Assembly Bill 354: Recent Vaccination Law for California

California’s Assembly Bill 354 states that beginning July 1, 2011, all seventh through twelfth grade students must have had the pertussis shot with all appropriate boosters. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has decided that the original series of pertussis shots loose potency between five and ten years after being administered; therefore, a booster is necessary. According to this bill, in 2005 a pertussis booster was licensed in the U.S. in the form of a Tdap vaccination specifically intended for teens and adults. Not only were threatening flyers sent to the parents of at least one LAUSD school warning them to give the booster to their tweens and teens or else, but the whole bill seems to be an attempt to manipulate parents because there is a lack of proof of the booster’s efficacy during an actual pertussis outbreak.

The memo that went out to all public and private school’s administrators from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) indicates that if children received the Tdap vaccine after their seventh birthday, they would not need a booster. Administrators also were asked to post information from the CDPH’s memo for families to read and to become informed. The information asked to be sent to families was as follows:

Pertussis is widespread. If your child is 10 years and older has not yet receivedthe ‘Tdap’ pertussis booster shot, please contact your doctor or health department. Getting a booster shot now will protect your child against the ongoing threat of pertussis and meet a new school requirement that begins in the 2011-2012 school year (California law ─ Assembly Bill 354). Adults are also advised to get a pertussis booster shot, if they haven’t already, to protect themselves, their families, and their students.

The information memo sent to administrators from the CDPH also states, after the first paragraph, that parents can exempt their children from taking the booster “for verified medical conditions or personal beliefs.” Despite the offering of an exemption, at least one middle school in LAUSD sent the information about the new requirements in a very threatening manner. In no place, not even in the most minute print, did this flyer sent to parents state that a waiver for exemption would be accepted. This flyer says, “For the 2011-12 school year all students entering or advancing to 7^th through 12^th grade will need proof of the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) booster shot before entering school,” followed by information on where to obtain a shot. The flyer then states, “You must present written evidence to the school from your physician or clinic that your child has received the Tdap booster before THE FIRST DAY OF THE 2011-12 SCHOOL YEAR or your child will be EXCLUDED FROM SCHOOL ATTENDANCE.” The CDPH had made all the information about the new law of September 30, 2010, Assembly Bill 354, available to the administrators, yet this school never mentioned the law by name in the flyer that went out to parents. From the parent’s point of view, this could have been simply a school requirement. These parents also were not informed about their right to refuse the vaccination, as was clearly stated on the CDPH’s memo to the school’s administrators. Please be aware that certain states do allow parents to sign a waiver refusing vaccinations for children due to the beliefs of the parents. Get informed. Do not be bullied by administrators and school nurses.

The California Department of Public Health wants every child in California to dose up with Tdap, asserting all the while that the shot “will protect your child against the ongoing threat of pertussis.” This recommendation is made despite the last sentence in “Chapter 10: Pertussis” of the Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (VPD) Surveillance Manual 4th Edition which states, “The efficacy of Tdap vaccination in controlling school or institutional outbreaks has not been evaluated.” This Tdap booster shot was manufactured in 2005. For its part, the CDC uses an information collection form to document vaccination history, doses, dates of doses, etc., of all patients identified as having pertussis, as mentioned in the VPD Surveillance Manual 4^th Edition. Consequently, the CDC does have all the facts as to whether this booster has worked so far or not because right in front of their eyes they can see if this child had the booster and when. If the booster has in fact not been given to any suffers of pertussis, the CDC are easily privy to that information and can state that the reason they cannot evaluate the efficacy of the booster is because all the sufferers had not had the shot. If the truth is there were some tweens and teens with pertussis who had received the booster, then it would be understood why they would wish to keep that quiet; nevertheless, the CDC could still evaluate the booster’s efficacy. If all the kids who have had the booster did not get pertussis when others in their school did, that too could lend credibility to the booster’s efficacy. The information could very easily have been gathered by various school nurses where at least one child was reported as suffering from pertussis. Surely, after six years, some report on the actual effectiveness of the pertussis booster is available for the CDC and the public to evaluate. If not, why has the use of something not thoroughly evaluated for its effectiveness been made into a law?

