Healing and Happiness

Kindness is catching! Don’t you feel better when you’ve had a pleasant exchange with someone? Even a brief exchange or act of kindness gives us a “warm fuzzy” feeling.

The benefits to those around us when we act from a more generous spirit are many-fold, but the benefits to ourselves is great too. Even if you don’t really “feel like it”, making an effort daily to be more optimistic brings with it a real positive influence in your feeling of self and overall health.

Nice doesn’t mean being icky sweet or fake, but that you consider others and treat those you meet with kindness, consideration, and respect. It’s been proven in studies that wishing others well and sending positive thoughts their way actually can reduce pain and inflammation of chronic conditions within ourselves !

Meditation, and letting go of angers and resentments and replacing these with forgiveness, love and compassion also go a long way to help reduce pain. Integrative medicine is proving forgiveness is one of the greatest gifts that we can give ourselves.

Every time we replay a moment in our lives filled with regret or resentments we’re “stuck” in our basest element, and we bring all the toxins from that event flooding back into our bodies as we relive it again. For better health we need to be in our higher consciousness where we can choose to cultivate forgiveness, love and compassion.

Start simply and focus your attention on today, what’s happening in life right now - - and leave behind yesterday’s baggage. Being truly present in the now doesn’t leave any room for resentment and old anger.

As we forgive others, we have to remember to forgive ourselves. Who knows, if that chronic back pain lessens, or you experience other improvements in pain or depression, -- what do you have to lose?

To Zen or Not to Zen - -

Creativity or Meditation?

Sometimes it’s in the eye of the beholder! I have spent (sporadically) many years of my life in creative pursuits. As life has brought many opportunities my way, my creative life has ebbed and flowed like an ocean with the tide.

First came raising children, which allows for a lot of creativity but very little meditation time. That was followed by years creating a new life and earning a living, which was interspersed with writing - - mainly poetry which I enjoy immensely, but I decided I needed a steady income more than following my muse.

Antiques and collectibles of all kinds has always been a passion of mine, and that led me to opening my own little store in California. This was fulfilling because finding a piece of furniture that has seen better days, and restoring it to beauty and value just felt good. Finding little treasures, and then finding them a new “home” was fun, and though I was extremely busy all the time, I was happy with the creative energy I was experiencing.

I started designing one of a kind jewelry to add to my store, and added a line of quartz crystal and precious stones. Designing jewelry and working with jewelry and natural stones gave me a time to contemplate colors and the “message” they hold to those that wear them, because each color has it’s own range of vibration and meaning. So too, working with crystals and other stones was an enlightening experience. Creation and meditation blend when working with colors and crystal energy, even when you are immersed in the design process!

Time passes and another move, another time, and now I am semi-retired. I have found a lovely new (to me) outlet for my creative side though, at Etsy.com.

My daughter introduced me to Etsy, and suggested opening an online shop together for handmade and vintage items (which we did in Feb. ‘09 ). It has been a lot of fun working together and watching this business build.

Because my partner and I have many interests outside those that my daughter and I share, we have opened another shop which is an outlet for our interests in Crystals, ethnic collectibles, carvings, and other handmade designs. (Opened in May,’09 ).

“Learning the ropes” and “stocking the shops” has been pretty time consuming, but along with that it has stimulated my creative side again, and while I am producing “product“, I’m having fun creating and re-learning many of the elements I have touched on before in my life, - - and as I create, I meditate. It brings me pleasure and inner peace - - who would have thought ? ?