I’m about to tell you about a very dishonest tactic internet marketers use. This is not directly related to acne. But I’ve seen this trick played on different markets and I wanted to warn you about it.

For two reasons. First, this scam is very convincing and easy to fall into. Two, falling into this one can get VERY expensive and you end up wasting lots of time getting out of this net. You may even have to cancel your credit cards.

This video explains how the scam works. This example is related to the ‘how to make money in the internet’ niche, but the way it works in the other markets is identical.

Not a pretty things to watch - eh?

This video explains how the scam works to promote Acai berry weight loss product.

The first part of the scam is very similar to the internet marketing scam video. But go to about 5 mins and 10 seconds and you’ll see another way this scam works.

I hope you learned something from these videos.

I haven’t seen this scam in the acne market yet, but I’m sure it’s coming soon. For dishonest marketers these offers are just too lucrative to resist. For example, I stumbled on this scam when I research the teeth whitening niche. The offers would pay me $35 to $40 for every person who signs up for the free trial. Get people to sign up for two and you are looking to earn $80 per person!

Getting out can be expensive and frustrating. When I researched the teeth whitening products I found tens of stories where people had lost more than $100 and spend hours and hours on the phone with unhelpful ‘customer service representatives’ in India (they have to earn the $80 they paid to people who referred you to this scam).

Handling the toll free numbers is outsourced to an Indian company. The agents are paid to keep you on the program. If you are willing to spend hours screaming on the phone you might get a partial refund, but please don’t count on it.

Your best choice is to ask your credit card company to revoke the charges and ask them to give you new credit cards (as long as the company has your credit card numbers they can keep charging you).

Please keep your eyes open, and be careful of all the offers that just seem too good to be true.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin

I recently stumbled across two dubious ones: Zyporex and Pronexin. Buyers beware as I have a good reason to believe this is a scam.

The scam looks very similar to Acnetix and Acnexus scams by Garret Devore Labs I reported about last year. However this scam involves a larger number of products, such as Zyporex, Pronexin, Acneticin and Acnepril, and they are sold by a company called Experimental Nutrition Research Llc.

The way this scam works is so similar to Acnexus and Acnetix that I believe the boys from Ohio (GD Labs is registered in Ohio) have been busy again; though I can’t be sure about this.

Here’s how the scam works:

• Create an acne product with impressive looking list of ingredients, fancy bottle and weird name. This is very simple and anyone with little bit of cash can do this. It’s not that hard to find companies that do contract manufacturing. You just tell them what you want in the bottle and the label to print on it. Even I get few emails from companies proposing to create my own line of skin care products and supplements.
• Create “independent” review sites that praise your products. The more of such sites you can create the better it looks.
• Hire Indians for $5/hour to create fake testimonials and posts to acne forums, Yahoo! Answers and other places. This creates the illusion buzz that gets people interested.
• Cook up another product and repeat the process.
• Move into other lucrative markets; such as weigh loss pills, fat burners, wrinkle creams, anti-aging creams and pills, night creams and muscle building supplements.

Sometimes you can just bottle the same stuff under a different name and call it good. For example the ingredient lists for Acnepril and Acneticin are identical.

Paying attention to website design also seems optional. Take a look at the so-called review sites below and tell me if they seem strangely similar. And if you are looking for real fun, check out the posts at their blogs. Some really… hmmm, interesting posts.

Here’s a list of websites involved in the scam (not conclusive):

• http://www.avecix.com/
• http://www.acnepril.com/
• http://www.pronexin.net/
• http://www.blackheadstreatment.net/
• http://www.acnetreatmentsreview.net/
• http://www.topacnetreatment.org/
• http://www.besthairlossproducts.org/
• http://www.sybervision.com
• http://www.pronexinconsumerreviews.net/
• http://acnecuresrevealed.net
• http://acnetreatmentguide.org
• http://www.fastweightloss.net/
• http://www.clinicallix.com/
• http://www.zyporex.com/
• http://muradreviews.net/
• http://skinidconsumerreviews.net/
• http://acneproductratings.org
• http://acneprilconsumerreviews.net/
• http://www.acneticin.com/
• http://topwrinklecream.org/
• http://www.topwrinklecream.org
• http://hamchoslim.com/
• http://assobar.com/
• http://www.nightcreams.org/
• http://12hourmiracleacnetreatment.com/

Why you should think twice before buying these products

I want to make it clear that I haven’t used any of these products and know very little about them. Using topical solutions is a bit like going into a casino. You roll the dice and see if you get lucky. If you are lucky the product works, tough luck if it doesn’t.
Given that their business model is based on lies and deceit (creating fake review website and posing them as independent) raises questions of their commitment to customer satisfaction.

You really don’t know what’s in the bottles. The ingredient lists look impressive, but that’s not the whole story. You could fill the bottle with cheap stuff and add miniscule amounts of impressive looking ingredients. That way your list of ingredients looks impressive without actually having to pay for all that expensive stuff.

