Choose Love,
Kris
http://www.totalhealthyoga.com/
Today is the first day of the rest of your life!
"My karma ran over my dogma.... "
"Some people talk about finding God, as if He or She could get lost."
"When two psychic friends met, one said: 'You are fine. How am I ?' "
(Jokes complements of http://www.swamij.com/jokes.htm.)
Reader's Digest reminds us in it's monthly column, "Laughter is the Best Medicine." This is not just a catching title; it's true!
Mayo Clinic sites various benefits of laughter such as stimulating the organs, increasing endorphins, relaxes the body while giving it a work out, increases circulation, aids with digestion, improves the immune system, and acts as a natural pain killer. Not to mention the fact that it's just plain fun!
In Hal Urban's book, Life's Greatest Lessons, he shares stories of how Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein used humor and play to break the tension of too much thinking. "[Edison not only maintained] hundreds of notebooks full of scientific equations, he filled several others with nothing buy jokes." As for Einstein, just take a look at the above photo and tell me this man didn't know how to have a good time.
So we all could use a good dose of laughter everyday, but what it that's just not happening? One suggestion is to do Laughing Yoga or go to the bookstore and find a comic book that really tickles you. (I've checked the web for joke sites, but found that the majority of them focused on slamming others.) Laughter Yoga offers a means to see if there is a Laughter Club near you. If not, think about starting one or at least rent some funny movies. One of my all time favorites is The Princess Bride.
Ho-Ho-Ho-Ha-Ha-Ha,
Kris
http://www.totalhealthyoga.com/
Today is the first day of the rest of your life!
What constitutes a successful life? Society, parents, peers, and perhaps even our own minds frequently use the term 'success' synonymously with financial wealth, living in upscale neighborhoods, driving expensive cars, and holding certain jobs. I believe this idea hinders us in the path of true success.
This brings us to the question, then what is success? When we are stuck in the thinking mind, it is helpful to first still this inner chatter and preconceived ideas through yoga, meditation, or even a walk in the woods. So to determine what success meant to me personally, I took a long savasana (deep relaxation) after a hatha yoga practice and cleared my mind. Then I pulled out a journal and just wrote whatever came to me regarding the subject of success. This technique is a great way to let your inspiration and insight come through on any topic.
The result of this free-form idea gathering combined with some word changes brought out the following in acronym:
Success
S - Silence
U - Unite
C - Creativity
C - Character
E - Excel
S - Solutions
S - Surrender
Silence: Take time to be in stillness and silence. This is were our inspiration and insights bubble up.
Unite: Unite your intentions and actions. First you must know what your intentions both globally, locally, long-term, and short-term are. Coming to a place of silence helps to set these intentions without ego getting in the way. Then observe your actions; do they align with your intentions?
Creativity: Don't be a cookie-cutout; be your own person with your own unique contributions to the world. Honor what works for you and remember that we each have an individual purpose or dharma. Be true to yourself and allow others to be true for themselves. (Yes, moms -- including myself -- this is really important for us to remember!)
Character: Act and live with character. Thomas Lickona has written a wonderful book -- if you can get past the preaching and strictness of it -- called Character Matters. Do you live, speak, think, and act with integrity, honesty, respect, honor, and gratitude? These words mean different things to different people. What do they mean to you? Do you find that you treat others with respect or honor, but not yourself?
Excel: Do your best. I hesitate to use the word "best" as you could do your "best" at work by never coming home. You could run a race and pass out from attempting to reach higher performance continuously. Sounds exhausting, right? Instead view "best" with the wise advice of the Chinese, "Do everything 70% of your maximum. Run 70% of your fastest. Eat 70% of what you can." The guideline isn't 30% or even 50%. So put forth effort without killing yourself or stressing out beyond your limits.
Solutions: Focus on solutions, not problems. It's wise to bring awareness to potential obstacles or challenges. But to stop there is where we may fail. To succeed, we must look at these issues and brainstorm for solutions. Free-form all ideas with wild abandon; you can always go back and remove ideas that you know won't work. But when we brainstorm in a a free format (no judgement) some pearls of insight just might surface.
Surrender: The Bhagavad Gita councils us to do our dharma (purpose) and then let the outcome go. When we act with integrity, awareness, and wisdom, that is enough. That is success. The result of our actions are none of our business. I've heard it said, "There's your business, other people's business, and God's business." The outcome of your actions pure of heart are God's business, not ours.
