Let Us Take Better Care of Ourselves
So we can take better care of the world.
Hi friend,
I hope this newsletter finds you well 🙂.
The Daily Wellness Empowerment Program
The DWEP is self-love made concrete. If you haven’t started the DWEP yet, the best way to do so is to print out your first DWEP Sheet and get going.
All of the practices in this program are do-it-yourself, simple, free, backed up by science, and holistically effective. And the good news is, you don’t have to do them all perfectly to see the benefits. I also still can’t DWEP (yes, it’s a verb now 😅) perfectly but the DWEP has truly been a blessing in my life and has made a remarkable difference in how I feel.
One thing I haven’t told you about the DWEP is that it is not just a framework that helps us adopt and track wellness habits but also a model that predicts how our actions affect how we feel.
The DWEP predicts that the more we go in its opposite direction, by
not training our attention,
being physically inactive,
eating a lot of animal and processed foods,
using cigarettes, alcohol, and other intoxicants,
lacking meaningful human connections,
spending time in a polluted environment,
living in distraction,
watching a lot of junk on tv and the internet,
not making use of regenerating movement, and
not getting enough sleep at night,
the more we increase our suffering.
And the more we go in the direction of the DWEP’s ten practices, namely,
Sitting meditation,
Hindu Squats and Hindu Pushups,
Whole Food Plant-Based Diet Before 7pm,
No Intoxicants,
Mindfulness,
Mental Nourishment,
Nature,
Meaningful Human Connections,
Arms Swinging, and
Bed By 10pm,
the more we bring healing and well-being into our life.
Like you, I love my freedom. I don’t want others to tell me what I can do or not do.
At the same time, I want to be informed of the predictable consequences of my actions, and I want to be supported in doing what I can to be at my best and live a more fulfilling, meaningful life. This is what the DWEP offers.
The DWEP is a science-based model for predicting how your daily actions impact your well-being. With the DWEP in your life, you won’t be surprised when your well-being goes down and you will know exactly what to do to bring it back up.
How cool is that?! 😇
There Is No Mental Health Without
In recent years, I have been studying the psychology of totalitarianism, and one of the experts I have found most inspiring is Ariane Bilheran, PhD. In one of her essays, which I have just translated, edited slightly, and shared on my channel with her generous permission, she explores the role of trauma experienced in the context of the rise of totalitarianism and two of the most powerful psychological mechanisms of trauma: dissociation and denial. She then offers gentle suggestions for how we can support someone we believe is in denial to safely come out of denial.
If you feel strong and would like to better understand the global human rights challenges we face, I recommend the new docuseries Never Again is Now Global produced by the amazing Vera Sharav, Holocaust survivor and human rights activist. Viewer discretion is advised, some scenes are really difficult to watch.
Coming Soon…
I hope you’ve been enjoying the content so far. I definitely enjoy producing it. I’m working on:
a book on advanced Buddhist meditation,
the DWEP video on mindfulness,
a video on courage,
a short cartoon with animals (maybe),
an interview on breath-based mindfulness (in French),
and more.
🙏💛
This newsletter is free and will remain free. It is 100% written by me. I only use AI to help me with the spelling, grammar, and word use. I welcome concrete and specific suggestions for improvement.
The #1 thing you can do to get started on this Mental Health Revolution is to print a Daily Wellness Empowerment Program (DWEP) Sheet and get going.