Life 01 (May 08 - Oct 08)

[millionairemind]

Five Happy Treats for a Stress-Free Life
By: Bean Jones

With all the stress we experience from our hectic schedules, we often forget to take time out. It's downright baffling that many of us feel guilty when we take a break or splurge on a much-needed treat.

You don't need to take a trip to an exotic location like the Caribbean or spend oodles of cash to make yourself feel good. Just check out these simple yet uplifting moves and pick one that will give you that happy buzz:

1. Throw a party. Don't let your red-letter days just pass by uneventfully. "Honoring life accomplishments is essential," says Dr. Patricia L. Gerbarg, assistant professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College in Valhalla and co-author of The Rhodiola Revolution: Transform Your Health with the Herbal Breakthrough of the 21st Century. Marking our milestones help us reexamine how far we have come as people. As Gerbarg explains, "You're learning from the past and using your energy to move forward with hope. So, celebrate a personal landmark, whatever it is, with activities that define who you are." Having a great week at work is reason enough for you to invite your friends for a laid-back dinner at your place.

2. Stay positive. Too many bad days will take their toll on you. According to Dr. Pier Massimo Forni, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct, negative emotions cause your body to release a sudden onrush of stress hormones. Now, if you're always throwing fits and having meltdowns, your heart will suffer from a great deal of strain. "Over time, this response could hurt the cardiovascular system, as well as weaken immunity," says Forni.

3. Choose good friends. Various studies featured in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community, show that people with a close circle of friends could outlive those who claim to be contented with "strong family ties." Experts theorize that this happens because you experience more emotional stress with your relatives, whom you're bound to be with whether you like them or not. When it comes to your friends, it's likely that you enjoy their company more because you got to pick them. After all, you wouldn't be friends with them if you didn't genuinely like them in the first place. Make sure to surround yourself with friends who empower you and urge you to be the best that you can be.

4. Take leaps of faith. Playing it safe is good--but it may keep you from doing something great or prevent you from getting the best things that life has to offer. In fact, a study published in Psychological Science shows that risk-takers don't let the outcome of their ventures affect them. Whether or not they got what they wanted or missed it completely is immaterial. The fact that they had the guts to go for their dream goals is more than enough. So, from time to time, take a chance on things that may help you win big--be it in your career or in your personal life.

5. Get wet. Cooped up indoors for far too long? Maybe you should hang out near a wet spot. "The air around bodies of water is full of energy-enhancing ions that help bring oxygen to the brain," says Dr. Pierce J. Howard, author of The Owner's Manual for the Brain. If the beach is a long way off and there's no pool near you, just open the bathroom window and get into the shower. This "wet session" helps energize and soothe your brain, which, in turn, leads to having clarity and a more positive view on things.

These five feel-good things should help all of us remember that we have every right to make ourselves feel great. After all, it's not a crime to treat yourself well.

[winston]

Step Back by Bob Tschannen-Moran

In the wake of the volatile and often devastating economic news around the globe, it's easy to succumb to doom-and-gloom panic. Indeed, you may be among those who have seen wild swings in your portfolio in the past two weeks, prompting you to start checking the markets and market news like never before. If so, it's become more than just a curiosity as to what's happening. It's become an attempt to fill your mind with information and to figure out what, if anything, you can do to protect yourself in such turbulent times.

Unfortunately, such information and calculation serve only to heighten the sense of anxiety. I had to laugh when a talking head on CNBC proclaimed that viewers should stay tuned to their channel, because they were the definitive and reassuring voice in times of trouble. As the head was talking, the words "crisis," "turmoil," and "risk" were scrolling across the bottom of the screen. So much for the reassuring voice! The news is far from comforting and the more we focus on it the worse our anxiety becomes.

Take it from someone who knows. Long time readers may remember that I suffered a panic attack in December of 2007. In November I had had a couple of warning shots. Then, on the first Sunday in December, I ended up in the emergency room with all of the symptoms of a heart attack.

