So true. I found this today (August 28, 2013) as I was looking for a frame for a photo for someone who is very sick and has a very slight chance to live. I almost feel like the angels had me find this so I knew that she had a good life overall and that she has really enjoyed her time with my Dad. She has been my Dad’s partner the last 18 months but I will have to say that these may have been the best 18 months of his life. They were two peas in a pod; got up early, went to bed early. They liked to cook fish and live in the middle of nowhere in WI. They both enjoyed having a partner. He even got her to sleep on an air mattress (every night). I am sad for the potential loss of a good partnership. They sometimes seem challenging to come by these days. As I begin my own next chapter of my partnership with my partner, it really makes me think. I am truly glad that I do this work in the world. I don’t think I could really do anything else. If I am not helping others live their best life, then I would not be doing what I came here to do. I had told Rose that she was what my Dad needed, a strong woman. I think partnership takes huge strength and love of ourselves. That is the entire concept of my work www.inlovewithme.com and www.healthychildrenofdivorce.com . Truly if you love yourself you will raise the healthiest children. If you are not happy in your relationships, you have to look to yourself and question the amount of love you have for yourself. Life is way too short not to.
Today I want to thank Rose, for showing me what good partnership looks like, for being a strong woman and for loving my dad. “It is not the Years in Your Life…..But the Life in Your Years…”. You have really touched my life.
What can you do to love yourself deeper today, to take care of yourself better today, to love someone else today?
IN LOVING MEMORY OF ROSE
September 3, 1941 – August 30, 2013
Self-love is all about becoming closer to ourselves. This 4th of July, doing yoga on the rocks and listening to Michael Franti at the Red Rocks Ampitheatre brought me closer to myself.
What I find is that when I slow down and take time to meditate, I truly accomplish more. And life seems so much easier. On this 4th of July weekend as we celebrate our freedom in the U.S.A., it’s a wonderful time to think about how each of us can be more free every moment of our day.
At the end of our lives, we will never look back and wish we had been busier. We most likely will be so grateful for all the small things we took time to appreciate and cherish. The first key is appreciation and cherishing ourselves, and then others.
My wish for you is your ultimate freedom and love. I encourage you to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and envision yourself surrounded by love. You are pure love. You are pure freedom.
I have always loved that song! This past 4th of July, Michael Franti was my sunshine! In this video, we were doing yoga on the rocks and Red Rocks Ampitheatre! Wow, what an experience! If you’ve never been there, you must go!
As Michael sang, “that the sound of the sunshine coming down” I looked up at the beautiful sun above me and felt so grateful. I truly do feel the amazing love energy of the sun! Whenever I have the chance, I stand in the sun’s light and close my eyes, it just feels so wonderful and healing to me. We have so many healing opportunities around us, but many of us are moving too fast to really appreciate them and truly take them in. I have really been conscious lately about living in the “flow” of life. I’ve been calmer and breathing deeper. As a child, I always felt stressed and worried. As an adult, I know I am safe and loved. But sometimes I need a reminder to reset myself again. This is your reminder! Bask in the sunshine, live in the flow, and In-Joy your life!
With Love and Hugs,
Shannon (and my wonderful friend, Melanie, the other amazing yogi!)
This 4th of July weekend, I had the opportunity to see Michael Franti live in concert. That guy is alive with life! His tour is the “I’m Alive” tour. At noon, before the concert, he offered yoga and an acoustic set. That is where this video is from. It was amazing. If you have never been to Red Rocks Ampitheatre in CO, it is a must do on any trip to the U.S. or CO! Set among the beautiful rocks you feel like you are in a work of art. And you are! It’s a work of nature!
What in your life makes you feel alive? Dancing, doing yoga and listening to these positive songs really made me feel alive that day! The energy of it was pure and simple – happy. When we enjoy our aliveness, we are happy. It truly is a gift to be alive. How will you embrace that gift today? How will you feel alive today?
I challenge you to first move your body, dance to some fun music or just listen to this video. FEEL the energy and KNOW you are alive! It is a gift to be cherished! Wahoo! I’m ALIVE!
1. It lowers stress – – literally. Research published just last month in the journal Health Psychology shows that mindfulness is not only associated with feeling less stressed, it’s also linked with decreased levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
2. It lets us get to know our true selves. Mindfulness can help us see beyond those rose-colored glasses when we need to really objectively analyze ourselves. A study in the journal Psychological Science shows that mindfulness can help us conquer common “blind spots”, which can amplify or diminish our own flaws beyond reality.
3. It can make your grades better. Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, found that college students who were trained in mindfulness performed better on the verbal reasoning section of the GRE, and also experienced improvements in their working memory. “Our results suggest that cultivating mindfulness is an effective and efficient technique for improving cognitive function, with widereaching consequences,” the researchers wrote in the Psychological Science study.
