A Beautiful Prayer

I asked God to take away my pain and bad luck.
God said, "No, it is not for me to take away, but for you to give it up."

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole,
God said, "No, his spirit is whole, his body is only temporary."

I asked God to grant me patience,
God said, "No, patience is a by product of tribulations, it isn't granted, it is learned."

I asked God to give me happiness,
God said, "No, I give you blessings, happiness is up to you."

I asked God to spare me pain and depression,
God said, "No,suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to me."

I asked God to make my spirit grow,
God said, "No, you must grow on your own, but I will prune you to make you fruitful."

I asked God for money and all things that I might enjoy in life,
God said, "No, I will give you life, so that you may enjoy all things."

I asked God to help me LOVE others, as much as he loves me,
God Said...."Ahhhhhh, finally you have the idea."

Today is yours, don't throw it away.
 May God bless you

To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.

~unknown~

I leave these words with you that they may bring you hope and encouragement.

Wellness Continued

This is part two of Wellness. To recap;

Wellness is the pursuit of the best health possible through fit body, balanced mind and peaceful spirit.

• Increase self esteem, self worth, optimism and confidence
• Help forget your own physical or emotional pain
• Help decrease stress and acts as a stress release
• Improve immune response
• Decrease feelings of depression and self doubt
• Increase sense of balance and over all well being

Step 4 follows on from number 3.
Increase self esteem, self worth, optimism and confidence. As we decrease depression & self doubt we also increase self worth and optimism.
What is self Esteem?
Your self-esteem is the way you look at yourself. If you have good self-esteem it means that you like yourself and you believe that you are as 'OK' as everyone else.

All human pain is caused by words...

....as is all joy according to a Yogic sage.
"We create words to define our experiences and those words bring attendant emotions that jerk us around like dogs on a leash. We get seduced by our own mantras (I'm a failure....I'm lonely...I'm a failure....I'm lonely...) and we become monuments to them. To stop talking for a while , then, is to attempt to strip away the power of words." This is from Eat, Pray,Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

When I read this I thought YES!!! This is so true. but if we stop talking our thoughts take over for us with more words and often these are more compelling as we can hear them more clearly when we aren't talking. This is one of the reasons people try to stay busy as much as possible, they are trying to escape this incessant thoughts or words.

But the only way to stop these incessant thoughts is to listen to them and refute them. Give them your full atttention for a few minutes and then senf them away. They remind me of small children when Mum is talking with friends, they tug on mum's dress going "Mun, mum, mum, mum,..." over and over again until Mum gives them a moment of her undivided attention, addresses what they need and sends them off to play. We need to do this with our thoughts.

1. Stop and listen to them
2. Address them and the issues. ie I'm a failure... Am I really? Is EVERYTHING I do a failure?
3. Say to the thought, NO!~I may fail at some things, but so does everyone, it's part of being human. I am okay!
4. Send them on their way. ie Ok I've heard you now & we know you are exagerating so off you go.

To do this we need to stop every now and then and be quite and still firstly to hear our thoughts and then to deal with them.

If we do this we will find our words start to bring us joy instead of pain.

Often finding time and a place for quite reflection is hard so if you want to set up a healing or quite place look at my "Healing Art" images and add one to your room so that you can sit and contemplate a beautiful nature scene while you give time to your thoughts and dealing with them.

If you want to know more please leave a comment or contact me.

We are all Disabled!

We are all disabled in some way, it is part of the human condition.

Please explain?.....

Disability does not have to be a physical thing we can see or a mental illness we can quantify, it can be emotional scars, chronic conditions, and much more.

Lets look at the definition of "disabled"

According to Wikapedia:
"A disability in humans may be physical, cognitive/mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these."

In plain English, a disability is something that affects the way we get along in society.

For example.When we see a blind person we automatically realize they have a disability, they usually have a cane or a guide dog to help them, but are they any more disabled than the person with emotional scars that no-one can see and that continually gets hit by the preverbial bus when it comes to realtionships.

If a person was physically hit by a bus we would see the damage, either as a fatality or serious physical injury, but what about the person hit by an emotional bus, we see them all the time, people constantly making poor choices and then lamenting about how bad things always happen to them. These people are just as disabled as the blind person,  in some cases more so, as they don't see they have a disability and take the necessary measures to compensate for it.

So why write a blog about it?

Because I believe that if we realize that we all have disabilities we will realize that people with obvious disabilities are no different than the rest of us. We are all people, all trying to get along in society the best we can. People with disabilities do not need to be condescended to or treated any different to anyone else, we are all in the same boat.

Also unless we realize we have a problem we can't treat it. How many people have we heard of have a disease but no symptoms until it's too late, but if it had been caught earlier it could have been cured.
The same goes for disabilities, as we recognize them we can take steps to either overcome them or learn to live with them in a productive way.

So the question is, "What disabilities do you have?"
Do you have allergies, a chronic illness, arthritis, chrones, pain, emotional scars from previous relationships, your upbringing, your religion, your nationality, over sensitivity, lack of emotional connection.....the list goes on and on.

Perhaps now is a good time to rethink those with disabilities and realize we are all the same. Next time you see someone with an obvious disability smile at them knowing you to have your disabilities, just not as obvious and may we all work towards a healthier life, physically, spiritually and mentally.

I have many disabilities and have found that nature is a wonderful healing balm and I receive that healing on a daily basis through my photography and immersing myself in nature. I realize many people cannot do this & so I have "Healing Art"  prints that you can have in your home or your office or even a care facility to enable you too, to experience the healing balm of nature.

I wish you peace, love and happiness....and remember for ALL of us healing is an ongoing process...be kind to yourself and others.