Photo: quinn.anya

Having some health issues that you just can’t seem to shake? Can’t afford to go to the doctor, or whatever they’ve told you to do isn’t helping?

Maybe it’s your diet. Or lifestyle. Or a little of both.

Most of us can stand to tweak some things in order to have more energy, feel happier, look a little brighter. Because it’s possible to have better health. And it’s in your control. Sometimes, you just need a little guidance.

That’s where I come in.

I’m giving away a free “Quick Start” 30 minute session to one lucky reader. Think of it as a Valentine’s Day gift to you – I love the gift of helping others to feel their seriously-sassy best.

Here are the details of this type of coaching session from my Services page:

Quick Start: Have a couple of pressing health issues you want to tackle by shifting your diet and lifestyle, but not sure how? Try this 30-minute session, where we’ll discuss your concerns and possible underlying triggers, specific ideas for change, and goal setting.

And no, you don’t have to live near me to do this session, due to the magic that is known as Skype. (Though the law makes it so I can’t give away anything outside of North America, unfortunately.)

This session is normally $25, and is a good way to start tackling some of the bigger questions and issues you face. It’s always exciting to work with someone as we make connections missed just a bit on their own.

The winner will have up to six months to claim their consultation and to set up an appointment with me that fits their schedule.

What do you have to do, you ask? Just two, simple little things. Here you go:

How To Enter

Two steps. First, fill out this form:

Second, follow us on Twitter – if you haven’t already – and retweet this message:

I’m taking my health to the next level in 2012 by entering the LH wellness coaching giveaway. You can too! http://bit.ly/ySn58S #LHhealthcoaching

Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook to learn about future contests, plus you’ll get to keep up with everything you need to know in the world of feeling sassy healthy (note: this is not necessary to be entered).

Winner will be chosen and notified on February 14th. Hey, you deserve some Valentine’s love, so hook yourself up now!

Official rules:
No purchase necessary. Open to North American residents only. Contest begins January 31, 2012 and ends February 14, 2011. One (1) prize package composed of a health coaching session will be awarded. Retail value does not exceed $30. Odds are dependent on amount of entries. Winner will be chosen at random from all entrees submitted and informed via email. Winner will be chosen on February 14, 2012 and notified that day. Winner will be listed on the site by February 15, 2012.

Photo: Serge Melki

My friend Mary and I were talking the other day about the fact that both of us are always late. Not an hour late, or even 20 minutes; just 5 to 10 minutes late a majority of the time.

It stresses both of us out. Not the fact that we’re late, per se, but rather the fact that we know the person we’re meeting, or the event we are going to, has a more defined sense of time and what it means to be on it. Basically, we feel like it makes us look bad.

Which is funny, because if you dropped either of us in the middle of South America, or Africa, or most Western European countries other than Germany, we’d fall into the normal – or even too focused on time – category. We’d look bad for trying to adhere to a schedule.

Given, I can see the need for staying on schedule (though it sometimes reeks of American must-get-it-done-for-no-real-reason-other-than-to-say-it’s-done). But I also think it’s sad that we cut off so many deep and connected conversations, chances for increased development, and that we limit breakthroughs by our sometimes obsessive need to cram a lot in.

More importantly, though, is that we don’t recognize that when it comes to viewing time, there are essentially two types of people. And one view is not better than the other.

An article at HealthCompare breaks it down like this:

Linear Concept

People with a linear concept of time do well with schedules and set agendas and become anxious when they aren’t sure what will come next and are given vague or ambiguous timetables. They are generally prompt and methodical and thrive when given solid deadlines and a list of logically ordered tasks.

Amorphous Concept

For others time is a amorphous concept and their preference is to take things as they come and in no particular order. They tend to feel restricted by strict schedules and are comfortable going with the flow. For them, things will take as long as they take and delays or tangents are not usually a cause of stress or anxiety.

