TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Promotion of the Month
- Inspired Quote for This Issue
- Your Life IS Going According to Plan!
- Lift Yourself Out of a Bad Mood
- Kindness: The First Gift
- The One That Got Away
- A Touch of Humor: We Had It Hard…..
SAVE $$$ off ALL Affordable, Unique Holiday Gifts through Christmas
A 10% discount will be automatically subtracted from your order in our shopping cart. Save even more on already discounted products. Visit www.store.inspiredliving.com to start shopping today.
We have a lot of products that make great, healthy gift ideas for holiday giving, including:
- Feng Shui Lamps and Candleholders
- Relaxation Products& Far Infrared Portable Saunas
- Himalayan Bath Rocks, Salts & Scrubs
- Himalayan Salt Lamps
- Himalayan USB Computer Salt
- Beauty and Body Care Products
- Skin Rejuvenating Devices
- Violight Toothbrush Sanitizers and Portable Sonic Toothbrushes
- Oxygenics Spa-Quality Showerheads
- Airfree NO Maintenance Air Sanitizers
INSPIRING QUOTE FOR THIS ISSUE:
“When we harbor negative emotions toward others or toward ourselves, or when we intentionally create pain for others, we poison our own physical and spiritual systems. By far the strongest poison to the human spirit is the inability to forgive oneself or another person. It disables a person’s emotional resources. The challenge…is to refine our capacity to love others as well as ourselves and to develop the power of forgiveness.” — Caroline Myss, PH.D., Anatomy of the Spirit
YOUR LIFE IS GOING ACCORDING TO PLAN!
By Charlie Badenhop
Do you sometimes lose control of your emotional equilibrium because you feel you’re being victimized by circumstances that are out of your control? If so, you will likely find this story to be of great help.
Several months ago a good friend went skiing in Chile.
His plane arrived in Santiago at 4AM and he was meant to meet a driver who would take him to the foot of a large mountain and a four wheel drive vehicle that would take him and others up to the top. After waiting for about a half hour he got anxious and called the resort. It was too early for anyone to be at the front desk of the mountain lodge, so he waited a bit longer, and called again, and again, until finally at about 6AM he reached someone at the resort. They apologized profusely, said that the driver was a trusted employee, and they could not understand why he had not shown up. They called the driver on his cell phone and it turned out he had been asleep in the airport parking lot the whole time!
By the time my friend arrived at the foot of the mountain, the four wheel drive vehicle had already departed with five other guests. Needless to say my friend was pretty annoyed as he would have to waste a day waiting for the next ride. The resort promised him a helicopter ride to the top of the mountain the following day, and this lessened his disappointment somewhat.
The next day the driver showed up as scheduled and drove him to the helipad. He had a breathtaking flight up to the resort which helped him to feel more upbeat. Happy to finally arrive he made his way into the lobby and sensed “something was up.” The owner greeted him and apologized, and told him that indeed he was a lucky man. “Lucky?” my friend replied in a testy voice, “Why is that?”
“Unfortunately,” the owner said, “the vehicle you were meant to ride in yesterday was overcome by a sudden avalanche and the driver and the five passengers were swept away and killed.”
My friend was stunned and stood there in contemplative silence.
Here is what he reported to me upon returning:
“For the next two weeks as I skied in a wondrously beautiful environment I found myself having a new appreciation of my life.” “I realized how narrow my concept of a happy life had been. Previously, my happiness was based on false mental constructs of “good” and “bad.” When things went good I felt great. When things went bad I felt lousy. I failed to appreciate how life flows from one experience into another, and keeps on changing day by day. Sadness into happiness, anger into love. I realized I had to further open my heart to appreciate every passing emotion, every trial and challenge.”
“In a moment of time that stood still, I recognized I did not have nearly as much control over the course of my life as I had always imagined.” “Paradoxically I found this thought comforting. I realized that even though I can’t control the course of my life, if I am mindful, I can choose my emotional response to what occurs, and live a proactive life.”
“Every time I assign a negative meaning to what takes place in my life, I become a victim of my own thinking. The way life unfolds is the plan.”
“I grieve the death of the driver and his five passengers, while giving thanks for having a bit more time on earth to live my own life and to share my enthusiasm for living with others.”
(c) Charlie Badenhop, 2014.
Author Profile: Charlie Badenhop is the originator of Seishindo, an Aikido instructor, NLP trainer, and Ericksonian Hypnotherapist. Benefit from Charlie’s thought-provoking ideas and various self-help Practices, by subscribing to his complimentary newsletter “Pure Heart, Simple Mind” at http://www.seishindo.org
LIFT YOURSELF OUT OF A BAD MOOD
by Eliza Bloom
I woke up this morning feeling sour.
