What Consequence Are Your Choices Having?
May 10, 2010 by The Dove
Every now and then I read something that strikes a chord, leaving me to ponder over the idea for days and days on end. Last week it was the following extract from The Power of Myth
“People say that what we’re seeking is a meaning of life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
Rather eloquently said, don’t you think?
What is it that inspires and pleasures you, so much so that your enthusiasm for being alive drives you each and every day to build upon that joy?
What choices are you making that bring you closer to reaching that state of being?
What contribution are you making to the community and earth to enable it to be a “better” place for future generations to live in?
If you’re reading this article, chances are you live in a world of information overload, an abundance of choice and the luxury to be, think and act as you wish. Whilst this is a wonderful freedom that we have created, it also brings with it many distractions that “dumb down” our consciousness and divert our attention from what would truly be nurturing for ourselves, loved ones, future generations and the world in which we live in.
Have you ever thought about what consequence your choices are having? (on your life; your loved ones’ lives; your community; the planet; future beliefs, standards and ideals)
Whether we like to believe it or not, there is always choice. It’s very easy to blame something or someone else for our circumstances or lack of, but the truth is we are all responsible for our own choices and can make a different choice when ever we choose to.
The four key areas that I work with, are developing rituals to:
improve energy levels;
encourage a peaceful night’s sleep;
learn how to cope with stress; and
nurture our own self and loved ones more so.
Why? Because I strongly believe that by balancing these four areas in your life helps to bring about holistic happiness, which in turn improves one’s health, life experiences and Joseph Campbell’s idea of feeling “the rapture of being alive”.
Over the next four months I will feature each one of these key areas in a holistic manner, demonstrating how best to make improvements that benefit you, your loved ones and the planet we share.
If holistic happiness is something that you would like a little inspiration with then how about using this next month to become more aware of how you feel, the choices you are making and whether there is any relation between the two.
What Consequence Are Your Choices Having? By .
The Body Mind Connection: The Key to Optimal Health (Part I)
May 10, 2010 by The Dove
You just have to browse the web or your nearest book store to see the world is obsessed with dieting. Yet if statistics are accurate, were not just tipping the scales, were on our way to breaking them. It has taken many of us years of restrictions and meal replacements to figure it out: diets dont work.
From calorie counting to cutting out carbs, a Pandoras Box awaits those who still dare to follow the latest diet craze. Yet achieving and maintaining your ideal figure is actually more simple than what weve been lead to believe-and it comes with a bonus: vibrant health.
There is one major requirement thats needed on this path to ultimate wellness and the body weve all dreamed of: taking full responsibility. Taking charge and becoming our own nutritionist and not relying on big business to deliver a magic bullet that is nothing more than body-disruptive chemicals dressed in drag.
Perhaps its an assumption to say most of us were taught the same stuff in school, none of which covered off real nutrition and how to actually apply it. Yet, the lesson of nutrition is one of the most important life lessons we can ever learn. We also werent taught that nourishing ourselves is actually fun and can lead us to a full, love-fueled life. A nourished, healthy body results in clear thinking, more energy and, for many, a channel to the divine. No pill could ever compete with that.
Enter Lars Gustafsson: author, speaker, life and nutrition guide. Born in India to Canadian parents, he grew up living an authentic mix of tribal and western life. “This upbringing,” he says “created a balance between the scientific passion of the west and the ancient wisdom of the Far East.”
For 23 years, Lars has explored nutrition, fitness and healthy lifestyles. As founder of the BodyMind Institute-a global enlightened school of learning-he teaches that nutrition is so much more than just the food we eat. Its the total way we nourish our mind and body.
“Over these years I found that I needed to personally experience something in order to accept it as fact. In the end I have found that it is only through personal experience in the application of any information can you make your own informed decisions. Your own level of personal truth will grow according to your willingness to experience more.”
