Believe Nothing

It Does Not Exist

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Right Or "Right For You"

When you believe something is right, you may be tempted to tell other people what they should and shouldn’t do. When you believe something is right for you, you honor that belief, but accept what other people choose to do without feeling the need to negate it.

When you believe something is right, you may be tempted to judge other people if they don’t support your belief. When you believe something is right for you, you realize it isn’t a threat when someone else thinks differently.

When you believe something is right, you may be tempted to fight for it. When you believe something is right for you, you feel at peace whether someone else agrees with you or not.

Proteins

Proteins are long chains of amino acids, and your body needs a complete set of the acids in order to build body tissues. Meats contain them all, making them “complete” proteins.
Some plant-based proteins are “complete” but most are “incomplete,” meaning that they are low in one or more of the essential amino acids—but incomplete proteins can be combined to provide adequate amounts of all the essential amino acids.
Recent studies show that eating a variety of vegetables, nuts and grains can combine to give your body the complete proteins it needs.

The Illusion

Passionate Friends

"Marriage, ultimately, is the practice of becoming passionate friends. "

Harville Hendrix

Inner Worth

May you find enough inner strength to determine your own worth by
yourself,
And not be dependent on another's judgment of your accomplishments.

Healthy Snacks

Racing to the mall? Pack good-for-you snacks like nuts so you don’t eat junk.
Whether you’re simply racing around shopping or racing to the airport, packing smart snacks can mean the difference between 200 good-for-you calories and 600 saturated-fat-laden ones.
When you go for long periods of time without eating or you consume too few calories, your brain senses the starvation and sends an SOS signal throughout your body to actually store fat, not burn it. The next thing you know, you’re inhaling a hot dog and a bag of chips and kicking yourself for not having more willpower.
If you always have a few go-to healthy snacks on hand, you’ll avoid this diet disaster. The ideal snack will satisfy your hunger while pleasing your palate. Eating half an ounce of raw nuts (like 6 walnut halves) with a piece of fruit, like a banana or a cup of berries, gives you some crunch plus something sweet. Walnuts are also loaded with good-for-you omega-3 fats, which in addition to helping your heart and brain health, also increase chemicals that help you feel satiated longer.

Being Yourself

NOW

Stop waiting until you finish school, until you go back to school, until you lose ten pounds, until you gain ten pounds, until you have kids, until your kids leave the house, until you start work, until you retire, until you get married, until you get divorced, until Friday night, until Sunday morning, until you get a new car or home, until your car or home is paid off, until spring, until summer, until fall, until winter, until you are off welfare, until the first or fifteenth, until your song comes on, until you've had a drink, until you've sobered up, until you die, until you are born again to decide that there is no better time than right now to decide to change something.

Inner Worth

"Outer show is a poor substitute for inner worth."

Aesop

Drop The Excuses

Think your weight is dictated by your DNA? Nice try. Even those with so-called fat genes can counteract the effects with exercise.
Good news for those who come from a long line of people with weight problems: Your genes are not your destiny. Research shows that even people who are predisposed to obesity can maintain a healthy weight by getting a moderate amount of exercise.
The study found that just 30 minutes of exercise five days a week was enough to significantly modify the effects of so-called fat genes. And those 30 minutes don’t have to be insane sweat sessions either — a brisk walk with your dog will do just fine. The genes that predispose people to obesity are not rare: 74 percent of people from Europe, 76 percent of African-Americans and 44 percent of Asians carry them. According to the researchers, this is proof positive that people should not sit back and say, “There is nothing I can do about my weight.”
Exercising for 30 minutes per day at a moderate level might just be a critical part of the ticket toward maintaining a healthy weight. Remember to get moving, and that every little bit helps.

Be LOVE

Calm Spirit

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit.
Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever,
even if your whole world seems upset.

Saint Francis de Sales

Open Hearts

When we open our hearts, they may feel tender and vulnerable, which simply means that they need our loving attention as we cleanse and heal them of past hurts and blockages. This process asks us to practice some of the heart's greatest lessons—patience, compassion, and unconditional love.
On the other hand, we may take up residence as effortlessly as a bird returns to its nest. Either way, approaching life with an open heart simply means returning to our true home.

Holiday Feasts

Wondering why your scale steadily creeps up year after year? Blame the end-of-year holiday feasts. Whether it’s two pounds or 10, the weight you gain between Thanksgiving and New Year’s stays with you even after the holidays are gone.
Research shows that most people gain only a couple of pounds during the annual holiday festivities, but instead of shedding it come the New Year, people hold on to it forever. That’s why keeping the pounds off during the holiday season is key to maintaining a healthy weight and your fabulous figure.
Liquid calories can creep up on you quickly, because they won’t fill you up, like food will. Skip the appetizers altogether, unless there are healthy treats like shrimp or crudités that you can eat without overloading on calories. To avoid temptation, don’t show up hungry, and keep yourself busy and away from the snacks, by helping out your hosts.

