Go Green

Green. Not only is it a color, which happens to be one of my favorites, it can be a way of living. Green can represent our concept to thinking, living, and eating. Our environment is affected by our personal impact and carbon footprint that we leave behind.

The carbon footprint is a way to measure the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, like carbon dioxide. Ultimately, it is a useful way for people to conceptualize their impact in contributing to global warming.

We have to take the time to think about ways to lighten our carbon footprint and preserve our planet from further damage. Our generations after us are inheriting mother Earth and need to enjoy it in its most natural form. There's a lapse between awareness and action. People will know what they should be doing, but they just don't do it, either because they are waiting for more information, trying to get their minds in the right place to commit, or have excuses as to why they'll wait until Monday, or after the holidays, or until some other vaguely reasons rather then begin making changes in their lives. But the state of the planet is now at a tipping point. The world is in crisis, and there are no excuses to sit on the sidelines anymore. Our current choices and behaviors are warming this planet, and you can do something now to have a significant impact on cutting your carbon footprint. THINK ABOUT THIS.

Put plan into action, take accountability for your personal footprint and live green. Some steps listed below to cut down your carbon footprint:

• become a sustainable shopper and use a cloth grocery bag when shopping. If you purchase few items opt to carry them in your personal bag instead of buying a plastic bag. Consider transportation and distance used for shopping when your items can also be conveniently sold in one general area, instead of traveling to get to a store that has that one item for sale.
  
• reduce, reuse, reuse, reuse some more... then recycle
• remove unused cords from the electrical socket and turn lights off when leaving the room
  
• make sure your appliances are energy efficient ho hum, sounds boring right? One of the biggest hotspot to determine a person's personal "footprint" is that household food storage and preparation account for 25-30% of the total carbon load of that food.
  
• eliminate overprocessed, overpackaged, oversized, nutritionally empty foods that are currently hogging up space in your fridge, pantry, and daily food jaunts. Replace these with sustainable, fresh whole, delicious foods that are much healthier for you and the planet. This will clear out a bunch of unnecessarily calories that are keeping you from moving towards ur personal best health.

Green eating is paramount to attaining a healthy clean body. Eating foods that have no labels, and is in its whole state can assure you will feel better, look better, and function better. You can replace flesh protein with green protein. Foods like lentils, split peas, black-eyed peas, beans, and tofu. Also nuts like walnuts, almonds, pistachios, peanuts, cashews, pecans, and soy nuts. These are nutrient powerhouses that are portable and last relatively long. They are considered high in protein, monounsaturated fats, fiber, potassium, vitamin E, and many trace minerals. They can also provide excellent source of Omega 3 EFA's that promote protection from free radical damage to a cellular level, promote better cognitive function, and provide anti-inflammatory benefits. Nuts and seeds are a winning combo of heart healthy fats and proteins that curb cravings and keep blood sugar and energy levels stable for hours.

It's not difficult to incorporate this ideas into practice. These steps can leave a lasting impact that you will benefit from immediately and consistently, and will impact others positively. Ready. Go!

Be Still

To still your mind, sit down each day, close your eyes, and just watch your thoughts. Don't resist the thoughts, but just watch them come into your mind. As you watch each thought, it will disappear. Practice this each day and you will get better and better. You will find your mind will be without thoughts for five seconds, and then ten seconds, and then twenty seconds.

When you can command your mind to be still and have it obey your command, just imagine the power you will have to create what you want.

Believe it to Achieve it

Ask, Believe, Receive - just three simple steps to create what you want. However, very often the second step, believe, can be the most difficult one. And yet it is the greatest step you will ever take. Believing contains no doubt. Believing does not waiver. Believing is absolute faith. Believing remains steadfast despite what is happening in the outside world.

When you master believing, you have mastered your life.

Our Natural Path

"The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into habit. And the habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care. And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings." ~ BUDDHA (c.563-c.483BC)

The Power Of Choice

By achieving a strong mind-body connection, you will feel empowered to make better choices and lead a healthier life. Lasting changes and the reaching of goals result from: belief in oneself, belief in the ability to change and actually committing to actions that both change behavioural patterns and lead to real changes in one's very being.

Everything that we have ever been exposed to conditions us in some way. We condition ourselves into patterns of actions based upon all relationships that we have been exposed to over a lifetime (and not just with others but with the environment around us). This conditioning determines much of how we act and we can end up reacting to situations instead of responding in ways that will lead us closer to the life that we want to be living.

This repetition of acting trains us to act more and more in that fashion. We create neural networks and pathways associated with that thought/emotional process and it becomes our natural set point. This has enormous ramifications for what we see as 'personality'.

Where patterns that become strengthened are negative ones, it leads us into poor health and lowered life satisfaction. Addictions are the most obvious examples of this. But we can change the way we act, just as we can change how we move and how strong we are.

We have the choice and unlimited power to change our lives. In fact, our choices really are bounded only by imagination. By recognizing why we act in the way we do now, we are able to see, moment by moment when we are reacting to situations in a way that is pushing us further away from our goals rather than responding in a way that will lead us closer to them.

Knowledge is power and by knowing the basis for our actions, by seeing the action taking place and knowing where we want to be going, we can change course and create a different path through the way we act instead of simply reacting.

Life is a choice. We have in our possession right now, the ability to begin living the life of our dreams. We just have to choose it!

*Referenced by Cliff Harvey ND(c), Dip.FIT, HbT

Slow Dance

Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down.

Don't dance so fast. Time is short.

The music won't last.

Do you run through each day on the fly?

When you ask How are you?

Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done

Do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores running through your head?

You'd better slow down

Don't dance so fast. Time is short.

The music won't last.

