Sunday, August 21, 2011

10 easy steps to relaxation

Today's aktualne.cz online daily published (in Czech) a great 10-step guide to relaxing, so because ability to relax is so important for living a happy life, I am taking a liberty of providing a translation below. I hope you enjoy it and actually find the time to use it :-)
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Take a look at dogs - they use as many moments as possible for relaxing. Relaxing the body soon results in a relaxed mind. Try it like the dogs do, experts say!

Pick a calm, quiet place, where nobody will disturb you.

Start breathing as slowly and deeply as possible. The breathing should be calm and regular.

Before you begin, do a few excercise to remove any muscle tension.

Get comfortable - sit or lay down.

Slightly tighten and then relax all body parts, one by one: start with the tips of your toes and continue up to the head and face.

Concentrate on each body part, and think about heat, heaviness and relaxation.

Banish all thoughts that may disturb you: imagine how they are physically floating away.

Do not try to consciously relax your mind, just focus on the gradual relaxing of muscle groups.

Remain like this for at least 20 minutes. Then take a few deep breaths and open your eyes. But remain seated or lying down before you get up. And again think of a dog or another animal: before they get up, they always stretch out thoroughly.




Sunday, August 14, 2011

Standing in the light | OdeWire

Interesting insights into human health. Plus a great story of a man working hard trying to make the world a better place. OdeWire does make for inspiring reading!

Standing in the light | OdeWire

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

God doesn't work in mysterious ways. We do. God simply is.

Lately I've been hearing the term "God works in mysterious ways" a lot. Or maybe I've just been noticing it a lot. At any rate, I started pondering this and suddenly realized that I don't think God works in mysterious ways at all. I believe that God simply "is", does his thing, and lets us do our thing (within a given set of physical and spiritual laws). And it's us that works in mysterious ways. It's a partnership that keeps the world (in a broader sense) going forward. And in this partnership we attribute a lot to God, which we should actually attribute to ourselves. Perhaps it's a self-defense mechanism of trying to reduce our own responsibility for the almost infinite power that we really do have. Brings to mind Nelson Mandela's famous quote: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

And by the way, do you know how Mandela's quote continues? How about this: " It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Wow.

Powerfull stuff, that can sometimes be confusing. So what should I do, people sometimes ask. If I may offer a piece of advice that I got from a native American woman shaman, how about: "When in doubt, choose love". That always seems to work out well in the long-run...