People with amorphous concepts of time can be prompt but their natural inclination is to get there when they get there, not out of disrespect but because their perception of time is more fluid and flexible. They do best when given a general idea of when something should be completed and not subjected to being micromanaged.

I actually think there is a third type, one that falls in middle, where being more timely when it is related to business matters is important, but more fluidity feels right in personal affairs (and yes, I may think that because this is how I see myself). \

The Importance of Time

Sometimes it's good to enjoy the scenery a bit longer / Photo: Caza_No_7

Why does it matter for you to know and understand what kind of “time viewer” you are? Well, both can cause stress if you don’t understand – and to a certain extent, accept – the other.

If you are a ‘linear’ or ‘on-time’ person, it can cause a great deal of irritation and hurt if you think someone else not showing up on time is a sign of disrespect. For the ‘amorphous’ or ‘out-of-time’ person, stress can stem from stern looks and passive-aggressive comments received when you show up late.

It’s also important to accept which side you fall on, and to let go of perceived or projected views of another because these can cause entirely too much hedonistic internal dialogue.

As many of us are trying to cut down on stress in our lives, it is important to note these areas that most people don’t think about when discussing stress. Interpersonal relationships cause the most stress of all, and since too much stress is about the most detrimental thing for your health, it’s important to weed out even the “smallest” of areas.

What’s the best way to deal with others who have a different approach to time than you?

• Particularly if you have a working relationship, be sure to be upfront as soon as possible about your natural inclination to time, but also point out positive attributes of what that approach does for your work. You may not be able to say during a job interview, “I can’t really be tied to a clock,” but once you’ve shown you are trustworthy and good at your job, it’s important to let an employer know how you work best.
• Even with family or friendships, it’s important to be open about how you move through life. The more you can be open – and even joke about your extreme punctuality or on the opposite, tardiness – the more people will accept you for who you are. If you try and always come up with excuses, you’ll just keep irritating those you love the most.

At ground level, this is one of those areas in life that it is important to go ahead and determine what category you fall in, and embrace whoever the hell you are.

Time defines us, our culture, and our planet, in a big way. The way you move through and with time is a way to showcase your spirit – grab it.

Photo: discover your passion

Happy New Year to everyone out there. This first post of the year on Living Holistically will hopefully detail – and guide – what you will find here this year.

Though I can add my excitement to the fresh start of a new year, I still find myself eying wearily the ‘wratcheting-up’ I’m witness around me.

It’s normal – a new year date on the calendar can feel like a clean slate. Time to dust off those mothball covered running pants and slightly moldy sneakers and make your way to the gym. Or to sit on a mat every morning at 5am to meditate away the stress. We’ll be a free and happy people in no time!

Unfortunately, though, our new year’s resolutions tend to fail more often than stick (and the weight-loss industry counts on it). But we are a stubborn crew; most of us have a list set and ready to go on January 1st, trying once again.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to change for the better. For trying to feel more energy, for cutting out those large mochawhathaveyous and frenchfriedtwinkieturduckens. For becoming the ultimate yogini who only eats Whole Foods gluten-free vegan chocolate-covered pretzels as a treat. It’s okay.

But here I go with that saying I know most of you have heard: what’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (yep, your parade has now officially been hit by Christine’s rain.)

Hopes and dreams are some of the best parts of being human. I LOVE to dream – it reinvigorates me when I’m brought down by the cold hard reality of work. And goals ground those dreams, and gets them done when that reality becomes exasperating.

Yet, maybe not fulfilling last year’s resolution(s) – or goals – has less to do with your lack of will-power or laziness (favorite terms for our culture to use against people). Maybe it has more to do with the fact that those goals are coming from the outside world, telling you what you should be doing.

Maybe they aren’t authentically what you want to be doing.

The Conundrum of Change

What is real change? We like to put a definition or a boundary on what change looks like – we are a results-based people. Did we achieve what we set out to do or fail?

