1. How to Keep Fit While Travelling

    June 7, 2013

    keep fit

    By Sohaib Siddique

    My two biggest passions in life are fitness and adventure. I have never lived in one country longer than two years—half of the time which is usually spent visiting regions around me. As a kid, I’ve also always been into health and fitness. Missing a workout ruins an entire day for me, even when I am on vacation. But over the past few years, I have taught myself how to travel without sacrificing my health and fitness. This way I could dedicate my life to both my biggest passions. I picked up tips along my travels by talking to other people who were in great shape. Here are a few of them.

    You don’t need a whole gym…

    If you let your creative mind run free, you can use random things to replace weights. There’s always an item that can get blood running through your veins and your muscles pumped. If you feel like spending money, you could always get inflatable weights to fill up with water, but those would be a disaster in my opinion. You could use litre bottles, chairs, tables, rocks filled into a backpack—the options are endless. Rather complaining about not having a gym, make your own gym.

    Your body is heavier than you think…

    The experienced gym rats know very well that bodyweight exercises can prove very effective. In fact, all you need is some empty space and you’re good. If you need a workout matt, just use a couple towels.

    Do push ups for your chest, arms and shoulders. If you cannot do a complete push up, do the knee-variation instead. If you need more resistance, then elevate your feet off a chair, a table or anything else. Not a big fan of push ups?—no problem, do dips instead. Just put two chairs together with some weight on them (like your suitcase) and you’re good. Dips essentially work the same muscle groups push ups do.

    There’s no better lower body exercise than the squat. Squats are the ultimate mass builder—when I travel, I fill up my backpack with anything I can find—rocks are a great way to get a lot of weight without too much volume. Just throw that on and do some squats making sure you go deep each time to maximize resistance. Finish off with a core workout of crunches and sit ups. Again, you can hold a water bottle against your chest if you need more resistance.

    Travelling solo sucks, travel with a chin up bar instead…

    You would be surprised with the amount of exercises you could do using a simple door-mounted chin up bar. These bars only cost $25-30 and easily fit into suitcases. They mount onto most doors across the world and prove as a great workout aid. You can perform chins/pulls with different grips to get a complete back workout. Take it off the door and onto the floor to use the grips as push up handles. You can be creative and work different body parts as long as you know what you’re doing. P90x has some great exercises that use chin up bars to target different muscle groups.

    Still need a gym? Then use one…

    Sometimes, you just can’t get enough resistance no matter how much weight is piled onto your back. More advanced trainees should turn to public facilities when they’re travelling at this point. I’ve done this many times, and all you really need to do is go to the local gym and ask them if you can give it a trial day. Nine times out of ten they’ll be more than happy to give the new local who has just moved in a go at with their facilities. Remember, most cities have more than one gym, so give them all a “try”. Hey, we have to do whatever it takes to stay in shape!

    Modern day European cities are filled with public stations and parks that make a great outdoor gym, too. All you really need are some monkey bars and an improvised dips station and you’re set.

    God gave you legs to use them…

    We often find ourselves walking, running and even hiking from here to there when we’re away from home—and the bags can get pretty heavy. This is really good exercise, but if you’re someone who usually does a lot of running and other cardiovascular exercise anyway, then you will miss the rush you usually get. But now that you’re travelling, you have all the free time you can possibly get. Go for a run before you start your next exciting day. It’s a good way to get to know your surroundings when you’re on the road, too.

    If you’re really a cardio bunny, then you could rent a bike or throw on some roller blades for the day. There are always fun ways to combine tourist activities and exercise. Always think outside the box.

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  2. Self-Awareness through Kundalini Yoga

    June 6, 2013

    self-awareness through yoga

    by Rebecca Junck

    “Kundalini Yoga consists of active and passive asana-based kriyas, pranayama, and meditations which target the whole body system (nervous system, glands, mental faculties, chakras) to develop awareness, consciousness and spiritual strength.” —Yogi Bhajan

    What is Kundalini Yoga

    An ancient form of yoga, Kundalini is one of the more spiritual yoga practices. It’s also known as the yoga of awareness, as it focuses on increasing self-awareness and delivering an experience of your highest consciousness. Its emphasis on breathing, meditation, mudras and chanting takes it beyond the physical performance of the poses.

