Have you ever thought if only you didn't procrastinate you'd be happier, more successful and make more money? What if procrastinating wasn't what you thought it was? Ask yourself these questions and see what shows up for you.
Would you like a guilt-free holiday which you actually enjoyed? Here are a few simple tips. Tip 1 – Give up your guilt and judgements about 'bad food'. Science tells us that our bodies react to food the same way whether we eat it, or just think about eating it. So you might as well enjoy actually eating it! And the impact of guilt and judgements about 'eating the wrong things' may well do your body more harm than the food itself. Go easy on yourself, relax, and enjoy your food. If anger, rage, hate, fury, guilt, blame, shame are toxic....laughter, joy and happiness are healing. So allow your food to heal you this season. Tip 2 – Ask your body what it requires. Have you ever tried this? Consciously ask your body and see what shows up. Maybe you'll start to salivate when you think/see a particular food. Maybe your eye will hover over a particular menu item. Or maybe you'll just 'know'. Your body is a remarkable thing that operates your heart, pancreas, liver, kidneys etc with remarkable precision. (Do you think your university-educated higher brain could do that?). So it might just know a thing or two about what it requires. Just because your brain is programmed to eat 'Christmas food' doesn't mean you body needs it. And you'll feel much better if you listen to your body. Tip 3 – Choose for YOU. Yes you can. All festivals usually come with a standard cultural menu. Just because your parents served it that way, doesn't mean you have to too. Just because your parents may be staying with you, doesn't mean you have to choose their (or anyone else's) menu. There is no right or wrong, there are only choices. So why not choose food that you know will work for you? Tip 4 – Be aware of where your food comes from and what your body does with it. If you buy from a large/chain/bulk-style supermarket, the food you buy may already be 'dead'. It has probably been grown in nutrient deficient soil, sprayed with pesticides, heated, processed, stored, and shipped thousands of kilometers before it gets to you. What if you asked instead where you could buy locally grown, organic food? What if it were FREE from your OWN garden? Tip 5 – Drink lots of water Your body is 75 per cent water and every system in your body relies on it. Not enough and your body will literally 'cry out' in pain and start to shut down. Drink 1-2 litres a day, and no, this does NOT include alcohol, soft, caffeinated or milk drinks. If you prefer another taste to your water, squeeze in some fresh lemon juice or soak superfood Goji berries (ku-ki-ja) or Shizandra berries (o-mi-ja) in it for a few hours. Tip 6 – Get some sun. You need Vitamin D, including to PROTECT against skin cancer. The sun provides this and it's free! Make sure you get a sensible amount, especially through the winter. And it's a GREAT excuse for a holiday in Australia or Thailand! Tip 7 – Be grateful. Thank your food, thank your body. It got you through another year operating equipment more complicated than a NASA space station. Truly amazing. Do you know how it works? No, but thank goodness it does. So thank it and ask what it requires to see you through another fabulous year. by Mary-Jane Liddicoat and Marilyn Bradford (interview with Mary-Jane broadcast on TBSe FM 1013 Mainstreet 'Family Affairs' program 14 December 2011 - click below to listen) Everyone loves the end of year holidays, but in truth how many also have a sense of foreboding, knowing that the 'festive season' often ends up with feeling a physical and emotional wreck? Too much food and drink, and too many people pushing all the wrong buttons.... Try these tips to see what else could be possible for you this year. Tip 1 – Be aware of addictive or compulsive behaviours. Simply being aware of this makes it easier to deal with and it won't blind side you. This is not just drinking or eating too much. It can show up in many forms, including:
Tip 3 – Know you have a choice. You can choose how much time, money and energy you put into anything. You can choose not to go somewhere at all. Even if you do choose to go somewhere you'd rather not, ask: 'what would make it easier on me? Going for a shorter time? Staying at a hotel?'. Always be willing to leave if things get bad. Work out in advance what you require, and make your choices from that point. Tip 4 – Let go of your expectations and judgements of yourself and others for the holidays. Let go of worrying about 'fitting in' and what other people think of you. If you are willing to be disapproved of, you have much more freedom. Anything anyone ever says is just an interesting point of view. You don’t have to resist and react, or stop being you just because others want you to be something else. So what if people are critical or worried about something? It really has nothing to do with you, even if you think it does. Tip 5 – Be aware of the roles people want you to play. It may be the 'dutiful daughter', the 'successful son', the 'super provider', or the 'great party host'. Choose to do and be what works for you, and know that you don’t have to do everything everyone expects of a role. Tip 6 – Maximise what you like about the holidays. Some people love corny Christmas music. Others like Christmas games. Whatever that is for you, do it. It makes some of the other stuff more tolerable. Tip 7 – Make time to nurture you. This may be exercise, or photography, or horseback riding, or having lunch with friends. Whatever it is for you – do it! What else is possible for you this Christmas? *** About the authors Mary-Jane Liddicoat (www,mary-jane.co and www.healthyhomes.asia) and Marilyn Bradford (Right Recovery For You and Online Recovery Centre) are certified facilitators in using transformational tools and techniques to dissipate the stresses of life and work and to open people to new possibilities for greater health, wellbeing, productivity, prosperity, and innovation. We're just about enter the 'festive season'. How festive and stress free is yours? Hands up anyone who likes spending the holidays with their in-laws? Have you got relatives who give you a hard time because you married their favourite cousin (and you're 'not good enough')? Or just nasty ones who know you're an easy mark? Welcome to the club known as 'most of the world'. If you're someone who dreads attending family gatherings because you know someone is: a) out to get you b) trying to control you, or c) just plain NOT FUN to hang out with, try these games to generate some fun yourself. 