Life 01 (May 08 - Oct 08)

[winston]

From One Glow-Worm to Another by Alexander Green

There is a lot of fear and uncertainty in the financial markets right now.

We're struggling with the worst credit crisis since the 1930s. The S&P 500 has plunged nearly 30% over the past year. Investor's Business Daily reports that 91% of all stock and bond mutual funds are down year to date.

Millions of investors have rushed into Treasuries. Many will stay there until they find someone who can tell them when the coast is clear again.

Unfortunately, that person doesn't exist.

I was an investment advisor and portfolio manager for sixteen years. I've been a financial writer for the past eight. I don't know what the market is going to do in the short term. And I'm not reluctant to admit it. Because no one else knows either.

However, there are plenty of people on Wall Street - and in the financial media - who make a good living pretending to know or, in some cases, actually delude themselves that they do know.

This is a deadly mindset. (Pride isn't one of the seven deadly sins for nothing.)

Anyone can make a good market call. But no one can accurately predict the economy, interest rates, inflation, the dollar or the financial markets.

Count yourself a sophisticated investor the day you finally say to yourself "since no one can tell me with any consistency what lies just ahead for the economy and the stock market, how should I manage my money?"

(My new book "The Gone Fishin' Portfolio" provides one specific answer.)

This inability to know what the future holds drives many investors to distraction. (Or, in some cases, the poor house.) But markets are always inscrutable.

As Jason Zweig wrote in this week's Wall Street Journal, "Uncertainty is all investors ever have gotten, or ever will get, from the moment barley and sesame began trading in ancient Mesopotamia to the last trade that will ever take place on Planet Earth. If tomorrow were ever knowable with absolute certainty, who would take the other side of the trade today? ... The only true certainty is surprise."

When I began studying the world's great investors more than two decades ago, I soon discovered that they used many different investment strategies. But they all approached the market with the same deep humility.

Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing, said, "If I have noticed anything over these 60 years on Wall Street, it is that people do not succeed in forecasting what is going to happen to the stock market."

Warren Buffett, the world's richest man and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway once told shareholders, "We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie [Munger] and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children."

In his book "One Up On Wall Street," Peter Lynch, the best mutual fund manager of all time, wrote, "Thousands of experts study overbought indicators, oversold indicators, head-and-shoulder patterns, put-call ratios, the Fed's policy on money supply, foreign investment, the movement of the constellations through the heavens, and the moss on oak trees, and they can't predict the markets with any useful consistency, any more than the gizzard squeezers could tell the Roman emperors when the Huns would attack."

These men understood that humility is essential to investment success - as it is to so much else in our lives.

Humility doesn't mean selling yourself short or not exercising your talents to the fullest. It means making an honest appraisal of the limited knowledge, experience and understanding that we all bring to certain situations.

It means having a realistic perspective, understanding that - whatever our particular talents - we are not the center of the universe. "We are all worms," Winston Churchill remarked. "But I do believe I am a glow-worm."

Humility is becoming. It wears well. Truly confident individuals don't need to brag or boast. (It's much more attractive for people to discover your many charms on their own.)

Secure individuals don't lord their status over others. (Even if you are a one-in-a-million kind of guy, in a world of six billion people that means there are thousands more just like you.)

A companionable friend or dinner guest knows better topics of conversation than merely himself. The old saw is true: When we are all wrapped up in ourselves, we make a pretty small package.

"There are two types of people in this world," observed Frederick L. Collins. "Those who come into the room and say, 'Well, here I am!' and those who come in and say, 'Ah, there you are!'"

Could anyone really prefer spending time with the former?

A modest attitude also demonstrates maturity. "Let us be humble," said Jawaharlal Nehru. "Let us think that the truth may not perhaps be entirely with us."

Live long enough and you're likely to learn that life is one long lesson in humility. Things don't always turn out like we planned... or even how we could have imagined.

Our happiness is determined, in large part, by how we handle these inevitable surprises.

Because uncertainty will always be with us. Perhaps that is why Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George Will once described his idea of heaven as "infinite knowing." As a man of letters, he appreciates the limits of human understanding.

Recognizing these limits is invaluable, whether we're analyzing problems, figuring out relationships - or even puzzling over the really big questions. Why are we here? Where did we come from? What's it all about?

Scientists, philosophers, and theologians have struggled with these for thousands of years. And still wrestle with them today.

As Nobel Prize-winning particle physicist Leon Lederman wryly observed, the universe is the answer. But we still don't know the question.

This humble attitude has been embraced by great minds throughout history, from Aristotle to Newton to Einstein to Gandhi.