Also the promised money back guarantee may be less solid than advertised. Heck in some cases people haven’t even received their products, as these complaints show.

This company ripped me off. I was suspicious they were conn artists and the company was a scam but was dumb enough to order anyway. It has been a month and a half and I still have not recvd my order. I called the company (of course their # is no longer listed) atleast 5 times, left 3 voice mails and also sent 4 emails. Still have heard nothing back. I used Paypal and am trying to get my money back but it doesnt seem to be working. I have spent so much time on this its ridiculous. Dont be a sucker and order anything from this ENR company, they’ll just take your money!!!! Im bitter and I want that company out of business!!!

Zyporex - Finally Reviewed… (scroll down to reader comments)

Zyporex is supposed to be a product that helps clear acne. This company is not real. Both the webiste and the testimonials are fake. I think the person or people behind this also made the other webite comparing the best acne treatments. I ordered the product, unfortunately without doing sufficient research, and never got it in the mail. They took $29.99 for the product and $7.99 for shipping. There is no contact info, except for a defunct email. I tried calling the number on my bank statement and I was immediately tansfered to a voice mail box that was full and not accepting new messages.

Zyporex Complaints - Another Internet Scam

This one is about Lipofuze, one of their weight loss products.

Elinalla,
You are lucky than me. I am staying in Singapore and ordered Lipofuze on July 16, 2009 via LLC. I still received nothing from them but they credit my visa more than US100 already.

LipoFuze by Experimental Nutrition Research LLC Complaints - Quality of product is negative

Better Business Bureau doesn’t think much of Zyporex and rates it as F. BBB Reliability Report for Zyporex Here’s what F means.

Company Rating F
Our opinion of what this rating means:
We strongly question the company’s reliability for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law’s licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company’s industry is known for its fraudulent business practices.

In case you run into trouble with Zyporex, Pronexin or any other of their products here are their contact details (as listed in the LA Times Yellow Pages).

Experimental Nutrition Research Llc
(213) 389-9044
3580 Wilshire Blvd Ste 1190
Los Angeles, CA 90010

Stop believing in magic and miracles and save yourself tons of trouble

Here’s easy way to avoid all such scams in the future: stop believing into magic and miracles. The reason these scam wagons keep rolling is because people buy into the idea they can just apply some cream or take a pill and get over their acne. Some may get lucky, but for most people it’s not that easy.

Acne is an internal problem and is a result of bad diet and lifestyle choices and, in many cases, emotional health. Start treating it as such and you can forget all these stinking creams and have clear skin for life.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin

More complications with Accutane. Researchers at Helsinki University in Finland discovered that Accutane causes insulin resistance and worsening of blood sugar controls.

CONCLUSION: Treatment of acne with 13-cis-retinoic acid reduces insulin sensitivity and induces alterations in lipid metabolism resembling those of the insulin resistance syndrome.

Dyslipidemia and a reversible decrease in insulin sensitivity induced by therapy with 13-cis-retinoic acid.

Here’s another study.

13-cis-Retinoic acid therapy induces insulin resistance, regulates inflammatory parameters, and paradoxically increases serum adiponectin concentration.

According to the studies Accutane induced insulin resistance is temporary and disappears after the treatment.

However this is not always the case and some unlucky people go on to develop a full-blown diabetes.

Here are two alarming stories from Accutane and diabetes forum.

I started taking Accutane at age 13. The blood tests were going good. You are supposed to get a blood test after every month. And You are on it for 8 months. And you get a last bllod test after you are off it after four weeks to make sure it is out of your system. So there are 9 blood tests total. On my 6th blood test my blood sugar was 132. It was a little high. Then on my 7th blood test it was 287. They wanted me to see a doctor right away so my mom pulled me out of school and brought me to a doctor, where I got another blood test. And my blood sugar was 430. So my doctor told me I had type 1 diabetes. No one in my family had diabetes that I know of except for my great uncle, who was diagnosed with diabetes at age 77. So im pretty sure the drug triggered it.

- Jason

My daughter started Accutane 34 days ago with perfect sugar levels. After her first month on Accutane, we went to the Dtr and were told everything was fine but that she had higher than expected cholestrol, everything else was normal per the lab. Not to worry about the cholestrol. My daughter noted to the dtr that she was thirsty, but since the labs normals, dtr told us everything ok, increased the Accutane, gave her a cholestrol medication. Understand that this was one of the top dermatologist in our state who assured us all was fine.

She started the increased dose three days later. Two days from start of new dosage she is weak and is very thirsty. Visit to the ER, she had a sugar level of over 600 and diagnosed her with Type 1 diabetes.. they are telling us there is no connection and that it is genetic. In less than a week she went from normal to life threatening with no other changes in her life but the drug… she is not overweight and is 15.

