How To Calm Down In 10 Seconds (Fast Relaxation Trick to Stop Anxiety an...

The Importance of Play

Play energizes us and enlivens us. It eases our burdens. It renews our naturalsense of optimism and opens us up to new possibilities.- Stuart Brown

We don’t stop playing because we grow old;we grow old because we stop playing -George Bernard Shaw

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct -Carl Jung.

Play is the highest form of research. -Albert Einstein

We forget that the imagination at play is at the heart of all good work. -Julia Cameron

My Black Dog

Three Rational Humorous Songs

Letting Go and Overcoming Anxiety

The Practice of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is not weak. We have all hurt and been hurt and we all seem to hang on to it as much as we can!  What we hang on to becomes 'pain'.  Hard feelings that consume our energy and long for revenge.  But forgiveness is really for our own sake, for our personal health and well-being.  It is a way to let go of the pain we carry.  Jack Kornfield tells the story of two former prisoners of war who meet after many years.  When the first one asks, "Have you forgiven your captors yet?"  the second man answer's, "No, never."  "Well, then," the first man replies,  "they still have your in prison."

Often in the process of forgiveness we go through stages of grief, anger, rage, sorrow, confusion and hurt.  Forgiveness is a letting go of that hurt.  Kornfield recommends practicing five minutes of forgiveness for yourself and others, twice a day for six months.  "Practicing with small misdeeds, such as my uncaring treatment of a friend, over and over,  I Inwardly asked for forgiveness and vowed to act in more caring ways. " (Kornfield, 2008).

Life is much too short to carry anger and hate.  Try forgiveness instead.   TJS

Relationships

Imagine that you are having difficulties with a loved one, such as your mother or father, husband or wife, lover or friend. How helpful and revealing it can be to consider the other person not in his or her “role” of mother or father or husband, but simply as another “you,” another human being, with the same feelings as you, the same desire for happiness, the same fear of suffering. Thinking of the other one as a real person, exactly the same as you, will open your heart to him or her and give you more insight into how to help. -Rigpa Quote of the Day

Are you compassionate?

It's a misunderstood word;  Compassion.  The key to understanding compassion is to see it as a verb.  Compassion is not a feeling it is a doing.  How will you help?  TJS.

What is compassion? It is not simply a sense of sympathy or caring for the person suffering, not simply a warmth of heart toward the person before you, or a sharp clarity of recognition of their needs and pain, it is also a sustained and practical determination to do whatever is possible and necessary to help alleviate their suffering.  -Rigpa Quote of the Day

Search for Meaning in Life Today with Viktor Frankl

If you need help to stop smoking ask.....

Meditation

Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life---perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody.  That is the beauty of it.  It has no technique and therefore no authority.  When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy---if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation.

So meditation can take place even when you are sitting in a bus or walking in the woods full of light and shadows,  or listening to the singing of birds or looking at the face of your wife or child.   ---J. Krishnamurti

Seven Deadly Habits

Punishing, Complaining, Blaiming, Threatening, Nagging, Criticizing, Bribing!!!!!


Do these things and you will make everyone around you nuts! Dr. William Glasser believes that most of the emotional turmoil we experience is directly caused by our use of these seven deadly habits. We seem to have our wiring crossed. We spend half our lives trying to control the people and the institutions which fill our lives and it is sick! As we try harder to control those around us they quite naturally become resistant and resentful and soon our relationships are broken and disappointing. Although Glasser's theory (Choice Theory) seems quite simple it has worked well in therapy with thousands of people. Diagnosis and labelling (DSM-IV) are seen as damaging hostile tools that only hurt our relationships further. Instead Glasser says we simply need to replace the seven deadly habits with the seven habits of truly caring people.

Supporting, Encouraging, Listening, Accepting, Trusting, Respecting and Negotiating Differences!!!

If you work and live with these habits most of your problems will disappear. Try googleing the Glasser Institute to find out more. Peace. TJS.

The Doctor Inside of Us

Albert Schweitzer wrote, “Each patient carries his own doctor inside him…..We are at our best (as psychologists) when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work.”  

Suffering

When someone is suffering and you find yourself at a loss to know how to help, put yourself unflinchingly in his or her place. Imagine as vividly as possible what you would be going through if you were suffering the same pain. Ask yourself: “How would I feel? How would I want my friends to treat me? What would I most want from them?”

When you exchange yourself for others in this way, you are directly transferring your cherishing from its usual object, yourself, to other beings. So exchanging yourself for others is a very powerful way of loosening the hold on you of the self-cherishing and the self-grasping of ego, and so of releasing the heart of your compassion. (Rigpa Quote of the Day)

Our Actions

If we are interdependent with everything and everyone, even our smallest, least significant thought, word, and action have real consequences throughout the universe.