As Sioux Indian chief Ota Kte observed a century ago, "After all the great religions have been preached and expounded, or have been revealed by brilliant scholars, or have been written in books and embellished in fine language with fine covers, man - all man - is still confronted with the Great Mystery."

[winston]

Laugh Lines by Bob Tschannen-Moran

Since I started writingalmost 10 years ago, some themes have surfaced more frequently than others. One, for example, is gratitude. Another is mindfulness. And still another is laughter. All three qualities have much to do with the good life that we seek to bring forward with our clients and in the world. Our motto -- celebrate the best to bring out the best in life and work -- speaks not only to our approach but to our understanding of how the universe works. It's no more complicated than the old adage, "What goes around comes around."

If you want more laughter, joy, and happiness in your life, there's no better place to start than to laugh out loud. Once we start laughing, sooner or later we get the idea that we must be happy. And happiness is its own reward. Without claiming to be a comedian, I decided to track down and reprint some of my own, best laugh lines from the past 10 years (don't you just love search engines!). I hope you enjoy the recap as much as I enjoy the memories.

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There's no way to move into wholeness without at least a few good laughs on a daily basis. Children laugh easily and often; adults get bogged down with the serious side of life. If that sounds familiar, then it's time to start laughing.

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I had to laugh at Ben Franklin's account of his early interest in and practice of vegetarianism. At the age of 16, after reading a book by Tryon, Franklin made the countercultural decision to follow "a Vegetable Diet." "My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an Inconveniency," Franklin notes, "and I was frequently chid for my singularity."

Notwithstanding the chiding of his peers, Franklin continued in this practice because he found that it saved him money, gave him more time to read, and increased his aptitude for his studies, since he gained "that greater Clearness of Head and quicker Apprehension which usually attend Temperance in Eating and Drinking."

It wasn't long, however, before Franklin found himself unable to maintain his vow. He was traveling for the first time by ship from Boston to Philadelphia when the crew caught and fried a large quantity of codfish. "Hitherto I had stuck to my Resolution of not eating animal Food," Franklin observes, "and on this Occasion consider'd, with my Master Tryon, the taking every Fish as a kind of unprovoked Murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any Injury that might justify the Slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable."

"But I had formerly been a great Lover of Fish," Franklin continues, "and, when this came hot out of the Frying Pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc'd some time between Principle & Inclination, till I recollected that, when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs: Then thought I, 'If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you.' So I din'd upon Cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other People, returning only now & then occasionally to a vegetable Diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do."

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In 1998, my mature body finally got the attention of my immature mind. Within six weeks of leaving my job, I was having chest pains, shortness of breath, and numbness in my right arm. Two days of distress finally sent me back to the doctor with a new sense of urgency. Was I having a heart attack? Had my family history of cardiovascular disease caught up with me at the age of 43? If it had, I certainly had no one to blame but myself.

Following multiple tests, the news was fortunately the same as my doctor had been telling me for years: there was nothing wrong that losing weight and getting in shape wouldn't cure. This time, however, the doctor issued an ultimatum: "I want you back in six months. If your blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides are no different than they are today, we're going to start medication." With that, he sent me home to wonder and wander through the maze of an emerging midlife crisis. Who was I? How did I want to live? Why did I want to live? What did I want to do? It was a daunting and troubling time. But it was also an incredibly creative, inventive, and fertile time.

Six months later I returned to the doctor 65 pounds lighter. All my health indicators were not only in the normal range, they were optimal. "What did you do?" asked my doctor. "I just did what you told me to do," I said. "None of my patients do what I tell them to do!" he exclaimed. After a good laugh, he sent me out the door as a new man with a clean bill of health. It was a heady, intoxicating, and exhilarating moment that has irrevocably shaped who I am.

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After finishing the 2005 Boston Marathon in a time of 3:57, I had to laugh at myself. Five years earlier I had run the Boston marathon in 3:46; I was demoralized during that race by the number of times I had to stop and I was upset with myself for not running faster. Now I look at that time and think, "Wow! To run that hilly Boston course in 3:46 is great!" How perspective and the passage of time change things.

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Unfortunately most of us stop using our imaginations after childhood. Ask a young child to play a pretend game, and they're likely to plunge in with gusto. Ask an adult and you may get a groan. We would do well to heed the words of Dr. Seuss. "I like nonsense," he said, "it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. (It's what) enables (us) to laugh at life's realities."

When was the last time that you woke up your brain cells with nonsense? When was the last time that you imagined, in vivid detail, the perfect day, the perfect vacation, the perfect life, the perfect world, or the perfectly impossible? It's really not hard to do, if you give yourself permission and take the time.