My heart was pounding loudly, my heart rate was racing, my blood pressure was spiking, my chest had angina, my legs were weak, my arms were tingly, my gut was jittery, and I had a definite sense, as they say in the textbooks, of "impending doom." The more I focused on all these indicators the more certain I became that my life, or at least my life as I knew it, was at risk. I was dreading what the ER docs might find.

In my case, fortunately, the deeper data, that I was not paying attention to, led to a different conclusion: I was suffering from an overactive nervous system rather than a cardiac event. Ironically, the more I focused on my symptoms the worse they became. It was a classic case of a downward spiral, a negative feedback loop, and a vicious cycle. The symptoms became the cause of more symptoms until, before I knew what was happening, my health and well-being was seriously compromised. It was not an experience I want to repeat.

Since that time, I've learned a lot about calming my nerves and staying focused on the deeper data. Although my doctor suggested that this was a chemical problem, easily solved by popping sedative pills, I have come to manage the condition primarily by shifting perspective, seeking connection, and studying meditation. Having tried the medication for a while, especially early on, I am definitely more pleased with the results of lifestyle management. Since much of the world has been recently going through a collective panic attack, you may find my experience both relevant and useful to managing your own emotions at this time.

Shifting Perspective. Let's start with a refrain that grows out of Appreciative Inquiry:

The optimist looks at the glass and calls it half full.
The pessimist looks at the glass and calls it half empty.
The appreciative person looks at the glass and calls it beautiful, just the way it is.

That's the shift I am learning to make when it comes to my overactive nervous system. It does not help to either romanticize or catastrophize the data. To pretend that I have no symptoms, my doctor reminds me, can lead to real trouble were I to actually be having a cardiac event. Half full is not the whole story. So take an aspirin and have things checked out, my doctor advises, without overreacting.

To imagine that I know all the symptoms, my experience confirms, can also lead to real trouble. Half empty is not the whole story. We may think the sky is falling when it's not. As a homeless woman with a happy countenance once told me, "When things get bad, I've learned to wait three days before reacting. By then things usually look different." So take stock and go deep, my experience suggests, without overreacting.

The notion that experience is a many-layered thing assists us to look for and appreciate the beauty in things, just the way they are. When my nervous system kicks up, I find myself reframing the uncomfortable externalities as expressions of more intriguing internalities. "What is really going on here?" I've learned to ask myself, "and how can I best value the experience?" Such questions take us beyond the daily roller-coaster to the deeper truth of life: win or lose there is much to appreciate in the moment. It's important to consistently grasp and cherish that deeper data.

Seeking Connection. I don't know about you, but I am never more engaged than when I have a strong sense of purpose and connection in life and work. This past week, for example, I had little time for panic -- albeit the market tremors -- because I was connecting with my daughter as well as with her friends and colleagues in Los Angeles. So, too, with my run this morning. In a few weeks, I will again be leading the 4:45 pace team at the Baltimore marathon. This morning was my final tune up, running 20 miles at my Baltimore pace. I had little time for panic -- given the pacing requirements -- because I was focused on my purpose and connection with the people in Baltimore.

Full engagement will do that. It calms the nervous system by connecting us with people and projects that are important. They may not be important to others, but if they are important to us (like my daughter and the 4:45 pace team) they have the capacity to work miracles when it comes to our emotions.

The key, in my experience, is to seek connection rather than control. The more we try to control people and projects, the more agitation we experience. That's as true for global markets as it is for personal mastery. The secret is embedded in now-famous Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Now here's the kicker: the only thing that I can ever really change is myself. We cannot change other people and we cannot change projects; we can only ourselves in relation to other people and projects. So that suggests the following revision of the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change about myself,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Once we get to that place, we can seek connection with people and projects in ways that lead to full engagement rather than to frustration. Take note that "seeking connection" is a behavior, not a state of mind. It is something we must do actively if we hope to experience it at all.

Studying Meditation. Although shifting perspective and seeking connection are necessary to managing our emotions, they are not sufficient. That's because it's easy to fall back into old patterns of thinking and relating. Just when we think we got it, we lose it.