    Kundalini energy is one of the pillars of yoga and is included in one of the earliest yoga scriptures circa 2nd century BCE. It’s been practiced in India since then and has only recently gained popularity in the west.  In 1969 Yogi Bhajan immigrated to America and founded 3HO (the Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization) in Los Angeles to begin teaching Kundalini yoga to a new broader audience. Today it’s practiced worldwide and has attracted such celebrity followers as Russell Brand, Reese Witherspoon and Miranda Kerr.

    Difference from Other Forms of Yoga

    Kundalini is more relaxed that most other types of yoga such as Vinyasa or Ashtanga. Although all yoga is spiritual, Kundalini really focuses on your self-awareness and consciousness. If you’re looking for an up-tempo experience, stick with Bikram or Vinyasa. If you’re looking for a slower pace, chanting and spiritual teachings, try Kundalini.

    A typical Kundalini yoga session includes specific sets of postures (asana) that target a specified part of your body, with a focus on meditation, breathing exercises (pranayama) and chanting (mantra).

    Often grouped together with Hatha yoga, there are some noteworthy differences between the two when it comes to the poses:

    Hatha combines a number of poses that are aimed at stretching and strengthening your muscles and stimulating your internal organs. The postures incorporate sitting, standing and lying down poses, such as cobra, bow, locust and cat.

    Kundalini has far fewer poses than Hatha and they are all sitting poses, including the lotus, the rock and the hero.

    What to Expect in Your First Class

    A class begins with a short chant Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo (“I call on the divine teacher within”) in order to tune the channel of your mind. It’s a way to bring the whole class together and connect with the tradition of Kundalini yoga.

    Next there will be a warm up that improves flexibility and stretches the spine. The main section of the class is called a kriya – a pre-determined sequence of exercises that focuses on a specific area of the body (arms, legs, and torso) in order to strengthen and help them release toxins. The class ends with a meditation followed by the blessing song “May the Long Time Sun Shine Upon You”.

    The Benefits of Kundalini Yoga

    All physical activity has benefits for your body including increased vitality, weight loss/control and increased muscle strength. Kundalini includes these as well as:

    • Helping to better the functioning of your cardiovascular, lymphatic, nervous, digestive and glandular systems.
    • Heightening your 5 senses – sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste – and increasing their sensitivity.
    • Helping to increase your sense of confidence and well-being that comes as you make your journey of self-discovery of your inner self and relaxed mental state.
    • Increasing your control of yourself, overcoming anger and resentment more easily to find inner calm.
    • Strengthening your immune system that will keep you healthy and well.

    Because it has such positive effects on both your mental and physical states, Kundalini has increased in popularity in recent years. Perhaps it’s a sign of how busy life and society has become that we seek out opportunities to promote positive thinking and center ourselves. Or perhaps we’ve only just discovered it.

    Whichever type of yoga that you choose, it’s important to remember that your goal is to improve your overall wellness, health and life. In fitness classes and sports it’s easy to compare your progress with those around you, quietly judging yourself. In yoga, you get to be selfish. Remember that your classmates aren’t paying attention to whether you nailed the last posture or how deep you go into the poses – they’re too busy concentrating on themselves.

    Image Credit: yogamama.co.uk

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  3. The Pursuit of Happiness: 3 Facts Science Can Teach You

    June 5, 2013

    pursuit of happiness

    by Susan Martin

    Is there science to happiness or, in other words, can science teach us how to be happy? We all want to be happy. While the pursuit of happiness is an essential element of human existence, alas we are not always so clear on the details.

    The self-help industry was born to fulfill this void, and it has produced copious amounts of information to answer these basic questions. Unfortunately, self-help books and DVDs are not always the most reliable source of information.

    Fortunately, the pursuit of happiness is not the sole domain of the self-help industry. Research is actively addressing questions like ‘what makes a person happy’ and ‘how a person can improve their emotional life and emotional well-being’. Research on this area has already produced several interesting findings.

    In this post I want to explore 3 interesting facts science can teach you about being happy.

    Gratitude makes you happy

    Count your blessings is one of the oldest advice offered by the self-help industry. Most of us are highly critical of ourselves and think negative thoughts about ourselves far more often than positive thoughts. Always being critical of yourself is obviously not great for your well-being.

    Gratitude is the antidote for negativity. The idea is to focus on things you appreciate about your life, and then to be grateful of those things.