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At one point I was in a restaurant having lunch with a friend. Engaged by the conversation, I reached for something across the table, knocking over my water in the process. As the wait staff came over to help clean up the mess, one of the waiters quipped, "Some people ask, 'Do you see the glass as half-full? Or do you see the glass as half-empty?' But I ask, 'Do you see the glass?'"

The man's point, which got an immediate laugh because I had obviously not paid attention to the glass before I had knocked it over, was, perhaps, more profound than he knew. How often have we been encouraged to see the glass as half-full? It is almost axiomatic in the self-help literature to encourage positive thinking. Don't look for the deficits, we are told, but focus on the assets. That will give us a better experience of life and may even nudge things forward in a positive direction.

Who better to call that axiom into question than someone who fills glasses for a living? I'm sure I was neither the first nor the last person to spill a glass of water in that restaurant. And it really didn't matter whether I viewed the glass as half-full or half-empty; by failing to pay attention to the glass -- by failing to pay attention to what was there -- I still made a mess. And then there was no way to not pay attention to the glass. How fascinating!

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In the classic Christmas tale by Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge was set free for life when he came face-to-face with, and chose to abandon his fears. Suddenly he discovered a zest for life -- a well-being of soul -- that animated his body, his generosity, and his relationships. He became, Dickens notes, "as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a person, as anyone in the good old world" knew. And the change was palpable.

"Some people laughed to see the alteration in him," Dickens writes, "but Scrooge let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset. And knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eye in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him."

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Consider the following factoids:

The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
Conclusion: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

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Laughter is in short supply in our world today, and yet it is an essential part of life and work. Those who do not laugh do not live. Understanding the integral nature of laughter, coaches laugh regularly with our clients during coaching sessions and assist our clients to laugh more on their own. The work we do may be very serious, both as to its importance and as to its intensity, but that does not mean we have to take ourselves seriously.

By laughing at ourselves and the funny things we do, the load becomes lighter, the challenge becomes brighter, and our sense of community becomes tighter. Sometimes, in coaching, we encourage clients to laugh for no reason at all. Just do it and things will start looking up.

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Provision 509, devoted to laughing out loud, made three simple points:-
(1) if you don't feel like laughing, do it anyway. Laughter is a healing balm that lifts the spirits and restores the soul.
(2) if you feel like laughing, do it out loud. A quiet, inward chuckle has nowhere near the fitness benefits of loud, boisterous laughs.
(3) if you want a fitness regimen, do it often. Young children laugh 400 times per day; adults laugh 17 times per day. So become like little children, and live!

[winston]

How to Avoid Panic in the Financial Crisis (and Avoid Making Your Situation Worse)

We are in the midst of what some experts are calling the biggest financial crisis in the United States since the Great Depression. The far-reaching effects of the slumping economy and crashing stock market are no doubt impacting you in their own way. Perhaps you worry about being laid off, are having trouble paying your mortgage or are panicked at the thought of what could happen to your investments.

In fact, in an environment like today´s you may very well find yourself constantly in fear over your financial security, with your thoughts racing full speed ahead, wondering what you´ll do if things keep getting worse.

And you´re not alone. A 2008 Gallup poll found that a higher percentage of Americans are worried about maintaining their standard of living than were worried during the 1991-1992 recession.

Among the top reasons for financial concerns cited in the poll were:
Rise in gasoline and home heating prices
Rise in food prices and health care costs
The recent decline in the stock market
More people losing their jobs
The rise in cost of a college education
The outsourcing of jobs overseas
Problems in the housing market

Of course, none of these worries bode well for your ability to find inner peace and happiness, but what you may not realize is that the more you allow fear and panic to cloud your world, the more reasons you will find to be unhappy. The only remedy, even when your financial situation seems daunting, is to release your negative thoughts and get your head into a positive place.

You see, it´s only when you’re living from a place of positive calm that you´ll be able to follow your intuition and make the right financial decisions for you and your family.

“Anxiety, panic and worry do nothing to support you in making the right decisions,” says Hale Dwoskin. “The more you can make decisions from a place of inner calmness and mental clarity the more likely your decisions will be supportive of your overall financial goals and well-being.”

Your Attitude is Everything
Right now there are people who are still financially stable, happy and living their lives to the fullest. How can this be, even despite the financial crisis? Because of their attitude. Your emotions create your thoughts, and your thoughts either put you into action or prevent you from acting. Your emotions determine your own blueprint for prosperity. And if you want your blueprint to be a successful one, you need to first develop the right attitude.