- Susan

Coincidence? Possibly and we can’t establish a firm link between Accutane and diabetes. However Google search of ‘Accutane diabetes’ reveals an alarming number of such coincidences. Diabetes is also mentioned as a risk factor for Accutane in drug manuals.

Though these incidences are rare type 1 diabetes (the one that most people got) is a permanent complication. Type 1 diabetes is diagnosed when the pancreas stops producing insulin. After that you have to inject insulin after every meal. Type 1 diabetes is a permanent condition with no known cure.

Just one more reason to avoid Accutane and stick to natural methods - especially since they are cheaper and often even work faster than Accutane.

My book Clear for Life explains how simple diet and lifestyle changes help your body to clear acne permanently.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin

Of course you can’t. What you are looking for isn’t on the map.

Do you believe you can get clear and live a happy life if your map says you are a miserable loser and nobody likes you because of your acne?

Confusing?

Then join me for this fascinating journey into your head, and on the way you just might discover why all these years you’ve struggled in vain to get clear.

You have what I like to call an internal map of reality in your mind. Similar a real map your internal map of reality described the way you see the world. It’s the sum total of all your experienced to date. Your map tells you what’s real and what’s not real, what you can and cannot do, how to do things and how to react in different situations. Some people call these maps ’subconscious programming’.

You probably know that you have a mental image of yourself. This self-image explains what you think of yourself; the way you see yourself. Your self-image is a part of your internal map of reality.

Stephen Covey in his bestseller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People explains the mental maps like this.

Each of us has many, many maps in our head, which can be divided into two main categories: maps of the way things are, or realities, and maps of the way things should be, or values. We interpret everything we experience through these mental maps. We seldom question their accuracy; we’re usually even unaware that we have them. We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be.

And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of those assumptions. The way we see things is the source of the way we think and the way we act.

Stephen R. Covey
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, p. 24

As Stephen wrote we often aren’t aware of these maps. We simply assume that’s the way life is.

These maps are a bit like lenses. Say you wear glasses with green lenses. As you look at the world through those lenses everything you see is tinted green.

Let’s say you believe you are a miserable loser and nobody likes you because of acne. Because of that belief everything in your life is ‘tinted’ with that ‘miserable loser’ color. Say you are out and some stranger looks at you a bit longer than is normal. You just know they are looking at your acne and thinking how horrible it is. Next you feel like a miserable loser and the rest of the day is ruined.

Bet that has happened to you more than few times.

Let’s step back and see what really happened there. Do you really know that the stranger was looking at your acne and thinking you look horrible? Did you go and ask them? Or did you just assume it?

Why did you assume that? It’s possible they looked at you a bit longer because they thought you looked attractive. I’m sure that would have made you feel better. So why did you assume the worst case?

Because of you wear those ‘miserable loser’ glasses (or whatever you happen to believe of yourself). They tint everything so it looks like you are a miserable loser.

The only fact in the situation was that some stranger looked at you a bit longer than is normal. Everything else is fiction. In a fraction of a second your mind heaped all that mental garbage on it. And that mental garbage influences how you experienced the situation.

This is an example of how these maps create the way you experience life. But their effect goes far beyond this simple example. These affect the thoughts you have, emotions you feel and the actions you take. These maps create your life. Some people say your external life is only a reflection of what goes on in your head.

Change your maps; change your life

Because most people are not aware of these maps they struggle in life. They struggle to make the changes they want to make and feel stuck.

They try all kinds of tricks and techniques to change their life without ever considering the maps that create their life. That’s like trying to change your reflection by pounding the mirror.

Let’s go back to Chicago. You are standing on the street and looking at a map. Unfortunately there’s a misprint on the map and it actually a map of Detroit instead of Chicago.

Will you ever find the place you are looking for just by looking at that map? Do you think becoming more skilled at map reading helps? Do you think trying harder helps? Do you believe you can get there if you just think positively?

Of course not. No matter how good you are at reading maps, you are still reading a wrong map.

To try to change outward attitudes and behaviors does very little good in the long run if we fail to examine the basic paradigms from which those attitudes and behaviors flow.

Stephen R. Covey
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, p. 28

Change your maps; change your skin

Your maps, or subconscious programs, also affect your health and your skin.

At this point I invite you to watch this snippet of an interview with Dr. Bruce Lipton.

As Dr. Lipton explains 90 to 95% of your thoughts flow from your subconscious programs. That’s why positive thinking rarely works. You are pitting 5% against 95%. That’s why positive thinking often leads to frustration and ends up reinforcing your subconscious programs.

Your maps affect your skin and health through your thoughts and actions.

At some point you probably believed diet has nothing to do with acne. At that point you would have said I’m a crackpot for suggesting that the McDonald’s burger your just ate has anything to do with your skin.

It doesn’t matter if I’m right or wrong, you still wouldn’t listen to me because my message goes against your established beliefs. As long as you believe diet has nothing to do with acne you only take action on solutions that have nothing to do with diet and dismiss everything else as wrong and irrelevant.