1. Gratitude Trumps - How many family fights are really just individuals crying out for more attention? So give the ones giving you the hardest time, the attention they want. Tell them how grateful you are for them (find something you really are grateful for), and how you'd like to find out more about them. Don't offer them solutions. Just ask them questions and listen. I guarantee, no one will have paid them so much genuine attention in a long time. Being totally open, vulnerable and present with them will knock them over like a house of cards. 2. Nurture You Monopoly – Whatever arrangements your family has made, make sure you plan an escape. Work out what would nurture you (a massage, pedicure, coffee with friends, walk up the mountains or along the beach or down the road) and devise an exit, even if this means asking a friend to call you with an 'excuse'. When the call comes, say: “Thank you so much for today! I just have to pop out now to help my friend. I'll be back to enjoy it even more a bit later!” Then LEAVE. 3. Expand Outwards Reverse Origami – The rules are simple. When you start to feel you are folding, stapling, mutilating, or contracting yourself to fit in with someone else, or the weight of your family's thoughts, feelings and emotions, expand outwards. How far? As far as you need in all directions to become pure space. Can anyone hang their baggage on your hooks if you're just space? Will there be any hooks left? When you master this game, people might even fall straight through you, flat on their face. Hey, who said slapstick wasn't funny? 4. Interesting Point of View Dominos – Sometimes no matter how truly phenomenal you are, other people will simply not see it. The addiction to being right and righteous is one of the strongest we have. So can you give it up? There is freedom only in being in allowance, which means giving up trying to prove your rightness. Most people think we must fight to show others how their lives would be better if they agreed with us and took on our 'right' points of view. Most do not understand that it is quite feasible for there to be multiple (infinite in fact) 'right' points of view. So here's the game. Every time someone says anything, no matter how provocative or lunatic, do not resist and react, or agree and align. Simply smile, nod your head gently three times and say – without heat – “interesting (point of view)”. You are allowing them their view, allowing them to think they are right and superior. You're not agreeing that they're right. You're just allowing them to enjoy (the insanity of) their point of view. And if you want to really pull the heat out of someone's onslaught, simply say “you're right, I'm wrong” three times. Again, look into their eyes, nod gently and smile. If everyone were in allowance, would conflict and war fall over like dominoes? 5. ELFs and Rattlesnakes - Who are they in your family? You know the ones, the Evil Little Freaks who take pleasure in making your life hell and the rattlesnakes who bite you on the butt when you're not looking. Are you always shocked, horrified, disappointed or hurt when they do this? So give up expecting everyone to be nice like you. Instead, play the game like this. First, identify the ELFs and Rattlesnakes in the room, then acknowledge them for being so great at what they do. You can even tell them. Without heat say “Wow, you are really good at doing people over/being an ELF/rattlesnake. Can I watch?” These strategies are not intended to help you win, or to make someone else lose. Neither are they intended to force, coerce, seek or ask anyone else to change to suit you. They are designed to allow you to be you, everyone else to be themselves, to know THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU, that it's ok to be you, and to generate more ease, joy and lightness in your family. What if by being so different from how your family normally operates that you became the invitation to change? Not by doing anything other than being yourself? At the very least, what if you got to play with your insanely mad dysfunctional family members so that it was more fun for you? Happy holidays! *** Mary-Jane Liddicoat is an ex-diplomat now looking at what different choices we might be making to help create more ease, joy, prosperity and abundance in our communities. For more information visit www.conscious-living.asia. Mary-Jane lives between Seoul, Korea and Wollongong and Canberra, Australia, with her Korean sculptor husband and their three children, aged eight, six and three. Keep your joy05/05/2011 by Phillip Day ‘False, lying, cowardly, nauseous puppy. The greatest ass, liar and beast in the world.' - King George III, on his second son, Prince Frederick ‘I wish the ground would open up this minute and sink the monster into the lowest hole in Hell.' - Queen Caroline, on her second son, Prince Frederick Don't get back home on a Friday night, open the mail, cringe at the phone bill and have it wreck your entire weekend. Instead, call up the phone company and ask ‘Why, in a country of free speech, is there a phone bill at all?' Don't lurch from one crisis to another. If this is you, you're suffering from patterning which needs to be overwritten. Many worry. I don't. We're all going to die one day but at least I won't have died the death of a thousand cuts over things a) I've no control over, and b) long since forgotten about. How about you?