“The very best thing to do when you find yourself panicking is to allow yourself to welcome whatever you're feeling about the current world situation and about your current financial situation. Also allow yourself to welcome wanting to change or control how you feel,” Dwoskin said.

While welcoming the feelings may seem counterintuitive, it´s a necessary step in the process of letting go. As you’ll learn when you delve deeper into letting go, the more you resist a feeling, the stronger its hold on you becomes. When you welcome a feeling, however, the resistance fades away while your ability to let the feeling go gets stronger.

“After welcoming the feeling, ask yourself in this moment if you could simply let go,” Dwoskin says. “By allowing yourself to welcome what you feel and then letting it go, you will immediately feel relief. This will also bring you more access to your intuitive knowingness and the clarity of thought required for you to weather the storm.”

“The next step is to also welcome any feelings of wanting to understand or figure out what to do,” Dwoskin says. “The more you want to figure out what you should or shouldn't be doing the more confused you will be. As you let go of wanting to figure it out you will naturally and easily know exactly what to do.”

Again, the key to unlocking your ability to make the right financial decisions lies in first welcoming your fears and then letting them go. By doing this you take a step back, reconnect with your inner knowingness and then will move forward with a sound mind. At the same time, letting go helps you remember that, ultimately, you are much more than your finances, and you can exist and be happy no matter what is going on with the economy or stock market.

“Remember that no matter how your financial situation feels you are not your bank book or your possessions,” Dwoskin says. “The less you identify with any of the problems that you´re experiencing the more likely you are to find the right solution.”

[winston]

Remaining Calm During the Storm By Mark Victor Hansen

There are times when everything runs according to plan. The kids make good grades, the bills are paid on time and your
family is healthy and happy.

Anyone can choose peace when everything is going according to plan.

Choosing peace when all hell is breaking loose around you is where you learn who you really are. When the trials and
tribulations of life break down your front door, choose to remain calm.

'But, Mark, how can I be peaceful when my family member is ill, or my company is having layoffs and I don't know what's
going to happen tomorrow?'

In situations like these you always make a choice, whether you realize it or not. You either choose to worry about situations you have no control over. Or you choose peace and hand over those situations to your Higher Power. Either way, the outcome of the situations is not up to you. But how you deal with it is.

Action Step:

I'd like to offer an exercise to complete in the week ahead:

I want you to recall past negative and traumatic situations you have experienced. Maybe you were refused a loan from the
bank, audited by the IRS, or a family member had a health problem.

In a journal or notebook, write down each situation, leaving 10 or so lines between each one.

Now, for each situation ask yourself these questions:

1. Is this a situation I had any control over?

2. Did I worry about this situation?

3. Did my worrying change the outcome of the situation for the better?

4. Did my worrying give me control over the outcome of the situation?

5. Would the outcome of the situation have happened whether I worried or not?

(Sometimes you need to see things in writing to accept them.)

No matter how you have dwelt on things in the past, the outcome of situations was not determined by your worrying.

Now, think about what would have happened if you chose inner peace. Chances are the situations would not have been
affected. But you would have felt - emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically - more at ease, making it easier to deal with the situation, no matter what the outcome.

When you have a choice - and you always do - choose to feel peace within yourself.

You will become as small as your controlling desire, or as great as your dominant aspiration.

[winston]

The Pleasures Of Grandma’s Memories
By Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein, the Official Guide To Positive Psychology

Each season requires special behaviors and activities on our part to optimize for ourselves living a purposeful and happy life. We actually have to practice our positive emotions, just as the champion tennis player practices her swing. We have to try to use our mental capacities as fully as possible, our cognitive capacities for thought and our emotional capacity to practice positive feelings and emotions. Actually if we allow it, the seasons help us to live a full and meaningful life. The seasons even give us the 'recipes for happiness' that we can cook up if we just look around us and recognize what each time of year has to offer.

For example, autumn is a season of memory for most of us. Most people have attended the next grade in school growing up, as the first years begin to fall. For myself not only do the turning leaves, the sight of a pumpkin, and the fresh, crisp, clear smell of a cool day conjure up positive memories of childhood, but symbols tied into traditions also inspire me. For many, the major symbols of a fall holiday are not until Halloween pumpkins begin to appear. But for those of us who are Jewish, the traditional symbols of our fall holidays almost always stir up good feelings and memories. In my case, I'm talking about positive memories that were not personally mine, but nevertheless I lived through them by my grandmother's telling me of her childhood.

Once every year I would make my grandmother tell me about the Sukkots they had when she was growing up in Chelsea, Massachusetts. The Sukkah is a hut or a room where the roof can be partly opened so that you can see the sky and the stars. Sukkots go back to biblical times. For the Jews, they represent memories of their wandering through the desert protected by clouds of glory.