No. That’s an understatement. My throat was tight. My head was foggy. I felt like wearing a sandwich board that read, “Crabby. Do Not Touch.”
I sat in bed for a moment and tried to figure out why I was feeling so irritable. But that’s kind of pointless, isn’t it?
Regardless of whether it’s hormones, sleep deprivation, or just a plain-and-simple bad mood, I still have to make it through the day.
Meanwhile, my daughters are scratching at one another and my husband wants to know if he has any clean socks.
That’s when I realize I need help, fast. And whenever that happens, I realize I need to go back to the basics. I need to return to the fundamentals of who (and what) I know myself to be.
That’s when I need to forget this buzzing body and sink into my spirit.
Because I’ve done it again. I’ve gotten myself trapped into a buttonhole where all I’m thinking about is what’s happening two inches in front of my face. And I’m mistaking that for the real world.
What I need to remember, at times like these, is that my spiritual side–which teems and churns with joy, which represents heaven on earth–is always one choice away.
As a spiritual being, joy is my default emotion. The other feelings, whether anger, jealousy, boredom, sadness, or irritability, are merely ingredients I add by being focused on the buttonhole–that separate little body I sometimes convince myself is all there is.
I can burn off those unpleasant emotions by returning to a focus on love and love alone. Because a single, pure loving response is the way to access the spirit, to pull it into the moment…this moment.
That’s when we see that our pains and annoyances are nothing more than reminders that we’ve chosen to focus on the buttonhole and not the level of consciousness that could have us boogieing with joy every moment of our lives.
So I take the step that will reconnect me with my divine essence. Simply put: I find something lovely or loving to do with myself.
For me, today, that means I get up. I find some socks. I pour some milk for the kids. I think about how grateful I am to live in heaven on earth and how grateful I am that a simple return to love and kindness is all I need to lift myself out of a rotten mood.
What does it mean for you?
Author Profile: Eliza Bloom is a frequent contributor to two “just for you” websites, including http://www.momscape.com (featuring tools to help busy parents achieve balance) and http://www.BestSelfHelp.com,
an online catalog of the best personal growth resources. Eliza’s book,
The Bloom Method is now available online, in full text:
http://www.momscape.com/elizabloom/thebloommethod
KINDNESS: THE FIRST GIFT
–by John O’Donohue, syndicated from awakin.org, Nov 28, 2014
There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things; it presides everywhere, often in the places we least expect. The world can be harsh and negative, but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitably reveals itself. Something deep in the human soul seems to depend on the presence of kindness; something instinctive in us expects it, and once we sense it we are able to trust and open ourselves. Here in Conamara, the mountains are terse and dark; left to themselves they would make for a brooding atmosphere. However, everywhere around and in between there are lakes. The surface of these lakes takes on the variations of the surrounding light to create subtle diffusions of color. Thus their presence qualifies the whole landscape with a sense of warmth and imagination. If we did not feel that some ultimate kindness holds sway, we would feel like outsiders confronted on every side by a world toward which we could make no real bridges.
The word kindness has a gentle sound that seems to echo the presence of compassionate goodness. When someone is kind to you, you feel understood and seen. There is no judgment or harsh perception directed toward you. Kindness has gracious eyes; it is not small-minded or competitive; it wants nothing back for itself. Kindness strikes a resonance with the depths of your own heart; it also suggests that your vulnerability, though somehow exposed, is not taken advantage of; rather, it has become an occasion for dignity and empathy. Kindness casts a different light, an evening light that has the depth of color and patience to illuminate what is complex and rich in difference.
Despite all the darkness, human hope is based on the instinct that at the deepest level of reality some intimate kindness holds sway. This is the heart of blessing. To believe in blessing is to believe that our being here, our very presence in the world, is itself the first gift, the primal blessing. As Rilke says: Hier zu sein ist so viel “” to be here is immense. Nowhere does the silence of the infinite lean so intensely as around the form of a newly born infant. Once we arrive, we enter into the inheritance of everything that has preceded us; we become heirs to the world. To be born is to be chosen. To be created and come to birth is to be blessed. Some primal kindness chose us and brought us through the forest of dreaming until we could emerge into the clearance of individuality, with a path of life opening before us through the world.