by Phillip Day ‘One in three British workers fail to take their full annual holiday entitlement, a survey has shown. Instead, they put in 36 million hours of free overtime, giving bosses almost £1 billion in unpaid work every year -‘ We must be barking mad. And if we do go on holiday - The survey of nearly 6,000 workers by the Chartered Management Institute found nearly half stay in contact with their employer while they are away.' - Daily Mail, 15th June 2005 No! No! No! No! No! Behavioural patterns are formed over a 15- to 30-day period through repetition and a state of emotional excitement (what I term the Pavlov Principle). They overwrite over the same period. Few of us take four-week holidays, which is why we still have bats in the belfry. Pavlov's Principle relies on location, repetition and the 30-day conditioning period, so clearing off somewhere nice for a break makes all the sense in the world, especially if we go to play. It must be a geographical break. For four weeks. Take those who relax you. Leave the kids at home if necessary (straight-jackets are for this). Go forth and frivolate, you've earned it. The first ten days of your four-week re-adjustment are usually spent cussing out Spanish waiters and being generally beastly as the mental puke gushes out. After that, serenity and bliss usually prevail or your travel agent will give you your money back.
Worry - facing your mountains04/05/2011 by Phillip Day "Worry is a trickle of fear that soon carves a crevice so deep, all other thoughts drain away." Worriers perfect the art of imagining how things will turn out for the worst. Do not dwell on impromptu evil imaginings. You can't stop the birds flying over your head, but you can stop them nesting in your hair. The best way over mountains is one rock at a time. The best advice about mountains is to face them. Mountains cause worry. But not if you overcome them. Be an overcomer. Was a time we fell off our bike, picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves down and carried on as if nothing had happened. Today, when we fall off our bike, we're dusted off by a social worker, referred into a victim support group, and if that fails, we can sue the government on legal aid. Alternatively, if we're slam-dunked by some appalling stroke of ‘fate' such as wanton debt, an illicit affair or a Prozac or Valium dependency, we can slip into the ‘victim' jacket and seek out the nearest agony aunt, astrologer or Feng Shui advisor. These are only too happy to oblige with the latest scoop, pocketing our money and reassuring us it's nothing WE did, it's just society's a dog, the new moon's in the 11th house and the furniture's all in the wrong place. If something about me needs changing, I need to change it I stopped overcoming Time for me to overcome Learn More About Yourself Divide a sheet of paper vertically down the middle with a line. On the left, write down all the things that worry you which you CAN do something about. On the right, list all the things that worry you which you CANNOT do anything about. Rank the left-hand column in descending order of bother, i.e. the most worrisome problem at the top. Do the same with the right-hand column of worries you can do nothing about.