Throw a pebble into a pond. It sends a shiver across the surface of the water. Ripples merge into one another and create new ones. Everything is inextricably interrelated: We come to realize that we are responsible for everything we do, say, or think, responsible in fact for ourselves, everyone and everything else, and the entire universe.

Seven Deadly Habits

Punishing, Complaining, Blaiming, Threatening, Nagging, Criticizing, Bribing!!!!!


Do these things and you will make everyone around you nuts! Dr. William Glasser believes that most of the emotional turmoil we experience is directly caused by our use of these seven deadly habits. We seem to have our wiring crossed. We spend half our lives trying to control the people and the institutions which fill our lives and it is sick! As we try harder to control those around us they quite naturally become resistant and resentful and soon our relationships are broken and disappointing. Although Glasser's theory (Choice Theory) seems quite simple it has worked well in therapy with thousands of people. Diagnosis and labelling (DSM-IV) are seen as damaging hostile tools that only hurt our relationships further. Instead Glasser says we simply need to replace the seven deadly habits with the seven habits of truly caring people.


Supporting, Encouraging, Listening, Accepting, Trusting, Respecting and Negotiating Differences!!!

If you work and live with these habits most of your problems will disappear. Try googleing the Glasser Institute to find out more. Peace. TJS.

Satisfaction

In Tibetan, the word for “body” is lü, which means “something you leave behind,” like baggage. Each time we say lü, it reminds us that we are only travelers, taking temporary refuge in this life and this body. In Tibet, people did not distract themselves by spending all their time trying to make their external circumstances more comfortable. They were satisfied if they had enough to eat, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads.

Going on, as we do, obsessively trying to improve our conditions, can become an end in itself, and a pointless distraction. Would people in their right mind think of fastidiously redecorating their hotel room every time they checked in to one?


-Rigpa Quote of the Day

The Prescription for Depression? "Oops, Never Mind!"

Being a laboratory researcher, Redei takes her shattering conclusion and heads off in much the same direction as before: She wants to find newer, better drugs that will manipulate genes and neurons rather than manipulating the chemicals they produce. Yet there is a more logical way to proceed, which is to stop making depressed neural pathways and healing those that already exist. How to do that?

Current research is very optimistic, because it turns out that the positive lifestyle changes advised for such a long time actually change both genetic expression and neural pathways. In other words, your brain cells listen to your behavior and beliefs, and if those behaviors and beliefs are powerful enough, the brain changes. What this means is that therapy, spiritual practices, healthy relationships, love and compassion, avoidance of toxins, meditation and stress management aren't secondary. They are central to dealing with depression and anxiety.

The deep lesson emerging from Redei's new findings is that drugs will never be the way. The way is far more human, and therefore complicated. It would be nice if popping a pill improved your life, but only you can do that. The ball is back in the court of the human potential movement and its promise of higher consciousness as the road to health and wholeness. I for one view that as a great improvement over drugs, which can be saved for critical and chronic conditions when more human strategies have not worked. -Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra is the author of more than 50 books on health, success, relationships and spirituality, including his current best-seller, Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul, and The Ultimate Happiness Prescription, are available now. You can listen to his show on Saturdays every week on SiriusXM, Channels 102 and 155.

New Years Eve

New years. I did it. It doesn't mean much by itself. Just another excuse to eat and drink. I was fortunate to spend it with three close friends. We ate some wonderful food, shared a few drinks and watched Canada win a hockey game over the U.S. Truthfully, I don't even like hockey but the people and the spirit made it fun. It always does. Life is the right length. Who we have and how we journey with those close to us is what brings meaning to life. I didn't make a resolution but I did make mistakes in Scattegories...the game made us laugh and I did cheer for the Canadians. When the sun comes up tomorrow I will be glad that I have a wife, kids and dogs who I love and who sometimes, when I'm good, love me too. Peace and happy New Year from me. TJS

Simplify Your Life!

The great illusion is the busyness we create throughout the holiday season. We rush, shop, speed and in the process become human 'doings' instead of human 'beings.' We do not need to be busy. Our work can be calm and peaceful. Our holidays restful.

"When you have learned, through discipline, to simplify your life, and so practiced the mindfulness of meditation, and through it loosened the hold of aggression, clinging, and negativity on your whole being, the wisdom of insight can slowly dawn. And in the all-revealing clarity of its sunlight, this insight can show you, distinctly and directly, both the subtlest workings of your own mind and the nature of reality." -Rigpa