Photo: Cam Vilay

It’s a western approach to the art of change, one that may seem innate in us considering it was bred so young. Plus, it’s constantly being reinforced in our daily lives and damn, it’s hard to stay steady in your own definition when everyone is telling you you “how it is”.

Scandalously, I’m going to posit to you that change is a little bit harder to define than what we can write down on a piece of paper.

Change is more about defining your larger purpose, and moving toward it.

What do I mean? Well, here’s an example: if you are starting out as a freelance writer and you write down on a piece of paper, “I want to publish 15 paid articles this year,” it’s easy to look back the next year and see if you accomplished your goal. But does this mean you are a better writer than if you hadn’t published 15? What if you’d only published 5? What if you didn’t publish any at all, but had written three times more blog posts which were read by many more people than 15 articles would have been?

Yes, you didn’t accomplish the definitive goal of having 15 paid published articles that year, but isn’t the larger goal being a writer? Writing makes you a writer, not the places you’ve been published.

Swap those 15 articles for 15 (or 150) pounds. Most of us have a definitive amount of weight we want to lose, and watch the scale very closely to make sure it is so. Until we lose it. Then we want to lose more. Or we “fail” to lose it, then feel bad about ourselves as we polish off one of those Otis Spunkmeyer muffins.

It doesn’t matter that we might have lost 5 pounds. It doesn’t matter that we were feeling more energetic, less energetically rollercoastery throughout the day. It doesn’t matter that we started reconnecting with our bodies. We didn’t lose what we set out to lose.

What if losing weight is the wrong goal? What if finding ways to be more connected and in love with your body is the right one? Most people want to lose weight because they think they’ll feel better. What if feeling better is more dependent on being in touch with your body than it is on lifting weights?

Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty

To me, there is a difference between regular goals and “soul” goals. “Regular” goals are often those somehow imposed by the outside world. “Soul” goals are the ones, well, your soul yearns for.

I’m not saying throw your New Year’s resolutions out the passenger-side window of a moving car. But it may be worth taking a look at your list and thinking about the bigger things you want out of your-very-own life.

And yes, you still have to institute specific changes in order to bring soul goals to fruition. For me, one of my soul goals this year is to ground myself in my life, including my work, relationships, food, and movement. I can be too flighty, which takes me off course too often.

In order to become more of who I already am, I know I must re-direct some of my inclinations toward taking on too many projects, and dropping old ones as I take on new ones. I understand that meditation helps me with grounding. Therefore, I have to meditate more often to feel more grounded.

But I’m not going to say, “I will meditate every day for an hour this year.” Nope, done that before and it didn’t work. Instead, I’m remaining conscious that when I get caught up in a whirlwind, meditation is the answer that helps me. Because I know this is true on a gut level (instead of someone else telling me I should do it), the more I employ this technique, and the longer this “resolution” sticks around. The closer I get to being fully me.

Now that you’ve got an idea of what I’m talking about, what are your soul goals?

Choose it Now. / Photo: Matthias Rhomberg

Loving your body as it its. Accepting the size of your stomach, or hips, or thighs, and even those jangling underarms. Disregarding everything that society tells you is beautiful, and knowing what you see in the mirror is true beauty.

There is little in the media today that focuses on body acceptance, and even when there is an article, or a photo, or a book dedicated to loving yourself, there is almost always some stipulation. “Love yourself as you are, but still lose weight.” “Accept your body, but still cover up that acne.” “Be thankful for your health, but get that nose job.” “Respect your body, but make sure it’s small enough to look good in tight clothes.”

These are the messages that bombard our system on a daily basis, whether consciously or not.

Here’s the antidote. The Choose Love Project, created by Rachel Cole and Lori Race, is beyond necessary at a time where the stakes get higher – and the girls impacted get younger – every single day.

Please watch the whole video – it is worth it:

I’m more than excited to be a part of the Choose Love Project. Strike that – I’ve been waiting to be a part of this project for my whole life (though I didn’t necessarily know it until it showed up in my inbox).