    Research by Dr. Robert Emmons at the University of California shows that practicing gratitude indeed makes you happier [1]. The researchers asked the participants to either focus on: gratitude, life hassles or neutral things. 10 weeks later the researchers measured the effects.

    Not surprisingly, the group that focused on gratitude reported significantly better emotional well-being than the other two groups. The gratitude group also felt more connected to others and acted more socially (they were more likely to give aid when requested). What’s interesting is the gratitude group also exercised an hour more per week more than the other two groups (3 hours per week vs. 4 hours for the gratitude group).

    Gratitude does work!

    Good deeds are passed on

    Marketers have long understood the concept of reciprocity. When you receive something you are far more likely to give something back. That’s why companies like to ‘so generously’ give you trinkets and freebies – so you would buy their products and services.

    A study published at the Journal of experimental psychology shows that generosity is paid forward [2]. In the study the researchers wanted to see what happens when people cannot give back to the person who initially gave them something. That is, when person A gives something to person B, what will the person B do when he or she cannot reciprocate to the person A?

    The study found that both good and bad deeds are passed on. And unfortunately people were more likely to pass on greed and other bad deeds than good deeds.

    The lesson here is clear. Be kind to others, because your behavior is passed on. You could see yourself as emanating energy that people you come in contact with pass on to others. So make sure you put out positive energy to the world.

    Happiness is a circular motion

    As humans we are often terrible at predicting what makes us happy. For example, let’s say you have $100 extra cash at your disposal and your task is to spend it in a way that maximizes your happiness. What would you do? If you are like most people, you might pamper yourself with a massage or buy something you’ve wanted for some time.

    A study by Dr. Lara Aknin published at the Journal of happiness studies shows that’s exactly the wrong thing to do [3].

    In the study the participants were asked to recall a recent purchase they had made. One group was asked to recall the last time they spent money on themselves or on others. Spending on others, also called prosocial spending, could mean buying something as a gift or a charitable donation. The group that recalled prosocial spending felt significantly happier afterwards. What’s more, they were also more likely to spend a monetary windfall of further prosocial spending than those who recalled spending on themselves.

    This research shows that spending on others creates a positive feedback loop that encourages further prosocial spending and happiness. Combine this with the previous bit about people passing on good deeds and you’ll see how powerful simple act of gift giving can be.

    As these studies show, we all have the potential to be happy. It doesn’t take great deeds or vast fortunes. Rather, happiness is a mixture of being content with what you have and treating others kindly. There’s a bit of scientific advice we all could take to heart.

    Image Credit: Marcos Vasconcelos

    References:

    [1] Emmons R, McCullough M. Counting Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2003, Vol. 84, No. 2, 377-389.

    [2] Gray K, et al. Paying It Forward: Generalized Reciprocity and the Limits of Generosity. J Exp Psychol Gen. 2012 Dec 17.

    [3] Aknin L, et al. Happiness Runs in a Circular Motion: Evidence for a Positive Feedback Loop between Prosocial Spending and Happiness. J Happiness Stud (2012) 13:347-355.

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  4. When you’re depressed: A lesson in self-forgiveness

    June 4, 2013

    stop self-blaming

    by Zita Weber, Ph.D.

    Too often, depression results from excessive self-criticisms.  When you’re feeling guilty, it’s easy to get too down on yourself.  Sometimes the guilt feelings are imaginary and even if they feel real, they can be overly intensified and make you feel worthless.    Getting away from this self-blaming approach is key to starting to feel better about yourself.

    Getting away from a self-blaming approach

    Learn to replace self-blame with a constructive and realistic attitude.  It’s always more empowering to look to the future and what you can do to improve your situation.  Don’t linger in the past.  Sometimes we hear what appear to be simplistic expressions such as:  ‘It’s all water under the bridge’ and ‘What’s done is done’.  Learn to embrace these expressions and take them seriously.  Make your peace with the past but resolve to do things in the present and the future that will make you feel better about yourself.  Learn from past mistakes, but don’t hold onto any blame.