The CDC’s National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System states that since the 1980’s, pertussis cases have been slowly increasing amongst teens. They further state that possibilities for the increase could be due to more cases of pertussis, or quite possibly to better detecting and reporting of the disease. Nevertheless, the CDC feels the booster is important.

According to a CDC article titled “Outbreaks,” ten infant deaths occurred in California in 2010 from pertussis, and 9 out of 10 of the infants were of Latin background. Details from an investigation surrounding these 10 would be very interesting, especially in regard to the people around the infants and their vaccination histories. One of the babies had the first dose of the pertussis vaccination just 15 days before he died of pertussis, and most of these babies were younger than 3 months. Because of the recent outbreak, the CDC recommends an accelerated immunization schedule for infants, and the CDC encourages the booster shot for individuals who are around babies. The updated regulations state that the first pertussis shot is to be given when the baby is just six weeks old, with one shot to follow every four weeks until five have been given.

The 2004 outbreak of pertussis was not nearly as widespread as the 2010-2011 outbreak. Looking at one group of children who were documented as having pertussis from October 2003 through December 2004, we can see that there really was not much difference between the numbers in the not vaccinated group, the not vaccinated sufficiently group, and the vaccinated sufficiently group, using 2004 criteria of three doses. Of the 115 children documented on a chart, 10 had no known vaccination history. Looking at the 105 remaining, 23 were unvaccinated, 37 were not vaccinated sufficiently, and 45 were vaccinated sufficiently. The surveillance paper states, “Cases among infants younger than six months of age are not preventable by vaccination because these infants are too young to have received three doses of pertussis vaccine, the minimum needed to confer protection.” Of these 105 children, 31 with a known vaccination history were infants, all with insufficient vaccination histories due to their age. The CDC has since increased the required number of shots to five, plus the booster around 10-11 years of age. By the way, 12 of these kids had received five doses. Perhaps the CDC could look for the vulnerability of diseases elsewhere, such as consumption of too much junk food, extreme stress levels,insufficient sleep…and too many vaccinations.

Interestingly, the Immunization Branch of the Communicable Disease Control states that to satisfy this new law, tweens and teens only need to have the pertussis shot, even though a vaccine just for pertussis (without being in cocktail form) is not available in the U.S. In short, by making pertussis vaccination a requirement, this age group is forced to receive the tetanus and diphtheria vaccinations as well.

Parents are cautioned to research the issue and CDC findings, so they can make an informed decision on this matter.

For more information, Please read Dr. Allsup’s article, “Alert-Assembly Bill 354 Passes” at www.naturalnews.com (May 26) and visit www.nvic.org.

References:

Notification “Tdap Immunization Due” flyer on file with author from a CA LAUSD school.

ftp://leginfo.public.ca.gov/.../bill/.../ab.../ab_354_cfa_20100817_190745_ sen_floor.html

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5503al.htm

www.cdc.gov/osels/ph_surveillance/nndss/annsum/2008/08graphs.htm, #41, #42

www.cdc.gov/pertussis/outbreaks.html

www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Documents/EarlyAlertToSchools-AB354.pdf

www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/immunize/Documents/Pertussis%20report%209- 14-2010%20- %20For%20Release.pdf

The Routine Use of the Vitamin K Shot

The Vitamin K shot is routinely given to a newborn proactively to promote blood coagulation in the event that the newborn experiences bleeding. Babies are placed in harm’s way by the mother’s choices to use anesthesia and antibiotics, particularly since spinal anesthesia at the birth, antibiotic use by the mother during pregnancy, and a traumatic birth are all believed to contribute to a newborn’s bleeding. Assessing a baby’s needs on an individual basis may avoid the unnecessary use of the Vitamin K shot on a newborn.

Spinal anesthesia given to a laboring mother-to-be can cause hemorrhage in the newborn. At the very least, an expectant mother could ask to read the paperwork that comes with a drug like bupivicaine long before labor to ascertain if she really wants to subject her fetus to the possible side effects. After all, reading the insert of the actual product a doctor may administer is truly informed consent. Because education and training could achieve a different outcome, perhaps weekly Bradley Method classes for expectant parents would help ensure a drugless birthing process. The Bradley Method supports active participation in the birthing process for home or hospital births and can help the father-to-be feel competent and supportive, thus helping the mother to avoid drugs, and possibly helping the baby to avoid needing the Vitamin K shot.

