Your relationship with yourself

Confidence – You are a person that believes he or she is worthy of respect and is capable of creating real value in this world.

Honesty – You are a person that acknowledges all aspects of yourself, whether good or bad.

Forgiveness – You are a person that makes mistakes, but learns from them and doesn’t beat his or her self up over them.

Love – You are a person that believes you deserve happiness, peace, and enjoyment in life.

Gratitude – You are a person who is thankful for what you have in life, because you realize that it’s easy to take all the good things in your life for granted – and you often don’t realize what you really have until it’s gone.

50 things you should let go before your birthday

1. Let go of what isn’t helping your soul smile and grow. – Life is to be enjoyed, not endured.  Follow a path that moves you.  You are always free to do something that makes you smile.
2. Let go of the baggage you know you need to leave behind. – As we grow older and wiser, we begin to realize what we need and what we need to leave behind.  Sometimes walking away is a step forward.
3. Let go of feeling like you aren’t making progress fast enough. – No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
4. Let go of the idea that you have too much to lose. – In the end, you won’t regret the things you’ve done nearly as much as the things you didn’t do when you had the chance.  I’d rather have a life of “OH WELLS” than a life of “WHAT IFS.”  Wouldn’t you agree?
5. Let go of worrying about everyone else’s opinions of your life. – When writing the story of your life, don’t let someone else hold the pen.
6. Let go of your tendency to avoid problems. – You cannot change what you refuse to confront.
7. Let go of all your empty complaints. – If you don’t like something, change it.  If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.
8. Let go of the excuses. – If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way.  If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.
9. Let go of lazy attitudes and routines. – You can’t underestimate a person who always works hard.  Be that person.  In life, you don’t get what you wish for; you get what you work for.
10. Let go of making the same mistakes over and over. – You can’t make the same mistake twice.  The second time you make it, it’s no longer a mistake, it’s a choice.
11. Let go of the fantasy of perfection. – If you want to get really good at something, let go of the notion of perfection and replace it with the notion of endless playful exploration.
12. Let go of believing the best is behind you. – Your life isn’t behind you; your memories are behind you.  Your life is always right here, right now.  Seize it!  Choose to let each of your experiences today be a gateway to an even brighter tomorrow.
13. Let go of thinking you should always get what you want. – Not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
14. Let go of the notion that life is fair. – If you expect the world to be fair with you because you are fair, you’re fooling yourself.  That’s like expecting the lion not to eat you because you didn’t eat him.
15. Let go of thinking others have it better than you. – Truthfully, nobody has it easy; everybody has issues.  If everybody threw their problems in a pile for you to see, you would likely grab yours back in a heartbeat.
16. Let go of the expectations that are holding you back. – The quality of your life is always 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you respond to it.
17. Let go of thinking there is a perfect time. – You can’t keep waiting for the perfect moment – it doesn’t exist.  You must dare to do it today because life is too short to wonder what could have been.
18. Let go of the need to always feel comfortable. – If you want to make an impact, big or small, get comfortable with being uncomfortable.  All growth begins at the end of your comfort zone.
19. Let go of thinking you have to know everything first. – You don’t have to have it all figured out to move forward.  Just do the best you can until you know better.  Once you know better, do better.
20. Let go of the “all or nothing” mentality regarding success. – Appreciate the grey area between the extremes of success and failure – the journey, the experiences, etc.  And above all, never let success get to your head or failure get to your heart.
21. Let go of your mistakes. – Don’t carry your mistakes around with you.  Instead, place them under your feet and use them as stepping stones.
22. Let go of letting your daily struggles get the best of you. – Hard times often lead to greatness.  Keep the faith.  It will be worth it in the end.  The beginnings to great things are always the hardest.
23. Let go of excessive worrying. – Worrying doesn’t take away tomorrow’s troubles, it takes away today’s peace and potential.  Stop over-thinking everything.  Life is too short.
24. Let go of wanting stuff you don’t need. – Don’t think of cost.  Think of value.  And remember, it’s always easier to find wealth by needing less, instead of making more.
25. Let go of your ungrateful thoughts. – Happiness never comes to those who don’t appreciate what they have.  So be thankful today.  Life isn’t perfect, it’s just pretty darn good.
26. Let go of all your reasons to be unhappy. – Stop looking for reasons to be unhappy.  Focus on the things you do have and the reasons you should be happy.  Positivity changes everything.
27. Let go of any hypocrisy. – For instance, don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.
28. Let go of assuming other people are more “normal” than you. – The only normal people you know are the ones you don’t know very well.  Period.
29. Let go of the emotions that often get the best of you. – Stay strong.  Even when it feels like things are falling apart, they’re not.  Take control of your emotions before they take control of you.
30. Let go of your temper. – Never do something permanently foolish just because you are temporarily upset.
31. Let go of ugly words. – Saying someone is ugly doesn’t make you any prettier.
32. Let go of your superficial judgments. – We meet no ordinary people in our lives.  If you give them a chance, everyone has something amazing to offer.
33. Let go of trying to change others. – For the most part, you can’t change people and you shouldn’t try.  Either you accept who they are or you choose to live without them.
34. Let go of thinking you’re too cool to be kind. – It takes a great deal of strength to be gentle and kind.  And you are much stronger than you think.
35. Let go of being “too busy” to SHOW your love. – Loyalty is hard to find.  Trust is easy to lose.  Actions speak louder than words.  Tell your loved ones you love them every day, and prove it.
36. Let go of one-sided relationships. – If someone truly cares about you, they won’t make you feel like you need to constantly fight for their attention.
37. Let go of those who have never been there for you. – Remember, it’s during the toughest times of your life that you’ll get to see the true colors of the people who say they care about you.
38. Let go of negative influences. – You can’t expect to feel good if you surround yourself with negativity.  Be with those who bring out the best in you, not the stress in you.
39. Let go of all self-hate. – Love yourself!  Forgive yourself!  Accept yourself!
40. Let go of any lies you’ve heard that you aren’t attractive enough. – More women worldwide are suffering from anorexia and bulimia than are fighting breast cancer.  Love yourself the way you are.  You are already beautiful.
41. Let go of trying to be someone else. – Someone will always be prettier.  Someone will always be smarter.  Someone will always be younger.  But they will never be YOU.  And that makes you powerful.
42. Let go of the things people say about you. – Try not to take things other people say about you too personally.  What they think and say is a reflection of them, not you.
43. Let go of the petty arguments. – You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you.  All you can do is change how you react and who you choose to be around.
44. Let go of putting everyone else’s needs in front of your own. – Give as much as you can, but don’t allow yourself to be used.  Listen to others closely, but don’t lose your own voice.
45. Let go of needing everyone to like you. – Everyone doesn’t need to like you.  But remember, just because some people don’t seem to care for you, doesn’t mean you should forget about everyone else who does.
46. Let go of changing just to impress people. – Don’t ever change just to impress someone else.  Change because it makes you a better person and leads you to a brighter future.
47. Let go of life’s little annoyances. – Don’t let dumb little things break your happiness.  True wealth is the ability to experience and appreciate each moment for what it’s worth.
48. Let go of yesterday. – Don’t let yesterday steal your present.  Don’t judge yourself by your past; you don’t live there anymore.  Let go, grow, and move forward.
49. Let go of thinking that giving up means failure. – Giving up and moving on are two very different things.
50. Let go of the idea that it’s too late to start over. – Remember, it’s always better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to climb than the top of the one you don’t.