The Buddhist's refer to such distractions and delusions as the Monkey mind: being "unsettled, restless, capricious, whimsical, fanciful, inconstant, confused, indecisive, and uncontrollable". In the West it's called being scatter brained. And the antidote is always the same: slow, deep, rhythmic breaths. It takes the wisdom of the body to counterbalance the distortions of the mind.

I like the following description of a Taoist breath meditation technique:

"When one breathes in and out, one's concentration causes the generative force to rise and fall (in the microcosmic orbit) thus slowly turning the wheel of the law. Count from one to ten and then keep counting, up to one hundred breaths, with the heart (mind) following the counting to prevent it from wandering outside. When the heart and breathing are in unison, this is called locking up the monkey heart and tying up the running horse of intellect."

So simple and yet so challenging. I am not master of the practice, and I do not do it often enough, but I have learned that whenever I take the time to breath slowly, deeply, and rhythmically my mind calms and my emotions settle. It is an essential practice when it comes to lifestyle management of anxiety, panic, and other negative emotions.

I have written before about numerous biofeedback devices that support the development of a meditation practice. I encourage to read my most writing on the subject by visiting CelebrateWellness.com.

These three, then -- shifting perspective, seeking connection, and studying meditation -- commend themselves to all who would look for the deeper truth in life and work. Forget, as David Whyte urges, "the news and the radio and the blurred screen." Instead, look for that "one good word" that is "bread for a thousand." It's there to be found; we need only to look in all the right places and all the right ways.

[millionairemind]

THOUGHT for YOUR WEEK:
A Creed to Reflect Upon
By Author Unknown

Don't undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others,
It is because we are different that each of us is special.

Don't set your goals by what other people deem important,
Only you know what is best for you.

Don't take for granted the things closest to your heart
Cling to that as you would your life, for without them life is meaningless.

Don't let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or the future.
By living your life one day at a time, you live all the days of your life.

Don't give up when you still have something to give.
Nothing is really over … until the moment you stop trying.

Don't be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect,
It is the fragile thread that binds us to each other.

Don't be afraid to encounter risks,
It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.

Don't shut love out of your life by saying it's impossible to find.
The quickest way to receive love is to give love.

The fastest way to lose love is to hold on too tightly,
And the best way to keep love is to give it wings.

Don't dismiss your Dreams. To be without dreams is to be without hope.
To be without hope is to be without purpose.

Don't run through life so fast that you forget where you've been,
But also know where you're going.
Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored every step of the way.

[helios]

the North Wind and the Sun had an argument one day. They disputed which of them was the stronger.

A traveler came along the road at that time, and the Sun suggested a way to resolve the argument.

Whoever was able to cause the traveler to remove his coat would be the stronger. the Wind accepted the challenge and the Sun hid himself behind a cloud.

the Wind began to blow. Yet the harder he blew, the more the traveler clutched his coat about himself. the Wind sent rain, even hail. the traveler clung even more desperately to his coat.

Finally, in despair, the Wind gave up.

the Sun came out and began to shine in all his glory upon the traveler. Quite soon the man had removed his coat.

"how did you do that?" asked the Wind.

"it was easy,"said the Sun, "I lit the dáy. Through gentleness, I got my way."


morale of the story: femininity vs. masculinity approaches as in your decision-makings till execution phases [the whole picture] ...

[winston]

The Law Of The Garbage Truck By Larry Crane

“One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport.

We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car backed out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us.

My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy.

He was really friendly. So I asked, ‘Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital.’ This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, "The Law of the Garbage Truck."

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on.

Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.

The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So ... Love the people who treat you right. And, love the ones who don't.

Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it!

Have a blessed, garbage-free day.”

Dan Westfall

========================

Thanks to Dan for sharing this story with us. Thanks too, to the taxi driver who is a unique person.

The taxi driver knows that any event, any situation, any person you come across is neutral, that is, neither good nor bad until you place the label. Shakespeare said, “Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Calling something bad, labeling it bad, is making the thing or event negative for you. You go negative on the negative thing and you are joining up with negative. Put it this way. Going negative is getting negative.