Here’s a note from their About page:

The inspiration for The Choose Love Project came from the It Gets Better campaign. The premise of this campaign is that if LGTBQ youth, who are often the target of bullying and discrimination, can simply hold on until they are older, until they leave high school, their lives will get better.

We wished we could say the same kind of thing to young girls struggling with their relationship to their bodies. But the truth is, there is no promise that it will get better. As most of us know, women of all ages (and often for the duration of their lives) have a contentious relationship with their form.

The one thing that we realized we could say to younger women (all women for that matter) is that it is a choice. Loving one’s body is about choosing the path of love. It’s not a switch that can be flipped, or a specific weight that is reached – it is a choice to come to our body with love. We want to empower women to understand that they always have this choice, that they can put down their weapons, walk off the battlefield, and down the path of love.

Will you be a part of it too?

Photo: vistamommy

Here are the last of the great thanks-giving quotes we received from readers and friends:

“I’m thankful for the hard stuff in life that makes you realize, really realize, what is important. i was searching all over, and then it found me.”

~ Katie Kersey

“I’m grateful that when I am able to let go, the universe catches me and I have always been held in love.”

~ Sylvie Nalezny

“So grateful for the miracle of life, the wonder & laughter of a child, the star-shaped pattern on the inside of a persimmon, and for good health.”

~ Julie Gallant

“I am thankful to have started a family of my own this year!”

~ Amy Anderson

“I’m thankful for solitude when it’s needed, and good friends when it’s not!”

~ Jon Burritt

“Grateful for life, the miracle of human life and love, deep intimate true and lasting love. And food. so very grateful for real food.”

~ Theresa Rosenthal

“I am thankful for:
Sunrises that warm your soul..
Friends that make you rock and roll..
The ultimate gift of life and spirit..
Joyful for the time we have in it…”

~Kaye Bentley

“I’m grateful I can still choose when I poo.”

~ Chris Farnsworth

Photo: rachel_titiriga

Here are my favorite thanks-giving thoughts for the week:

“I am grateful for getting laid off from a difficult 8 year stint in engineering, because if that didn’t happen, I would not have discovered what I really want to be when I grow up; a superhero.”

- Monica Bhatnagar, actress/writer

“I am thankful to be able to wholeheartedly pursue my creative endeavors!”

-Drea Roemer, singer/songwriter

“I am thankful for the opportunities I’ve had in my life. I’m well aware that most people aren’t so lucky.”

-Hayes Ferguson, social worker

“I’m grateful for friends and loved ones, the Appalachian Mountains, freedom to be, the joys of commitment, Pi (my dog), music, poetry, and exploration.”

-Anna Jane Joyner, writer/healthcare consultant

“I’m thankful for full moons on brisk nights, rustling leaves in the fall, and long johns.”

-Carlo Alcos, writer/editor

Send me yours at christine@holisticwithhumor.com, and I’ll post my favorites every Friday in November!

Photo: Markus Rödder

Yep, times are tough. But most all of us have more than one thing to be thankful for.

It seems like the more you talk about and focus on what you are grateful for, the more plentiful it becomes (and, on the same note, the more you focus on the tough stuff, the more shows up).

It’s a super busy time of year. Yet at its base, fall and winter are about slowing down, taking stock, and appreciating what we planted, tilled, and harvested this year. It’s also the time to be thanks-giving, to the Earth (or your job, or your family, or a higher power) for what has been provided to you.

I love that revolution is occurring all over the world. But I also love the quietness of sitting in gratefulness, even if it’s just for a few moments a day.

So I’m here to prompt you to take 2 minutes each day for the month of November to write down, say out loud, Facebook and/or Tweet, scream from the mountaintops what you are thankful for (thanks to Dre Kernodle for the idea). Then, if you like, send it over to me at christine@holisticwithhumor.com. I’ll publish a list of the most-inspired ones – or just ones that move me, which I’m guessing will be most of them, but I’ll try and keep it down to a minimum – each Friday of the month.