Willing

Kind Deeds

"The whole worth of a kind deed is
in the love that inspires it. "

The Talmud

Old Nonsense

Finish each day and be done with it.
You have done what you could;
some blunders and absurdities have crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely
and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Holiday Stress

As joyful as the holidays are, they can feel challenging as well. Money crunches, family conflict and lack of time can bring on feelings of stress.
So how do you keep it all in check? Try to remember the big picture.
Very few things in life can turn out perfectly, and the holidays are no exception. Someone won’t like their gift, relatives will butt heads and the holidays — and life — will go on.
Today’s headaches turn into tomorrow’s laughable tales. Just be sure to take time for yourself, acknowledge your feelings and treat yourself well.
Even if you feel like you don’t have a second to spare, grant yourself a few minutes to connect with friends, watch a funny movie or squeeze in a workout. Doing things that put you in a positive mood will help you cope with all of the little challenges that the holidays can bring.

First

Contrast

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.
If we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."

Anne Bradstreet

Healing Love

Stop criticizing yourself—now and forevermore.
Love and accept yourself as you are right now.
When you do, you’ll blossom in ways that you can’t even imagine.
Love will heal you.
Your love for yourself will work miracles in your life.

Oatmeal

OATMEAL POWER!
This complex carbohydrate (the good kind) is slow to digest and helps to keep blood sugar levels stable while keeping you feeling full. Research also shows that consuming oatmeal reduces a person’s cravings for fatty foods.
Be sure to eat the unsweetened kind.
Sprinkle with ground flax seeds for even more fat-fighting power.

Humanity

Miracles

"There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle. "

Albert Einstein

Loving Yourself

It’s difficult for other people to love you when you don’t love yourself.

Even if someone else does love you, you’re most likely to discount it by wondering, How could they love me? What do they see in me?

When you don’t love yourself, it’s hard to believe that you deserve good things in life. Therefore, you miss out on the abundance that’s available to you.

If you find it difficult or scary to accept love and to let love into your life, it’s only because you haven’t been willing to love youself.

Open your heart to yourself and it will become easier to let others love you.

A Suggestion- "FREE" Days

Control holiday eating by giving yourself just six occasions to splurge through the year.
Choose just six occasions for splurging on your favorite not-so-good-for-you foods — whether it’s your birthday, Christmas or New Year’s — and you’ll set yourself up for success at all the other events you attend throughout the year.
This plan is especially helpful during the holiday season. Think back over 2011 and consider if you still have splurging occasions left to use. As part of your New Year’s resolutions, be sure to decide on your indulge dates for 2012!

Re-Examine

Compassionate Acts

The holiday season promotes
a heightened sense of community.
It draws our chins up and
helps us look above and over the limiting fence of our own events,
activities and preoccupations.
The opportunity for a heroic gesture
can tap you quietly on the shoulder in the midst of a holiday bustle.
If you are attentive, you will notice the gentle touch
and will be able to respond.

Remember...
There are no small acts of kindness.
Every compassionate act makes large the world.

Avoiding Holiday Weight Gain

To avoid making poor food choices, write down everything you eat in a small notebook.
During the holidays, keep a small notebook with you at all times or use a notebook page in your smartphone and write down everything you eat. This will keep you from eating absentmindedly and from making poor food choices.

Keeping a food journal helps control caloric intake and prevents between-meal munching. It’s simply too much trouble to eat if you have to write it down every time! Not only will this trick prevent weight gain, it may even help you lose a few pounds.

During the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, the 25 percent of people who had lost weight during the rest of the year — those who most consistently recorded every bite of food — lost an average of seven pounds, whereas the other 75 percent regained an average of three pounds.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness means that you fill yourself with love and you radiate that love outward and refuse to hang onto the venom or hatred that was engendered by the behaviors that caused the wounds.
Forgiveness is a spiritual act of love for yourself and it sends a message to everyone, including yourself, that you are an object of love and that that is what you are going to impart.

