How to Tune In to the Voice Within By Martha Beck

How to Tune In to the Voice Within By Martha Beck Following Your Inner Buddy Exercise 1: WWBD? Think of a challenging circumstance or difficult decision you happen to be facing right now—something that's been keeping you up at night. With this situation in mind, write the first answer that comes up when you ask yourself the following questions. Don't overthink the answers. In fact, don't think about the answers at all—just blurt. With regard to your difficult situation... What would calm do now? What would peace do now? What would relaxation do now? (Note: I don't include "What would love do now?" because so many people have such misguided interpretations of love. They think love would sacrifice its own happiness, or throw a tantrum, or hide in an ex-boyfriend's garage wearing nothing but night-vision goggles and a leopard-print thong.) The more often you ask yourself these strange questions, the more open you become to the gentle energy of your own inner wisdom. When you feel your body begin to let go of tension, you know you're headed in a wise direction. And that's what Buddy would do. Exercise 2: Nightmare Board, Wisdom Board Perhaps you've heard of vision boards: collages you assemble from pictures of things that appeal to you. Most of us go through life carrying something similar in our minds—except that instead of pictures that appeal to us, they're crowded with pictures that torment and terrify us. I call these nightmare boards. Your nightmare board, curated, assembled, and prominently displayed by your inner Fang, contains images of everything that frightens and upsets you, including all your most hideously painful experiences. Fang is continuously adding new pictures to the board and lovingly retouching the old ones. Here's a radical assignment: Make your nightmare board real. Glue up some actual images of every frightening thought that haunts you. But don't stop there. When you're finished, you're going to make another board. This new board must contain three or more images that contradict every picture on the nightmare board. For example, if your nightmare board shows a devastating oil spill, your vision board might feature three photographs of people tenderly swabbing oil-coated ducks. For every image of violence, come up with three examples of loving kindness; for every crisis, find three beautiful, ordinary moments of calm. When you're finished, ceremoniously shred, burn, or otherwise trash Fang's nightmare board. Then put your wisdom board where you can see it. Focusing on hope in a world of fear isn't naive. It's the irrational essence of wisdom. Exercise 3: Vocab Rehab Take ten minutes and write a description of your life—stream of consciousness, no self-judgment, no editing. Then go over your description, looking for every word that carries frightening or painful associations. These words have more power than you might think. Studies show that after focusing on words having to do with aging, people walk more slowly; when they see words associated with anger, they're more likely to be rude. This phenomenon is called affective priming, but it works both ways. You can use it to connect with your inner wisdom by changing every stressful word in your self-description to something more freeing, relaxing, or exhilarating. If you wrote "I'm nervous," see whether "I'm excited" may also fit. The word unsure could be replaced by open. As you change your story, Fang's voice will begin to soften, and the peace that comes from your wiser inner voice will begin to arise. Practice Makes Permanent All these exercises can divert your attention from bossy, self-righteous Fang and help you appreciate the brilliance of your inner Buddy. Wisdom will never be the loud, obvious one in this odd couple. It will never shout down its opposition or barge in uninvited. But each time you choose wisdom as your adviser, you come closer to making the choice a way of life. Trust me, that's advice you want to take. Martha Beck is the author of six books, including Steering by Starlight (Rodale). Read more: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Finding-Your-Inner-Voice-Developing-Intuition-Martha-Beck/3#ixzz27W8etJEo

About the Diet - The Eat-Clean Diet®

About the Diet - The Eat-Clean Diet®

What the Old Folks Are Saying

What I am hearing from people in their 80s, 90s and even a hundred or more years old is 1) Enjoy your life. Do what makes you happy and DON'T Do what Doesn't make you happy. -One of the things I started doing was having my in-laws' caregiver clean my house once a month. I was using the dirty house as an excuse to NOT do my writing. And my writing this novel is very important to me. Finishing it would make me very happy. Now, all I have to do is start limiting my time on the net. Social networks are taking up too much of my time. 2) Stay active. Walk. Travel. Do the things that make you want to get out of bed in the morning. The more active you are, the faster your metabolism is so pretty soon, the weight is coming off without you even thinking about it. That, in turn, makes it easier to STAY ACTIVE. ;-) 3) Don't overeat. Overeating is what is killing Americans. We are eating too much of the wrong foods and it is what will end our lives too soon IF WE CONTINUE doing it. Watch WHAT & HOW MUCH you eat, and before you know it, getting out of bed is easier. You will start to feel less pain and you will be happier, which brings us back to #1. BEAT OF LUCK ON YOUR JOURNEY TO A HAPPIER, HEALTHIER LONG LIFE!!