The beginning often holds the clue to everything that follows. Given the nature of our beginning, it is no wonder that our hearts are imbued with longing for beauty, meaning, order, creativity, compassion, and love. We approach the world with this roster of longings and expect that in some way the world will respond and confirm our desire. Our longing knows it cannot force the fulfillment of its desire; yet it does instinctively expect that primal benevolence to respond to it. This is the threshold where blessing comes alive.
Daily Good: http://www.dailygood.org/story/899/kindness-the-first-gift-john-o-donohue/
THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
Dave Lindbeck ©2004 All Rights Reserved.
Don was a friendly and successful banker who, more than anything else, loved fishing. He often spoke of his trips to Mexico and his plans to retire and live on the new boat he was building. That was until he succumbed to cancer.
Although he could have retired earlier to begin his extended fishing trip, Don seemed to be waiting for something. It may have been for that new boat to be built, the hope of a higher bank stock price, or some other reason. Whatever it was, he didn’t live that dream of a leisure life of fishing.
I’m sure that he didn’t expect to get cancer, nor die so soon. However, do any of us typically expect those things? We say, “There’s always tomorrow, so if we put things off, why does it matter?” The truth is it could matter a lot. It’s common for us to put off our proverbial fishing trips. We tell ourselves, “I’ll start that business, change jobs or careers, or fix what’s broken in my life or business SOMEDAY.” However, someday never comes, because we’re expecting something magical or miraculous to happen while we wait. We’re waiting for that something to soothe the fear of taking action, make the timing perfect or guarantee success. In the meantime, we flounder.
To avoid “someday” never arriving for you, here are some suggestions:
- Write down your goals. It helps to see on paper what it is you
really want. - Give yourself permission to try. A shift is more likely when it’s ok with you.
- Take some action. Even if it’s just an hour a week, action will energize you.
- Get support. Moving forward is easier when you have help.
- Celebrate the baby steps. Success is about progress, not
perfection.
What “fishing trip” are you putting off? If you don’t want to miss it, you’ll have to make a choice to start somewhere and sometime. Make that choice here and now! By doing so, your life will be much more rewarding, and you’ll never have to say it’s “the one that got away.”
Author Profile: Dave Lindbeck is a coach and President of Phoenix, AZ based InStep Coaching, and provides business, career, and personal coaching programs to professionals, executives and entrepreneurs Visit http://www.instepcoaching.com
A TOUCH OF HUMOR: WE HAD IT HARD…..
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up.
What with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill both ways through year-round blizzards carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight-A average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!
And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way I was going to lay that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!
But….Now that I’ve reached the ripe old age of thirty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today.
You’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today don’t know how good you’ve got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves!
And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen! And then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!
And there were no MP3s or Napsters! If you wanted free music you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up!
You want to hear about hardship?
We didn’t have fancy stuff like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal!
And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was, it could be your boss, your Mom, a collections agent, you didn’t know!!! You just had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
And we didn’t have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with high-resolution 3D graphics!
We had the Atari 2600! With games like “Space Invaders” and “Asteroids”! Your guy was a little square! You had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win; the game just kept getting harder and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!
When you went to the movie theater, there was no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy sat in front of you, you watched his hairstyle!
And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!
And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning… D’ya hear what I’m saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK!
That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled!
You guys wouldn’t last five minutes back in 1984!
DID YOU ENJOY THIS NEWSLETTER? Feel free to pass it along to your friends.
Click here to subscribe to one or more of our monthly newsletters:
- Healthy Lifestyles News – Articles, resources and products to help you live a healthier, more vibrant life.
- Inspired Lifestyles News – Inspiring, motivating and empowering quotes, stories and articles.
- Inspired Biz News – Articles and resources to create a more whole-living, balanced work environment.
- Sales and Announcements – What’s on sale, new product announcements and special promotions.
A WORD FROM THE SPONSOR: InspiredLiving.com
866-875-4386 toll free PST USA & Canada (503-537-0636 direct)
Great service and a 30-day purchase guarantee on all products.
On-line since 1997, we have resources, newsletters and products, that promote greater health and cleaner, safer living environments: EMF protection, air purifiers, water filters, salt free water softeners, skin care, hair care, dental care, body care, cosmetics, makeup, pain relief, supplements, far infrared portable saunas and devices, Himalayan salt products and lamps and more.http://store.inspiredliving.com
DO YOU HAVE SUGGESTIONS OR COMMENTS? I want this newsletter to be the best one around. If you have suggestions or feedback, feel free to email me at carol@inspiredliving.com.