Your mind doesn’t like that. It’s saying, “What am I supposed to do? You want me to like it when something comes along that’s negative?” Yes, you’re supposed to like it. Better yet, love it. It’s only negative because you think it is.

The taxi driver knew that. Were a garbage truck running him, he would have lashed out against the other driver. He would have gone negative and gotten negative. He would have ruined his day. He would have put himself in a negative frame of mind, a bad mood. Garbage would have won out. Garbage would have had a victory. Negative, non love, would have gotten stronger.

The taxi driver applied love. In so doing, love got stronger in him and increased his storehouse of positive energy. He remained happy and untouched by the event. It was a victory for freedom, freedom from non love feelings, freedom from negativity and misery.

Most of the world is applying negativity, non love feelings, thoughts, actions and reactions. Look around. That’s why most of the people in the world are sick, miserable and very depressed.

Life is a decision. Your attitude, your outlook is a decision moment to moment. I’m going to be positive, I’m going to be negative. I’m going to express negative non love into to the world. I’m going to dump my garbage into the world. Or, I’m going to be positive. I’m going to express positive in the world. I’m going to apply love.

Lester Levenson said, in any situation, if you would love more, the situation would resolve in a positive way. The taxi driver knew that.

The taxi driver could have met garbage with garbage. It would have made his day negative. It would have presented Dan with a negative situation. Garbage would have won the day. Look what a difference the taxi driver made by remaining positive and loving in spite of the negative garbage being thrown his way.

Practice love. Practice being positive and loving in spite of garbage pails or garbage trucks. Being positive and loving in spite of what is happening is a victory for freedom, freedom from the garbage truck with all its negativity, stress, frustration, and suffering. Being positive and loving in spite of whoever or whatever, is expanding your capacity to love and increasing your happiness.

The story says it right. Being positive is being loving. Being loving is being successful. Positive is the same energy as love, as success, happiness and abundance. It’s your decision. In spite of any circumstance you have a decision to make. Be positive and loving or spread the garbage. Which one feels better? Which one provides the best outcome? Which one is better for you, for those around you, for the planet?

Next time something comes your way that you could throw garbage at, remember the taxi driver. Be positive and loving. Stay in the high energy of love and conquer any and all situations. Love is the answer.

Make it a victory for freedom over the garbage. Apply love. Love wins, you win.

Remember. Life is 90% what you make it. Make it positive and loving.

[winston]

Humor by Mike Brescia

It probably goes without saying but humor is in the eye of the beholder. Not everything is funny to all people.

But...

Why are so many people (you and I included) so serious about so many things? ... all the time?

Lighten up!

My wife tells me regularly that aside from my incredible wit and stunning good looks, it's my sense of humor that that made her love me. She is one smooooooth talker!

By taking ourselves too seriously, at any time, we literally close off parts of our brain so that it can only produce chemicals in our bodies that make us feel bad. If someone has teased, laughed at, or talked badly about you, you have choices about how to act.

It may not SEEM like you have choices, because your emotions are probably on autopilot most of the time.

Stimulus -> Response.

No pause, just instantly think the worst, the chemicals surge and' Bingo! - Irrational reaction.

What happened to Evolution?

Our mental programming has been made up not only of the words you hear. Your emotions, prejudices, and
surroundings get mixed into the soup, too. Your moods - your states of mind - are a HUGE factor.

If someone was laughing at you for doing something ridiculous, and you were in a playful mood... let's say you've had a fairly good day, then you would be pretty likely to brush it off and maybe join in the laughter.

But if you had a particularly tough day and your mood wasn't so good (or if you've already been too self-centered for too long), that same laughter could feel like ridicule... and your reaction could be vastly different, couldn't it?

It's these kinds of patterns over a lifetime that make people stuffy, no fun, vengeful and even suicidal.
[Remember Columbine?]

Or...

These situations could be "used" to develop your sense of humor, and take your life in a completely different direction.

Humor is a big factor in everyone's life. Really big...

And your habitual moods play a giant role in what you consider to be funny or stupid... harmless or cruel...interesting or frightening.