When a woman gives birth in her home environment where her body is familiar with the local germs, there is definitely a reduced need for antibiotics compared with that of a hospital, especially when the circulating air and the laundry (her hospital bed sheets being washed with all manner of germy bed sheets) are taken into consideration. In birthing at home or in a birthing clinic, precautions involving sterilization and cleanliness will be put into place with the support of the midwife. Possibly before conceiving, the mother-to-be can research the many valuable drug-free solutions to various maladies, so ideas can be easily put into practice should the need for a “medicine” arise during pregnancy.

Since Vitamin K is produced by beneficial bacteria, antibiotic use by the mother can lead directly to newborn bleeding because it lowers her beneficial bacteria count, which some researchers feel is unfortunate for the fetus in two ways. First, being exposed to the mother’s bacteria-laden feces at birth may help the baby’s intestinal flora to make Vitamin K. Also, according to some experts, the mom’s antibiotic use will lower the baby’s intestinal flora via the antibiotic’s crossing the placenta. Babies reportedly make two clotting factors close to their due date, right before birth. Vitamin K acts in the liver and, unfortunately, while the child is still connected to the mother, the baby’s liver’s ability to produce blood clotting factors is inhibited by the delivering mother’s antibiotic use. With no maternal antibiotic use, the newborn’s need for the Vitamin K shot is greatly reduced.

To be sure, the births that take place in hospitals are more violent, since labor often has to be started again once the mother-to-be arrives, and the environment is very controlled, with the mother being hooked up to machines and gadgets. As a result, forceps, suction, C-sections, and premature clamping of the umbilicus occur at a higher frequency in hospital settings, and these procedures may lead to internal bleeding in the newborn.

Prevention is not always routinely administering something in order to possibly stop something bad from happening. It’s analyzing why something bad may occur in the first place and not allowing it to happen. If a newborn’s needs were assessed on an individual basis, the routine and unnecessary use of this shot may be avoided.

Sources:

http:/thebabybond.com/vitaminKinjectORnot.html

http://onlinehealthnews.org/2009

http:/www.netdoctor.co.uk/medicine/100001609.html

http://venturabirthcenter.net

www.bradleybirth.com

www.gentlebirth.org/archives/vitktop.html#Controversy

www.vitamin-insight.com/vitamins/vitamin-k.aspx

Raw & Untreated Foods for Life!

According to…Aajonus Vonderplanitz in We Want to Live: The Primal Diet, “Although there have been thousands of testimonials for the healthy benefits of raw dairy and there has not been one case of disease or illness as a result of certified raw dairy in California, California health officials still try regularly to outlaw raw dairy and deprive the people” (128). The government requested the raw dairy enterprises “to put a warning label on their products” (128). Warning labels can startle people, turning them away from purchasing products (128). Vonderplanitz, a nutritionist who has a lot of experience with early poor health and the effects of foods and treatments on his health writes, “Health conscious people who are fully aware of the benefits of raw dairy in California have had to fight hard and long over the years to maintain their right of choice. ‘Health’ officials allow people the choice of cigarettes and alcohol which have been proved harmful, why not allow us the healthful choice of fresh raw dairy?” (128) The push for warning labels is a little suspect, because the government continues to allow harmful items to be sold, so why the push to stop raw unpasteurized products? Could it be because raw fats actually help the body to heal itself and Big Pharma couldn’t benefit if the public seeks healthful products? Vonderplanitz feels that our we would be drawn to nourishing, non-toxic foods except that our sense of taste has been altered by the effect of cooked fats on our system and the unavailability of whole foods (171).

One way our tastes for foods have been altered is through constantly ingesting foods that have been altered from their original flavor. Raw butter and drug-free, hormone-free, free-roaming, organic chickens are just two examples. If you grew up on pasteurized butter and try raw butter, you may think them two completely different products. It’s hard to believe that the butter your great-great grandmother churned is so different from what you place on your table today. The taste of a chicken raised by that same great-great grandmother might have also had a different taste from the chicken you have been purchasing cheaply in that supermarket for years. How did we ever get off track with our food?

Firstly, raw products have been slandered by the media and people believe what they are told to believe, especially if everyone else seems to believe it. Secondly, given the difficulty involved with finding raw products and the expense, many consumers reach for cheap animal products, which often contain hormones and drugs, as well as, heated, treated, unnatural products. The media and doctors robotically slander raw foods and promote cooked foods as well, adding to a person’s fear to stay within the norm and to do what everyone else considers the right thing to do.

Looking around you at the people you know who visit an allopathic doctor on a regular basis, would you say they are healthy, confident, outgoing people? Vonderplanitz would call that luck, for he likens a visit to an allopathic doctor like playing the state lottery. He writes, “A handful of people will benefit and millions lose. Regardless, the medical business gets rich. That’s just the way it is. Our society makes too many choices based on economics” (79). Doctors constantly lead their patients away from raw foods ─ like unpasteurized milk and butter ─ and toward the so-called quick cures (drugs) they wish to dispense. “It will give you a yeast infection, but at least you won’t have the staph infection,” a doctor once said to me, handing me an antibiotic prescription. If I had filled that prescription instead of taking care of the staph infection in other ways, then I, just like other patients, would have shown up with new ailments and the doctor would’ve been able to get rich dispensing even more drugs.

Evaluating drugs, one can plainly see that raw foods don’t need the bad rap ─ drugs do. Vonderplanitz points out how drugs are tested on individual cells free of a body; therefore, tests are inefficient because cells behave differently within a body (129). Scientists are making their claims when their tests are completely unrelated to a thinking, breathing, human subject! Cells are not machines, even though science treats them as if they are machines that “repeat exactly the same movements and functions” (129). Side effects with raw food, unlike commercially sold drugs, are very rare (129).

Raw foods do not alter your DNA (unless GMO’s are involved.) Yet, as Vonderplanitz says, “Every drug alters the genetic structure or weakens the DNA and RNA of some young cells” (336). Vonderplanitz could make a list of drugs and what they do in the body. He goes onto assert, “Chemicals, like the compounds in aspirin, turn some cells into cement. It is sometimes impossible to dissolve those cells to removable substances” (241). Vonderplanitz says that penicillin stores in joints, “especially of hands and feet” (156). He feels that itchy, peeling skin from a fungus is actually the body ridding itself of molds caused by antibiotics or another medication used in the past (156). On top of all of that, doctors are administering drugs and other harmful treatments without disclosing the full effects that the treatments can do to the body. Vonderplanitz recalls when he was young and facing health problems “the doctors didn’t tell me that the therapies would kill much more of me than would any cancer” (24). Chemicals from drugs are not the only security Big Pharma has that you will be in poor health. The chemicals in your food that have been approved by the FDA and the fact that cooking food is promoted are also financial security for them.

“Bacterial food-poisoning that causes disease is caused by cooked or processed food,” says Vonderplanitz on food contamination (229). He adds, “The belief that raw food causes bacterial food-poisoning is nonscientific myth and hysteria. All epidemic food-poisoning that has occurred was caused by bacteria feeding on cooked food. The bacteria feeding on cooked and/or chemically treated food develops disease and mutants. The mutant/diseased bacteria excrete volatile toxins that cause poisoning that result in vomit and/or diarrhea and intestinal damage, including decay” (229-230). The bacteria that feeds on prepared, non-organic foods “are likely to turn pathogenic. E. coli feeds rapidly on frozen meat but is not dangerous if eaten raw” (230). Vonderplanitz feels that if someone vomits after consuming raw meat it is most likely because the body experienced a quick release of toxins from organs like the liver or pancreas, so the body needed to evacuate the toxins as quickly as possible since they’re harmful when not held by the body (230). He writes, “Fresh raw meat promotes cellular reproduction, good health and vitality” (96). Raw meats may be too much of a stretch for some. Raw fats are available in less drastic forms, such as avocados and raw coconut milk, but they may not be as powerful in promoting cellular regeneration as raw meat. Remember, Vonderplanitz asserts that disease can come from exposing meat to temperatures that will cook it, releasing “the toxins from the fat” to then be stored in the body (145).

On the toxic quality of the average animal raised to be food, Vonderplanitz says, “Most toxins store in glands, some organs and bone marrow because of the concentration of fats in glands, bone marrow, and some organs” (144). It’s best not to ingest meat from these parts of the animal “unless they are from organically grown animals raised without injections and without deworming medication. Fresh muscle meat ─ steaks and ground ─ are okay, even if you buy them at regular markets, as long as they don’t add coloring and you don’t cook them” (144-5).

Some vegetarians may be shocked to hear that healthy, organic choices may turn harmful by the cooking process. Vonderplanitz says, for example, that cooked potato skins should not be consumed, because of the “toxic resins and concentrated residue” that can be created (184). He advises avoiding cooked greens and eating raw greens “to help eliminate stored resins and residues caused by eating cooked greens” (314). Sinus issues may, in fact, stem from your body not being able to handle eating cooked red-colored fruits or vegetables and/or eating yellow cooked foods, with the mucous being employed in an attempt to detoxify the body (308). Stopping the ingestion of such cooked foods may halt the build-up of “cooked resins and residues, reducing damage from detoxifying through the nasal passages” (308). Naturally, Vonderplanitz recommends ingesting “raw red and raw yellow fruits and vegetables, including juices” for nasal relief (308). A plethora of enzymes, vitamins and minerals are within raw, uncooked foods, offering “optimal digestion and functioning, and replaces expended nutrients, promoting excellent health” (170).

Vonderplanitz writes, “My research and experience has brought me to view cancer as a condition where the body no longer eliminates dead cells, for various reasons. So the malfunctioning body develops tumors, or catacombs, so to speak, and contains the dead cells within them” (148). It can just so happen that a person can stop “mutating normal cells into cancer cells during and after radiation or chemotherapy” (148). Vonderpalnitz sees cancer as a form of raw fat deficiency (148). Cholesterol that the body can utilize to grab toxins to escort them out of the body is lacking (148).

Vonderplanitz recommends raw eggs with unheated honey and raw, unsalted butter “with either an orange or a banana” for colds, flu and allergies for detoxification (155-6). He goes on to explain, “It cleanses and binds with the toxins that cause symptoms” (156). Vonderplanitz says, “I have found that all sickness is rooted in malnutrition, pollution and the accumulation of toxins. This includes allergy-related conditions and genetic disease” (171). Toxins can accumulate and cause you to have memory loss (288). Organic raw raspberries with coconut cream, raw unsalted butter, raw cream and unheated honey can help to remove aluminum, a key factor for maintaining health, from the body (288). He adds, “If we don’t take responsibility and care for our individual health, how can we have more than limited abilities, limited happiness and limited control over our lives” (170)?

For more information please read We Want to Live: the Primal Diet by Aajonus Vonderplanitz.

Sage Advice for a Stress-free Life

“I do not worry about what will happen, only what needs to be done.”

- character Luscious Hart in The Village

According to…Carnelian Sage in her little book The Greatest Manifestation Principle in the World, if a person’s behavior epitomizes a stressful, angry reaction to all life has to offer, it doesn’t matter how many times he or she affirms a new, ideal situation or visualizes the physical item longed for. Affirming a change in personality, for instance, while roaring at the world will not help manifest the desire because as Sage says, “Every thought, action, decision or feeling creates a vortex of interconnected, dynamic energy fields of life that leave a permanent record for all time” (41-2). Life is responding to that “permanent record,” not to the new desire for which a person is affirming. You are also responding to that “permanent record,” so perhaps the answer to less stress can begin with some emotional and mental housecleaning.

The best tool in your anti-stress arsenal is love, but what exactly is love? Sage says, “Love is a state of being not a state of feeling. It goes well beyond the realm of the emotions. It’s an attitude of benevolence and kindness towards all creation, including one’s self, at all times and under all circumstances” (67). Sage further describes love by saying, “Any endeavor that employs the magnetism of love MUST necessarily manifest because love’s frequency is a vibrational match to that of God, who is the architect of all creation” (67). Detach yourself from a state of wanting (56).

Not only are our limiting thoughts working within us, but even the so-called positive thoughts may be tainted by a needy, lower vibration. Sage explains, “You see, positive thoughts and feelings are not all created equal. Just thinking of something pleasurable or delightful creates vibrations of a lower frequency than love because those thoughts and feelings are self-oriented (receiving) whereas love is outwardly-oriented (giving)” (86). Sage speaks of an energy field “that surrounds and permeates all things, embodying all existence, both seen and unseen” (4). No matter how you name this source, it is this energy field to which Sage refers when she writes, “It is when you transcend your ego, let go of your desires, and stay in harmony with this field, that your desires can and MUST necessarily manifest into existence” (6). After all, “Positive thoughts and feelings mean very little unless you can make it a habit to focus on them frequently throughout the day” (46). Perhaps there is too much emphasis on positive and negative, but basically, if you are walking around saying, “I won’t yell at my kid,” or “I’ll try not to argue with my spouse,” clearly an approach in harmony with Love would be more effective. It is less stressful if, when facing your stressor, you can take responsibility for what you are bringing to the situation.

Stress won’t be able to accompany an event if the event isn’t negatively judged because you will remain connected to the energy field (119). To illustrate, if you are meeting with someone in whose presence you always feel powerless and bullied, standing in the vibration of the all-encompassing Love and know ahead of time what you will and will not allow can reduce stress. Sage advises, “Instead of preoccupying yourself with the event, person or situation that your ego has perceived as being the cause of your negative emotional state, separate yourself from your ego and realize that you are the spectator of the thinking” (128). Listen with Love, knowing that it’s safe to say no if you’re uncertain about your present course of action. Acknowledge yourself for making the right decisions and examine emotions that may surface. Noticing if you’re judging your actions rather than discerning that you have a right to say no, for example, may help you stand up for yourself without guilt. After all, as Sage states, “The source of the disappointment stems from the way you see things and label things. With constant surrender, however, virtually all things that you regard as undesirable ─ including illness, lack, hostility, heartbreak and other challenging issues vanish ─ and your life becomes transformed” (119).

If people could stop and ask themselves, “How can I bring love to this interaction?” manifesting desires would be successful, though perhaps not with the outcome at first expected (68, 71). With Love, Sage says, “You’re simply envisioning something that’s already real in the energy field” (56) Sage’s definition of love “is a way for you to be ─ as opposed to merely a way for you to act, look or behave” (80). Sage reminds us, “You can find beauty and love in yourself by moving yourself into the field of awareness that you are love” (116). A bonus is that peace accompanies love (116). Remember, “Love is not just something you do. It’s what you are” (93).

Surrender is allowing a moment to flow without trying to manipulate it, to please others, or to force something to happen. Surrender can help you have a stress-free life. If what you want in life is more time to read and broaden your horizons, then writing down a description of where you want that reading to take place may help to organize your thoughts on creating the possibility. For example, I wrote down what I wanted my future job to look like and one stipulation was that I would have opportunities to read. I ended up becoming a sign language interpreter who reads whenever my clients are busy working. I was doubly blessed because I was either doing what I loved to do, interpreting, or doing what I loved to do, reading. My point is that I was clear about my goal and had no doubt that it would manifest, but I maintained detachment about the particulars of when or how it would be realized. As Sage writes, “In order to get what you want in life you have to let go of wanting it in the first place” (52). It requires surrendering “your desire to the divine” and “what you get is infinitely better than what you desired in the first place” (53). Concerning my initial goal to acquire a job that allowed ample opportunity to read, as an interpreter I am able to use the built in down time to conduct research for a book I am writing.

How does the business of manifesting work? Sage says, “The manifestation of desires is directly in proportion to your connection with the energy field” (54). The energy field thus will mirror back to you the connection you have with it. Sage writes, “The circumstances in your life are the energy field’s response to your communication.” The first step may be to observe occurrences in your life. Do you always seem to have the same kind of boy/girlfriend, boss, job, teacher, or car problems? Awareness is always a nice part of diagnosing stress levels. Next, if you want some firsthand tangible proof of life manifesting your desires, do an experiment. Visualize something in great detail. Perhaps draw it or write a description. Focus on seeing it come into your life like feel that something in your hand, or picture yourself stroking it, and then let the whole matter go.

I once did this with a clown. First, I imagined the most perfect clown and visualized every about it. Second, I envisioned it facing me, waving. Lastly, I let the whole thing go. Soon afterward, I heard an analogy about clowns on the radio, and someone else mentioned having a huge foot and having their shoe looking like a clown’s shoe. It was at this point that I mentally acknowledged that my clown had started to manifest in my life. I visualized the clown again, and let it go again.

Shortly thereafter, I started seeing a flurry of clowns. Millions of small clown figures were in a store window I happened to peak into, students made mistakes by accidentally signing in American Sign Language, “clown,” “circus,” and someone commented about their home being a circus.

I knew I was getting closer on the day a woman entered a room wearing a purple shirt with a clown on it, the clown being dressed in red polka dots. It was a very close approximation to the clown I had envisioned and after acknowledging that, I let it go again. Amazingly, later on that day while entering the freeway entrance, a car illegally passed me on my right and got in front of me. In its back window, I saw my clown in the form of a small figurine, right hand up, waving at me.

If we are this powerful, then surely we can find a way to surrender in life enough not to effect our blood pressure and bodily functions with too much stress and anxiety. Sage says, “You can take anything you desire from formless to concrete expression simply by reconnecting with this [source energy] field” (5). When a person realigns him or herself with this field, she writes, “All things are possible” (6).

Sage feels that a desire’s opposite will also be established just by having the desire, which she calls “the positionality of duality” (53). In its simplest form, Sage describes this possitionality of duality by saying, “You cannot perceive wealth except against the background of poverty (or absence of wealth), nor can you perceive happiness except against the background of unhappiness” (53). To be clear about the magnification of feelings, Sage writes, “‘Wanting’ things reinforces a state of lack and keeps you in a state of wanting. Focusing on this brings you more lack.” (54). For instance, to illustrate, in visualizing the clown, there was no desire. I simply expected to see it; therefore, I didn’t create “the positionality of duality” and experienced no interference with the manifestation. Sage writes, “The effortless way to achieve your heart’s desire is to let go of your attachment to results, and focus on love instead” since “Love is a catalyst by which all good things happen (68). Sometimes what you envisioned will be surpassed by the something “infinitely better than that which you desired” in the first place (68).

Waiting for a desire to manifest is revealing a lack of trust. Sage says, “Questioning the status of the manifestation of your desires, you actually slow down the process of their fulfillment because you’ve allowed your ego to dictate a time frame” (47). The concern is that it sets up “resistance, instead of just allowing the universe (energy field) to bring your desires at the appropriate time” (47). A person’s ego is most likely not aware of the appropriate time for the manifestation to take place. Also, it’s not advisable to allow the ego to decide on how your desires should be manifested either (47). People may miss opportunities with their limited thinking (48).

Part of the problem with how we react to stress comes from our upbringing. Sage writes, “From the time we’re old enough to talk, our parents, society, and the world in general, train us to be results-oriented” (68). Success is evaluated by the results of our efforts (68). This not only can cause stress, it causes people to fall into the pit of being results-minded, failing to “activate the one thing ─ love ─ that gives wings to our desires” (69). We have learned that “actions cause results,” instead of learning surrendering in the “love” state causes results (69). Sage suggests, “The best thing to do is to let go of all experiences that you perceive to be undesirable or unfortunate, and trust instead in the higher providential (karma) order of things” (51-52). Keep yourself safe, change what is in your power to change, and inhabit the Love vibration.

Stress comes from wishing and hoping and forcing reality to be different than it is. If your to-do list is unrealistically long for the available time you have allowed, calmly tend to it by being in the moment with each task until you are either finished or out of time. Getting your adrenalin pumping and becoming angry won’t help the list to be finished any quicker. If you’re experiencing stress, then you’re not experiencing kindness to yourself, so following Sage’s train of thought, stress isn’t loving yourself…or her definition of love. “Love is the attitude of benevolence, reverence and kindness for all creation, including one’s self, at all times and under all circumstances” (93). Our bodies know when it’s time to stop working and to either move onto another task or to sleep, for instance. It’s stressful when there’s still so much homework to do, but no time left. Sometimes you just need to be in surrender over the outcome of grades on a report card, lack of job promotions, and/or rising costs. Know that they do not define you, and choose health. Sage reminds us, “When you consider that superior athletes are able to break through barriers of human possibility when motivated by love, so can you break through to the unimaginable, indescribable world where effortless creation is a way of life” (68).

In order to enjoy stress-free moments, all we need is to stand in the vibration of love.

To learn more about manifesting your desires, please read, The Greatest Manifestation Principle in the World: The Missing Secret Behind the Law of Attraction That Will Enable You to Finally Manifest Your Desires by Carnelian Sage.