Give Yourself a Hug

Soon you will be looking at March, 31st the time of financial reckoning and feeling completely drained and knocked out. You are overworked and exhausted and you don’t like the person you see in the mirror. Your doctor does not like the person he sees in your medical reports. Now turn inward and start a personal affirmation account for yourself. Give yourself a big hug for being the most hard working, kind and special person in your life. Invest in a note book which will document your love affair with yourself.  Write a love letter to yourself. Recognize your unique beauty, your capacity to do your best and all the gifts that make you such a fabulous person. “Love yourself first and everything else falls into place,” said Lucille Ball.  Start a gratefulness dairy where you record all the things you are grateful for. Thank God for His blessings.  ‘I can,’ is a hundred times more important that IQ. Celebrate your smallest successes. Stop that nagging, critical voice in your head that keeps picking on you. Speak to yourself kindly and lovingly.  Stop worrying. The way to be happy is to stop worrying about things which cannot be changed.  Plug into the Source of all power, through prayer and meditation and acknowledge that you are a child of God, made in his own image.  Explore, dream, discover: at the end of your life do not regret all the dreams you have failed to pursue. Take care of your body. It is the only home you have: nourish it, nurture it, exercise it. Make friends with a young physician. Focus on it, love it! Have fun! Because as Oscar Wilde said, “To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.”

Women’s Day

Mothers, sisters, daughters and other women beloved to us make March 8th a special day of celebration, a day to show, respect, appreciation and love to women. This day cannot be dismissed like all the other days that make Archies cards such a successful business. Even before women appeared on the corporate scene, women were the secret, hidden ingredient that made life worth living. So all of us, men and women, should use this day to write letters of appreciation to all the special women in our life, for the beauty they bring into our lives, for their delicat,e subtle strength and grace under pressure, for their tact and capacity to love, care and selflessly give, till there is nothing left to give. Thirty countries observe it as a National holiday. It is a day to celebrate beauty and motherhood! In Portugal a ‘Girls night out’ is customary. It is a day for us women to enjoy the fact that we are beautifully different from men. Our brain’s communication centre is much bigger. We love to discuss our problems, we are biologically wired to avoid conflict, we care more about character and the capacity to care, than about good looks. We are better at reading between the lines. In short our EQ (Emotional Quotient) is better. Vive la difference!

Enhance Family Attachment

The family provides the love and nurturing required for the survival of children. Affirmation is important when people in our lives appreciate us and express it verbally, tonally, non-verbally. It is important to make sure you give affirmations to all members of the family, particularly the ones to whom you usually send devastating Heat Seeking Missiles (HSMs) like, ‘Why is your room like a pig sty?’ ‘Why do you always forget everything I tell you?’ Make every day an occasion to show how important your family is to you. Children need the security of a simple, dependable schedule. Ambiguity or lack of dependability in family life is known to affect the individual’s capacity to live in a secure long-term relationship in the future. Be a mindful parent. So parents need to devote time on quality food and lifestyle.

Know Your Potential

The mind is the only place where you can examine a germinal, fragile new idea, stretch it without breaking it or explore an explosive new idea without having it blow up your face. Use thinking tools and imaging to analyse, reinvent and recreate life as it is today. You are a powerhouse of potential. The great Michelangelo was once asked how he created great statues. Old and half blind, Michelangelo stood before a block of marble, scarred and muddy from the quarries of Carrara. He said quietly, ‘I have never created a statue. I just stand before a block of marble and study it with reverence. For I, know that within every block of marble, there lies a statue, waiting to be liberated by the touch of the Master’s hand.’

Parameters of Physical wellness

Perfect Breathing Focus on your breathing. Take a deep breath then exhale slowly. Repeat a couple of times a day. You can bring equilibrium to your mental state by breathing correctly. The first exercise in the ancient pranayama tradition—the art of filling every part of your body with life-force or prana. Always take longer to exhale so that the lungs are empty of stale air. Only then can oxygen flow in. The body is the boat human beings are given to sail across the sea of life. It is your duty to take care of it. Rest, Relaxation and Rejuvenation. A 20 minute nap improves memory retention and Nike expects workers to ‘just do it’ in their ‘quiet rooms.’ Meditation has the same effect, but delivers even better benefits. Rest enables stress chemicals to subside after competing all day. Non- competitive sports like walking, sailing, reading or socializing can provide a relaxing change of pace. Healthy Food Food brings people together, allows human beings to feel satisfied and comfortable, connects us with the earth and provides us with health. Freshly-cooked healthy food, pure fresh air and yogic exercise nurture and enhance prana. Positive Thinking Positive emotions like love, courage, humour, compassion wonder and peace create a positive field. To infuse our lives with what poets call “the rapture of being” is to create a positive field. Learning to create a positive field is an important part of the climate of wellbeing.

Action Plans to Maintain Perfect Health

• Start the day with a glass of warm water and a dash of lime. • Once a week have only fresh fruits until noon; let your lunch be the first meal of the day. • Kick the old coffee drinking habit. Have a glass of fresh fruit juice instead. • Include foods with high fibre content – plenty of fruits, vegetables and grains – in planning your diet. • Don’t rush through your meals. Set aside enough time to appreciate, enjoy and digest your food. • Shop for groceries yourself. Notice the look, feel and smell of fresh fruit and vegetables and enjoy their intrinsic goodness. • Make it a point to have dinner with the entire family at the table, and not in front of the TV. • Focus on your breathing. Take a deep breath, then exhale slowly. Repeat a couple of times a day. • Learn to relax. Spend twenty minutes consciously relaxing each muscle of your body. • Spend twenty minutes a day in silent meditation, prayer or contemplation.

Meditation for Wellness

In order to treat or prevent disease, it is essential to look into our emotional, mental and psychological environment, as our thoughts and emotions directly contribute to our wellbeing or otherwise. Some doctors believe that it is more important to know the patient who has the disease than to know the disease the patient has. Wise gurus, and now modern research, both believe that meditation can contribute enormously to an individual’s psychological and physiological wellbeing. It reduces stress, hypertension, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, depression, improves cardiovascular health, memory and concentration, work efficiency, and immunological resistance to diseases. As a result, some form of meditation has become an essential part of wellness programs.