Being Fooled

Letting Go

To let go isn't to forget, not to think about, or ignore. It doesn't leave feelings of anger, jealousy, or regret.
Letting go isn't about winning or losing. It's not about pride and it's not about how you appear, and it's not obsessing or dwelling on the past.
Letting go isn't blocking memories or thinking sad thoughts, and it doesn't leave emptiness, hurt, or sadness. It's not about giving in or giving up.
Letting go isn't about loss and it's not about defeat. To let go is to cherish the memories, but to overcome and move on. It is having an open mind and confidence in the future.
Letting go is learning and experiencing and growing. To let go is to be thankful for the experiences that made you laugh, made you cry, and made you grow. It's about all that you have, all that you had, and all that you will soon gain.
Letting go is having the courage to accept change, and the strength to keep moving. Letting go is growing up. It is realizing that the heart can sometimes be the most potent remedy.

To let go is to open a door,
and to clear a path
and set yourself free.

Overcoming

"Although the world is full of suffering,
it is full also of the overcoming of it.
My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail."

Helen Keller

Whole Grains

Make over some of your favorite holiday recipes using fiber-packed whole grains.
Whole grains contain a lot of fiber, which is important for preventing arterial aging and reducing the risk of cancer. Whole grains also help keep blood sugar levels steady, help you feel full and lose weight, and keep your digestive system regular. Whole grains are grains that have not been stripped of their outer layers, the source of many key nutrients, and haven’t been refined, which means they retain most of their vitamins and minerals.
White flour products, on the other hand, have been stripped of the healthy outer shell and germ. This causes your body to quickly convert the carbohydrates to sugar in your bloodstream, causing the proteins in your body to be less functional, which ages your immune and arterial systems and even your joints. Instead of using white flour products in your holiday recipes, try 100 percent whole grains instead.

This Moment

"YOU" Time

We can excel easier in our lives when our own spiritual, physical, and intellectual needs are fulfilled.
Within each of us there is a well of energy that must be regularly replenished. When we act as if this well is bottomless, scheduling a long list of activities that fit like puzzle pieces into every minute of every day, it becomes depleted and we feel exhausted, disconnected, and weak. Refilling this well is a matter of finding time to focus on, nurture, and care for ourselves, or "you time."
Most of us are, at different times throughout the day, a spouse, a friend, a relative, an employee, a parent, or a volunteer, which means that down time, however relaxing in nature, is not necessarily "you time."
Though some people will inevitably look upon "you time" as being selfish, it is actually the polar opposite of selfishness. We can only excel where our outer world affairs are concerned when our own spiritual, physical, and intellectual needs are fulfilled.

Value

“Try not to become a man of success but rather a man of value.”

Albert Einstein

A Wonderful New Year Resolution

Want to enjoy a long, healthy life? Resolve to quit smoking and avoid second hand smoke in the New Year.
What’s the most important New Year’s resolution you can make? To quit smoking. Smoking puts you at an increased risk for chronic diseases like lung cancer, emphysema, bronchitis, heart disease and diabetes. Smoking also ages you: It can make you look and feel eight to 13 years older than you really are.

Stay away from secondhand smoke too: The smoke that burns off the end of a cigarette or cigar actually contains more harmful substances than the smoke inhaled by the smoker!

I Choose

Risk

"The trouble is,
if you don't risk anything,
you risk even more."

Erica Jong

Authenticity

Rediscovering who you are apart from your roles and traits takes time and also courage. If, like many, you have denied your authenticity for a long while, you may find it difficult to separate your true identity from the identity you have created to cope with the world around you.
Once you do find this authentic self, however, you will be overcome by a wonderful sense of wholeness as you reconcile your spiritual aspect and your physical aspect, as well as your inner and outer-world personas.
As you gradually adjust to this developing unity, your role as a being of light will reveal itself to you, and you will discover that you have a marvelous destiny to fulfill.

A Holiday Party Strategy

Keep weight off by exercising pre-party or going for a brisk walk before dessert.
Whether you go to the gym before a party or go for a brisk walk or bike ride between dinner and dessert, or even instead of dessert — not only burns some of those extra calories but also reduces the stress that comes with end-of-the-year festivities.

Truth

Forgiveness

"Forgiveness is the finishing of old business that allows us to experience the present, free of contamination from the past. "

Joan Borysenko

Dreams

At each stage of our life we are allowed to have different dreams and goals. As we mature we can let some of our dreams “retire” because we discover goals that are more important to us.
Letting go of a dream doesn’t mean that you have failed at reaching it. It means that you have cleared space for a more meaningful and mature goal in your life.

Grapes

Red and purple grapes contain the same disease-fighting compound found in wine – resveratrol – which has been shown to slow the growth of cancer cells and block tumor formation in the liver, stomach and breast.
Lycopene, the pigment that gives grapes their color, also boasts cancer-fighting properties.

Motivated

Within Reach

"Love is a fruit in season at all times,
and within reach of every hand."

Mother Teresa