Have you noticed that some people fall ill with a cold for weeks, while others bounce back overnight? Is it immune strength? Could your vitamin D level be lower than standard daily values?
Would it surprise you to find out that reducing the probability of catching a cold may require changing your mind?
The proverbial gut-punch takes our breath away and stops us dead in our tracks. And boy, can it hurt!
As startling and painful as a social gut-punch can be, the experience offers a powerful opportunity to increase inner resources and self-esteem, rather than how one might commonly handle these punches, which is by avoidance.
When kids feel scared or have pain, they can be taught to use the imagination to sooth anxieties, to reduce stress, and to feel calmer.
While some problems, require additional help, when children fall and get scraped, have to have a medical procedure, or feel scared, teaching them to use their mind power is an empowering way to teach them self-mastery.
A scheduled surgery or medical procedure can trigger anxiety and stress of all kinds, from worry about dying to fear of anticipated pain.
Adding to existing stress are the current visitor restrictions due to COVID-19.
Imagine having to bid farewell to your parent in the hospital parking lot and going into the hospital alone for triple bypass surgery.
Although certain heart surgeries are touted as routine, all surgery presents an inherent risk to life, and you want the security of a loving person to be near you.
Imagine that a physician hands you a prescription recommending “1000 healings a day.”
You might think, “ahh, all-right,” but what if she is on to something!
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that stress accounts for 80% of visits to a primary care physician. If stress hurts our health, is it possible that love, joy, happiness, and connection may be the antidote to improve our health, immunity, and life, in general?
Yes!
We are all capable of feeling grateful but we do not hold the benefits. If this is true, what makes it hard for some people to feel grateful or appreciation when someone does something kind or thoughtful for us. As we explore the value of gratitude, its benefits, and why it can be difficult, you can discover how to make the experiences that bring you joy truly memorable and cellular.
What makes the practice of gratefulness something I should do?
A healthy relationship requires the space to be yourself, to maintain your personal integrity. Most people will respect your boundaries when you explain what they are and will expect that you will do the same for them; it’s a two-way street. Not so with people who don’t understand where you end and they begin.
Have you ever wondered why you slip back into the sulky, sassy nine-year-old when you go home to visit with the family? You can’t prevent this younger self from emerging no matter how much thinking and planning you do.
As the holidays approach you vow that this year you will return home as your funny and sensitive adult self, and not get sucked into the family drama and tensions. And then...
An hour after walking through the front door, your clear intentions to be ‘yourself’ are overcome by powerful, eerily familiar emotions, and suddenly, you find yourself being sucked into a spinning vortex. No one is interested in your kettlebell workout, the rare art exhibit you attended, your ‘green’ politics, or any strides you made in your work — and you suddenly feel small. You are not yourself — or are you?