(Note:  Obviously, if your birthday is tomorrow, or next week, pick a couple points to work on now, and make it a goal to complete the list by your next birthday.)

Plegaria Maya al Corazón del Cielo

Oh Corazón del cielo, Corazón de la Tierra, Presencia infinita que estas en el cielo, que estás en la tierra, que estas en los campos, que estás en las veredas, que estás por los ríos, que estás en el mar, que estás en la ciudad, que estas en toda forma de vida. Escúchame.


Perdóname. Encamíname. Ampárame en todo lugar y en todo tiempo.

Ayúdanos a caminar, ayúdanos a conducirnos, ayúdanos a ser cada día mejor para servir a los demás, para servir a toda forma de vida y a tu sagrada Voluntad. Para servir a nuestras familias y comunidades, para
servir a nuestros semejantes.

Amada Presencia Infinita, Corazón del Cielo, Corazón de la Tierra, danos fuerza divina, danos sabiduría divina, danos el entendimiento divino para alcanzar el discernimiento en cada una de nuestras decisiones.

Acompáñanos, ampáranos y ayúdanos a encaminarnos en la senda del bien, de lo divino y de lo perfecto. Ayúdanos a guiarnos y a obtener conocimientos para servir cada día mejor a la Voluntad del Todopoderoso.

Corazón del Cielo, Corazón de la Tierra, amado Espíritu Infinito Creador, te damos gracias por la atención a este llamado de Amor. 

9 Epiphanies that will turn your world upside down

1. You are not your mind.

The first time I heard somebody say that,  I didn’t like the sound of it one bit. What else could I be? I had taken for granted that the mental chatter in my head was the central “me” that all the experiences in my life were happening to.

I see quite clearly now that life is nothing but passing experiences, and my thoughts are just one more category of things I experience. Thoughts are no more fundamental than smells, sights and sounds. Like any experience, they arise in my awareness, they have a certain texture, and then they give way to something else.

If you can observe your thoughts just like you can observe other objects, who’s doing the observing? Don’t answer too quickly. This question, and its unspeakable answer, are at the center of all the great religions and spiritual traditions.