In 2003, Lars introduced The BodyMind Nutrition Certification online programs to meet an emerging demand for true to life systems, formulas and programs, creating the opportunity for people everywhere to discover and pass on a nutrition and lifestyle process that creates a personal discovery of balance in body, mind and spirit.
“I believe in the scientific method, that there are natural laws that govern our physical universe … yet in these 23 years I have often found the ‘unexplainable’ happening all around me,” Lars says. “These have created questions which led me to find hard scientific data that hasn’t found it’s way into the mass media or awareness of the masses.”
“Over these years I found that I needed to personally experience something in order to accept it as fact. In the end I have found that it is only through personal experience in the application of any information can you make your own informed decisions. Your own level of personal truth will grow according to your willingness to experience more.”
Most recently, Lars has teamed up with raw food nutritionist and expert David €˜Avocado Wolfe to deliver a program in raw food nutrition-a course that shares more than 15 years of Davids sought-after knowledge. With this course and other programs including 90 Day BodyMind Renewal and Sports Nutrition, the BodyMind Institute is changing the way we look at real nutrition, forever.
As a student of the BodyMind Raw Nutrition, the 90 Day BodyMind Renewal and the Nutrition I certifications, I wanted to reach out to Lars, to hear first hand how these online courses are bringing real nutrition to people at their own pace, in their own time. What I discovered is a man with a passion that goes beyond simply developing courses. Lars Gustafsson is making a difference, one person at a time through life-enhancing education that literally changes lives.
So passionate is he about reaching those who share his dream to make a difference, that with David Wolfe, Lars is offering free entry to the BodyMind Institute Level I BodyMind Nutrition Certification for those who sign up for Davids Raw Nutrition Certification. Its a $1,500 gift, he explains, to reach those who also want to make a difference-to their own health, the health of others and the health of the planet.
“Lets bring about a stunning shift to our planet together,” Lars (pictured left) says.
We hope you enjoy part I of our interview with Lars (below), as he takes you behind the scenes of his passion that is giving back in a big way. Next Monday (May 17) we will share part II of this special interview.
To find out more about Lars and the BodyMind Institute, please click here.
The Body Mind Connection: The Key to Ultimate Health by Shanon Dunn. Main photo courtesy alicepopkorn
Podcast: |
7 WAYS … TO CLEAR YOUR INBOX
May 5, 2010 by The Dove
The beauty of an empty inbox is a thing to behold. It is calming, peaceful and wonderful. An inbox that is overflowing with actions, urgent calls for responses, stuff to read … its chaos, its stressful, its overwhelming.
A friend recently posted: “Help! Im drowning in email!” Lets look at how to get your head above water first, and then how to get safely to dry land.
Head Above Water
You need to give yourself some breathing room. A flooded inbox is overwhelming, and you dont know where to start. So heres where were going to start:
Create an “actions” folder or label in your email. This is where youre going to store any emails that you need to take action on (other than just replying or filing or whatever).
Pick the most important. Go through your inbox and check off 10-15 that are the most urgent action emails, and file them in this new folder. If you dont get to the sections below right away, you can at least work from this folder for now.
Temporarily archive. Now create a “temp” folder. File everything thats still in your inbox into this temp folder. Everything. Youre going to get these out of the way and not worry about them at the moment. Well get to these, but it gives you a little breathing room.
Set a new policy. Every new email that comes in will follow the rules in the next section. No more allowing your inbox to pile up.
New Emails
So what to do with new emails that come in? Set some rules, and commit right this minute to ruthlessly sticking to them:
Process from the top down. When you open up your email, process the inbox completely. Start with the top email in your inbox, and open it. Take one of the following actions, in this preferred order: (1) delete (use this liberally), (2) archive (in case you want to look it up later), (3) quick reply (four sentences or less) and then archive, (4) put on your to-do list for action (if you dont have a list, start one now) and then file in your “action” folder. This last item includes long replies (which should be as rare as possible). If you take one of these four actions, you should dispose of every email.
