Power-Ups

“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue but the parent of all other virtues”.  Marcus Tullius Cicero When the movie Flashdance was released, with its hit song "Feelings", it left people thinking about and discussing all aspects of freedom of expression, healthy differences and how people process emotion.   This article may make you feel slightly uneasy as it asks something of you (remember, "life begins at the end of your comfort zone").  It asks that you be prepared to fully allow yourself to tap into, and acknowledge, how you truly feel. With a host of things that will help us become “HEALthier”, this one is right up there.   Our feelings are signals. It is our body’s way of helping us get information about our internal or external environment.  Feelings, like most things, if left unchecked, can control us, and we can become an emotional wreck, or we can learn to read the signs and act on them before we get lost. I fully believe, that...

“We can no more afford to spend major time on minor things than we can to spend minor time on major things”.                     Our three most precious commodities:   1) Time  2) Money     3) Personal Productivity (energy) Do you jump out of bed each morning with a plan, feeling excited about what lies ahead for your day?  Or do you watch the clock hands tick by and wonder where all that time goes?  It is all too easy to feel that if we are not busy working on some project or urgent thing to do, that we are wasting time.  How we perceive time has a mighty effect on our priorities.  If we have a high priority on money for instance, then we will be driven to be more productive to try and use our time as effectively as possible in keeping with the phrase ‘time is money’. What is the price tag on time?  If we live by the above phrase, then we will indeed be giving cur...

"Opportunities don't happen. You create them."   Chris Grosser Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as ‘Dr. Seuss was a well-renowned cartoonist and writer.   He had many other pursuits before he was given a request by William Spaulding that would set Theodor’s sights in a whole new way. Theodor was asked to reduce a list of 348 words that Spaulding had compiled believing they were the most important words for first-graders to learn, and asked Theodor to reduce the words again to 250 and write a book that would engage young readers.  This task was undertaken after Life Magazine published an article around the growing issue of illiteracy stating that children weren’t reading due to books being boring.    This started Theodor on a journey of great proportion with his first book (using 236 words) of this type being ‘The Cat In The Hat’. It would be amiss of us however to believe that Suess’s work is only for young readers.   Keep reading...

“Love is our essential nutrient. Without it, life has little meaning.  It’s the best thing we have to give and the most valuable thing we receive. It’s worthy of all the hullabaloo.” Martin Luther King Jr. Over the years, many cultures have written and analysed love and formed it into this  complex, indefinable and often elusive  thing.  There is no topic that equals it for the number of poems, songs and books that have been written about it. Is love as hard to pinpoint and define as we are led to believe?  Is it just that something magically takes place when we connect with some people?  Do we like to hold on to the mystery so that somehow we don’t lose the impact or exhilaration? Or  could it be that it is not love that is that complicated, but all the ‘add on extras’ that we as adults join to this powerful emotion?  Let’s leave the ‘suitcases’ at the station for a moment and break down this thing called love . Basic Elements of L...

"It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society" --Jiddu Krishnamurti We often impose on our selves unrealistic expectations, or values that are not our own, that we accept from outside of ourselves and try to live in our life.  Aside from the reasonable amount of compromise and the dance of human relationships that is necessary to co-exist together ,  outside of this, living solely what other people value does not serve us very well . A lot of this stems from, as you would well suspect, advertising and indoctrination from the medical/pharmaceutical and fitness industries which envelopes the industrialised world. Most would consciously deny any effect or manipulation to the fact that many of their thoughts  may not actually be their own , whilst their subconscious mind drives them to depend on suckling the sickly teat of the consumerist, immediate-gratification society. This is demonstrated by  actions ,  purchases , thoughts an...

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves” – Leo Tolstoy We often think that if we could just control what somebody else thinks, says, does, and how they perceive us or the world, that we would feel peaceful, happy, and be our  ideal self .  In reality,  the only person we need to focus on is ourselves – what we think, say, do, how we are perceiving what’s happening around us, and what we are doing to deal with it.   I do mean DEAL with it too, not just push it under a rug and avoid it.  When we are aware enough to move out of the “I know” mindset, to learn how to be happy with who we are and where we are at, and prioritise some key new concepts, we will be struck by  how simple and straightforward it is to experience true emotional well-being .    Concept One - Expanding your worldview (instead of living through a one-sided perspective)  Meditation Most people’s idea of what meditatio...

" A healthy mind breeds a healthy body and visa versa! ”  Zig Ziglar     With the alarming rise of obesity and many products coming on to the market offering overnight weight loss, there is an increasing focus in putting into place good nutrition and health practice.  This is a time that a lot is being invested in re-educating children and adults alike in what food has a positive or negative effect on our bodies.  This is very important, but after we have got on top of our physical bodies,  what are we feeding our minds?   What would our brain's diet look like if we wanted to give it a full overhaul? Depending on the food we eat, it will either nourish us or draw from us.  This works exactly the same way with our mind.   “As we think, so shall we be.”  Positive thoughts affect both our mind and body by creating a greater and more intense energy. We notice the difference as we lose track of time when spending it in the comp...