[winston]

Living Rich Isn't Meant to Be Done Alone By Suzanne Richardson

We build wealth for all sorts of reasons. One of the biggest? So we can enjoy a luxurious retirement doing the things we love with the people we love.

But if you're spending all your time building your wealth, you could be shooting your idyllic future in the foot.

A recent New York Times article referenced one couple who spent years amassing their fortune. Then the husband - and breadwinner - retired. And the pair discovered they'd grown apart over the years and no longer had enough in common to preserve the marriage. "It was the building of this wealth that ultimately led to their divorce," Melanie Schnoll-Begun of Citigroup, who worked with the couple, told The Times.

Tragic story, isn't it?

That's one of the reasons Michael Masterson advocates "living rich." What he means by that is enjoying the finer things in life no matter how much - or how little - you have in the bank. Learning to appreciate wine. Eating good meals. Reading the best novels. Listening to music. Watching classic movies. Reading poetry.

And to make sure you don't end up like that couple I mentioned above? Practice living rich with your spouse. You'll develop new interests. You'll expand your horizons. You'll experience new delights. And because you're doing it together, you'll grow closer too.

[winston]

The Sage of Monticello by Alexander Green

This week - for the umpteenth time - I visited Monticello, home of one of my all-time favorite Americans, Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson, of course, is best known as one of the Founding Fathers. He was the principal author of The Declaration of Independence, laying down the foundations of self-government and individual freedoms. (The preamble established, for the first time in history, the concept of human rights as the basis for a republic.)

Jefferson served as delegate to the Virginia General Assembly and to Congress, as governor of Virginia, minister to France, secretary of state, vice president, and president from 1801 to 1809.

As President of the United States, he sponsored the Lewis and Clark Expedition and doubled the size of the country with the Louisiana Purchase.

He later founded the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

A child of the Enlightenment, he was also one of the country's great Renaissance men.

Jefferson was a statesman, parliamentarian, historian, surveyor, philosopher, scientist, diplomat, architect, inventor, educator, lawyer, farmer, breeder, manufacturer, botanist, horticulturalist, anthropologist, meteorologist, astronomer, paleontologist, lexicologist, linguist, ethnologist, Biblicist, mathematician, geographer, librarian, bibliophile, classicist, scholar, bibliographer, translator, writer, editor, musician, gastronome and connoisseur of wine.

When John F. Kennedy welcomed a group of forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to a dinner in their honor at The White House in 1962, he toasted them saying, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

Jefferson was an avid reader in English, Spanish, French, Greek and Latin. His personal library contained nearly ten thousand volumes.

"I cannot live without books," he wrote his friend John Adams in 1815.

When the British destroyed the library in Washington during the War of 1812, Jefferson offered his personal collection to start a new one. It became the foundation of the Library of Congress.

Jefferson, of course, was not without his flaws.

His political rival Alexander Hamilton saw Jefferson's politics as "tinctured with fanaticism." John Nicholas, clerk of Jefferson's Albemarle County, told George Washington that Jefferson was "one of the most artful, intriguing, industrious and double-faced politicians in all America."

And, like most plantation owners of his time, he was a slaveholder.

He was troubled by slavery all his life, calling it "this hideous blot." An early draft of the Declaration - voted down by his compatriots - called for an end to the slave trade.

But whatever his personal feelings, he remained a slaveholder throughout his life. Upon his death, he freed only his mistress Sally Hemmings and her children.

Today Jefferson rests under a magnificent granite monument at the Monticello Graveyard. Sally Hemmings' grave, according to Jefferson biographer Christopher Hitchens, "lies somewhere under the parking lot of the Hampton Inn at Charlottesville."

Jefferson's strong beliefs and contradictory actions, says Hitchens, shows that history is often "a tragedy and not a morality tale."

Jefferson was conflicted about slavery, in part, because he was a serious student of ethics. Posted at Monticello, for example, are his Ten Canons for Practical Life:

1. Never put off to tomorrow what you can do today.
2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend money before you have it.
4. Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.
5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.
6. We never repent of having eaten too little.
7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
8. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
9. Take things always by their smooth handle.
10. When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.