My grandmother was the oldest of nine. They lived in a lovely home that my great grandfather had built. Her best friend built the house next door, and it was a mirror image of my great grandfather Isaac's home! Every fall when it was time for Sukkot, an eight-day festival, my great grandfather would roll back a tin ceiling that was attached to a pulley system in the kitchen. Once that was rolled back, branches were laid across the open space and the children would hang vegetables and fruits from the branches. And so their Sukkah was created.

For my grandmother it was a happy time, a week filled with treats and special delicious foods, like honey and apples, and sharing her father’s lap with one or two other children. She always looked happy when she talked about her Sukkah.

I grew up in the modem era. My parents moved away from these traditions and I hadn’t even had the experience of walking into a Sukkah. However, there was something powerful and magnetic about my grandmother's memories. In a sense they were transferred to me as beacons of light of things I had yet to experience.

For many years our neighbors, and our family have built a little Sukkah. It has three sides with an open roof. The boys go across to the lake and find bamboo branches, and we string them up and then hang decorations. We've had friends over, as well as my parents, and we sit outside in the mellow autumn evening. One day as the Sukkot was drawing to a close I sat alone one afternoon having a cup of coffee in the Sukkah. The weather was glorious and everything around me seemed to be in perfect harmony. I felt so close to my grandmother and her memories. Her positive memories had finally come to fruition. I thought, "Look grandma, I 'm really sitting in a Sukkah!"

It's important to realize that we have access to many positive memories, not only those that we ourselves have experienced. Our minds are magical and can take the happiness and stories of others and build from them, if we give ourselves half a chance.

Take a few moments and, instead of perhaps feeling sad or disappointed for something you never got to experience yourself in your life, think about a wonderful experience that someone else told you about. See if you can let their positive memories find a home in your memory bank.

Happy sharing of positive memories!

[winston]

Are your friends hurting your relationship? By Dr. Richard Nicastro

You exist within a web of relationships. For instance, if your friend is going through tough times, you may find yourself feeling an emotional heaviness throughout the day, thinking and worrying about your friend. As this colors your mood, your partner may start to notice that lately you've been preoccupied and down. Since emotions are contagious, this will impact your partner in some way and her/his interactions with others may now be different as a result of what your friend shared with you.

How is this relevant to your marriage or relationship?

Your relationship exists within a larger social context, and your friends, coworkers, family, and even the society in which you live can directly or indirectly impact your relationship. Think of your relationship as one link on a never-ending chain of connectedness.

This was evident with two couples I recently coached:

A brief story of relationship isolation:

Tad and Wanda have lived together for a little over a year and during a recent coaching session, Wanda complained that "all of our friends seem to be getting divorced or breaking up. It's depressing and makes me think there's something wrong with me for trying to make my relationship work. When I try to talk to my friends about a fight I had with Tad, they just tell me to 'find someone better-suited to you,' or 'relationships are overrated anyway.' The whole 'there are lots of fish in the sea' mindset isn't helpful when I'm trying to make my relationship work now."

Tad and Wanda lack the couple-to-couple support that is vital for a sustainable, long-term relationship. They both struggle with feeling like the "oddball couple" in a sea of failed relationships (and they don't have any single friends who are pro-relationship)—and both acknowledged that this was starting to negatively impact their union.


A brief story of marital support:

Molly and Jeff have been together for eleven years. Both are retired and have been active participants in their local community and volunteer for numerous causes. This involvement has offered them opportunities to develop friendships and socialize with other couples.

Molly joked that their friends "saved our marriage on at least two occasions" because of the support they offered Molly. She shared, "If Jeff and I are going through a difficult time, for whatever reason, I don't feel alone. I have at least two other women I can talk to who have been through difficult times but they're still happily married…I know I'm not alone in my struggles and that makes a world of difference. And I have a few single friends who are supportive of my relationship and committed relationships in general, even though they're not in one now. All that encouragement among my friends really helps whenever I start to worry that the challenges of a romantic relationship might be too much for me."

The need for relationship support

Couples love to hear about other couples who have successful relationships. Have you ever noticed how people in relationships are happy to learn that a famous couple is in it for the long haul? Many couples feel validated to discover that their favorite movie star or musician has resisted the temptations that come with fame and are committed to one person. Notice your reaction the next time you hear that people you know and/or admire are splitting up.

Couples root for other couples—there is an unspoken, cosmic connection, a sense that we're in this together. If Brad and Angelina can make their relationship work, and your neighbors and friends can make their relationships work, you end up feeling more hopeful that you can make your own work.