    Learn to practice self-forgiveness

    Practicing self-forgiveness might sound challenging, but the devastating effects of not doing so are highlighted in a novel, Ironweed, which was made into a movie starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep.  The main character, Francis Phelan, accidentally drops his infant son on the floor and the child dies of complications as a result of the injury.  Although this happened many years before the beginning of the novel, the tragic event is revealed through Francis’s nightmarish flashbacks.  Francis is restless, becomes a wanderer and an alcoholic.  While his wife is prepared to forgive him and have him back at home, Francis can’t forgive himself.  In not being able to forgive himself, he dooms himself to a hellish existence.  If only Francis could learn to forgive himself, he could reclaim his life.  The moral of the story is:  don’t be unforgiving of yourself.

    Begin practicing self-forgiveness by accepting that we all make mistakes and we all have times in our lives when we might feel down and depressed because we believe we haven’t met our own standards of behavior.  Learn from these challenges and make sure that you forgive yourself and move on to a more positive place.

    Keep a journal

    Keeping a journal of your thoughts and feelings will help you tremendously when it comes to self-understanding – and self-forgiveness.  Don’t put pressure on yourself by keeping a daily journal if that doesn’t work for you – but make sure that you do write down the important thoughts and feelings that might lead to disorganized, chaotic and self-blaming ideas.

    It’s useful when keeping a journal to dialogue with yourself – ask yourself questions.  It might be difficult asking these questions of yourself, but remember – by asking yourself questions you are clarifying thoughts and feelings and adopting a more problem-solving stance.

    Asking questions – and answering them as honestly as possible – will empower you in your thinking, making matters clearer and imposing a kind of sense and order on them.

    For more skills and strategies in dealing with depression, see Losing the 21st Century Blues (http://zitaweber.com/new-releases/losing-the-21st-century-blues)

    Author Bio: Zita Weber, Ph.D. has worked as a counselor and therapist with individuals, couples and families.  She has researched and written about communication, relationships, sexuality, depression and loss and grief.  More information about her work and books can be found at:  http://zitaweber.com.

    Image Credit: Mark Sebastian

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  5. Healthy Eating Myths

    June 3, 2013

    healthy diet

    It’s not easy to diet successfully and maintain a healthy diet. As more and more people have embraced the need to eat healthily, companies and marketers have produced a huge variety of foods, all of which claim to offer  health benefits. Seeing the prospect of big sales from low fat goods, food producers have turned everything from yogurts to cereal bars into versions emptied of fats. That’s a good thing, right?

    Well, it’s certainly hard to diet these days without eating a great deal of low fat food. Where would most of us be without our low fat ready meals or snacks? When we used to reach for Kit Kats or Mars bars, now we can have delicious low fat Alpen bars – promising the goodness of our favourite breakfast cereals reduced to a healthy small-scale alternative. If these bars only contained cereals and fruit, then that might not be a problem, but then they would not be as appealing to our taste buds. Instead, producers are tending to lace their goods with added sugars  with very small fruit portions and high dosages of vegetable oils. Astonishingly, this means that a standard Cadbury’s Flake bar contains less calories than a supposedly healthy fruit bar, hardly the solution to our fat-busting needs.

    This is backed up by a recent health survey by the respected consumer group Which? who found that cereal bars are laden with sugar. (and freighted with irony). Some cereal bars could be compared to a can of Coke, with their sugar content, while roasted nut bars like Tracker can contain 30 percent fat. And if you are looking to boost the health of your children, think again. Food companies seem to have increased the sugar content of bars marketed at kids, with one Monster Puffs bar containing a whopping 43 percent sugar.

    Even if cereal bars like this can reduce calorie intake by reducing fat consumption, the added sugars present some potentially devastating health impacts that dieters should know about. High sugar diets have been linked by medical researchers to increased incidence of Type-2 Diabetes, even in patients who are not obese in any way. Type-2 Diabetes is a chronic condition which leads to intense fatigue, vision problems, increased urination at night and general weakness. It’s not much fun, and by upping your intake of high sugar cereal bars, you could be raising your risks of contracting it.

    Health suppliers are starting to take note and take a different approach,  the audience is actually becoming more savvy and less predictable – transparency is now the key to future success. Mixing a commitment to dieting with an awareness of the health dangers from sugar, they are pioneering healthy snacks which promote weight loss without the pitfalls. And with all of us reaching for the snack cupboard every now and then, this can only be a more positive experience.

