Archive for August, 2010
5 Ingredients For Achieving Overall Wellness
Aug 31st
Want total freedom? Abundance? Happiness? Overall wellness? There are 5 ingredients to manifesting this reality.
1. Water: The cells in our body depend on water. Moreover, 55 to 75% of the human body is made up of water so water needs to constantly be replenished as it is continuously lost through normal breathing, sweating, urinating and bowel movements. There are several benefits of drinking water, among them are that it detoxifies, moisturizes, increases metabolism, helps with nutrient absorption and transport, regulates body temperature and so much more. As such, the body needs a healthy dose of pure old fashioned, unsweetened, unflavored, natural water.
2. Healthy Eating Habits: Paying as much attention to what we put in the body as to what we put on the body is imperative to achieving wellness. In the words of Dr. Sunyatta Amen, a naturopathic physician, food can either be a medicine or a poison. Strive to utilize food as the former. The human body requires food for nourishment. However, the type of food required by the body includes those fresh, live foods that are nutrient-dense and rich in vitamins and minerals which are necessary just as water to nourish the cells and enable the organs to function properly. Thus, taking care to ensure that we are making healthy food choices is a must to achieve overall wellness.
3. Physical activity: The human body requires some form of physical activity. Exercise increases our energy and improves longevity. Exercise also promotes psychological well-being, helps with weight management and builds and maintains healthy, strong bones, muscles and joints. If that’s not enough, exercise has been linked to disease prevention for diseases such as heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes and osteoporosis. There are tons of benefits of exercise which is what makes it a key ingredient for realizing wellness.
4. Meditation: Daily meditation has numerous rewards. Primarily, as with exercise, meditation promotes psychological well-being. It also reduces stress along with the risk of several stress-related illnesses. As well, meditation heightens your awareness of thought which improves your ability to realize inner peace. In fact, the primary purpose of meditation is to achieve a state of happiness and peace of mind. Meditation techniques can vary from focused breathing, walking and chanting to affirmations. Choose the technique that is most effective in enabling you to manifest (and most effortlessly so) pure positive thought, the final ingredient.
5. Pure Positive Thought: This is probably the most important ingredient yet mentioned. Pure positive thought is achieved by simply transforming negative thoughts into positive ones. It is about consistently assuming a psychological posture of appreciation. For instance, when faced with a challenging life event try redirecting your thoughts away from what you don’t want and toward what you do want and the deliciousness of attaining it. You will find that by doing this simple exercise you arrive at a better “feeling” space. A space that illuminates the beauty of this place and this life. You will thus achieve overall wellness.
Personal Responsibility – What Entitles You?
Aug 31st
Victims Feel Entitled; Entrepreneurs Feel Obliged
by Michael D. Hume, M.S.
It was about two-and-a-half years ago, and I was riding my bicycle toward the airport in Palm Springs. (It’s a 35-minute bike ride from our place, good exercise, and I save a few bucks on cab fare.) Right outside the gate of our community, I turned left and headed down the wide sidewalk.
Now, I should explain that the neighborhood has these great wide sidewalks – probably a good 10-12 feet across – because a lot of people use them. There are lots of walkers, bicyclists, roller-bladers, you name it… it’s California, after all. And to accommodate those on wheels, all the sidewalks have nice, wide cut-outs so you can glide smoothly onto the street to cross it.
Anyway, on this particular day, I was just getting up to speed when I saw a woman walking her dog just ahead, between me and the corner. I didn’t want to startle the woman, so I slowed down and hollered “on your right,” so she’d know I was coming.
At this point, I should explain that she was using the entire width of the sidewalk. There was not enough room for me to pass her on either side without dumping myself off the steep curb (or into the bushes on the other side), so I was going to need a little more space to comfortably pass.
When I hollered, she turned her head, but didn’t make any other changes. She wasn’t wearing headphones, or anything, and I’m pretty sure she heard me. I hollered again, all the while drawing closer… still no movement. Finally, I was right up behind her, so I slowed almost to a stop and worked the bike carefully around to the right of her dog, addressing the dog in a low a soothing voice.
It wasn’t soothing enough. The dog started snarling, and barking. She might’ve heard me approaching, but he clearly hadn’t.
At this point I was hoping the lady would choke-up on the leash a bit, but instead she actually let out some slack so the dog could catch up with my slow-moving bicycle.
He took a good chunk out of my left calf.
This was painful, but the shock of it was what I remember most. I finally climbed off the bike, and asked her if I could get her name and number in case the dog bite became infected. I wasn’t planning to do anything with it, except maybe call her later to let her know that nice young man bitten by her dog was OK (well, I was in my late 40s, but still, I’d guess, about twenty years younger than she).
To this day, I have a hard time believing her response.
“No, I most certainly will not give you my name,” she huffed – and I mean, she really huffed. “What do you mean, give you my name?”
“Well, I just don’t know whether I’m going to need a doctor,” I said, the blood beginning to pool in my sneaker.
“You have no business riding that bicycle on a sidewalk,” she continued. “No business!”
I was speechless.
“What in the world are you thinking? Get that thing off the sidewalk!”
This went on for awhile. This lady seemed genuinely angry! Meanwhile, the dog is still howling, she’s not controlling him, I’m bleeding, and they’re not gonna hold my flight.
I finally got my speechless self back on the bike, made it to the airport, got some alcohol at an aid station there, fixed myself up, and enjoyed a nice glass of wine on my flight. I still have a couple of faint puncture marks on my calf, but the incident went largely un-thought-of after that.
Except this:
Wow.
Seriously?
I remember the airport policewoman who gave me the rubbing alcohol asking what’d happened, and then offering to file a complaint against the lady. “You had every right to be there, and she’s broken the law.” I think I laughed. “No, that’s not necessary, I’m sure I just startled her and her dog. It’s nobody’s fault.”
It’s nobody’s fault!
As Homer Simpson famously said once, “it’s just a bunch of stuff that happened.”
Today I think the memory serves as another reminder of the stark attitudinal divide in the U.S. these days between victims and entrepreneurs. As an entrepreneur, I don’t expect anyone else to take care of me, and my first thought is to my obligations to my fellow person – I didn’t want to startle the lady, I only wanted to later put her fears to rest, etc. I’m not always at my best, but I give myself credit for most of the time being just that type of nice young man. But as a “victim,” or at least a person who was clearly in victim mode at that moment, this lady not only felt no remorse for letting her dog bite me, she felt it necessary to scold and blame me for the whole thing.
Wow.
I want to encourage you to be an entrepreneur. You are not entitled to the whole sidewalk, nor to allow your dog to bite someone, nor to yell it them if he does. You are obliged to be polite, give lots of warning if you’re about to get in someone’s way, think about their feelings, and take care of your own wounds if you get yourself bitten.
Sure, I think you have to stand up for yourself sometimes. But what was I going to do, sue her? Better just get to the airport.
I don’t know what happened to that lady, or that dog (must’ve had a bitter taste in his mouth for the whole day)… and it doesn’t much concern me. If the tables had been reversed, I’d have taken away a huge load of guilt about my dog biting someone and would not have rested until I knew he was OK. But the tables weren’t reversed, and what I got to take away with me was a bloody leg, a great story to tell, and another pointed object lesson on the power of maintaining an attitude of self-reliance and personal responsibility.