Go to the next email and take quick action, and so forth. Dont spend longer than 20 seconds on any one email, and even then you should only do that if youre doing a quick reply or adding the item to your to-do list. If you process this quickly, youll be done with your inbox in minutes.
Only when youve processed should you start worrying about the to-do items. You can choose to do those now, or later. Dont start doing the to-do items when youre processing.
Newsletters, etc. Youre never going to read all those newsletters, notices from services, catalogs from companies, and so on that regularly get delivered from your inbox. So go into your “temp” folder and delete all of them right now. All of them. And whenever new ones come in – emails that are not from real people directed just for you – youre going to go to the bottom of the email and click on the “unsubscribe” link. Every single one of them should have an “unsubscribe” link – if not, mark as spam. It only takes 10 seconds to click on the unsubscribe link and then go to the new page and hit the unsubscribe button. And if you do this for every single one, youll soon get a lot less email.
Follow these four rules and youll never have a full inbox again.
Stop the Flood
OK, things should feel a bit more manageable now. Now we want to set some long-term policies so that you get fewer emails from now on.
Heres what to do:
1. Unsubscribe from everything. This was talked about in the section above, but just in case you missed that, go back and read the newsletters item. You dont need newsletters flooding your inbox.
2. Stop sending so many emails. The more emails you send, the more youll get. Use email as little as you possibly can. Call people if you can, or walk over and talk to them. If those arent possible, see if you can figure it out for yourself. If you send an email that doesnt require a response, say so.
3. Send shorter emails. Theyre more likely to get read and acted on, and itll take less of your time to write them. Try sticking to 4 sentences or fewer.
4. Check email less often. Set times each day, and only check email on those times. When you do, process your inbox to empty using the rules above.
5. Filter out notifications. If there are notifications you do want to see, create a folder or label for them, and create a filter (Gmail is great for this) so that the notifications go straight to that label/folder and skip the inbox.
6. Set policies. Put up policies on your website or send the policies out to the people you work with. These policies should be aimed at reducing the number of requests you get. For example, if requests are coming to you that should be going somewhere else, put that in your policies. If people should deal with things through a different channel than email, say it in the policies. Try to figure out your most common types of emails, and find solutions so you dont have to respond to all of them.
7. Post FAQs. Similarly, if you get a bunch of questions regularly, post the answers publicly so that you dont have to repeatedly answer them by email. Itll save you a lot of time.
Processing the Old Emails
Youre going to want to return to your “temp” folder, when you have the time, and start processing it. Some steps:
Process it in chunks if there are too many to do now. Just do it for 5 minutes and then come back later.
When you process, follow the rules for processing your inbox above (under the “New Emails” section). Start at the top, take quick action on each email, moving it out of the temp folder as fast as you can.
Feel free to mass delete emails. If you know youll never reply or act on emails, just check a bunch of them off and delete or archive. You can get big chunks done at once this way. Give yourself the freedom to let these go – and just worry about what you need to do from this point on.
By Leo Babauta of Zen Habits. Visit Leo at www.zenhabits.net
The World’s Greatest Food
May 5, 2010 by The Dove
We were going to highlight some great blogs that are dedicated to raw chocolate in all its healthful glory. Perhaps there arent too many around or we just got too hungry during our search and gave up too soon. The latter is undeniably true.
We also wanted to write something about chocolate, but, to tell you the truth, all we can do think about is eating it. So, the best option is to share a recipe from one of our fave and oft-visited raw food blogs, The Raw Chef. Oh, and a great book from David Wolfe thats dedicated to this widely adored, yet sometimes misused, food: Naked Chocolate: The Astonishing Truth About the Worlds Greatest Food
Enjoy!
Chocolate Torte with Whipped Cashew Cream
For the base
1/2 cup cashews
1/2 cup pecans
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 tablespoon melted cacao butter
1 teaspoon agave
1 teaspoon lemon juice
- Pulse all ingredients in a food processor until they bind.
- Press into a 9″ springform cake pan and place in the fridge to set.