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  6. Been made redundant? How to turn it into a positive experience

    June 2, 2013

    Losing your job often comes as a massive shock, even though most of us are aware that it’s a danger which is always lurking in the shadows, no matter how well you perform the job or how long you’ve been doing it. Being made redundant can literally turn your whole life upside down. You find yourself suddenly removed from the routine, workplace and colleagues that have been a regular feature in your life, perhaps for many years. That’s aside from the financial worry that so frequently accompanies this huge change in your circumstances.

    Unfortunately, redundancy is a fact of modern life, as companies seem constantly to shed staff in an attempt to stay competitive. But is it possible that it can be a blessing in disguise for some? Being made redundant forces you to re-evaluate your life and consider your future in a whole new way. Maybe you’ve quietly harboured dreams of breaking free of the 9 to 5 but you couldn’t justify giving up your regular salary and pension benefits? Being made redundant can help you to cast off the shackles which were holding you back from pursuing new ideas because of fear of the unknown or of failure. The rug’s already been pulled out from under your feet, so what have you got to lose? Importantly, a financial settlement for your redundancy can also supply the capital which may have been a bar to starting a venture of your own.

    Though it may come at you out of the blue, redundancy can give you the opportunity to make fresh choices in life, whether that means going travelling, setting up your own business, or retraining for a completely different career.

    NLP, or Neuro Linguistic Programming, can help anyone move forward in their career, but can be particularly useful if you are looking to make big changes in your life. It allows you to view the world differently, identify new opportunities and communicate better. NLP deals with how our minds take in and process information, how we make decisions and how we interact with others. Many of us have limiting beliefs which stop us from doing the things we are capable of achieving. NLP helps us to put those limiting beliefs to one side and become more positive. It’s seen by its supporters as a powerful development tool which can improve communication skills and thought processes on a personal and professional level.

    Just 2 weeks after attending her first course in NLP, Pip Thomas of UK-based firm Edge NLP was made redundant: you can read about Pip’s redundancy story here. It is a sad fact that one in seven UK workers have been made redundant since the economic downturn. She decided to see the positive side and was determined to use the skills she had learned in her course to set up a new business offering NLP advice and training to others.

    Pip says “I would never have dared to set up my own business if I hadn’t been made redundant. I came out of the NLP course full of inspiration and was able to put the skills that I learnt to good use when I was made redundant.”

    For Pip, her NLP training came at a crucial point in her life when she was in a position to maximise its benefits. Pip now tutors people who have been made redundant and finds that NLP really resonates with them. Her students use the practices they learn from her to help them review their objectives in life as well as to embed new skills and behaviours which can equip them to not just deal with, but make the most of, the situation they find themselves in.

    For some, redundancy can bring about positive changes. Whatever you decide to use redundancy as a catalyst for, her story is proof that although it does inevitably bring about major changes, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be for the better.

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  7. How to use positive affirmations for maximum psychological benefit

    June 1, 2013

    positive affirmations

    We all have the same goal in life when we strip all nonsense to the basics. We all wish to experience as much life as we can, and learn and grow from those experiences.

    Although we could never run of new things to try we seldom do. Most of us have a routine that we stick to for months, or even years.

    We all have baggage we carry

    The reason is that we all have some kind of baggage or a barrier that holds us back from really prospering. These barriers can come in many forms.

    For example, some of us may lack the confidence to go after what we want, others may believe that they are not good enough, and then there are those of us that are addicted to one thing or another, be it cigarettes, alcohol, food or something different entirely.

    Unfortunately it usually takes us a lot more time to deal with our problems than we both planned and hoped it would take. Some of us might never even get close to getting rid of our baggage.

    Positive Thinking

    The first, fundamental thing every one of us needs in order to be able to develop is a positive mindset.

    A positive mindset will make it much more likely that you will find the motivation, strength and endurance to do what needs to be done so you can finally start living the life of your dreams.

    There are many ways to rewire your psyche to think positively.

    Positive Affirmations

    Positive affirmations are just statements which we affirm to be true. We affirm those statements to ourselves.

    The goal of affirming sentences to ourselves is to start believing in them. Positive affirmations a person might recite to him or herself might include ones like “I am confident”, “I always go after what I want”, “I love myself” and “People find me attractive”, among countless others.

    Positive affirmations help solve pretty much any problem you may have, if they are used the right way. Here is list of a few problems they can help you deal with:

    • Confidence issues
    • Health issues
    • Weight loss
    • Quitting smoking
    • The law of attraction

    There are of course many more areas positive affirmations can help you with. You can find a huge list of positive affirmations written to help you deal with almost any problem imaginable at http://www.freeaffirmations.org/.