Similarly if your map says you are a miserable loser you only take action that allows you to experience yourself as a miserable loser. Anything else is dismissed as wrong and irrelevant - and that probably includes this blog post.

For an example of how your expectations influence what you see take this quick and revealing test. Demo: Perception: Two Women. You only see what you expect and your expectations are shaped by your mental maps.

What happened when you started accepting that diet may have something to do with your skin? Did you start paying attention to what you ate? Did you start avoiding certain foods and eating more healthy foods? Did you feel like you opened your eyes?

Hmmm… what else in your life could change if you’d change your maps?

Don’t think yourself into another breakout

In the interview Dr. Lipton talked about the ‘nocebo’ effect. Placebo effect refers due to spontaneous healing because the patient believes into the treatment.

Nocebo effect is just the opposite. Person gets worse because they expect to get worse.

Ten years ago, researchers stumbled onto a striking finding: Women who believed that they were prone to heart disease were nearly four times as likely to die as women with similar risk factors who didn’t hold such fatalistic views.

The higher risk of death, in other words, had nothing to with the usual heart disease culprits — age, blood pressure, cholesterol, weight. Instead, it tracked closely with belief. Think sick, be sick.

Brian Reid
The Washington Post, Tuesday, April 30, 2002
The Nocebo Effect: Placebo’s Evil Twin

Research shows stress can make acne worse. The same can probably be said also of other negative emotions.

What do you believe about getting clear? Do you believe there’s no way you can get over acne?

Nocebo is one reason I ask you not to worry about Candida and other ‘health problems’.

I’m not saying Candida isn’t real, but it has become sort of a boogie man in the natural health field. It has become the ‘catch all’ disease that’s said to be behind each and every symptom.

I believe that Candida infection is illusion for most people. They never get it diagnosed. Instead they read symptom lists (that are so vague and general they could describe many diseases) on obscure websites. Are they feeling tired and lethargic because their bodies are fighting the effect of chronic sleep deprivation and years of eating junk; or is it because of Candida? Most people assume it’s Candida.

What do you think happens when you believe you have Candida infection and it takes years of hard work and expensive supplements to get over it? What do you think happens when you believe this hard-to-get-rid-of Candida infection causes your acne?

If the mind can make you 4 times more likely to die from a heart attack, can you be sure that your belief into incurable acne and Candida infection doesn’t prevent you from getting clear?

What about more global beliefs? Can you be so sure that poor self-image has nothing to do with your skin?

From working with acne victims I know acne often ‘justifies’ certain beliefs. For example, if you believe you don’t deserve love, it’s easy to point your finger at your skin and say how anyone could love a person with my skin.

Keep in mind that your self-image was formed before you even knew about acne. What you think of yourself is mostly based on the first 6 to 7 years of your life. If you want to learn more about this please read They F*** You Up: How to Survive Family Life by clinical psychologist Oliver James.

This may be hard to believe, but acne is not the real problem. What you really need to look at is your mental maps and subconscious programming. Once you get clear inside of your mind it’s much easier to get clear on the outside also.

How to get rid of negative subconscious programs

Hopefully by now you understand how much your mental maps shape your life. So let’s look at how to get rid of wrong maps that may prevent you from getting clear.

By far the most difficult part is to become aware of your maps. Most of the time people aren’t really aware of what they think; much less that they can do something about the garbage that flows through their minds.

As Dr. Lipton mentioned in the interview if you just stop and listen to your thoughts you’d be shocked at what you ‘hear’. Those thoughts reveal what you really think of yourself.

Unfortunately most people aren’t conscious enough to pay attention to their thoughts. Instead thoughts just flood over them and they find themselves getting angry, depressed or feeling bad.

Meditation is a good way to become more conscious of your thoughts, that’s why Clear for Life now comes with easy to use meditation tracks. Meditation is not the only way and in Clear for Life I describe a systematic way to identify mental ghosts and other dysfunctional subconscious programs.

When you become aware of your thoughts you can stop and decide that such thoughts don’t serve you. Then you can use various techniques to clear the negative beliefs and emotions. This is actually very simple and quick, but the trick is in identifying the real issues.

Two techniques I frequently use are Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT, and Sedona Method.

I recommend you start playing with EFT; simply because it’s so easy to use, effective and free to learn. Simply go to the EFT website and download the Free EFT Manual: Introduction to EFT.

The free manual teaches you more about EFT and how to use it. You’ll get everything you need to know about EFT from the free manual. Also please read the free tutorials on the EFT website, especially the ones that talk about finding the core issues and importance of being specific. Your success with EFT (and other similar methods) comes down to nailing the core issues and beliefs.

What happens when you get rid of negative subconscious programs? Remember that your external life reflects your mental maps and subconscious programs. When you change them you change what’s reflected back in the mirror of your life.