"Success is not so much what we have as it is what we are." ~ Jim Rohn
"Truth, self control, asceticism, generosity, non-injury, constancy in virtue — these are the means of success, not caste or family." ~ Mahabharata
Love Much,
Kris
http://www.totalhealthyoga.com/
Today is the first day of the rest of your life!
Last week's post was based on admiration of Dr. Dyer's quote of the day; today I'd like to share with you another new blog--new to me--that has a great post suggesting Top 10 Ways to Protect Your Mental Health.
The American Diabetes Association says, "Approximately 64% of American adults are overweight or obese...." We all know that if we eat right and exercise, our bodies will respond. In high school, my 5' 1" body reached over 145 pounds. I refused to step on the scale again until I knew I had lost some weight. By the end of college, I was down to 96 pounds and had the child-sized wedding dress to prove it!
My weight and food problems stemmed wide and far. They were rooted in deep childhood issues. It wasn't until I began to love and appreciate myself and Life that the weight reached a comfortable zone (~115-120) and I felt fit and healthy. The point is, my body responded with I changed on the inside. Sure exercise and consciously considering what when in my mouth were a big part of it, but the yo-yo shifts in weight stopped when the reason I took care of my body was because I appreciated it and myself and not because I wanted to look or even feel a certain way.
In summary, physical fitness and watching what we eat is great, but until we pay attention to our mental health, attitude, and mindset, our physical health will, at best, be temporary.
Love Much--take care of yourself because you're worth it!
Kris
www.TotalHealthYoga.com
Today is the first day of the rest of your life!
Laura (name changed) has mastered the art of setting and living with personal boundaries. In doing so she no longer needs blood pressure medication or her inhaler. I've known Laura for about four years and am inspired by her ability to use the lessons of yoga to change her life for the better on a daily basis. Following are three short anecdotes demonstrating her personal power. Hopefully, these stories will inspire more of us to realize the value of honoring thyself.
Laura's children are grown and have kids of their own. Her grandkids are quite young--below the age of five, I think. One set of grandkids lives on the west coast and the other on the east; whereas Laura resides in the midwest. Every year Laura and her husband would fly out to both coasts for Thanksgiving and Christmas. You may imagine the expense financially and time-wise of doing this. Finally this past year, Laura began to honor her own limits and spent Thanksgiving on one coast and Christmas on the other. Initially, the grandkids were upset at the change, but Laura stuck to her decision and used skype (or some such video abilities) to "be" with the kids on each coast. Already her life was simpler and, well, more sane.
Laura's high pressure job demands much of her time with last minute meetings and requests cropping up on a continuous basis. It also demands a lot of travel. Her blood pressure and breathing patterns reflected this stressful life. Over the past several months, she began to actually say, "No," to her boss. When told that "she had to fly out early for a meeting" the morning after returning from a trip, Laura simply told her boss that was not good for her body, but she would be happy to hold the meeting over the phone. Her boss was flustered, but ended up agreeing that the phone made more sense.
One final story about personal power and how one woman utilizes it in her daily life. Laura used to spend the majority of her weekends with her blind and single mother helping out with chores, reading to her, and just being together. When Laura stepped back and looked at her life and considered why it felt so off-balance and stressful, she realized that part of that was from spending so much of her out-of-work time caring for her mom. Now she spends about three hours most Sundays with her mom. Initially, her mom was upset by this shorter schedule and (from my view) tried to guilt-trip my friend into sticking with the old way. But Laura stuck to her guns, told her mother she loved her, and kept the new time limits. Within a few weeks, her mom had met other people and even began dating.
What I find so inspiring about this dear woman, is her ability to exhibit personal boundaries and power in all facets of her life. Just as importantly, she does it with a loving and compassionate heart. Never once did I sense her resisting a situation--not since she began working with her yoga breathing and mindset. Instead of fighting and struggling with potentially challenging situations, she thinks creatively and with love and calm in her heart. I believe that because her intentions are pure and honest, in the end everyone benefits.
May you release guilt,
honor yourself,
and
experience the personal freedom of setting boundaries,
Kris
http://www.totalhealthyoga.com/
Today is the first day of the rest of your life!
Mark Twain (complements of Wikipedia.com)
Every time I take a really great vacation, I feel changed when I return. Maybe it's less of "changed" and more of "remembering" who I am and what's really important to me. I love to take this time to regenerate and just love every moment. No worries about money, career, house stuff, etc. Just loving my family and this beautiful world that we're all blessed to be a part of. It might sound corny, but it's true.