Seek Out Relationship Support

Relationship support comes in many forms and the first step is to look in your own backyard. Make a list of all the individuals and couples you know and admire: family, friends, teachers, community leaders, local organizations or church members.

You might be surprised to learn that there are people in your life that have been married or together for a long time (and feel lucky to be with the same person). These couples can be an emotional resource for you and your partner. Would you consider asking them about their relationship, especially what has worked for them? Are you willing to seek their support when you (or your partner) need advice or guidance?

We all need relationship mentors—couples who have successfully navigated the complicated interpersonal terrain that comes with committed relationships. This doesn’t mean you should overlook friends not currently in relationships as potential sources of support. Often single friends who understand and celebrate you and your relationship can be a safe place to go to when you need a different perspective or just need to vent.

Don't overlook the vast relationship wisdom that surrounds you.

Many couples like spending time with other couples. If most of your friends seem to be in dire relationship straits or your friends' values regarding commitment differ from your own, you need to expand your social network—seek out couples you and your partner can socialize with, couples dedicated to making their own relationships work. The goal of expanding your couples-support-system doesn't mean you have to abandon your current friends because they aren't in a relationship or their relationship is in trouble—it means that you enrich your circle of friends to include those that believe in the benefit of a long-term, committed relationship and will help support you in yours.

It might seem like a paradox that you can be with someone you deeply love, yet still feel isolated. Often couples assume feeling isolated means there is something wrong with their relationship—while this can be an indication that there are problems that need to be addressed, it can also be an indication that your relationship is surrounded by negativity and a lack of support.

No matter how strong your relationship might seem, you and your partner do not exist in a vacuum. When you establish the goal of building a support network for your relationship, you have taken an important step in buffering the damaging effects of relationship-isolation.

Is your relationship worth protecting? Are you ready to make your marriage everything it can be?

[winston]

Now Is The Time To Take Charge of Your Life By Mariano M. Jauco

Time is fleeting. It does not seem to last as long as we would like it to last. Although it may seem like yesterday you were raising your children, those years have passed and now they are raising their own children. But, before you let any more time slip pass, start thinking of your future.

Although you may not be able to go back and adjust time, implementing the changes in your diet, your exercise, your mental health and in your financial health will allow you to find the necessary tools to excel in your later years. If one thing is for sure it is you (and only you) that can make a difference in the quality of the rest of your days if you take charge now, without wasting any more time.

Why Didn’t You Do It Before?

Although you may be kicking yourself for not saving enough money or for not dropping those extra 40 pounds when you were younger, you can still make progress by making changes today. In many ways, you will be able to find the health and wellness you could have had.

If you are younger, there are many changes you can make today that will greatly impact your life later. In fact, if you simply make a few of these changes today, you will be able to far exceed your goals in earning a savings account that can pay for retirement, in fending off heart disease and even keeping Alzheimer’s at bay.

Every day you implement positive change is one more day you have the ability to gain benefits. The sooner you start the more benefit you can obtain.

Why Should You Make Changes Anyway?

One of the largest in importance and probably the most difficult things to change are your thoughts that run through your mind.

Why can I not just live the way that I want to today?

Why can I not just eat the foods that taste good and live the life that I am living?

What is going to happen if I do this for one more day, month or year?

You may not realize it, but each of these things can and will lead you to a premature death. Living one more day eating foods that are unhealthy will lead to the increased risk of heart disease. Living one more day with not getting enough sleep, not relieving stress and not getting the exercise you need, leads to disease and an immune system that cannot keep up with you.

Living one more day, essentially takes off more time at the end. Is that really what you want?

There is good news, though. Most of the damage that you have done to your body can be reversed if you make changes now and are dedicated to making it happen. With just a few minutes of care to your lifestyle each day, you can get back the time you may have possibly lost. Do not think it has to be forever, because if you can change your thoughts, you can get it back.

What Needs To Change?

You do not have to live a life that is super “clean” and yes, you can make mistakes, eat that fatty hamburger and still watch realty television if it makes you happy. But, the goal that should be realized is these things should be done in moderation.

There are many habits you should take into consideration as being things to change. Here are a few of the most important considerations you may have to make changes in.

1. Your Diet: Giving your body the nutrients it needs is vitally important to living as long as possible. Not only do you need to put good things in, but you need to get the bad things out. Giving your body the tools it needs to make this happen is important to living longer.

2. Your Brain. Stimulation to the brain needs to be ongoing. With the population’s number of Alzheimer cases expected to drastically increase with the Baby Boomer generation, it is virtually important that you provide the tools necessary to curb this if possible.