How exactly that happens depends how your maps create your life. You may find old issues that used to bother you have no effect anymore; so you become happier and more peaceful. Perhaps your eyes open up to new information that can help you to get clear. When you change your subconscious program you also change your thoughts and actions. And with new thoughts and actions come new results.

No matter what happens it’s an interesting and rewarding journey and one that I invite you to start on.

If you have any questions about this, feel free to post them as comments below.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin

One of my customers took a quiz at acne.org and one of the questions was about sunlight. The answer he got back shocked him.

“While the sun is important for the production of vitamin D, especially if you do not eat dairy products, excess sun exposure is actually skin damage. While the sun feels good, it may bite back with acne in the weeks following exposure.”

I agree with this completely. Unfortunately many people miss the point of this message. The operative word is excess sun exposure.

Sunlight is absolutely essential for good health. But that doesn’t mean more is better. It’s the same with exercise. You need enough sunlight - not too much, not too little.

Exposure to sunlight benefits your health in many ways. You get vitamin D from sunlight. It helps you to sleep better. It makes you energetic and happier. It can kill bacteria from your blood. Just to give you few examples.

Sunlight is the only viable source of vitamin D

Since the acne.org quizz mentioned vitamin D let’s talk about it briefly. Sunlight is the only practical source of vitamin D.

In Clear for Life I quoted a study where the researchers measured blood vitamin D levels from people after they’ve been on a tanning bed. They were exposed to amount of UV radiation that leads to very minor sunburn (your skin gets a bit red and is back to normal the next day). The researchers found that those people had blood vitamin D levels of equivalent of taking 25′000 IU of vitamin D.

To put that into a perspective a multivitamin supplement usually has 400 IU of vitamini D and vitamin D supplement has about 1000 IU. A glass of whole milk has less than 100 IU.

As you can see no other source of vitamin D even comes close to what you’ll get from sunlight.

This is a bit of a problem for people living in the Northern latitudes. During the winter months sun rays hit the northern part of the globe in such an angle that most of the UV rays bounce back to space. So in such latitudes your skin won’t make vitamin D from sunlight. You have to either use tanning beds or take vitamin D supplements.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin

Several courses of Accutane, all OTC treatments you can name, master cleanse many times. He eats healthy. Still his skin looks horrible.

Then he goes to Puerto Rico for 2 months, smokes like a chimney and eats greasy food. Yet his skin never looked better.

What’s going on here? Doesn’t this prove diet has no effect on his skin?

In case you are wondering. Michael is a member at Clear Skin Space, where we had this discussion.

Michael’s case is interesting because it shows that getting clear doesn’t always make sense… or does it? So what can we learn from this? If you are in a similar situation should you throw salad to the wind and eat whatever you want?

No. Not if you want permanently clear skin, anyway.

Food affects your skin in two ways. Some foods trigger a breakout soon after you eat them; often within a day or two. I call these ‘trigger foods’. This is often because you are sensitive to that particular food, or the food is otherwise inflammatory.

These foods are easy to spot, and their relationship to your skin is easy to understand.

However food also affects acne indirectly. This is where people get confused.

Foods can either contribute to your or they can take away from your health. If your health suffers from your diet and lifestyle choices it always means more inflammation in your body. And more inflammation means more acne - to those who are prone to it.

Let’s get back to Michael.

We can conclude that the foods he ate in Puerto Rico didn’t trigger acne. But it would be quite foolish to say foods have no effect on his health. And because foods he eat affect his health, they also affect the health of his skin - even if the effect is indirect and shows only after a long time.

But this doesn’t make any sense. Why did his skin get better in Puerto Rico?

Who knows. We can rarely reduce these things to one or two factors. Perhaps his body needed sunlight and fresh air more than anything. Or perhaps in that tropical paradise he was happier and less stressed. Perhaps the foods he ate back home contained some ingredient he was sensitive to, and this ingredient was not present in the foods he ate in Puerto Rico.

This brings us to the next concept many acne victims struggle with.

Your health is only as strong as its weakest link.

Unfortunately 90% of all the questions I get have something to do with diet. Is this food good? Will this make me breakout? Is this food safe to eat?

Diet is the only thing many acne victims can wrap their heads around. They have overblown the importance of diet in getting clear.

Sure it’s important to watch what you eat, but diet is just one of the elements of health. You have to make sure you exercise, sleep well, get some sunlight and fresh air, and remain positive.

Diet is no more important than the other elements.

Let me finish this by telling you the BIG SECRET to clear skin.

I get a certain amount of hate mail. For whatever reason some people feel compelled to tell me I’m a greedy and evil bastard for withholding the secret to clear skin. I should go and yell it off the mountaintop, they say.

Since there are no mountaintops nearby, and it can get a bit cold in those altitudes, I’m just going to yell it off here.

So here it is. The ’secret’ three-step formula for clear skin.