2. Life unfolds only in moments.

Of course! I once called this the most important thing I ever learned. Nobody has ever experienced anything that wasn’t part of a single moment unfolding. That means life’s only challenge is dealing with the single moment you are having right now. Before I recognized this, I was constantly trying to solve my entire life — battling problems that weren’t actually happening. Anyone can summon the resolve to deal with a single, present moment, as long as they are truly aware that it’s their only point of contact with life, and therefore there is nothing else one can do that can possibly be useful. Nobody can deal with the past or future, because, both only exist as thoughts, in the present. But we can kill ourselves trying.

3. Quality of life is determined by how you deal with your moments, not which moments happen and which don’t.

I now consider this truth to be Happiness 101, but it’s amazing how tempting it still is to grasp at control of every circumstance to try to make sure I get exactly what I want. To encounter an undesirable situation and work with it willingly is the mark of a wise and happy person. Imagine getting a flat tire, falling ill at a bad time, or knocking something over and breaking it — and suffering nothing from it. There is nothing to fear if you agree with yourself to deal willingly with adversity whenever it does show up. That is how to make life better. The typical, low-leverage method is to hope that you eventually accumulate power over your circumstances so that you can get what you want more often. There’s an excellent line in a Modest Mouse song, celebrating this side-effect of wisdom: As life gets longer, awful feels softer.

4. Most of life is imaginary.

Human beings have a habit of compulsive thinking that is so pervasive that we lose sight of the fact that we are nearly always thinking. Most of what we interact with is not the world itself, but our beliefs about it, our expectations of it, and our personal interests in it. We have a very difficult time observing something without confusing it with the thoughts we have about it, and so the bulk of what we experience in life isimaginary things. As Mark Twain said: “I’ve been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” The best treatment I’ve found? Cultivatingmindfulness.

5. Human beings have evolved to suffer, and we are better at suffering than anything else.

Yikes. It doesn’t sound like a very liberating discovery. I used to believe that if I was suffering it meant that there was something wrong with me — that I was doing life “wrong.” Suffering is completely human and completely normal, and there is a very good reason for its existence. Life’s persistent background hum of “this isn’t quite okay, I need to improve this,” coupled with occasional intense flashes of horror and adrenaline are what kept human beings alive for millions of years. This urge to change or escape the present moment drives nearly all of our behavior. It’s a simple and ruthless survival mechanism which works exceedingly well for keeping us alive, but it has a horrific side effect: human beings suffer greatly by their very nature. This, for me, redefined every one of life’s problems as some tendril of the human condition. As grim as it sounds, this insight is liberating because it means: 1) that suffering does not necessarily mean my life is going wrong, 2) that the ball is always in my court, so the degree to which I suffer is ultimately up to me, and 3) that all problems have the same cause and the same solution.

6. Emotions exist to make us biased.

This discovery was a complete 180 from my old understanding of emotions. I used to think my emotions were reliable indicators of the state of my life — of whether I’m on the right track or not. Your passing emotional states can’t be trusted for measuring your self-worth or your position in life, but they are great at teaching you what it is you can’t let go of. The trouble is that emotions make us both more biased and more forceful at the same time. Another survival mechanism with nasty side-effects.

7. All people operate from the same two motivations: to fulfill their desires and to escape their suffering.

Learning this allowed me to finally make sense of how people can hurt each other so badly. The best explanation I had before this was that some people are just bad. What a cop-out. No matter what kind of behavior other people exhibit, they are acting in the most effective way they are capable of (at that moment) to fulfill a desire or to relieve their suffering. These are motives we can all understand; we only vary in method, and the methods each of us has at our disposal depend on our upbringing and our experiences in life, as well as our state of consciousness. Some methods are skillful and helpful to others, others are unskillful and destructive, and almost all destructive behavior is unconscious. So there is no good and evil, only smart and dumb (or wise and foolish.) Understanding this completely shook my long-held notions of morality and justice.

8. Beliefs are nothing to be proud of.

Believing something is not an accomplishment.

 I grew up thinking that beliefs are something to be proud of, but they’re really nothing but opinions one refuses to reconsider. Beliefs are easy. The stronger your beliefs are, the less open you are to growth and wisdom, because “strength of belief” is only the intensity with which you resist questioning yourself. As soon as you are proud of a belief, as soon as you think it adds something to who you are, then you’ve made it a part of your ego. Listen to any “die-hard” conservative or liberal talk about their deepest beliefs and you are listening to somebody who will never hear what you say on any matter that matters to them — unless you believe the same. It is gratifying to speak forcefully, it is gratifying to be agreed with, and this high is what the die-hards are chasing. Wherever there is a belief, there is a closed door. Take on the beliefs that stand up to your most honest, humble scrutiny, and never be afraid to lose them.

