Prison is a cruel and selfish place filled with people who have failed in life.... But prision can also be educational. If one learns how to do their time, instead of letting time do them, one can become strong---in a good way.... In the past, I had added nothing but confusion, judgement and a horrible act of violence to the world.
Now, I try to add compassion, kindness and understanding to it, along with selfless service." - Lupe Rodriguez
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Become a Healthier You Inside and Out In the New Year!
By Elizabeth Savino
Tips to Jump Start Your Level of Fitness
Although January signifies the beginning of frigid weather and shorter days, it also brings you the opportunity to reflect on the year that has just past and offers a perfect time to evaluate the level of fitness that presently exists in your life. If you look back to the past with feelings of frustration or dissatisfaction, you are not alone. Thankfully, each year brings the opportunity for positive change. Change is not an easy process; if it were, we would all stroll through our lives rolling from one stage to an even better one with no difficulty at all.
The fact is, however, that change is a process that takes time, commitment and a tremendous amount of support in order for it to be truly accomplished. In implementing any positive change in our lives, perhaps the most crucial factor to keep in mind is to think of the possibility of such change in an optimistic manner. According to Dr. Martin Seligman, who is a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, thinking optimistically is a highly effective way to increase wellbeing. There is direct evidence that positive emotions predict health and longevity. The reason behind much of Seligman’s finding is that optimistic thinkers view obstacles as temporary. They recognize that it is not the circumstance in our live that make us happy or sad, but rather our perception of those events that dictates how we feel and move forward. By choosing to look on the good side of any challenge and electing to believe in ourselves and our ability to conquer, recover and be resilient, there is nothing that can keep us down permanently. This is viewing life through the glass half full mentally. Studies have shown that optimistic thinkers:
• Are more successful at work
• Have better health habits
• Have lower blood pressure
• Have feistier immune systems
• Experience more life enjoyment
• Have more friends
• Live longer than pessimist thinkers
With such optimistic encouragement to fuel you, here are some tips to help you become a healthier you inside and out in this New Year!
1. Make a commitment to the type of changes you wish to implement
in the New Year. Set aside some quiet time to reflect on what it would look like if you were totally satisfied with the level of fitness in your life. This is unique to each of us. After you clarify what your fitness goals are, write them down in a health and fitness journal. Use this journal to record your progress and your feelings during this process of change. This serves to both clarify your emotions as you change and grow and also to get a clear view of the progress you are making. Since permanent change often occurs slowly, such journal entries help us see the progress we are making.
2. Plan what type of exercise you would like to implement. Make your goals specific so you can clearly follow them. Look at your calendar each day in advance and make “an appointment” to exercise and reserve a time for it. An example of this would be, “Monday, January 2, 2006, 8:00AM- walk briskly for 40 minutes.”
3. Take one step at a time. Each day is a new day with a fresh opportunity to progress towards your desired goals. Keep in mind that the process of change takes time and patience in order for it to be truly accomplished. If setbacks occur, use your resilience to reevaluate what you could do differently to get yourself back on track.
4. Allow yourself variety in your exercise routine by mixing up the type of exercise you do each day. By alternating the form of the exercise you choose to do, you not only add variety and keep your workouts exciting, you also develop and strengthen different muscles by cross training.
5. Get support to help you maintain the positive strides you are making during your new journey towards positively changing your life. This could be accomplished by hiring a personal trainer, working with a nutritionist, using a life coach, or simply by recruiting your friends and family to assist you as you change. Such support systems are extremely beneficial in providing encouragement, motivation and also to keep you accountable as you take the steps necessary to help you become a healthier you inside and out!
Elizabeth Savino is a personal Life Coach and the owner of Sole Life Coaching. She specializes in Women in Transition. For more information on changing in a positive direction and empowerment techniques, you may contact her at esav1@aol.com or visit her website at http://www.elizabethsavino.com/
Elizabeth believes that with the support, guidance, and motivation of a life coach, women can gain clarity about what direction they would like to move in the next stage of their lives.
Elizabeth is a graduate of Bowling Green State University with a degree in Special Education. She began her career teaching students with special needs and varying disabilities. Elizabeth has incorporating her teaching skills into her coaching practice by meeting her clients where they are at and working with them as a team to move in a positive direction. Elizabeth has studied coaching through Mentor Coach and Coach U to obtain certification from the International Coach Foundation which she is also a member of.
In her leisure time, Elizabeth enjoys running races ranging from 5k races to marathons. She has used the determination it takes to train for such races to inspire other women to obtain meaningful goals in their own lives.
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Exercise Your Willpower Support Group Mailing List
If you need more motivation and some group support, feel free to subscribe to the Exercise Your Willpower mailing list. There is a great group of people who help motivate each other. To get more information, visit the website at: http://www.exerciseyourwillpower.com
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Cultivate Peace, Joy & Clarity Through Walking Meditation
By Elizabeth Reninger
Walking meditation is a practice that I was introduced to in 1992, by the Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. It was offered as part of a three-week retreat at Plum Village ~ Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastery in south-central France. What’s wonderful about this practice is that it takes something that most of us do everyday (walking!), and transforms in such a way that it becomes a tool for becoming more awake, more conscious, more peaceful and clear … more ALIVE in the present moment. There are many variations of this practice. I’ll offer a couple of them here, and if you’d like to learn more, a good starting-point is Thich Nhat Hanh’s beautiful little book, “A Guide To Walking Meditation.”