Problems beyond our control cause unnecessary worry. There can be no action, since the problem is beyond our capacity to influence, so why worry? I am going to die one day (perhaps today) A super-quake will snap California off into the Pacific An asteroid will strike the earth The sun will flame out, plunging the earth into darkness A tsunami will re-engulf Japan My family will perish in a freak accident I will become a victim of terrorists Things you can do Link big pain to unnecessary worrying Link big pleasure to not unnecessarily worrying Imagine the relief of not having to burden yourself with matters beyond your control. While you cannot fix the whole world, sometimes you can fix your little corner of it. Is your worry caused by junk input? You can, of course, take action on a smaller scale, i.e: Move out of California Don't take your holidays in Jakarta Then again, why worry? Overcoming unnecessary worry is about confronting the worry itself, examining it dispassionately, then deleting it in a state of positive emotion with a change in focus. How about:
The Little Book of Attitude by Phillip Day By what do we measure life?02/21/2011 A message by George Carlin The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways but narrower viewpoints. We spend more but have less, we buy more but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge but less judgment, more experts yet more problems, more medicine but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbour. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things but not better things. We've cleaned up the air but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom but not our prejudice. We write more but learn less. We plan more but accomplish less. We've learned to rush but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete... Remember; spend some time with your loved ones because they are not going to be around forever. Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side. Remember to give a warm hug to the one next to you because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent. Remember to say, ‘I love you' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you. Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment, for someday that person will not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind. AND ALWAYS REMEMBER: Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away. If you don't send this to at least 8 people.... who cares? George Carlin Want to stay young? Never retire...02/14/2011 by Phillip Day ‘When I was a boy, the Dead Sea was only sick.' - George Burns When productivity ends, so can our will to go on. A gold watch and a pat on the back can be interpreted as the golden boot: ‘All right, thank you very much. Make way for the young now.' You're nothing but a ‘human resource', off to the post office and then to the scrap-heap, drawing your pension once a week and scratching down lottery numbers while children squirt you with water pistols. Lack of goals and a drop in productivity can spell disaster for the recently retired. The sudden change in pace and lack of mental stimulation seem refreshing at first, but can lead to boredom, feelings of worthlessness, chronic depression and Jerry Springer. To compensate, many elderly adopt the habit of living in the past, which tells me they have nothing to look forward to. Far better to stay focused in the here-and-now, remaining active and mentally engaged, not slothful. Find a job you like or start a business. Set mental tasks. Plan goals. Stay social and relevant. Travel. Make your fondest memories the years in which you have the greatest investment. What do you wish to accomplish by bed-time tonight? (The scale of achieving does not matter!)
Good thoughts, good health?02/06/2011 by Phillip Day Do you suffer from impromptu, evil imaginings? Disturbing thoughts that pop into your head? Where on earth do they come from? Think good thoughts, don't dwell on evil Seventy years ago, depictions of Blockbuster atrocities could only have been experienced on a field of battle. These days, horror is a multi-billion dollar industry celebrated daily as entertainment and news. Remember that repetition establishes the Pavlovian pattern in a state of emotion and that's what these thoughts are - a regurgitation of what you've been plugging your head into for the past twenty-five years. I receive e-mails from those so afflicted. The world is a deadly and terrifying place, they tell me, every day brings more chaos and mayhem, you only need to watch the news or read the newspapers to see it. Stress builds and affects their biochemistry. Remember, the whole purpose of the media is to round up the world's bad news and dump it on your breakfast table. So don't watch the news or read the newspapers and you won't see it. A newscaster's job is to peddle disaster while Hollywood's job is to make fictional experiences as real as it can. Marlon Brando's doomed character sums it all up in Apocalypse Now: ‘The horror. The horror.' What is real for you? Ask what is real for you. Almost all the bad news isn't. I'm really sorry about what is currently happening in Egypt but I can't own it. Frightening experiences can be a fact of life but how many times does real horror play a part in your life (apart from the cheese and pickle sandwiches they serve at Charing Cross station in the rush hour)? Our forebears would return from war muttering fragments of what they'd been through, but most wanted to get the horror behind them and look to the future. They educated their minds to overwrite such patterning by getting on with their lives and guarding input. Not in such terms did they think it, they just persevered and were consistent so it worked for most of them. It's come to something when we can pick up a newspaper today and experience all the bad news in the world that has nothing to do with us directly and never once question why we do it. Because we need the media? The antidote? Cut off the duff input. Think good thoughts. This has less to do with being an apple-blossom frog-kisser than it does developing a pragmatic belief that good checks the advance of evil and you have a part to play in the process. You have a choice about what you allow yourself to see and think so try an experiment. Stop reading the newspapers and watching TV and spend four weeks flooding your senses with nothing but good news, laughter and new activities. It's just for four weeks. By the time you realise the experiment has worked, Pavlov's Principle will already have established a new, more benign and cheerful pattern for your optimistic future. Summary Be aware. Choose what contributes and nurtures you. Be the invitation to others - show them what's possible and that they can choose differently. | Health tips
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