9. Objectivity is subjective.

Life is a subjective experience and that cannot be escaped. Every experience I have comes through my own, personal, unsharable viewpoint. There can be no peer reviews of my direct experience, no real corroboration. This has some major implications for how I live my life. The most immediate one is that I realize I must trust my own personal experience, because nobody else has this angle, and I only have this angle. Another is that I feel more wonder for the world around me, knowing that any “objective” understanding I claim to have of the world is built entirely from scratch, by me. What I do build depends on the books I’ve read, the people I’ve met, and the experiences I’ve had. It means I will never see the world quite like anyone else, which means I will never live in quite the same world as anyone else — and therefore I mustn’t let outside observers be the authority on who I am or what life is really like for me. Subjectivity is primary experience — it is real life, and objectivity is something each of us builds on top of it in our minds, privately, in order to explain it all. This truth has world-shattering implications for the roles of religion and science in the lives of those who grasp it.

How to be a Genius

Want to know how to be a genius? There are five things you can learn from looking at those who are the very best.

1) Be curious and driven

For his book Creativity, noted professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi did interviews with 91 groundbreaking individuals across a number of disciplines, including 14 Nobel Prize winners. In 50 Psychology ClassicsTom Butler-Bowdon summed up many of Csikszentmihalyi's findings including this one:

Successful creative people tend to have two things in abundance, curiosity and drive. They are absolutely fascinated by their subject, and while others may be more brilliant, their sheer desire for accomplishment is the decisive factor. [50 Psychology Classics]

2) It's not about formal education. It's about hours at your craft.

Do you need a sky-high IQ? Do great geniuses all have PhD's? Nope. Most had about a college-dropout level of education.

Dean Keith Simonton, a professor at the University of California at Davis, conducted a large-scale study of more than three hundred creative high achievers born between 1450 and 1850 — Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Beethoven, Rembrandt, for example. He determined the amount of formal education each had received and measured each one's level of eminence by the spaces devoted to them in an array of reference works. He found that the relation between education and eminence, when plotted on a graph, looked like an inverted U: The most eminent creators were those who had received a moderate amount of education, equal to about the middle of college. Less education than that — or more — corresponded to reduced eminence for creativity. [Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else]

But they all work their asses off in their field of expertise. That's how to be a genius.

Those interested in the 10,000-hour theoryof deliberate practice won't be surprised. As detailed in Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, the vast majority of them are workaholics.

"Sooner or later," Pritchett writes, "the great men turn out to be all alike. They never stop working. They never lose a minute. It is very depressing." [Daily Rituals: How Artists Work]

In fact, you really can't work too much.

If we're looking for evidence that too much knowledge of the domain or familiarity with its problems might be a hindrance in creative achievement, we have not found it in the research.

Instead, all evidence seems to point in the opposite direction. The most eminent creators are consistently those who have immersed themselves utterly in their chosen field, have devoted their lives to it, amassed tremendous knowledge of it, and continually pushed themselves to the front of it. [Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else]

3) Test your ideas

Howard Gardner studied geniuses like Picasso, Freud, and Stravinsky and found a similar pattern of analyzing, testing, and feedback used by all of them:

…Creative individuals spend a considerable amount of time reflecting on what they are trying to accomplish, whether or not they are achieving success (and, if not, what they might do differently). [Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Ghandi]

Does testing sound like something scientific and uncreative? Wrong. The more creative an artist is the more likely they are to use this method:

In a study of thirty-five artists, Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi found that the most creative in their sample were more open to experimentation and to reformulating their ideas for projects than their less creative counterparts. [Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries]

4) You Must Sacrifice

10,000 hours is a hell of a lot of hours. It means many other things (some important) will need to be ignored.

In fact, geniuses are notably less likely to be popular in high school. Why?

The deliberate practice that will one day make them famous alienates them from their peers in adolescence.

…the single-minded focus on what would turn out to be a lifelong passion, is typical for highly creative people. According to the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who between 1990 and 1995 studied the lives of ninety-one exceptionally creative people in the arts, sciences, business, and government, many of his subjects were on the social margins during adolescence, partly because "intense curiosity or focused interest seems odd to their peers." Teens who are too gregarious to spend time alone often fail to cultivate their talents "because practicing music or studying math requires a solitude they dread." [Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking]

At the extremes, the amount of practice and devotion required can pass into the realm of the pathological. If hours alone determine genius then it is inevitable that reaching the greatest heights will require, quite literally, obsession.

My study reveals that, in one way or another, each of the creators became embedded in some kind of a bargain, deal, or Faustian arrangement, executed as a means of ensuring the preservation of his or her unusual gifts. In general, the creators were so caught up in the pursuit of their work mission that they sacrificed all, especially the possibility of a rounded personal existence. The nature of this arrangement differs: In some cases (Freud, Eliot, Gandhi), it involves the decision to undertake an ascetic existence; in some cases, it involves a self-imposed isolation from other individuals (Einstein, Graham); in Picasso's case, as a consequence of a bargain that was rejected, it involves an outrageous exploitation of other individuals; and in the case of Stravinsky, it involves a constant combative relationship with others, even at the cost of fairness. What pervades these unusual arrangements is the conviction that unless this bargain has been compulsively adhered to, the talent may be compromised or even irretrievably lost. And, indeed, at times when the bargain is relaxed, there may well be negative consequences for the individual's creative output. [Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Ghandi]

5) Work because of passion, not money

Passion produces better art than desire for financial gain — and that leads to more success in the long run.