Here’s mine for today to get your thought process going:

I am grateful for my super cozy apartment (particularly when I keep it clean), as it affords a great space for getting work done and having dinner parties alike.

Now it’s your turn to do some thanks-giving. Don’t forget to send it over to me at christine@holisticwithhumor.com, along with your name and any links you want published!

Speaking of 30 days, check out the great blog my friend Shelley Seale has been keeping all year, 30 Days at a Time. Every month, she has completed a different project that lasted 30 days, ranging from living on only six items of clothing to eating only locally – no matter where she was. Get inspired by her great ideas!

Photo: Original Bliss

Hey, dear readers, I know I’ve been gone for a while. It’s been one of those up and down sessions of life, as we all go through at different times. For a little while, I had to focus elsewhere in my life (as I’m sure many of you can relate).

Still, I have watched from afar as people traveled first to NYC to Occupy Wall Street, followed by people who traveled to their own downtown to Occupy their own Wall Street. There is more than an air of frustration, anguish, and changes afoot – it might just be time for a revolution.

Strike that – it IS time for a revolution.

As many of us face the outer struggle for money to pay our bills on time, the dream to one day have health insurance again, and to not be constantly running ragged in order to still not be able to keep up, we also are facing the inner struggle of what it means to be a human being on this planet at this time. Are we here to work to the bone, or to be fulfilled? Are we here to produce for others, or create for ourselves? Where is the line?

For too long, we have followed what we’ve been told instead of following our inner compass. Now, I know if you’ve read this blog before, or ones similar to it, this is hardly a new message. You may feel a bit smacked over the head with it. But considering every little bit of mainstream media from TV to magazines to movies are telling you the opposite – telling you to work harder and spend a lot of money to reach someone else’s ideal – I’m gonna say it again:

Live your own authentic self.

Easier said than done, certainly. Most of us tend to think we are following our heart, our ideals, and on some levels we are. But so often, what we think is in our heart, what we think are our ideals, are merely those than have been imprinted on us from day 1 via parents, via culture, via the others that are imprinted with the same crap.

So it can take time to unwrap your true authentic self. It means tuning in constantly to that inner, steady voice and allowing it to have its say. It means sitting in silence for long periods of time so you can decipher between that ego-driven maniac and the gentler gut expression. It means setting up boundaries when others talk about what they (and inadvertently, you) should be doing. It means working with your body every day, and working out the preconceived notions in your head continuously.

Because as long as we continue to identify with the outer roars, the more our inner selves change, mutate, become sick. Our hearts, souls, tissues, muscles, and bones need us to live our truths in order for them to do their job.

As Anais Nin said:

When one is pretending, the entire body revolts.

If you don’t follow what your soul is pushing for in this life, you will get sick. It’s the breakdown of the “spirit” aspect of the mind-body-spirit health trifecta.

But you have to believe that whatever your soul wants you to do, see, or accomplish in this life is in your best interest, and will therefore bring you the nourishment, feelings of fulfillment, and yes money to not only survive, but thrive. That your soul wants you to seriously kick ass while having fun (and experiencing pain some of the time. It’s part of being human, and it breeds compassion).

I’ve decided to move deeper into my soul’s calling by working more with people one-on-one with their health issues, imparting some of the wisdom that has been given to me by many wonderful teachers of the years. This is my internal feeding – one that will make me stronger – that will also externally benefit the world.

Kick up your own internal revolution as we watch the external revolution happen (and I know many of you are part of it). Your health – and the health of our world – depends on it.

Photo: epSos.de

When I finally figured out (aka remembered) that my tiny old iPod had a clock on it, I frantically looked at the ticking digits to see how much time I had for a shower. Or a few yoga poses. Maybe even a nap.