3. Your Finances. It is expected in the next five years; more than 50 percent of those that enter retirement will not be able to support themselves but will rely on family, Social Security as well as charity. Is your financial future set for retirement?

4. Your Physical Fitness. It is critical that your body be physically fit. That means two-thirds of the population in the United States who are overweight or obese needs to take heed. Heading into your later years with this type of physical problem will definitely shorten your life span.

5. Your Lifestyle. Getting social interaction, being happy, and less stressed are all key ingredients to a healthy and happy lifestyle. If you do not incorporate these types of interactions into your life, you loose mental alertness and your quality of life is just not what is should be.

Each of these five things can be changed in simple and large ways to help you to prepare for the later years of your life. In fact, no matter where you are in your life, developing your own future is something you have the ability to change.

Giving yourself an opportunity to excel is something you must do and you need to begin making the changes now. The good news is that we have broken it all down for you into a simple guide that will transform your life for the future.

Go to www.ultimatebabyboomersguide.info to obtain a copy of the ebook "Ultimate Baby Boomers Guide to Success, Prosperity and Living a Healthy Life."

Take time to fully read through the ebook, but most important go back and begin implementing them into your life today, when and where it counts. If you wait, you waste your time and future.

Now, let us start building a quality life together.

[winston]

Six Steps to a More Relaxed Life by Alexander Green

Many of us lead hectic lives, feeling pressured, harried or overwhelmed by responsibilities and deadlines.

In his book "The Secret Pulse of Time," Stefan Klein argues that the culprit is modern society itself. The pace of life has accelerated over the past few decades - and we are faced with almost limitless opportunities, making it tough to decide how to best spend our time.

Klein recommends six steps to avoid being a slave to the clock, regain control of your time, and live a more relaxed life:

1. Take sovereignty over your time. Many of us have a tendency to load up our schedules unnecessarily. For example, studies show that faced with a choice between a bigger paycheck and more free time, most people go for the money. When we get home from work, many of us are still taking business calls or checking our email. Yet much of this work is unessential or can wait until the next day.

If you find you don't have time to relax, the first step is to break out of your routine. Plan your days - and weeks - more effectively. Set boundaries between work and home. Change what you're doing.

2. Live in harmony with your biological clock. Our genes determine whether we are early birds or night owls. I know I do my best work in the morning, for example. If I get waylaid early in the day by non-work-related activities, it takes me twice as long to meet my deadlines in the late afternoon or evening.

Psychologists say you can accomplish more in less time, and make fewer mistakes, by conforming your daily routine to your inner circadian rhythm.

3. Cultivate leisure time. The world seems to be made up of two types of people, those who must be goaded to work and those who have to be reminded to stop. The latter often develop the unconscious habit of believing that an hour without anything accomplished is an hour wasted.

That's so untrue. We all need to relax to achieve some balance. As Klein writes, "Two hours at a café without a cell phone, travel, a stroll, music, gardening, the almost forgotten art of conversation - all of these are occasions to modify the pace of life. Leisure does not simply happen when there is a lull in our crowded schedule. We have to create it actively."

4. Experience the moments. We all spend the majority of our time thinking about the future or reminiscing about the past rather than lingering in the present moment. It's a tough habit to break. But the present moment is all we have... or ever will have.

Our resistance to this notion is partly cultural. In the West, we tend to think in terms of efficiency and productivity. It's different in the East. The Japanese tea ceremony, for example, exists so that participants can calm down and sharpen their senses, leaving their worries and responsibilities at the door. It is a reminder that life isn't just a race against time.

Vietnamese monk and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hahn says, "We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive."

5. Learn to concentrate. Americans are famous for doing two things at once. We answer our email while listening to a conference call. We watch TV while we have lunch. We drive down the road, listening to the radio, nattering to the kids in the back seat and talking on the cell phone at the same time.

We think we're multi-tasking. But are we really doing any of these tasks well? Every time you turn your attention from one problem to another, you interrupt your train of thought. Important information vanishes from your working memory. Most of us can do better work in less time by concentrating on the most important task at hand and eliminating distractions.

6. Set your priorities. Life is mostly about making good choices. Do you want to be the best production manager or the best father? Do you want to earn a higher income or spend more time playing tennis and getting in shape? It's tough to excel in one area without giving short shrift to others.

Only you can decide what is most important. You may be happier working on a Red Cross event than a corporate function. You might get more satisfaction spending time with your family rather than chasing that promotion. (After all, it won't be your boss and co-workers weeping when you're gone.)

Your life revolves around the calendar and the clock. But they shouldn't dictate it.

