I am a healthy such-and-such

Part two of Timeless You is called “Live Your Perfect Age”. It leads off with a guided meditation (of sorts) where you visualize a number that represents an age within the last 15 years you would like to be. This is your “biostat” and you’re instructed to repeat a mantra 5 times a day: “Every day, in every way, I am improving my physical and mental capacity. My biostat is set at a healthy __ years of age — I look and feel a healthy __ years old.”

Again, I’m probably at the bottom end of this demographic. 15 years ago, I was 20, and while, sure, there are probably things about being 20 I’d like again, I was not very healthy — in general — when I was 20. In fact, I was kind of anorexic, often forgoing or forgetting to eat meals and the stuff I did eat was often boxed crap from the frozen aisle. So, I decided on a somewhat more modest 25.

Now, I understand that the power of mantras is in believing that they can work. It’s a way of hacking your brain and, in fact, Deepak explains this a bit later in the module. Does knowing that make it less likely to work? I’ve always had a hard time with this, because I understand what it’s trying to do and, in so understanding, know that it’s not some magical or mystical thing going on, it’s more of a self-fulfilling prophecy…like the power of positive thinking — if you think positively you end up being generally in a better mood with a more positive outlook. I’ve always had a hard time with that, too.

This module concludes with another 2 minute clip of Deepak talking. (And I have to say, the jewels studding his glasses do a lot to diminish the Buddha-on-the-Mountain aspect of his lessons.) But the highlight was the guided meditation. Not so much because of what it was, but because, when Deepak was relaying the mantra, he, of course, needed to leave room for the listeners to enter in their own age. He started off with an example “so if you were 65 years of age…” and then repeated it again with no age, leaving the blanks in place, ending with the line “I am a healthy such-and-such.” E and I found this hilariously funny and couldn’t stop laughing about it until we went to bed. Healthy such-and-such, indeed.