"Those artists who pursued their painting and sculpture more for the pleasure of the activity itself than for extrinsic rewards have produced art that has been socially recognized as superior," the study said. "It is those who are least motivated to pursue extrinsic rewards who eventually receive them." [Dan Pink's Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us]

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More from Barking Up The Wrong Tree...

• What does nearly every genius have in common when it comes to work habits?

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• What does the most comprehensive study of geniuses tell us about creativity?
  

Oración Maya a los 5 elementos

Amado Elemento Agua: 

Con la fuerza universal del agua, limpia mi aura y el aura de todos mis hermanos en la Tierra que sirven a la luz y a la
Voluntad del Padre. Disuelve toda la energía negativa y los temores que
hoy pesan sobre mí, y sobre todos mis hermanos en la luz. 

Gracias, amado Elemento Agua, por la atención a este llamado de amor que acepto realizado ya.

Amado Elemento Fuego: 

Con la fuerza universal del fuego, purifica y transforma todas las programaciones falsas en mi mismo, y en todos mis
hermanos que sirven a la luz y a la Voluntad del Padre, que hoy llaman
a la transformación y purificación. Transforma todo lo erróneo en luz y
purifica todo lo erróneo aquí, ahora y por siempre, en mí y en todos mis hermanos que sirven a Dios, al Plan Divino y a la Luz. 

Gracias, amado Elemento Fuego, por este servicio de amor que aceptamos realizado ya.

Amado Elemento Aire: 

Fuerza universal del Espíritu, vigoriza y nutre mi Ser, y el Ser de todos mis hermanos en la luz. Con la interminable y
pulsátil energía vital, recorre todos mis vehículos y los vehículos de
todos mis hermanos en la luz. 

Cada célula provoca que todas las
células, que hoy se renuevan, satisfagan mi perfección. Evita que programas falsos sean copiados. Lo que pido para mí, lo pido para todos mis hermanos en la luz que sirven a la Voluntad del Padre. 

Gracias, amado Elemento Aire, por este servicio de amor que acepto realizado ya.

Amado Elemento Tierra: 

Con la fuerza de la energía universal de los átomos, convierte mi forma en un templo venerable para el Yo Soy. Lo
que pido para mí, lo pido para todos mis hermanos en la luz en esta Tierra, que sirven a la Voluntad Divina y al Plan Divino. 

Gracias, amado Elemento Tierra, por este llamado de amor que acepto realizado ya.

Amado Elemento Éter: 

Tu, fuerza universal que lo penetra todo, déjame sentir, déjame pensar, déjame actuar, déjame hacer realidad el Yo Soy.
Guía mi sentir, mi pensar, mi manera de tratar con todo por el buen camino de Dios. Lo que pido para mí, lo pido para todos los servidores de la luz en esta Tierra y en este tiempo. 

Gracias, amado Elemento Éter, por la atención a este llamado de amor que acepto realizado ya.

Así, con la fuerza del Espíritu Viviente que existe en mí, Yo Soy cumpliendo con la Voluntad del Padre. Yo Soy purificado y renovado gracias a la acción de los cinco Elementos. 

Gracias a la Voluntad del Padre que es siempre victoriosa. Gracias a su Gracia y a su Misericordia, y su Amor Infinito hacia todos sus hijos, hacia todas las
criaturas. Te amamos Padre, por sobre todas las cosas. Amen, Amen, Amen.

10 Things Happy Families do Differently

1.  Every day, every member chooses to be part of the family.

First and foremost, family isn’t always blood.  They’re the people in your life who appreciate having you in theirs – the ones who encourage you to improve in healthy and exciting ways, and who not only embrace who you are now, but also embrace and embody who you want to be.  Family members can be your best friends.  And best friends, whether or not they’re related to you by blood, can be your family.

Family is built with love; it’s not determined by marriage certificates, divorce papers, and formal adoption documents.  Families grow from the heart, through mutual love and respect.  The only time family becomes nullified is when the ties in the heart are cut.  If you cut the ties, these people are not your family.  If you build the ties, these people are your family.  So build and maintain ties with the right people and nurture them with love every day.

2.  Family members go out of their way for each other.

Family bonds are tied with true love, and true love involves attention, awareness, discipline, effort, and being able to care about someone and sacrifice for them, continuously, in countless petty little unsexy ways, every day.  You put your arms around them and love them regardless, even when they’re not very lovable.  And of course they do the same for you.

If you want to know what a healthy family is, it’s one where each family member wakes up every morning and says, “This is worth it.  You all are worth it.  I am happy you are in my life.”  It’s about sacrifice.  It’s about knowing that some days you will have to do things you dislike to make the people you love smile, and feeling perfectly delighted to do so.  That’s what it means to “be family.”