1. Put all the elements of health in place. This means finding a diet that works for YOU, and making sure all the elements of health are balanced.
2. Avoid trigger foods and substances you are sensitive to or that in some other way trigger a breakout.
3. Sit tight and allow the healing process to unfold.

There you have it. That is, honest to God, the big NON-secret to clear skin. There is nothing more to it.

Now just go do it.

And while you are at it, go grab a copy of Clear for Life to make me happy

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin

Those are just few of the results of a recent customer survey I did. Thanks for everyone who got back to me. Here’s feedback on the feedback, and few golden nuggets that help you get clear. You’ll pick up something useful even if you haven’t read Clear for Life.

You can’t outperform your self-image

Interestingly quite a few people commented that CFL gives them fantastic results when they stick to it. Unfortunately they keep falling off the wagon and in the process making a mess of their skins.

While I agree that staying healthy in today’s world takes some work, I wouldn’t say it’s difficult. The truth is that eating and living healthy is easy - once you get over your own limits.

If you find yourself repeating a pattern where you make progress and then fall back, I believe you need to work on your self-image.

In the personal growth circles it’s well-known that you can’t outperform your self-image.

Deep in your subconscious mind you have an image of yourself; your self-image. That image shows what you really believe and think about yourself. It shows what you can and cannot do. It shows what your life is like.

Your mind’s job is to make sure that your life matches your self-image. Scientists say that 95% or more of our behavior is subconscious. Humans like to believe they behave rationally and logically, but even a cursory look shows this is not true.

Your subconscious mind controls most of your actions and choices. It guides your life to the fulfillment of your self-image. One way this happens is through your thoughts. If you think exercise is boring, you’ll find it hard to motivate yourself to exercise. If you believe eating healthy is difficult, you’ll find that it is. But if you believe exercise is fun and eating healthy is delicious and fulfilling, living a healthy life gets easy.

While it’s true that you are free to choose your thoughts most people don’t exercise that power. Instead the choice happens in the subconscious level. And here’s where your self-image guides your destiny.

In each moment your subconscious feeds your mind with thoughts and images that guide your life towards your self-image. If you haven’t trained your mind your life inevitably slips towards your self-image - even if you fight it.

Acne can be part of your self-image directly or indirectly. You may see yourself as a victim of this horrible curse. Or you may, for example, believe that you don’t deserve love; acne then justifies that belief and gives you something to point your finger at, you can say the reason you haven’t found love is because nobody would date anyone with your skin.

I used to be afraid of success. I has a belief that it’s better to be small and not attract too much attention on myself - thanks to my childhood. This held me back in many ways. For example my mind created food cravings. I used to be able to stick to raw food diet for few days. But regularly also found myself eating pizza, coke or some other junk. I pushed my limits and my mind had to bring me back to my “comfort level”.

Luckily I found that belief and got rid of it. The food cravings disappeared overnight. Now I’m free to choose my meals and eating healthy is easy.

If you keep hitting a wall and can’t get past a certain point, I recommend you work on upgrading your self-image. Awaken The Giant Within by Anthony Robbins shows you how.

Holistic health is the only realizable way to permanently clear skin

Going through the feedback it got painfully obvious that getting clear is a holistic effort. Acne is a complicated problem and I don’t think anyone really knows how it happens. Equally obvious is that there’s no simple solution that would be permanent and would work reliably for many people.

Constantly working to improve your health is the only way to permanently clear skin. Further, you must put in all the pieces of the puzzle. Health is not just about diet or exercise. You have to work on it at many levels. You have to eat healthy, you have to move, you have to sleep well, you have to remain positive, and so on.

The feedback shows that you’ll get the best results if all the elements of health are in balance. Weakness in one area can hold you back from getting 100% clear skin.

Most acne treatments ignore this fundamental truth, so is it any wonder their track record is so miserable?

The biggest problem areas for people were sleep and stress and negative attitude.

Stress and negative attitude are related to your self-esteem and mental image, and I wrote a bit about sleep here:

Feeling tired and can’t figure out why?

6 Months to clear skin

I also have to admit that I may have been too optimistic about the time it takes to get clear. I usually tell 3 to 4 months is a reasonable time frame for big improvements.

While many people get good results within 4 months this may not be enough to get you completely clear.

I’ve gotten quite a few emails from people who tell me that they’ve been following CFL for 3 to 4 months and are still breaking out. Granted, their acne is much better than it was before starting CFL. Cystic acne has faded to whiteheads and breakouts happen less frequently and fade away quicker.

Still, when you expect to be completely clear, it may be hard to appreciate these changes and many people focus on their remaining acne - instead of how much better their skin looks now.

I should have communicated more forcefully that in the 3 month mark people are still going through the detox process and it’s normal to keep breaking out. It doesn’t mean you do something wrong or you couldn’t get clear.

From the feedback I get 6 months seems to be a better timeframe for completely, or nearly, clear skin.

Of course this changes from person to person, and I’m sure some people say they got clear much faster and some say it took longer than 6 months.

