazis shoved them along with the ends of their rifles. If they fell out of line, the guards beat and kicked them. One day, Frankl managed to transcend the indignity of this morning routine. As he was marching along, an inmate next to him turned to him and whispered: If our wives could see us now! Eventually, the roller coaster ride of a limited identity is no longer needed. The moment you die to all identification is when you experience living fully. This is the moment that teaches that who and what we really are can never die. As soul, you are never born. You always have been and always will be. Though you will someday leave the physical body you inhabit, the truth is that whatever you are can never die. At that level, you are the life eternal. DURING MY EXPERIENCE at Ghost Ranch, the mind I had previously identified with physically split away from me. That me, the soul, determined to physically chase and challenge each fear. That day, I imagine I fear-chased for over an hour. It also lowers the production of sex hormones by interfering with the desire and ability to experience pleasure. In general, it causes the gradual deterioration of our body and, with many decompensated values, a general situation of malaise. Cortisol affects the physiology of both men and women but in women, the effect on sex hormones is more accentuated and the feeling of low efficiency that it causes is more evident. When cortisol remains elevated for too long, a progesterone deficiency is created in the woman causing an estrogenic predominance, and this causes the estrogens to activate strong retention of liquids and the accumulation of fats, especially in the areas predestined for natural accumulations, therefore, belly, hips, thighs and buttocks. Finally, cortisol contributes to generate stress and anxiety, which means that if we are in a difficult and stressful situation, we enter a vicious circle whereby stress causes the production of cortisol, and cortisol increases the sensation of stress. Now, if on one hand, we are unlikely to be able to eliminate the stressful situations of our life in the immediate, on the other hand, we are in a position to eliminate the harmful effects of cortisol excess.

Limiting in a natural, simple, immediate, and not invasive way the excessive presence of cortisol is sufficient a minimum of physical activity, nothing else. Too good to be true? No, it's very easy to get rid of cortisol excess. If you are already a very sporty person, you have probably heard of cortisol because it interferes with the most intensive fitness. I could scream like a crazy person, but what is that going to do? My promise to Amanda was to help every child and family, and while anger may sometimes give me energy, I can't let it rule my psyche. I go into hospitals and hold moms' hands. I'm the mom that hospitals call to tell me a mother is about to lose her child. That's when I show up, no questions asked. God gives me the strength of words in that moment for the special mom, and dad, too, of course. It's not my background but for some reason, I find words of encouragement. You have to have some sort of empathy for it to be a soulful connection. It helps when a parent looks into my eyes and knows that I know. I deeply appreciate those moments because I'm the take-a-deep-breath person. I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us. That remark led Frankl to think about his wife, Tilly, who had been sent to a different concentration camp. Frankl did not know where she was or even if she was alive, but he held the thought of her in his mind that morning, and this brought him hope. I heard her answering me, he recalled later; Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise. Then Frankl had an epiphany.

On that cold and grim march, with nothing except the warm memory of Tilly to bring him comfort, he realized that he understood the meaning of life. For the first time in my life, he explained, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. That truth, he writes, was that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. After I experienced the ecstatic and physically painful state of what I would call divine love, I don't really know why I didn't stop then. It was as if Grace, or some sort of extraordinary powerful loving force, propelled me to continue fear chasing. I am glad that it did. The continued chase underscored what the desert experience had shown: that the internal circumstances of the will to surrender opened the space for divine love. BREAKING UP WITH SUFFERING How committed are you to being in emotional pain? I remember how committed I used to be to my suffering. How the anxiety and fear I experienced somehow made me who I was and identified me as a thoughtful person. Nobody was going to shake me from that place until I was ready to leave it. I had to challenge my fears when I was ready. If you are a moderately sporty person you will not have this problem because your physical activity will already be enough to keep cortisol under control, but if you are a person who does not tend to engage in any type of physical activity you will be suffering from the typical effects of chronic excess of this hormone. In order to solve this problem it is not necessary to do great physical activities, a few minutes a day of aerobic activity are enough and if you are not a fan of running or gyms, it is not necessary to change your lifestyle at all. It is sufficient enough to walk quickly (quickly. It's important to remark, it has to be a daily activity but it's still a very minimal effort that any of us can make to obtain real and great benefits. The reaction of the body is immediate and every one of us can easily feel it. We can feel it even more clearly when we stop our routine suddenly.

It is so commonly accepted that in some stressful jobs, some kind of daily physical activity is almost mandatory, and the companies invest relevant amounts of money to build gyms, squash corners or rooms for yoga and other aerobics activities. It is not a casualty; And they also know how effective the aerobic activity is to control those negative effects of cortisol. The Physiology Behind the Feeling of Being Stuck It's nothing I need to say. When someone is going through hell and back, like a hurricane that happens randomly without any preparation, you may think you're good, but then you're not, and you need someone who knows the territory. You have to reinvent yourself. A new you definitely emerges. I am not the same woman I once was. I'm new, even from a week ago. I go through these experiences with families I connect with, and I have different conversations with moms and dads and siblings, depending on their personalities and backgrounds. One dad I met was not doing well, and I remember just grabbing him and holding him firmly. He was a successful CEO, but nothing can prepare you for seeing your child in such pain. Breathe, I told him. As he turned these thoughts over in his mind, an ugly scene unfolded before him. An inmate had tripped and fallen, leading other inmates to fall like dominoes behind him. A Nazi guard ran over and started whipping them. But not even this image of cruelty, nor any other horror he had experienced up to that point or would experience before he was finally freed, could shake the faith he now had that the meaning of life lay in love. I understood, he wrote, how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way--an honorable way--in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.

For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words `The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory. Love, of course, is at the center of the meaningful life. Love cuts through each of the pillars of meaning and comes up again and again in the stories of those I have written about. Think of when the SCA members organized a fundraiser for their sick friend. I wasn't ready until I had finally had enough suffering. I wasn't ready for that shift until my identity shattered. In a very real way, I, as an identity or personality, had nothing to do with the shift. So, I go about my moments, listening to others' stories of their suffering and joy. I listen with the intent to really hear them. I offer love, hope, truth, and light. Some want it, some don't. Trust that those who are ready to hear some piece of what you have to say will be able to digest the words at some point, on some level, and through their unique angle. The truth is always found underneath and inside of that which is often not noticed. Because you are distracted by the illusion that fear is a barrier. Sometimes we would like to change, take initiatives, jump into new situations but we feel paralyzed. We all, sooner or later, experience the sensation of being paralyzed or in front of a situation that frightens us or in front of a difficult decision in which it seems that our body stops reacting and gets stuck. Sometimes, it is translated into the inability to respond during an aggressive discussion, the typical situation in which ten minutes later we know exactly what we should have said but at the moment we only felt a block that prevented us from responding as we would have liked. Other times we feel that our muscles also block and prevent us from reacting properly. In cases of very high stress or fright, this feeling can even lead us to faint. The physiology behind all these sensations and behaviors is always the same one and is regulated by our most ancient nerve centers, the ones we share today with the rest of animals.