The time was always ahead of where I thought it was.

This fact didn’t pass me by easily; I was in Belize, with no computer, no iPhone, not even a watch. Three days it took me to recall there was a clock on the only technological instrument I brought with me.

I had brought none of those radiation producers mostly as a way to disconnect. I’m on the computer all the time. Sometimes 10 hours a day. I know it’s not good for my health, but it’s my work.

I needed a break.

So, while everyone else on this press trip whipped out their phones the second we got in wifi range (which was incredibly often in this country that I assumed we’d have little access to), I sat and looked around at my surroundings at the Machacha Hill Lodge: the large green leaves on the trees that seemed to wave hello in my direction. The massive spotted beetle with his own version of tweezers attached the front of his body, wearily trudging by. The mosquitoes that tried to bite through the back of Bob’s shirt as he unknowingly looked off into space.

(The rainforest was different than I thought it would be. I always imagined the jungle to be deep foliage and rain with little horizon and no way out. Then again, maybe we didn’t go deep enough.)

But I expected these moments would lounge, maybe like they did when I was in Zambia, or even when I would walk around London for hours, exploring its inner crossways and streets that decided to change names three times over. Instead, though the balminess of Belize had me breathing a little easier and my brain slowed down to thoughts of Maya ruins and the shift of consciousness in 2012, time still seemed on overdrive. Wherever. I. Went.

Why is this happening? Is time really speeding up?

The Hypotheses/Myths

Many myths abound / Photo: The Queen's Hall

Well, if you take a little tour around the internet under the search, “time speeding up”, you will inevitably find many sites dedicated to 2012 and few linked to any sort of science – even quantum physics.

The easiest thing I could find to understand that might get some backing from the science-minded set is Suzanne Taylor’s take at TheConversation.org (even then, it includes references to the end of the Maya calendar and is a site about crop circles, so scientific people can go ahead and cringe uncontrollably now):

Imagine a ball rolling across a level surface, the distance it travels each second would be constant, apart from the effect of friction – this is a linear approach that is similar to how we perceive life. However, if the ball were dropped from the top of a tall building, in the first second it would travel thirty-two feet. But the time it would take to travel the next thirty-two feet would be less than half a second as its speed would increase exponentially because of the accelerating force of gravity.

If you were a microbe on this ball, you might therefore conclude that time is speeding up. In this case it is not time that is speeding up, it is the distance traveled that is increasing each second. In a similar way, evolution is also exponential and time is not speeding up, but the number of events occurring in each year is increasing.

Easy enough – the more we do, the more we are connected, the faster time seems to go by. There are very few people I know that haven’t uttered the phrase, “this year is going by so fast!” for well, the last three years or so. Every day, there is more to get done, with technology that keeps adding new networking tools (ahem, Google+) to news that tells us about the latest flood that occurred in the mid-West or earthquake in New Zealand to the latest bombing in Delhi.

But is it just the technological impact, or is there something deeper going on? Again, it’s hard to find “concrete” resources on this subject, one because of its new-age connotations and websites full of flashing aliens and fairies, and second because really, you can’t stick plastic in a compost mound and expect it to decompose. But here’s something at least kinda scientific: Mathematician Tony Smith explains Schumann Resonances, geomagnetic reversals, and human brain states:

Just as a tuning fork has natural frequencies for sound, the planet Earth has natural frequencies, called Schumann resonances, for electromagnetic radiation. The Human Brain also has natural frequencies for electromagnetic radiation. It turns out that the Earth’s Schumann resonances are “in tune” with the Human Brains’s Alpha States and Theta States…the fundamental frequency could be varied due to a number of things: the strength and configuration of Earth’s magnetic field, which has been weakening for the past 2,000 years; the composition and properties of the atmosphere…the solar sunspot cycle; electromagnetic storms from the sun; electromagnetic properties of the Earth, such as “earthquake lights”…thunderstorms…

What does this mean? Well, it could mean several things: another magnetic field reversal (and yes, pole shifts have occurred before), that the Earth’s frequency is changing and our bodies are struggling to keep up, which makes us feel like time is moving faster, that the increase in Schumann resonance while the Earth slows its rotation means eventually meeting at a zero point magnetic field, which means everything will stop for a moment (guess when?) and then start turning in the other direction.