His letters to family and friends were often punctuated with practical or ethical advice.

"Never suppose that in any possible situation or under any circumstances it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing however slightly so it may appear to you," he wrote Peter Carr in 1785. "Whenever you are to do a thing though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly."

Jefferson was also an early advocate of religious tolerance. He was a vigorous proponent of the separation of church and state and authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

In his "Notes on the State of Virginia" he wrote, "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

Jefferson counted himself a Unitarian, but he often said he was the member of a sect that included no one but himself.

Jefferson accepted the social teachings of the New Testament but rejected the miracle stories. Working alone in 1800, he took a razor and paste and cobbled together his own version of the "authentic" sayings of Jesus of Nazareth. The result was the Jefferson Bible, still in print today.

Predictably, this act outraged many of his contemporaries.

Assailed by Christian fundamentalists during the election of 1800, Jefferson wrote, "They believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

Jefferson's unwillingness to be bound by any single ideology helped create - and codify - the religious pluralism that we enjoy today.

He told Adam Smith that 50 or 60 years of religious reading could be summed up in just four words, "be just and good."

"I never told my own religion, nor scrutinized that of another," he wrote Margaret Bayard Smith in 1816. "It is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read."

[winston]

Learning to Set Your Personal Boundaries By Kim Illig

As an intuitive counselor, I help men and women gain a deeper understanding of their emotions, dreams, and goals. Together, my clients and I create opportunities for self-discovery that allow them to open doors to create the lives they want. One obstacle to living authentically that I see very often is people having soft personal boundaries.

Boundaries are limits we consciously or unconsciously put in place to take good care of ourselves. By using the term “soft-boundaries,” I refer to people feeling that they do not have a choice. When we feel we are without choice we find ourselves doing things we don’t want to or things we think we should or must do. Soft-boundaries occur when we act one way, but feel a completely different way and do it because we feel we “have to.” It can be as simple as saying you will call someone when you don’t want to, or hosting a big event because you feel it is the “right” thing to do.

Managing personal boundaries is not a task for the weak-hearted! But the rewards of doing it are exponential. I am exploring how well I manage my own boundaries with my aging mother who is moving from an independent lifestyle to assisted living. At this time in her life, my mother lives far away but wants my participation in her daily decisions. Our conversations bring up a strong feeling that I should drop everything to go help her. However, if I become the “dutiful daughter” and leave my home, my husband, my dogs, and my intuitive counseling practice to take care of her and her life I, in turn, let go of taking care of my own life. This is where the setting of boundaries is essential.

Although I have been practicing personal empowerment for years, I can still slip back into the attitude I was socialized with. If someone says, “Help me!” it is easy for me to jump in and say, “Here I am, I will help you in any way you need!” -- especially when it happens to be my mother. Yet, because I have been studying personal boundary management for thirty years, I understand that jumping in and taking care of my mother will cause more havoc than it will provide the nurturing my mother needs at this major transitional time in her life.

There is a part of me that would love to take care of my mother and let go of being conscious and responsible for my personal boundaries because it is hard to hear her fear and uncertainty about her changing life. Yet, I believe that by not dropping everything to go to her aid, I provide her with the opportunity to take care of herself while reminding both of us that she is still fully capable of making her own decisions. Along with that, I respect myself by remembering that my priority is my life and it is worthy of my nurturance. If my mother and I act consciously, we can have a conversation about both of our wants that will end up with a “win/win” situation.

Ideally, boundaries are limits that one sets intentionally which then allow for the healthy receiving of input from others. Boundaries define the parts of our life experiences or our relationships that we are willing or are not willing to participate in. Notice that I am saying “ideally”. Our everyday management of life includes many opportunities for our boundaries to be unconsciously set or to be set inappropriately. This can result in participating in situations and relationships that leave us feeling drained, resentful and unsatisfied with the way we are living our lives.