Studies show that continual time pressures create stress - and chronic stress affects your quality of life, undermines your health and lowers your life expectancy.

The key is to slow down, prioritize your activities, and appreciate the many people and blessings that surround you.

As Henry Van Dyke said, "Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity."

[winston]

Controlling Anxiety About the Economy
By Garth Mintun, LCSW, ACSW, CSW-G

Many people come to my Indianapolis, Indiana private psychotherapy practice alarmed with “stress,” “anxiety attacks,” and “panic attacks.” The common themes of concern are often external events like relationships, the economy, hardships of the family, and financial issues. Often people judge themselves based on their past decisions and worry about how they will handle future events.

Stress, anxiety, anxiety attacks, and panic attacks can be traced on a continuum of fear, with the severity of stress on the one side and panic attacks being the most severe. Full flung panic attack consists of a simulation of the person losing control and being “blind sighted” into abject fear.

Many of us have fear about the economy. We read the papers and Internet blogs about where the economy may go in the future. We hear the pundits on TV warning us about the “Great Depression.” Perhaps we go to survivalist websites and hear their dire predictions of the end of the world as we know it. Our imaginations can be crueler than the reality of the present situation. We scare ourselves with our imagination and that can be augmented by the joining of other people’s imaginations. Unfortunately we also torture ourselves by the worst case scenario over and over, sometimes on a daily basis.

My suggestion: Be here in the present now! Look at the situation right now. Are you breathing? Do you have food on the table and a roof over your head today? If the answer to those questions is yes, reality is kinder than our imagination.

When you think of the worst case scenario, are you dismissing the infinite scenarios of the universe? Perhaps with an economic recession we will have to tighten our budgets. For example, we may have to take a job that pays less for awhile, which is not the worst case scenario of being homeless. Are you homeless now? Maybe your are looking for another job and sent out 10 resumes over the internet. Perhaps a reframe is that money is tight, but I have a roof over my head right now, I have food today and I sent out ten resumes towards a potential new job.

Even if the worst case scenario happened, the reality of it would be kinder than our imagination. People lived through the Great Depression and people lived through the double digit inflation times of the 70’s with a gas shortage. When we have a real and present danger in life, we act and don’t have to think about it. If we are in danger we are either in fight or flight. If a bear comes after us, we either protect ourselves from the bear or we run. and we don’t imagine what to do, we just do it.

When we imagine a bear attacking us, we still go through the fight or flight survival mode in our minds, even if the bear is not really attacking us. We tend to go in survival mode, have heart palpitations, adrenalin is released and we go into “bear survival mode.” Often anxiety and stress takes place when there is no bear in the room, no homelessness, no starvation, we just worry about those possibilities by creating the “bear survival mode.” After doing this over and over again, we become exhausted and tired.

Either we cannot fall asleep or sleep too much. The stress of our imagined future fears or anxiety may cause us to overindulge in food, alcohol, chemical substance, shopping, gambling or a host of other compulsive activities to numb us from feeling the pain of “bear survival mode.” If we keep this going then we can make ourselves physically weaker from the stress and then we have new problems to worry about. All this is unnecessary if we stay with the reality of the present.

Please understand I am not encouraging you to be passive. Instead, focus on what can be done, become pro-active and plan for the future without scaring yourself about the future. Look at job options, the second part time job to earn more money, and manage problems with your health and your prized relationships. Be interested and curious about your process of “catastrophizing” and exaggerating the future, allow yourself to catch yourself in those dire thoughts and fantasies, and notice that in the present those events and circumstances are not present in your life at this moment, and remind yourself the future is still unknown. Name your projections into the future so that you begin to distinguish the present from future fears, and remember your own history of overcoming adversity, take stock of the wisdom of your life experience.

In summary, when you are emotionally triggered to go to the worst case scenario , go back to the present reality and ask yourself what is going on that minute. Are you breathing, do you have a roof over your head tonight, do you have food? Ask if the less adverse scenarios are equally true or more true the worst case scenario. Finally be kind to yourself because the only thing any of us have is the present reality and all the other dire thoughts are negative places. Be kind and be present!

[winston]

If we were standing in your physical shoes, that would be our dominant quest: Entertaining Yourself, pleasing Yourself, connecting with Yourself, being Yourself, enjoying Yourself, loving Yourself.

Some say, "Well, Abraham you teach selfishness. And we say, yes we do, yes we do, yes we do, because unless you are selfish enough to reach for that connection, you don't have anything to give anyone, anyway. And when you are selfish enough to make that connection -- you have an enormous gift that you give everywhere you are.
--- Abraham