There’s also British author/conspiracy theorist David Icke’s thoughts on time speeding up, and Terence McKenna’s Time Wave Theory. I’m sure there are countless variations on these ideas.

What the Point?

Time standing still / Photo: h.koppdelaney

There is plenty to worry about, what with the possibility of asteroids hitting the earth and aliens making us their love-slaves. Oh wait, that was just in several dozen A and B-list Hollywood movies.

I think that what counts right now, for each of us, is that most everything feels out of our control, including time. Our lives seem to be slipping away from us with the bigger to-do lists and the aspirations yet to be fulfilled. Decisions are being made more quickly; loss doesn’t have a chance to settle.

Too much of this impacts our body – our health – more than most of us can comprehend. Until it’s diabetes. Or a heart attack. Or cancer. That internal feeling of must-get-it-all-done-there’s-not-enough-time-in-the-day is an actual internal motion that speeds up our heart beat, increases our insulin, beats the crap out of our adrenals. It robs us of our sleep – the time to cleanse and repair – which takes away our focus while we are awake. So we use extra caffeine to get through the day, and an extra wine to come down for the night. That’s the cycle.

Yes, it felt to me, even in Belize, that time is speeding up, however much some people scream pseudoscience and hell and damnation. If it feels that way to so many people, isn’t it true – even if it’s something we can’t ‘prove’?

So I remember looking at those large green Belizean leaves and the broken body of a beetle just trying to survive. I remember doing this instead of looking at the clicking in of emails on my iPhone. And I think, ‘this time is all the time we have.’

Photo: HikingArtist.com

An article from last year is making it’s way around FB again (don’t you love when a good one pops back up a year or two later?). It’s called Nurse reveals the top 5 regrets people make on their deathbed, and it offers up those little tidbits that we all know, but need to be reminded of again and again:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Most people have had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks – love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice.

Most days I wake up now and wonder what I will hear has happened in the world during my sleep – a tornado here, an earthquake there, food-borne illnesses somewhere in the middle, ‘leaders’ who continue to endanger and eliminate their own people. I read about how we are moving into the Dark Industrial Age and that we might as well all start planting gardens and sewing our own clothes because it’s going to get ugly real, real soon.

Maybe the world isn’t ending, but it’s certainly going through some serious growing pains.

Let’s put that all aside for the moment. Yep, there are a lot of ways we each individually need to change in how we relate to our outer world, but really, we gotta change our inner world first. And these simple five steps remind us of the basics that we quickly forget in our everyday lives, inner basics that make us make different outer choices.

Yeah, sometimes you gotta work hard to express those feelings and stay in touch with friends. And sometimes to express your feelings means you’re not always going to be happy. Having the courage to go after your work sometimes means you’ll lose friendships.

But basically, these steps take us back to our heart, the heart that feeds our fulfillment in this lifetime. When we get too far from our heart, we give away the sense of who we are, and what we are doing here.

There are only a couple of things I would add to the list above:

6. Lose the guilt.

Maybe this one is just me, but I spend an inordinate amount of time feeling guilty. Guilty for not getting back to people. Guilty for not being a good enough friend. Guilty for taking the last piece of chocolate. Yes, we need to be aware of our actions and how they impact others, but really, guilt is just a way of internalizing your own sh-t and doesn’t help the person you feel bad about.

7. Stop comparing yourself to others.

I’ll just reference what I previously wrote on this topic. Also, see guilt for what it does to you.

8. Show more gratitude.

Simple. And often can make up for that guilt thing.