Some tools I share with my clients in regards to creating solid personal boundaries are:

1. Notice your reactions and emotional responses. Reactions of anger, annoyance or frustration are indications of a boundary breach. Often anger, annoyance or frustration results from people allowing themselves to do something they have agreed with themselves not to do. For example: Have you ever experienced yourself saying, “I won’t do that again,” and then find yourself doing it again? That is a very common boundary breach, which may result in feelings of anger towards others or feeling overwhelmed.

2. If you hear yourself say, “I have no choice,” that is also an indication of a loose boundary. Remember -- we always have choice. This can be a hard thing for some people to accept, but by setting good boundaries and cultivating compassion for yourself, you can effectively deal with whatever situation presents itself.

3. One of the most powerful tips I offer clients is the use of “I” statements. A boundary breach occurs when we blame someone else for what our experience is. Assertions like, “You made me feel angry,” or “He made me feel sad,” are examples of how using blame results in soft boundaries. Instead, share thoughts or feelings from your perspective, “I feel angry when you say that,” or “I feel sad when he did that.” The “I” statement is a powerful tool for maintaining and declaring an authentic personal boundary, which in turn helps you remain present and conscious about your reactions.

Setting and maintaining authentic boundaries is not for the timid. This type of personal work requires intention – to live a life of integrity and to make yourself a priority. Through consciously setting boundaries, you will find that you live the life you choose, not one filled only with things you feel you must or should do. This process requires the courage to face your edge, but helps you live a healthier, happier life of integrity and meaning.

[winston]

Find Life Balance in 3 Simple Ways By Aurelia Williams

No matter how stressed out we can get, know though that keeping our life balanced is not that difficult. There is no need to leave our job and our family or even run away and hide in a far away place just to feel at peace and in control. The truth is, life balance begins within us first and foremost - regardless of what is happening around us.

Here are three simple ways to help start us in our journey to finding inner peace, harmony and life balance:

1) Find some quiet time. Personal time is one of the things that get sacrificed when people get busy. We tend to focus all our energy to helping others, trying to accomplish more than one thing at one time, meeting goals, crossing off to-do lists and just trying to accomplish everything we possibly can.

To enjoy a balanced life, we need to remember that quiet time for ourselves is extremely necessary. It is easy to say that we do not have enough time for ourselves. It's funny though that when a situation comes up where we need to allocate some time, we are able to make time for that project. Situations like this actually make us more focused, more energetic and more productive which in turn makes us happier. It is not impossible to find some quiet time for ourselves. When we do, we should enjoy and appreciate the silence; certain activities like meditation or reading can surely turn stress into peace and ultimately happiness.

2) Take time for self-care. We must take some time to do the things we enjoy so we can love ourselves everyday. Some things we can do to nurture ourselves are: making sure we get a full 8 hours of sleep, eating a balanced diet, getting a good amount of exercise and also positive self-talk.

When we are tired or stressed out, even the littlest problem can become a nightmare. But, when we are rested and relaxed, we are able to see things in a different light - we tend to see the positive in most situations. When we take the time to take care of ourselves, we are able to replace our burnt out energy quickly. It is easier for us to handle difficult situations and easier for us to find joy and peace in our everyday lives.

3) Learn to be flexible. The biggest cause of stress in most people is high expectations. We are all guilty of this at one point of time. We have a certain expectation on how our lives must be and we get irritated when things do not fall into place. Relax! Let's take a deep breath and try our best to have a flexible state of mind.

We must try to remove ourselves from the stressful situation and look at it from a different angle. Why not try to go with the flow? When we allow ourselves to do this, we may find that our creativity in solving problems may come out. Imagine being like a tree bending with the breeze. We can move through challenging situations with no drama or frustrations.

These three simple steps can dramatically change our state of well-being. However, we may also want to examine our outer life circumstances. Pay attention to other menial changes we can make to help support our inner work.

One example that comes to mind is letting go of obligations that may no longer be enjoyable and meaningful to us. Agreeing to perform weekly tasks does not mean we need to do it forever especially if it starts to drain our time and energy. It is all right to let go of activities that no longer complement the lifestyle we want so we can have the time to commit to other things. By doing this, we can start to create a peaceful, joyful and a more balanced life.