3.  Family sticks together through thick and thin.

“Being family” is also about supporting each other through life’s inevitable changes.  It’s knowing that your family will be there watching out for you through thick and thin.  Nothing and no one else will give you that.  Not your career.  Not your boss.  Not your clients.  Not money.  Not fame.

You can’t promise to be there for someone for the rest of their life, but you can sincerely be there for them for the rest of yours.  Stand by those you care about in their darkest moments, not because you want to stand in the dark, but because you don’t want them to either.  Brave the shadows alongside them until they’re able to find the light.  On the flip-side, stand by these same people on their sunniest days, not because you want to scorch your skin, but because you’re not afraid to let them shine bright.

And remember, timing is everything.  There is a time for silence, a time to let go and allow your loved ones to launch themselves into their own destiny, and a time to cheer for their victories, or help them pick up the pieces, when it’s all over.

4.  Everyone is permitted to be true to themselves.

The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated as is.  Sometimes we try to be sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image of what we want them to be – what we think we need, love, or desire.  But these actions and perceptions are against reality, against their benefit and ours, and always end in disappointment – because it does not fit them.

Remember, the foundation of love is to let those we care about be unapologetically themselves, and to not distort them to fit our own egotistical ideas of who they should be.  Otherwise we love only our own fantasies, and thus miss out entirely on their true beauty.

5.  Everyone takes responsibility for their own happiness.

Happiness is a choice that comes from within.  Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect, it means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.  There are choices you can make every day to feel the effects of happiness.  Choose to do something meaningful.  Choose to take care of your body.  Choose to be around the right people.  Choose a good attitude.  Choose to express gratitude.  Choose to forgive.  Choose to focus on what you have, not on what you haven’t.

Begin today by taking responsibility for your own happiness.  The choice is yours.  Your family can support you, but they can’t choose happiness for you.

6.  Caring words are used to communicate, always.

You can measure the happiness of any close relationship by the number of scars that each member carries on their tongues and inner cheeks, formed over many years of biting back angry and insensitive words.

Bottom line:  Be careful what you say.  You can say something unkind in less than one second, but more than a year later the wounds are still there.  Don’t do this to your family, or anyone for that matter.  Every time words are spoken, something is created.  Be honest, but also conscious of what you say and how you say it.  Use words that build up, appreciate, encourage and inspire.

7.  The truth is upheld and promises are kept.

Cheating and lying aren’t struggles, they’re reasons families break up.  Because great things fall apart quite easily when they’ve been held together with lies.

The truth is, relationships don’t hurt.  Lying, cheating and twisting reality until it toys with someone’s emotions is what hurts.  Promises mean everything, but after they’re broken, sorry means nothing (at least initially).  So never mess with someone’s feelings just because you’re unsure of your own.  If you are unsure in any way, be sure to say so.  Always be open and honest.  And remember that when the truth is replaced by silence, silence becomes a lie too.

8.  Everyone makes QUALITY time for each other.

Here’s a harsh reality of life:  Regardless of the quality of your relationships with your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, or close friends, you will miss them when they’re gone from your life.  And someday they will be.

You have to set aside quality time to share your love openly and honestly with those you love.  Realize that no matter how much time you spend with someone you care about, or how much you appreciate them, sometimes it will never seem like you had enough time together.  Don’t learn this lesson the hard way.  Express your love.  Tell your family what you need to tell them.  Don’t shy away from important conversations because you feel awkward or uncomfortable.  You never know when you might lose your opportunity.

So stay in close touch with what’s going on in your loved ones’ lives – communicate openly on a regular basis.  Not because it’s convenient, but because they are worth the extra effort.

9.  Presence is held sacred.

The greatest path to positive influence in any relationship is love.  And the greatest path to love is full acceptance within the present moment – allowing everything to be as it is, without hoping or trying to change things.

Presence is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in the “now.”  It’s about knowing that you must first attend to the reality of the moment before you can effectively contribute anything positive to it.  Practicing presence brings a sense of perspective and purpose to our lives, and opens the doorway to love others as they are.

Being completely present with someone is difficult, however, because it requires you to share yourself completely, vulnerabilities and all, and enter moments of unguarded honesty with this person.  And this person may hurt you, and you may hurt them too.  Yes, you will hurt each other sometimes.  But this is the very condition of full presence.  To become summer, means accepting the risk of winter.  To become present, means accepting the risk of absence.

10.  Patience and forgiveness are practiced daily.

No matter how honest and kind you try to be, you will occasionally step on the toes of the people closest to you.  And this is precisely why patience and forgiveness are so vital.  Patience is the ability to let your light shine on those you love, even after your fuse has blown.  And forgiveness is knowing deep down that they didn’t mean to blow your fuse in the first place.

Patience and forgiveness can be bitter at first, but the seeds you plant now will bear sweet fruit in the end.

