The Love and Light Net by Sacred Spiral Services

Thanks to Family Well-Being for the following article:

The energy drinks that seem to fill the coolers of every convenience store and checkout line carry more risks than what we’ve been led to believe. Experts have been cautioning teens and other adults for years against stoking up on multiple cans of the stuff before sporting events, for instance, because it can actually increase the risk of dehydration and contribute to an elevated heart rate even before exercise begins.

Now new studies suggest that the drinks’ caffeine boost can do even more damage to people with high blood pressure — as well as those who mix buzz juice with booze.

Johns Hopkins professor of behavioral biology Roland Griffiths, PhD, agrees. Griffiths has been studying the effect of caffeine on the body for many years, and he says the stimulant is the most widely used mood-altering drug in the world.

Griffiths says energy drink consumers are being misled by advertising for the products.

“The ads give people the idea that they are getting a cocktail of various ingredients fine-tuned to synergistically enhance energy,” he says. “As far as I can tell, this is bogus. The effects of these drinks are largely due to the presence of added caffeine, and the magnitude of the effect is completely caffeine-dose dependent.”

The first study was presented Tuesday before the American Heart Association’s annual scientific meeting in Orlando, Fla.

In fact, while the drinks are often marketed around images of extreme-sports competitions, marathons or study days, researchers are finding that many high-school and college students are using the energy drinks to keep them awake for longer alcoholic binges.

Another study shows that college students who drink booze mixed with energy drinks are twice as likely to be hurt or injured than those who did their drinking without the aid of the boosters.

This was among the findings of Wake Forest University researchers that were presented to the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting in Washington this week.

The Wake Forest team also found that those students who mix are twice as likely to require medical attention or to ride with an intoxicated driver than students who just drank alcohol.

Additionally, those who mixed energy and alcoholic drinks were more than twice as likely to take advantage of someone else sexually, and almost twice as likely to be taken advantage of, according to the study. It was based on a Web survey of nearly 4,300 college students from 10 universities.

“We knew, from speaking with students and researching blogs and Web sites, that college students mix these drinks and alcohol in order to drink more and to drink longer,” said Dr. Mary Claire O’Brien, an associate professor of emergency medicine who led the study.

“But we were surprised that the risk of serious and potentially deadly consequences is so much higher for those who mixed energy drinks with alcohol, even when we adjusted for the amount of alcohol.”

Just as the time-honored practice of pouring coffee into an inebriated partygoer produces a “wide-awake drunk,” O’Brien says younger party goers may not realize how impaired they are because of the stimulant effect.

“Only the symptoms of drunkenness are reduced, but not the drunkenness. They can’t tell if they’re drunk and they can’t tell if someone else is drunk. So they get hurt, or they hurt someone else.”

For more on this see: “Energy Drinks: What the new studies tell us” from Scripps. For more on the truth about what caffeine really can do to you (and your student/children), see: “Caffeine Fuels Most Energy Drinks” from WebMD.

And if you’d like some REAL, naturally created energy, check out…

The Ultimate Energy Starter Kit

Until the end of March, if you decide to purchase this kit after checking it out, you’ll be entitled to one FREE phone session on what’s draining YOUR energy and, more importantly, how to recover and increase what you’ve been losing.  You must contact me by email (E.Kratka@sbcglobal.net) after you purchase to let me know you’d like to take advantage of this special, time-limited offer.

Also take a look at The Feast  an honest-to-goodness energy drink, made from a slew of fruits and vegetables and other good things.

And you may want to educate yourself about what types of health products really nourish (build energy) and which ones merely stimulate (ultimately sapping energy and life force).  Click on this link:  Wellness Lecture  and use the password: E.Kratka@sbcglobal.net.

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In my type of work, spiritual coaching and healing, I have to be aware of and address many core beliefs that people hold, especially the ones that tend to limit them in some way, like by creating disease or emotional suffering.

So the experience – or perception – of betrayal is something I come across a lot.

I’ve always thought that betrayal is about a violation of trust. You trust someone to give you love, to be there for you, to look out for you, to be loyal to you, and then suddenly they stop doing it. Voila, you’ve been betrayed.

To heal this perception requires understanding that there was actually a deficiency of trust in the first place, not of the person who betrayed you, but rather of yourself, which manifests as (rather than being created by) someone else pulling the rug out from under you. Another case of “It’s all done with mirrors.”

Recently, however, I came across another definition of betrayal, which really made me stop and think, and that for me has brought the kind of depth to working with this issue that invariably leads to spiritual growth – for my clients and myself.  So I’ve decided to share it with you.

The new definition is this:

A person betrays when s/he refuses to accept a gift.

Like you (I imagine) I had to stop and re-read it and think about it. A person betrays me AND, more importantly, him/herself, not if s/he refuse to GIVE me what I want, but rather and ONLY if s/he REFUSES what I choose to give him/her.

Kind of mind-boggling (and counter-intuitive), isn’t it?

If this is true, then WHY is it true? And how do I now think about the other acts – the ones I’ve been calling betrayal?

Here’s what I’ve come to. Please remember – as always – that whatever I say is true for me, and not necessarily true for you. Take what you like and leave the rest. And feel free to leave your comments below with your own truths!

In the definition given above are embedded several fundamental Truths.  (I’ve capitalized the word here because I believe these are spiritual laws.)

1. The universe is made of love.  And God/Goddess – Spirit – Universal Consciousness or Source (whatever name works for you) wants us – as extensions of itself – to experience this love all the time.

2. We cannot destroy or diminish this Divine love in any way.  We can, however, because we have free will, impede its flow, by forgetting that we are made of it and have access to it in infinite supply or in some other way convincing ourselves of the opposite of this.

3. We have everything we need at all times (this is probably a corollary of 2.)  To believe otherwise – like that we have lost something essential – is to believe in an illusion, albeit a powerful one.

So…

If no one can take anything away from us, because in Reality we always have everything we need, then no one can betray us by taking anything away from us.  (Remember, we’re speaking spiritually here, and spiritual needs are at the root of all others.) We remain connected to one another and to the Source of all our good ALWAYS.  As eternal threads in the Divine tapestry of life, light and love, no one and nothing is ever really gone or destroyed.

So, what DOES constitute betrayal?

Well, if Spirit wants us to accept the greatest gift of all – Divine Love – of which all others gifts are extensions and reflections, then a giver is doing God’s will, and so is the receiver, since to receive is an equally important experience that Spirit wishes to have through us.  Therefore, to refuse a gift is to deny and betray ourselves, the giver and Spirit itself – since in Reality we are all One – by impeding the flow of Love.

You may find this definition challenging.  Take your time in working with it; feel the emotions that come up; allow yourself to work with and gently release the judgments and imprints you may have about what I have written here.  I believe it will be well worth your while because this new way of looking at betrayal can empower you, set you free and help you open to receive Love in unending supply .

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