People love Clear for Life

I’m especially happy about this - and perhaps even a little proud. I asked those customers who bought Clear for Life at least 6 weeks ago - so that they had enough time putting it into practice - how satisfied they are with it.

A whopping 51% gave the highest rating. Here are the results:

About 10% of the people I send the survey filled it. I realize that there can be a positive bias in the answers - people who are happy with CFL are more likely to respond to the survey. Still, it shows people get results with Clear for Life.

And if you haven’t read Clear for Life the chances are you’ll love it.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin

When you are looking at the mirror in anxiety about the big, new pimple you just got and worrying how you are going to get through the day it may not seem like much of a gift. More like a curse.

You may not realize it yet, but in those moments of anxiety and despair lay they keys to happiness and clear skin.

Bad times give us much needed shaking. They lay bare the insane ways we live our lives. This is true in both collective and individual levels. Collective tragedies, such as war and injustice, expose our collective insanity. Similarly your personal tragedies, such as acne, can show your own insanity.

I’m not talking about insanity as mental disorder. I’m talking about insanity as creating unnecessary suffering in your own life. Insanity is living in despair and frustration when you could live in peace and happiness.

Challenges act as stress tests. They show the parts in you that aren’t working. Suffering and negativity is like a friend shaking you and shouting at your face “just look at what you do to yourself!”. If you are willing to listen, you can learn a valuable lesson.

All suffering starts in the mind

Your mind creates all your suffering. External events are simply excuses for your mind to create more suffering. You suffer when you focus on something you don’t want. That’s the only way to feel bad. Try focusing on something you want and feeling bad at the same time - it’s impossible.

Most people don’t exercise much control over their focus. The focusing process is on autopilot, and so are their emotions.

The mind is a bit like a computer; it works by executing installed programs. Your beliefs and ideas about yourself and the world are examples of these programs. The job of your mind is to make those beliefs and ideas come true to you. If you don’t think much of yourself, well… then that’s what you are going to get. If you believe you are sad and lonely, then it’s the job of your mind to make sure that’s true to you. Your wish is your mind’s command.

Your mind scans the environment you are in for information that matches your programming. It then brings that information into your awareness for you to focus on - and to feel bad about.

Your beliefs work a bit like colored glasses. If you look at the world through green glasses everything is tinted with green. The glasses don’t change the world you are looking at, they simple change your perception of it. If you look at the world through glasses of desperation, frustration and low self-esteem that’s what it looks to you.

Changing from green glasses to red ones gives you a new perception. Everything looks red now. Going from sadness and frustration to happiness and hope gives you a whole new perspective on the world.

Can you see yourself with clear skin?

This has a lot to do with getting clear. First, negative emotions are toxic to your health, but that’s not the main reason. Your external life always reflects your internal life. What goes on inside of your head happens outside of your head. If you see yourself as an acne victims who is plagued with this invincible curse, that’s what you get. It cannot be in any other way.

To get over acne you first have to see it as something you can get over with; then you have to see and accept yourself as a person with clear skin. You have to put on new glasses.

This is the missing piece from all acne cures and books. The updated version of Clear for Life talks about this in more detail. Since this is such an important point I’ve made this section available to my customers even before the updated version of Clear for Life is released.

If you are my customer you can get the section here:

http://community.natural-acne-solution.com/forum/topics/emotional-and-spiritual

There’s more to this than simply changing glasses. Most people are totally identified with their mind. They think they are this [insert your name] person, who is so and so many years old, works/does this, and this and that is going on in their life. In other words they are identified with their story, or their ego, as some would call it.

You are not your story

They don’t realize that this story is the glasses they wear, not who they really are.

Once you become aware of the mental processes (glasses) that color your perception you’ll see this clearly. Once you’ve changed these processes few times and seen how that changes your world it’s easy to see they are not you. That you are not your story.

If you are your story then how could you change it? Who would be the one that changes it?

This realization will forever change your world. An irrevocable change process begins. The grip of your mind over your life starts to weaken. And with the mind goes the insanity and suffering it creates. To the extent you can see you are not your mind, not your story, to the extent you experience peace and joy - regardless of what happens to you.

Without the mind playing its dirty tricks on you it’s impossible to suffer.

When you realize that the I, [insert your name] as a desperate acne victim, is just a story you’ve accepted, you can let go of the story. When you let go of the story you create an opening for a different reality to emerge. Perhaps one where you have clear skin?

Clear skin doesn’t happen by some divine magic or any other mystical means. It happens by you taking concrete action to create it. But when you let go of your old story you also let go of the limitations it imposes on you. Remember, your life always matches with your story. When you let go of your old story you open up to new possibilities. Perhaps a book just jumps off the shelve that has the answers to your problem. Perhaps you just stumble on a website that has the answers.

Your mind finds a way to bring you new internal reality into your external world; just like it did with the old internal reality.