50 Stress Relievers that Take 5 Minutes or Less

Finding ways to relieve stress is absolutely crucial in today’s chaotic world. We need daily buffers to remind us that we are living, thinking, and feeling human beings, not just work-a-holic machines. If we don’t attend to our stress, we can very quickly build up unhealthy levels, sometimes leading to serious conditions like depression, anxiety disorders, heart disease, diabetes, gastrointestinal disorders, eating problems, insomnia, and substance abuse, as well as headaches, muscle pains, and fatigue.
Because everyone experiences stress, and it is an unavoidable facet of life, we all need to find our own methods to cope with it.

Stress can be alleviated in a variety of ways, but what works for some may not work for others. A lot of it depends on our personality, what habits we find enjoyable, and what kind of work we’re taking a break from.
I took it upon myself to try and come up with 50 potential stress relievers. You may find some useful and some not so useful. That’s OK. Some might also spark new ideas that I may have forgotten. Leave a comment if you discover something that I missed!

50 Stress-Relievers That Take 5 Minutes Or Less

1. Take ten deep breaths. 2. Do push-ups, crunches, or pull-ups
3. Play with a pet
4. Take a short walk
5. Read an article in the newspaper
6. Call a friend
7. Listen to a song
8. Watch a video on YouTube
9. Play an instrument
10. Meditate
11. Eat a healthy snack
12. Spark a conversation
13. Make yourself a cup of coffee
14. Sit in the sun and get some fresh air
15. Doodle
16. Sing a favorite song
17. Dance
18. Drum on your desk
19. Count your blessings
20. Make plans to go out to dinner
21. Go outside and feed the birds
22. Do a small favor for someone
23. Write a note to a loved one
24. Water the plants
25. Look through a photo album
26. Take a shot of liquor or take a hit of cannabis – unwind a bit
27. Do a search on Google for “funny jokes”
28. Gaze at the stars
29. Get a back massage
30. Stretch or do yoga
31. Take a quick shower
32. Write a poem
33. Check your email or Facebook
34. Make a list of old things around the house to donate
35. Clean your desk
36. Try a word puzzle or Sudoku
37. Spend a moment with your children
38. Do jumping jacks
39. Scream at the top of your lungs (or into a pillow if you don’t want to disturb anyone)
40. Go to the bathroom
41. Play a game of billiards or ping pong
42. Check the local weather report
43. Sit somewhere with good scenery
44. Make a list of things to do on the weekend
45. Recite a prayer
46. Daydream
47. Wash your face with cold water
48. Take a power nap (make sure to set an alarm!)
49. Read a couple positive affirmations
50. Drive around town briefly

What The Ancient Maya Can Teach Us About Living Well

What The Ancient Maya Can Teach Us About Living Well

In the modern world -- when technological advances and information overload have left many of us with a desire to get back to basics -- the need for ancient wisdom may be more important than ever before.

Ancient health and healing secrets are making something of a resurgence, and for good reason. The ancient Greeks asked the big questions about what it means to live a good life, and some of their theories on ethics and happiness have been backed by modern science. Thousands of years ago, Indian sages developed a system for stilling the thoughts that's now practiced across America. The early Maya civilizations, too, developed healing systems that have influenced holistic healthcare to this day.

The Maya civilization thrived for six centuries through areas that are now Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas are in Mexico, as well as parts of Belize, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala before collapsing mysteriously around 900 AD. The Mesoamerican civilization -- advanced in its art, architecture and mathematics -- may not have survived, but many of their secrets to good health, healing and living well are still alive to this day.

Here are eight things the Maya can teach us about living well.

They ate chia seeds.

Chia -- derived from the Mayan word for strength -- was a dietary staple of the ancient Aztecs and Mayas, and one that kept them healthy and energized. In addition to eating the seeds regularly, the Maya also used them in religious ceremonies.

The superfood is high in protein and fiber, and it's loaded with healthy omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential for maintaining goodcognitive function and may even play a role in preventing cancer.

The body and soul were treated as one.

For the Maya, health was all about balance -- and disease, on the other hand, was seen as the manifestation of imbalance. To cure these imbalances, the Maya incorporated plants and herbs, their own forms of massage and acupuncture, hydrotherapy and prayer into theirhealing procedures.

The holistic healing tradition of the Maya was a medico-religious one, meaning that they treated both ailments of the body and of the spirit, and recognized their interconnection. The Maya healers sought primarily to balance the flow of ch’ulel, or life-force, in the body, making Maya medicine very similar to traditional Chinese medicinewhich also seeks to direct the body's life-force (qi). For the Maya, this ch'ulel (which forms the first principle of Maya medicine) is a sign of the interconnection of body and soul, which forms the second of the six principles.

"Ch'ulel represented that everything was linked and unified," wrote Bonnie Bley in The Ancient Maya and their City of Tulum. "The physical and spiritual worlds were at opposite ends of a continuum surrounded by medicine which aided the spirits in the healing process."

Clearly, they were on the right track: An extensive body of researchhas suggested that emotional health can have a significant impact on physical health.