We can practice walking meditation either indoors or outside. It’s especially wonderful along the banks of a river, or on a forest path … but it can be done just about anywhere! So choose your location, and then begin by simply standing, in a balanced way, with your arms hanging down at your sides. Try to arrange your feet so that they’re parallel (neither pigeon-toed nor duck-footed), and so that you’re taking an equal amount of body weight on your right foot and left foot; on the heels and base of toes; on the inside and the outside of your feet. Play with this for a few minutes, noticing your habitual patterns, and ~ with an attitude of kindness ~ trying to bring more balance into how you stand.
Then, with your arms and shoulders still relaxed, hold one hand gently in the other, either in front of your torso or behind. Now, with an inhalation, take a slow, deliberate step forward. As you place that first foot gently down, imagine that you’re kissing the earth (with the sole of your foot, either directly, in you’re bare-foot, or through the soles of your shoes). With the very next exhalation, step with your other foot, again imagining it “kissing” the earth as it makes contact with the ground. So we’re coordinating our steps with our breath with our imagination: bringing body, mind & breath together … as though we were creating a beautiful braid, from three silken cords. Inhale~step, exhale~step, inhale~step, exhale~step. This will most likely be quite a bit slower than you’re used to walking, and may feel quite awkward at first. No problem! If you’re patient, and stick with, little by little it will become easier, more natural … and more and more delightful! You can also experiment with taking more than one step with each inhalation and each exhalation, but it’s good to start in this slow way. (As a way of unwinding our habit of rushing.)
Once you’re comfortable with this much, you can add to the visualization, in the following way: continue to imagine, when placing each foot, that you’re kissing the earth, and then imagine also that as you lift each foot away from the earth (to begin its next step) that in the place where that foot just was, a beautiful lotus flower blooms. So that as you walk, you not only ~ with your gentle mindful stepping ~ kiss the earth, but you also leave ~ in your wake ~ a long line of blossoming flowers! After practicing like this for five or ten minutes, or a half hour, notice how you feel … And notice also how the world around you now appears.
Another way of exploring this practice is to say internally, with each inhale~step, the word “yes” … and with each exhale~step the words “thank you.” So as we inhale and place one foot down we’re saying “yes” to life: to all its beauty as well as to the suffering that exists around and within us, and we’re opening our hearts to receive all that life has to offer. Then as we exhale and place the other foot down we’re saying “thank you,” expressing our gratitude for this wonderful human life, this human body, the trees and the grass, our friends and family; gratitude for this opportunity we have to be here, practicing, and for all the wonderful teachers & guides who have come before us. After practicing like this ~ yes, thank you, yes, thank you ~ for five or ten minutes, or a half hour, notice how you feel, and how the world around you is now appearing.
And feel free to share this practice with others!
Elizabeth Reninger holds Masters degrees in Sociology & Chinese Medicine, is a published poet, and has been exploring Yoga ~ in its Taoist, Buddhist & Hindu varieties ~ for more than twenty years. Her teachers include Richard Freeman and Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. For more essays on yoga-related topics, please visit her website at http://www.writingup.com/blog/elizabeth_reninger.
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Is Homeschooling For You
By James Hunt
There are a few things that you should consider when trying to make the decision to homeschool your children. This is a very important personal decision and should not be taken lightly at all. A few things that you should consider before making your decision are time commitment.
Do you really have the time to sit down with books for a couple of hours a day and complete the projects, prepare lesson plans, grade papers, plan field trips, and the list can go on forever. Homeschooling can take up a great portion of your day. It is a personal sacrifice when you are a Homeschooling parent.
You will have little or no personal time for yourself, let alone your spouse. You must make time for yourself and to take a step away from your daily Homeschooling and go shopping or just relax in a hot tub for a few hours.
Homeschooling is a great financial strain on the entire family. Usually the parent that is doing the teaching does not work outside of the home and the non teaching parent brings in all of the income. This can be a great strain on the family and maybe be very difficult for families who are used to living on two incomes.
Socialization is a very important factor when it comes to Homeschooling. A child must be able to socialize with other children their age. Homeschooling your child can make it a lot easier for you to control who your child comes in contact with and becomes friends with.
Organization plays a huge part for any Homeschooling parent. There is still the house work to be done during the day along with the teaching. You won’t always be able to keep the house as clean as you’d like or the laundry kept down to a minimum like it was before you chose to homeschool.
You should take careful consideration when it comes to deciding if you would like to be a homeschool teacher and you should decide if Homeschooling is right for your child as well as the entire family.
James Hunt has spent 15 years as a professional writer and researcher covering stories that cover a whole spectrum of interest. Read more at http://www.home-schooling-central.info.
Articles and Web
Sites Worth a Look
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"Great is the matter of birth and death,
Time passes quickly.
Wake-up! Wake-up!
Don't waste a minute."
-on the wall outside of the Zendo at the Zen Center of Denver
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I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?
~Robert Redford, Yosemite National Park dedication, 1985
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