The "Eat What You Want" Diet, by Sherrie Miranda (yes, by me - for a change)

I finally found the diet that works FOR ME! The thing is I have a sweet tooth and most of the diets I have tried required me to give up sweets and anything else that I love. I started thinking about the fact that when I visit my family, I lose weight. AND I EAT DESSERTS every night! So, how could this be? Well, my family doesn't really eat very healthy. So, I don't eat as much as I normally would at home. I normally buy and eat mostly health foods so I am very cognizant of the food I eat. I don't even want most unhealthy food. It no longer tastes good to me. So, I eat breakfast when I am visiting, usually something healthy, but sometimes it is a donut if someone brought them home. Then I skip lunch and have maybe a peach or mango or some other fruit. For dinner, I eat like a small child, always knowing in the back of my mind that I am having dessert in the evening. So that is what I am doing now at home. I eat my breakfast of whole grain cereal with blueberries and milk, coffee a little later, and a snack, usually fruit. Then I eat about half what I normally would eat for dinner. It is easy because I know I will have dessert later, either after dinner or later before I go to bed. I usually buy Skinny Cow ice cream, but even if it isn't low calorie, I am still eating less and losing a lb. or two a week, sometimes more. I love this diet. AND I am calling it a diet, not because I am doing it to lose weight but because it is the way I plan to eat for the rest of my life. It is my long life diet, at least for the rest of my life. So, don't do it the Atkins way or the South Beach way. DO IT YOUR WAY!! That's the only way that is going to work FOR YOU! Best of luck to you. And do let me know how it is going!

Gary Zukav on "Why People Hurt Us—and How to Stop Them"

Gary Zukav: Why People Hurt Us—and How to Stop Them The author and founder of the Seat of the Soul Institute shows us how to understand the reason others inflict pain on us—and who's really responsible. By Gary Zukav Everyone wants to learn the same thing from painful situations: how to avoid repeating them. For example, when you do your best to take care of someone and then that person pushes you away, you feel unappreciated. Or when you expect to be thanked and the opposite happens. Or when someone betrays your trust: You expected honesty and instead experienced dishonesty. The list of painful situations that you can learn about yourself from is very long, and you have probably experienced many of them. If you treat each of these experiences as a separate, freestanding, random event in your life, you will continue to be surprised by them and, eventually, become frustrated. "Why is this happening to me?" will turn into "Why is this happening to me again?" These are good questions, but when you look outside yourself for the answers, you will not find anything of spiritual value. For example, my wife, Linda, and I once hired a manager to help us. We chose him because he was interested in what we teach, seemed capable and was excited to work with us. A year later, we discovered that he had lost a lot of the Seat of the Soul Institute's money, left it with debts we did not know about and stole a laptop computer when he departed. Of course, we learned to do a much better job of due diligence from that painful experience—checking references, verifying qualifications, researching previous work experience, etc. It was a lesson that I did not forget, but there was an even more important lesson that I learned from this painful experience. After feeling shocked (an experience of a frightened part of my personality, which is also a not-loving part of my personality) and blaming him for my emotional pain (also an experience of a frightened part of my personality) and feeling like a victim, I discovered something completely surprising, interesting and humbling: In shame and blame—both of which are very painful to experience, provided that you do not distract yourself with drinking, eating, shopping, sex, smoking, etc.—I saw this person as someone whose intention from the beginning was to get the most for himself from our interactions, and he did. What I discovered about myself truly jolted me: I had held the same intention toward him! The very same intention. I expected him to relieve me of my responsibilities, expand the institute and bring it revenue, and as long as he did that, I would be satisfied. In other words, my intention was to exploit him just as his intention was to exploit me. I got exactly what I gave. My real intention did not create the benefits for the institute that I had envisioned. It was to obtain as much from him as I could. I intended to exploit, and I created exploitation. It was a big lesson for me to learn. I am so grateful for it because it taught me to look carefully and honestly at my intentions, and showed me how powerfully they create my experiences. This is how to avoid re-creating painful situations: Take the time to discover your real intention before you act. If it is to change someone or the world so that you will feel safe or better about yourself, don't act on it, because it is an intention of fear and can create only painful consequences. If your real intention is to create harmony instead of discord, cooperation instead of competition, sharing instead of hoarding, and reverence for life instead of exploitation, act on it, because it is an intention of love and can create only healthy and wholesome consequences. When you do this, you are creating authentic power. Read more: http://www.oprah.com/relationships/Gary-Zukav-Why-People-Hurt-Us-and-How-to-Stop-Them#ixzz2796wzysa

Coming Into Focus: An Artist's Journey Through Weight Loss and Self-Discovery Read more: http://www.oprah.com/health/Jen-Davis-Self-Portraits-Weight-Loss-and-Photography#ixzz25RK7QCpn

A photographer loses the inspiration that fueled her work—and finally finds what she was searching for all along. By Diana Spechler Read more: http://www.oprah.com/health/Jen-Davis-Self-Portraits-Weight-Loss-and-Photography#ixzz25RKGLRA7 http://www.oprah.com/health/Jen-Davis-Self-Portraits-Weight-Loss-and-Photography This is a very profound story!

7 Superfoods We All Should Enjoy

http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/super-foods-44030408 Just click on the link and check it out. Or copy & paste into your browser.