Healers were central to the culture.

In the Maya civilizations, the healer, or h’men, played a central role in the community. They possessed an extensive knowledge of the healing remedies, and used them to restore the individual in ill health to a state of equilibrium. The indigenous healing tradition has been passed down orally for many generations and the descendentants of some Maya healers still practice to this day, largely in the Yucatan region of Mexico.

The healers played an important role in the community, particularly in the Yucatan and Campeche cultures.

The indigenous healer is, in many cases, a traditional authority or community leader, and in general is recognized as a servant of the community," write Hernán García, Antonio Sierra and Gilberto Balam in Wind In The Blood: Mayan Healing And Chinese Medicine. "To the present day these healers are essential to their communities. The recognition they receive, despite changing social conditions, allows them to continue exercising their medical practice."

They ate chocolate. Lots of it.

As long as 2,600 years ago, the Maya may have been regularly consuming chocolate. Archeologists found residue of chocolate on an ancient teapot, and now believe that the Maya were drinking chocolate for up to 1,000 years earlier than was previously thought. The Maya incorporated the ancient superfood cacao into their diet regularly -- some say they consumed cacao at every meal -- to maintain good health.

"It was the beverage of everyday people and also the food of the rulers and gods," Jonathan Haas, curator of the "Chocolate" exhibition at the Field Museum in Chicago, told National Geographic. "In fact, the scientific name for the cacao tree is Theobroma cacao -- 'food of the gods.'"

It may have played a significant role in their good health. Cacao and cocoa products are packed with flavanols, an antioxidant shown to benefit heart and brain health, which is also found in red wine, berries and teas. Cocoa is high inmagnesium, a mineral that's important for many bodily processes, and is also rich in calcium, iron, copper, zinc and potassium, not to mention loaded with fiber.

They believed in living by natural cycles.

A strong belief in natural cycles of birth and death helped to bring meaning and structure to Maya lives, and formed the basis of their religious beliefs.

"The Maya believed deeply in the cyclical nature of life –- nothing was ever 'born' and nothing ever 'died' -– and this belief inspired their view of the gods and the cosmos," according to the Ancient History Encyclopedia.

The many rituals and ceremonies of the Maya were generally tied to these cycles, which were embodied by the Maya maize god. According to Maya myths, the maize god was decapitated at the time of harvest and reborn at the beginning of the growing season. The myth of the maize god helped them to explain the changing of the seasons and the annual return of maize, their most important crop.

“The Mesoamerican worldview was constantly in motion, in cycles of birth and death, termination and regeneration," anthropologists William Duncan and Charles Hofling wrote in a paper published in Ancient Mesoamerica in 2011. "Everything that came to be needed to be animated or ensouled, and would eventually be terminated.”

Spiritual belief like the kind that the Maya lived by comes with a number of possible health benefits, including lower stress levels,improved mental health and maybe even increased longevity.

They were one of the earliest cultures to keep pets.

In the Archaic period, the Mayadomesticated dogs and turkeys to coexist with them as pets. In parts of Guatamala populated by the Maya, archeologists found turkey fossils with clipped wings, suggesting that they were kept in captivity. While the turkeys may have been bred for food, dogs were often used as companions,according to archeologist and Maya researcher Robert Sharer.

The health benefits of animal companions are many: Pet ownership has been linked to decreased blood pressure and cholesterol levels, as well as boosts in mood and decreased loneliness. Having a dog in the house has even been shown to improve children's health, reducing their risk of developing the common cold.

They had sophisticated plumbing.

Recent research suggests that the ancient Maya likely had sophisticated enough plumbing to provide them with running water, fountains and toilets. While it was previously thought that the ability to generate water pressure came when the Spaniards conquered the area, scientists found that the Maya center in Chiapas, Mexico had an elaborate system of managing water.

But these plumbing systems weren't purely functional: Being surrounded by water may have boosted their well-being. Living near a body of water has been linked with increased health and well-being, and for thousands of years, the healing power of water has been harnessed through hydrotherapy.

"I actually think that the creation of water pressure at Palenque was a sign of wealth," Pennsylvania State University archaeologist Kirk French told LiveScience. "It was definitely not necessary. They had water everywhere. The Maya of Palenque were never more than 150 meters (492 feet) from a source of water. Water pressure technology would have been useful through the display of power and knowledge, similar to how priests and shamans used astronomical events."

Their family ties were strong.

In the Maya culture, family was important. It wasn't so much about the clan or kinship as it was about the household, which could be either single or multiple family units. The multiple-family household is a part of the cultural tradition, some scholars have suggested.

"Within historical multiple-family households are nuclear families linked by a wide variety of kinship ties -- parents and sons, parents and daughters, two or three brothers or sisters, cousins, and maternal or paternal uncles and aunts," cultural anthropologist Richard Wilk wrote.

Strong family and community ties have been linked with increased well-being and boosted immunity, as well as enhanced longevity.