    How Do Positive Affirmations Work?

    The underlying reason positive affirmations work is repetition.

    Go back to the time when you were in primary school. The way you learnt anything was to repeat it enough times so that you were able to recite it at will, even if someone woke you up at any point during the night.

    That is the same way positive affirmations work. Repeat them enough times, and you will rewire your mind and replace the old, negative beliefs that hold you back with the new, positive ones that will help you take your life to the next level.

    You would use positive affirmations by first writing down the ones you believe would benefit you the most, and then setting up a time each day during which you would recite them to yourself.

    Do stay consistent. Reading them takes only a few minutes of your time per day, while the positive changes that the affirmations would bring would be permanent!

    The Best Way To Use Positive Affirmations

    There are a few things that can help you get the maximum benefit from reciting positive affirmations. Of course, over time you will develop a style that suits you best, but this is a list of things that work form most people.

        1. Stand in an upright position, take a good posture and relax your shoulders;

     

        2. Speak affirmations out loud one by one, with a tone of voice that leaves no doubt that you are confident in what you are saying;

     

        3. Speak in a slow, deliberate fashion. Take your time;

     

        4. Speak in front of a mirror so you are able to catch yourself if you are breaking any of the rules;

     

      5. Smile;

    Reciting affirmations two times per day, once when you get up, and once before you go to bed and repeating your list of affirmations a few times in a row could also help you to maximize their effectiveness.

    As already stated, they work because of repetition. Make a list of affirmations, schedule the time to recite them each day and do so in a confident manner fully believing in what you are saying, and over the next few weeks you should see gradual positive changes in your behavior, and also in the way you feel and the way you think.

    It would be advisable to make a promise to yourself that you will stick to reciting the affirmations for 30 days, and see where to go from there. Basically, when you experience the results after those 30 days have passed, you might realize that positive affirmations might have been the best thing you have discovered in your life.

     

    Image Credit: Spencer Williams

     

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  8. Shopping Carts

    May 27, 2013

    Shopping Carts

    by Audrey  Hollingshead

    It was late. I had a few hours before my husband would pick me up from my crappy job and he could not come soon enough. What made things even worse was that it was my turn to do “carts,” a part of the job that had me gathering in ALL the shopping carts from the parking lot. Even though I had done this task many times, and well, it was one I still loathed beyond reason. Why did I have to be the one to do it the last two hours of my shift? Why did I have to work SO late? WHY was it that I never got to leave at a normal time? I silently complained a few moments more and then went outside.

    As usual I started on the smaller side of the lot, making sure to round up all the carts from the hard to reach spots where our genius shoppers had parked them. Once that area was done I’d clear the more conventional spaces and gradually work my way across the lot. As the hours wore on and the cart numbers thinned out I started to feel different. Not just tired, but satisfied. Because of my hard of pushing and gathering, the carts no longer blocked parking spaces and were finally lined up in an orderly way. Customers could also get them more easily, a goal I strived for. By the time my shift was over I was feeling MUCH better! Not only was I DONE for the night I had also DONE something constructive, and that was enough to get me through the last grueling hours of my shift.

    I don’t blame you if you readers find this a little silly. They were just carts, after all. How happy can pushing metal make anyone, really? A lot, actually. As this website has pointed out before, people who exercise on the reg do tend to have less stress. Many people (my lifelong runner of a father included) swear by it, claiming that exercise makes your body simply too tired to stress over life. But what they don’t realize is that, silly or not, this notion has been around much longer then the exercise craze.

    Chop Wood, Carry Water.

    While the origin of this saying appears unknown, we do know the complete saying is “Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water, after Enlightenment, chop wood carry water.” The shortened version is a staple utterance of my fathers and it was not until I had my crappy job that I saw the wisdom of it. So what does it mean?

    On the surface it seems to convey that we should do menial chores no matter what our spiritual status is. But if we think about this phrase a moment we see that what it’s really saying is that we need to take pleasure in the chores. By doing them it gives our mind something to focus on other then our stress. But more importantly, it gives us a chance to live in the moment, something we have a hard time doing.

    We get so tangled up in the fabric of life that we barely take the time to notice the threads that weave it, and those mind focusing chores are some of the HUGEST threads. They connect us to the “am” instead of the “was” or “will be,” while also giving our bodies that much need stress-reducing work out.