Ever told your child, We'll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste

Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch, Let a good friendship die

Cause you never had time to call and say, "hi"

You'd better slow down.

Don't dance so fast. Time is short.

The music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere

You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,

It is like an unopened gift....

Thrown away.

Life is not a race.

Do take it slower

Hear the music

Before the song is over.


*This poem was written by a terminally ill girl in a New York Hospital.

Responsibility.
• noun (pl. responsibilities) 1 the state or fact of being responsible. 2 the opportunity or ability to act independently and take decisions without authorization. 3 a thing which one is required to do as part of a job, role, or legal obligation.

Respond.
• verb say or do something in reply or as a reaction.

Ability.
• noun (pl. abilities) 1 the power or capacity to do something. 2 skill or talent.

I've been thinking about this word lately, responsibility. This word holds meaning to many people. Some more profound than others. Above, I posted the meanings as per Oxford English Dictionary.

The verb respond, is connected to life and what happens. The saying, "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." I'll always remember. We have the will to respond to life in a positive manner that agrees with our belief system and can excel us. We can also choose to respond without conscious thought that may lead to a negative outcome. Then with the ability is our given talent we use to respond with.

The point I'm driving is to be conscious and thoughtful with your reaction to life's happenings. This is coming from a humble heart. I make mistakes, and learn to respond differently each time. I am truly thankful and encourage you to never cease on being responsible.

Be Blessed :)


"We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations." - Charles R. Swindoll

A State of Mind

Lately, the last few posts have been themed with focus on insight. Not only is it a choice to allow health to flow in mind, body and spirit, and also unify ourselves with a sense of holistic well being. I also believe that whatever goals we set to achieve begins with our state of mind.

To simply resolve in thought that change will take place with positive intentions is where the process begins. Believe in yourself, and know that the power of your will is able to achieve anything you desire. So whether the focus is health related or not, aim to receive the best out of that goal. That being said, I'm attaching this poem that you may already be familiar with...

In joy!


A State of Mind

If you think you are beaten, your are
If you think you dare not, you won't,
If you like to win, but don't think you can
It's almost a cinch you won't


If you think you'll lose, you're lost
For out in the world you find,
Success begins with a fellow's will
It's all in a state of mind


For many a game is lost
Ere even a play is run,
And many a coward fails
Ere even his work is begun


Think big and your deeds will grow
Think small and you'll fall behind
Think that you can and you will
It's all a state of mind


If you think you are out-classed, your are
You've got to think high to rise
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize


Life battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man
But sooner or later, the man who wins
Is the fellow who thinks he can
-Anonymous

The Ripple Effect

Do you want to be a positive influence in the world?
First, get your own life in order. Ground yourself in the single principle so that your behavior is wholesome and effective. If you do that, you will earn respect and be a powerful influence.

If your life works, you influence your family.
If your family works, your family influences the community.
If your community works, your community influences the nation.
If your nation works, your nation influences the world.
If your world works, the ripple effect spreads throughout the cosmos.

Remember that your influence being with you and ripples outward. So be sure that your influence is both potent and wholesome.

How do I know that this works?

All growth spreads outward from a fertile and potent nucleus.
You are a nucleus.


"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others" - Pericles

Energy Concepts

The chakra system is a model of consciousness. Though we all understand the word, few can describe what it is. We know how to use it, alter it, enhance it or talk about it - but we cannot define it. One definition might be the structure that perceives, analyzes, stores, retrieves and creates information about any subject whatsoever, whether it is internal, external, real or imagined.

Energy, matter and consciousness intertwine to form all that we experience. Knowing the various components of the chakras allows us to achieve a greater understanding of ourselves.

Energy flows in 2 ways in the chakra system: vertically, as it passes through all the chakras, and horizontally, as it passes through each chakra. The vertical channel can be thought of as the basic source; the horizontal flow is the expression of that source.

What blocks a chakra? Generally speaking, programming from childhood experiences and cultural values cause our chakras to be blocked. A child who is physically beaten by his parents learns to shut out his body sensations. A child who is emotionally neglected shuts down the emotional second chakra. A culture that denies sexuality and promotes obedience to authority forces us to shut down our second and third chakras, accordingly. Noise pollution, unattractive surroundings or lies make us shut down our fifth, sixth and seventh chakras, respectively. The pain of unrequited love teaches us to close our hearts. Basically, past pain or stress, whatever its source, affects the healthy functioning of our chakras.

The chakras can be opened through various exercises, meditations, acupuncture points, biofeedback and general understanding. Opening chakras leads to a more profound state of consciousness. This state of consciousness is obtainable by anyone.

Chakra 1. Root, Base, or Earth Chakra. It's seated at the base of the spine. Its colour is Red. It's qualities are physical body, grounding, courage, stability and patience.

Chakra 2. Sacral Chakra. Located at the small of the back, upper lumbar. Its colour is Orange. Qualities include giving and receiving, sexual love, new ideas, harmony and creativity.

Chakra 3. Solar Plexus Chakra. Located above the navel, below the chest. Its colour is Yellow. Includes personal power, authority, energy, transformation, laughter, fear.

Chakra 4. Heart Chakra. Located in the centre of the chest. Its colour is Green. Qualities are devine unconditional love, forgiveness, balance, peace, acceptance.

Chakra 5. Throat Chakra. Located at throat area. Its colour is Blue. Qualities are communication, true creative expression.

Chakra 6. Third Eye or Brow Chakra. Located in centre of forehead between the eyebrows. Its colour is Indigo. Includes intuition, imagination, peace of mind, wisdom, intuitive centre.

Chakra 7. Crown Chakra. Located at top of the head. Its colours Violet, White. Includes Oneness with the universe, spiritual will, inspiration.

*Can-Fit-Pro NWS