For the filling
1 cup Irish Moss paste*
1 cup cashews
1 1/2 cups cacao powder
3 cups grated or chopped cacao butter which has then been melted
1 cup agave nectar
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon tamari
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Blend all ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth and pour on top of the base.
- Leave in the fridge to set.
*Irish Moss paste can be made by soaking 1 cup Irish Moss in water for 3 – 5 hours and rinsing THOROUGHLY until rinse water turns clear (therell be a lot of sand in the moss). Then blend the rinsed moss with 2 cups pure water in a Vita-Mix until completely smooth. Leave to set in the fridge if not using straight away.
Chefs tip: Add 1 drop of peppermint essential oil to the filling mixture for a mint chocolate variation.
For the cream topping
1 cup cashews, soaked for 2 hours or more
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons Irish Moss paste
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup agave nectar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Pinch salt
1 tablespoon macadamia oil (optional)
- Blend all ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth.
- Serve with chocolate torte and fresh berries.
5 Books to Read Now
May 5, 2010 by The Dove
I used to wish I could pick up just one book and read it from cover to cover before I’d think about reaching for the next. I recently came to terms with the fact that’s never going to happen. It’s simply my nature to read five (or six) at once. I love the library and, even though I’m 30-something, I still think it’s cool you can borrow books for free. When you think about it, no matter how low on cash one becomes, there’s always that big room with its wall-to-wall of inspiration and education. One’s never poor when there’s a library around!
So here’s a rundown on what’s lying around on my nightstand, coffee table, kitchen table and work desk right now…
Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment
Huffington Post contributor Kirby follows three families and communities whose lives are devastatingly changed by massive neighbouring animal farms. The factories confine thousands of animals in small spaces-intolerable conditions that also generate huge volumes of fecal and biological waste and toxins. The author is invited into the homes of the people whose lives are destroyed by these Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: a North Carolina fisherman takes on pig farms upstream to preserve his river, his family’s life and his home. A mother in a small Illinois town pushes back against an out-sized dairy farm, while a Washington State grandmother becomes an unlikely activist when her home is covered with soot and her water supply is compromised.
Crush It!
I like Gary Vaynerchuck. I like his energy and his philosophy. His marketing strategy is a simple one: to care. Care about your customers, your readers, with everyone you interact with online. He’s a master of social networking and is fueled by passion for what he does (namely wine and business development). No matter what your passion may be, Gary teaches you can make it your life’s (paid) work if you’ll put in the work. His infectious energy may not be to everyone’s liking, but the fact he’s a success from living his passion makes this one book worth checking out, especially if you want to live your passion too.
Look Great, Live Green: Choosing Bodycare Products that Are Safe for You, Safe for the Planet
Self-confessed beauty junkie Deborah Burnes gets right down to the nitty gritty of what toxins are lurking in every day beauty products, shares secrets on how to look past the hype and recipes to make your own beauty products straight from your kitchen pantry (note: some ingredients aren’t vegan so I’d advise against those). I like this book for many reasons-the main one being Deborah has done all the dirty work for you. She also shares some great hints and tips on how to assess what products deliver the promises and those that are certain to toxify your body.
Eating For Beauty
No matter what we put on our skin in the effort to make ourselves beautiful, it’s not going to do a thing if we’re not beautiful on the inside. In Eating for Beauty, raw food guru David Wolfe takes you through all of the amazing natural foods that work internal wonders-foods that have been known for thousands of years to promote inner beauty and good health. He also talks about the concept of beauty, where it came from and why it’s so important to us. If you’re interested in understanding how to achieve real beauty, this is a book to buy not borrow.
How to Achieve a Heaven on Earth
This is a book authored by 101 most prestigious thinkers, writers, public figures and luminaries of our time. From Marianne Williamson to Barack Obama, each tackle the question of how to achieve heaven on earth. To quote Martin Luther King, Jr: “We must reaffirm our commitment to non-violence. He who hates does not know God, but he who loves has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.”