The power of Now

Challenging times and suffering create the opening for that transition to happen. When you suffer you can go inside and see how that happens. When you observe yourself doing suffering, you’ll see that the suffering is not a part of you but rather something you do. This realization spells the end of suffering and feeling bad.

You can only do this when you are present in the moment. Luckily it doesn’t cost you anything and is to do easy with practice.

Learning to be present in the Now is a skill, and like any skill, takes some practice to get good at.

Here are few ways to bring your focus into the present moment.

Observe your breath. Breath is one of the easiest ways to access the present moment. Simply watch as breath flows in and out of your body. Observe how your lungs, abdomen and chest expand when you breathe in and contract as you breathe out.

As you watch your breath notice how thinking stops. Your mind cannot survive in the present moment. It wants you to focus on the future or the past. To your mind present moment is simply means to a better future and thus to be discarded. But if you ignore the present moment you throw away the only way you can make a meaningful change in your life. Better tomorrow never comes as long as you try to escape the horrors of today.

So when you notice yourself thinking about the past or the future bring your focus back to the present moment and notice how the constant stream of thinking stops. That’s when you are in the present moment and free to see the mind for what it is.

Another way to access the present moment is to focus on what you experience in the moment. If you are sitting, feel what it feels like to sit. Focus on how your clothing feels on your skin, and the pressure on your buttocks and the backs of your legs. Feel your feet touching the floor. Again notice how you can’t focus on your experience and think at the same time.

In the Power of Now Eckhart Tolle gives another way to access the present moment. Become aware of your ‘inner’ body. Feel the energy in your body. Initially it may be easier to just focus on one body part, such as your hand, and feel the energy there. You may feel just the light tingle, but that’s it. Just focus on that feeling and it gets stronger. Later on you can feel the same energy in and surrounding your whole body.

I highly recommend you pick up Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now and read it. He talks about the power of the present moment and how to access it in much more detail. His other book The New Earth also helped me a lot. I got the inspiration to write this as I finished it earlier today.

Please try these exercises today. See which you like and make them a part of your daily life. Use any idle moment you have to practice. That way you’ll never be bored and always have something ‘to do’.

At first you may be able to access the present moment only for few seconds before your mind takes over again. But that’s enough. It’s enough to create an opening and with practice the gaps in thinking get longer and longer.

Accepting what is ends suffering

When you are at the present moment your next job is to accept it as it is. What is, is, and nothing you can do about it. So if at the moment you experience any negative emotions simply accept them. Resistance is the domain of the mind and only perpetuates the negative emotions.

Simply acknowledge how you feel and that is it. Accepting doesn’t mean resigning to your fate and thinking you can’t change anything. Accepting means seeing your reality as it is in the moment. It’s the only sane thing to do.

If it helps you can try seeing the negative emotion as some external object and resistance as pushing it away. When you stop resisting you stop pushing.

The negative emotion probably weakens significantly as you accept it, it may even go away completely and you’ll notice you are at peace.

If the negative emotion didn’t go away completely just observe it with curiosity. Don’t try to change it or push it way. Simply observe it. See what’s behind it. Ask yourself “could I let go of this feeling?”. As you keep doing this you’ll notice that the negative emotion vanishes completely.

Can you accept your acne?

Here’s how to take this a step further. This may be a bit uncomfortable at first, but please try this.

Find a mirror and look at yourself. If you see acne and that makes you feel bad, even better. Then focus on your breath and access the present moment. When you are present work on accepting what you see.

If you have acne, no power in the world is going change it today; probably not even this week. Your skin is what it is. The only sane thing to do is to accept it as it is.

Resisting your skin or wanting it to be something else simply creates more suffering. It’s no different than frustrating over the fact that rocks are hard. You wanting them to be soft won’t change the facts. It only creates suffering for you.

If you can’t let go of resisting your acne, accept that. Acknowledge that you can’t stop resisting it. Stop resisting the resisting. Then simply observe the resistance with curiosity and see what happens.

Then work on accepting your skin as it is. I’m not saying you have to be happy about your skin. You probably won’t be. It also doesn’t mean you resign to it. Acceptance simply means seeing your skin for what it is. Accepting means letting it be what it is, for now. When you accept you stop doing suffering. When you stop suffering you create an opening for a different reality to emerge.

As you work on accepting your acne the story of yourself as helpless acne victim weakens. As your story and external reality always match, along with the story goes the struggle and frustration it brings.

What do you think happens to your acne if your new story is one where you are at peace with your skin? The worst that could happen is that your acne stays the same, but it doesn’t bother you anymore. You simply look at it with no emotion at all.

So, in your head you have your little Aladdin’s Lamp. Your wish is its command. If you choose to see acne and a harbinger of misery and suffering, that’s what you experience. You can have this experience as long as you want. And you can end it anytime you want. Simply choose again. Choose to see acne as a gateway to happiness and overcoming your limitations and that’s what you get.

It’s your choice.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin