Happy Fourth of July

In honor of the Fourth of July, I'm going to go over a section of the book The Way to Happiness that I feel is applicable for today. This is the idea: "Support a Government Designed and Run for all the People".

Today we celebrate the independence of our nation. We celebrate an ability to make our own decisions and to elect our own government. This puts America in the unique position to create a better government, and thus a better world for us all. By supporting those aspects of the government that you feel are right, and shunning those you feel are wrong - or using the governmental systems to voice your concerns about such situation, you are supporting a government designed and run for all people.

I'll leave you with a quote from The Way to Happiness
"Doing nothing illegal, it is yet possible, by simply withdrawing one's cooperation, to bring about an eventual reform. Even as this is being written, there are several governments in the world that are failing only because their people express their silent disagreement by simply not cooperating.

"On the other hand, where a government is obviously working hard for ALL its people, rather than for some special interest group or insane dictator, one should support it to the limit."

How can we go about doing this? What do you feel should be supported in our current government? Let me know.

Q&A about Communication

The other day I got an email from one of the readers of this blog and I am posting it (the question) and my response (the answer) here. The names have been removed to protect the innocent. :)

Subject: Scientology / Communication question...
"I was reading your blog and wondering if you could help clear something up for me. I've been reading up on the Communication formula in the Scientology handbook (intention, attention, duplication, acknowledgement). Is there a way you could provide some everyday examples of it at work? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it!"

Response from Julia:
"Hmm... an example at work. I'd say that there have been times that I needed a piece of paperwork and I called the person I needed it from, stating my intention. Since they were paying attention to what I was saying, they understood and duplicated what I wanted - sending me the paperwork. Once I received the paperwork I called them back to acknowledge the receipt."

Does anyone else have examples of this they'd like to share or questions on the communication formula?

Youth for Human Rights

I haven't mentioned Youth for Human Rights lately, but I just saw some of their Public Service Announcements on tv today and I thought I'd share their link and info with you. I'm going to leave you with my favorite PSA:

The Purification Rundown

I have been asked to do a post on the Purification Rundown. I googled it really quickly and saw that it's listed as "controversial". I'm not sure what could be "controversial" about a detoxification program that thousands of people have done and experienced great results from... but I digress.

The Purification Program or "Purif" is basically a detox program based on the idea that long after drugs have been used, they remain in the fat cells of the person. The same thing goes for various toxins a person picks up in daily life. What the program does is allows the body to release those toxins and sweat them out - while replacing the old, drug engorged fat cells with new, clean cells.

I did the Purif about 10 years ago and, though I hadn't even taken any drugs, I felt much better afterwards. During the sweat program I dealt with some novocain that was stuck in the fat cells of my mouth and sweated out some pretty gross stuff that I think I must have picked up from the air in Los Angeles. I lived in LA when it was incredibly polluted and I didn't realize it, but these toxins were affecting my eyesight! I'm glad I got them out of my system.

So, does anyone have any questions?

Link Roundup

I haven't done one of these in a while, so I'm going to do a little round up of interesting, Scientology related posts. Enjoy!

Grahame posted a great response to a student, answering some interesting and universal questions about Scientology.

Max posts about change as it relates to programming. I love his blog because, though it's about programming, it's very easy to extract life lessons from it.

Val at Scientology Lives tells us about a class she's taking.

Scientology Celebrities talks about a friend of mine Jason Dohring.

Grahame participated in Blogging for Human Rights

Jenny blogs about Scientology and kids.

The Dianetics Video Channel

Earlier this month (while I was out of town) the Dianetics video channel was brought out. It came out around May 9th - which is the anniversary of Dianetics. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Scientology and... Mint?

Okay, I got asked the funniest question by a coworker a bit ago and I've been meaning to share it here. She asked me if Scientologists were allowed to have mint or mint-flavored products. Apparently her dentist told her that he didn't have any mint fluoride (only that disgusting cherry kind) because Scientologists aren't allowed to have mint.

The answer to this question is... drumroll please... Scientologists are indeed allowed to have mint and/or mint flavored products. There are no dietary restrictions in Scientology. You can eat or drink whatever you want.

It's so funny to me because I see all these outrageous things that people say about Scientology that have zero basis in fact. Where do people even get this stuff? I mean, do they just make it up?

Anyway, if you have heard some strange, outrageous thing about Scientology, by all means tell me and I'll let you know if it's true or false.