    But I think one of the biggest pluses of doing mindless tasks is that they let our mind decompress and think more clearly. Got a problem you just can’t seem to solve? Find solutions while washing the dishes. Can’t figure out how to start that project you always wanted to? Get ideas while mowing the lawn. Need to write a paper and can’t get passed the title page? Think about it while folding laundry or walking the dog. Doing something unrelated to whatever you’re writing is a GREAT way to get ideas. I do this ALL the time, in fact. Especially when I have done all the research but can’t seem to get started. I’d be in the middle of pushing a cart and BAM! An idea would hit me.

    Even though I eventually quit to pursue my dream of writing, I walked away with a great anxiety reliever and a reminder that sometimes it’s the little things that make the big things that much better. Thank you.

    And remember,

    Dream Well! Dream Positive!

     

    Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/boutmuet/3400313680

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  9. Discover Your Dharma or How I Quit My Job

    May 26, 2013

    discover your dharma

    by Luba Kholov

    “O Indra, lead us on the path of Rta, on the right path over all evils”

    10th mandala of the Rigveda

    Dharma is an ancient Sanskrit term. It’s literal meaning is “that which upholds, supports or maintains the regulatory order of the universe” It sounds a bit New Agey, but in essence it means the purpose of one’s life. It doesn’t mean the final destination, but the path one takes. The Law of Dharma means awakening oneself and using person’s unique talents to serve the humanity.

    How do you discover your Dharma? You don’t have to ask anyone about it, because you already have the answer. All answers are within you. If you are unable to hear your inner voice, that is the problem you have to solve.

    People started thinking about Dharma concept thousands of years ago and still think about it to this day – of course, if they have time. Most of us just don’t have the luxury of free time and thinking of Dharma isn’t our top priority… We don’t think about the meaning of life. We need to pay bills, finish assignments on time, satisfy a lover, build our career or take care of the kids.  By society’s definition, you need to be on top of all of these aspects of life and perform well in every regard in order to be successful, worthy and respected. Yet, as a result, people get sick, depressed and exhausted. Why? If you have ever spent a day commuting via the New York City subway system, you definitely understand what I’m talking about.

    (more…)

    Category Happiness and Fulfillment, Love and Spirituality, Motivational, Search For Meaning Blog | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, | Comments Off on Discover Your Dharma or How I Quit My Job

  10. Lets Be Happy – Positive Psychology in Action

    May 23, 2013

    I am back from a week of R&R in Kripalu Yoga Center and feeling very POSITIVE. Seriously positive! It is not only the yoga, meditation, scenery, nature hikes, and being surrounded with nice people, etc. It is also seeing people actively pursuing their goal of living HAPPY lives. As Tal Ben-Shahar, a positive psychology guru, once said “There’s more people wanting to be happy than rich”. Well, we all know “money cannot buy happiness”, so why not go straight to the goal and be happy? Simple eh? Well it is indeed.

    Tal happened to be in Kripalu this week teaching the course on Positive Psychology for social workers and therapists. I didn’t attend the course but spoke to some participants and they were totally overwhelmed. Apparently, being happy is SIMPLE! You just have to focus on the right things. Here I’d like to offer this short video by Tal Ben-Shahar talking about the “Incredible Power of Positivity”. Just watch and learn:

     

     

    So let’s start asking these questions: “what’s going well in your life?”, “what’s going well in your relationships?”, “what are your strengths?”. Let’s talk about our happy moments and happy experience and focus on positives. May be this will shift your balance and attitude?

    According to Dalai Lama, “Compassion is a state of mind where you extend how you relate to yourself toward others as well” If you dislike or even hate yourself you’ll create this “hate wave” towards others as well. Dalai Lama teaches us that the key is to start loving ourselves first: “Yourself first, and then in a more advanced way the aspiration will embrace others. In a way, high levels of compassion are nothing but an advanced state of that self-interest. That’s why it is hard for people who have a strong sense of self-hatred to have genuine compassion toward others. There is no anchor, no basis to start from.”

     

     

    Category Happiness and Fulfillment, Love and Spirituality, Motivational, Positive Psychology Blog | Tags: ,,,,,,,, | Comments Off on Lets Be Happy – Positive Psychology in Action

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