4. It could help our troops. The U.S. Marine Corps is in the process of seeing how mindfulness meditation training can improve troops’ performance and ability to handle — and recover from — stress.
5. It could help people with arthritis better handle stress. A 2011 study in the journal Annals of Rheumatic Disease shows that even though mindfulness training may not help to lessen pain for people which rheumatoid arthritis, it could help to lower their stress and fatigue.
6. It changes the brain in a protective way. University of Oregon researchers found that integrative body-mind training — which is a meditation technique — can actually result in brain changes that may be protective against mental illness. The meditation practice was linked with increased signaling connections in the brain, something called axonal density, as well as increased protective tissue (myelin) around the axons in the anterior cingulate brain region.
7. It works as the brain’s “volume knob”. Ever wondered why mindfulness meditation can make you feel more focused and zen? It’s because it helps the brain to have better control over processing pain and emotions, specifically through the control of cortical alpha rhythms (which play a role in what senses our minds are attentive to), according to a study in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
8. It makes music sound better. Mindfulness meditation improves our focused engagement in music, helping us to truly enjoy and experience what we’re listening to, according to a study in the journal Psychology of Music.
9. It helps us even when we’re not actively practicing it. You don’t have to actually be meditating for it to still benefit your brain’s emotional processing. That’s the finding of a study in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, which shows that the amygdala brain region’s response to emotional stimuli is changed by meditation, and this effect occurs even when a person isn’t actively meditating.
10. It has four elements that help us in different ways. The health benefits of mindfulness can be boiled down to four elements, according to a Perspectives on Psychological Science study: body awareness, self-awareness, regulation of emotion, and regulation of attention.
11. It could help your doctor be better at his/her job. Doctors, listen up: Mindfulness meditation could help you better care for your patients. Research from the University of Rochester Medical Center shows that doctors who are trained in mindfulness meditation are less judgmental, more self-aware, and better listeners when it comes to interacting with patients.
12. It makes you a better person. Sure, we love all the things meditation does for us. But it could also benefit people we interact with, by making us more compassionate, according to a study in the journal Psychological Science. Researchers from Northeastern and Harvard universities found that meditation is linked with more virtuous, “do-good” behavior.
13. It could make going through cancer just a little less stressful. Research from the Jefferson-Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine shows that mindfulness coupled with art therapy can successfully decrease stress symptoms among women with breast cancer. And not only that, but imaging tests show that it is actually linked with brain changes related to stress, emotions and reward.
14. It could help the elderly feel less lonely. Loneliness among seniors can be dangerous, in that it’s known to raise risks for a number of health conditions. But researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, found that mindfulness meditation helped to decrease these feelings of loneliness among the elderly, and boost their health by reducing the expression of genes linked with inflammation.
15. It could make your health care bill a little lower. Not only will your health benefit from mindfulness meditation training, but your wallet might, too. Research in the American Journal of Health Promotion shows that practicing Transcendental Meditation is linked with lower yearly doctor costs, compared with people who don’t practice the meditation technique.
16. It comes in handy during cold season. Aside from practicing good hygiene, mindfulness meditation and exercise could lessen the nasty effects of colds. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Health found that people who engage in the practices miss fewer days of work from acute respiratory infections, and also experience a shortened duration and severity of symptoms.
17. It lowers depression risk among pregnant women. As many as one in five pregnant women will experience depression, but those who are at especially high risk for depression may benefit from some mindfulness yoga. “Research on the impact of mindfulness yoga on pregnant women is limited but encouraging,” study researcher Dr. Maria Muzik, M.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan, said in a statement. “This study builds the foundation for further research on how yoga may lead to an empowered and positive feeling toward pregnancy.”
18. It also lowers depression risk among teens. Teaching teens how to practice mindfulness through school programs could help them experience less stress, anxiety and depression, according to a study from the University of Leuven.
19. It supports your weight-loss goals. Trying to shed a few pounds to get to a healthier weight? Mindfulness could be your best friend, according to a survey of psychologists conducted by Consumer Reports and the American Psychological Association. Mindfulness training was considered an “excellent” or “good” strategy for weight loss by seven out of 10 psychologists in the survey.
20. It helps you sleep better. We saved the best for last! A University of Utah study found that mindfulness training can not only help us better control our emotions and moods, but it can also help us sleep better at night. “People who reported higher levels of mindfulness described better control over their emotions and behaviors during the day. In addition, higher mindfulness was associated with lower activation at bedtime, which could have benefits for sleep quality and future ability to manage stress,” study researcher Holly Rau said in a statement.
If you would like further information on this subject, visit the original article here and check out 7 more Fascinating Facts About Meditation.