Here they are -- the Top Ten Healthy Thoughts of the year. Thanks to all of you who took the time to vote.
10. "Truth doesn't need protection, it needs expression."
Lou Corletto, D.C.
9. "Struggle ends where commitment begins."
Sumner Davenport
8. "The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough."
Professor Randy Pausch
A Dying Professor's Last Lecture.
7. "I hate gettin' old."
"Then quit gettin' old!"
A conversation I overheard at the gym
6. "What you wish to experience, provide for another."
His Holiness The Dalai Lama
5. "Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives."
Louise Hay
4. "What humans can be, they must be."
Abraham Maslow
3. "If your spirit is willing, you body will follow."
A triathlete I ran with during the Grand Columbian Triathlon.
2. "You are a being of beauty and perfection!"
My personal favorite
1. "There is only one journey: going inside yourself."
Rainer Maria Rilke
Others receiving votes:
"The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start."
John "The Penguin" Bingham
"We stand tallest while reaching for our dreams."
Inside a greeting card.
"Your dreams are your real job."
Joyce Spizer
"The future is not someplace we are going to, but one we are creating."
Deborah James
"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attracions."
Albert Einstein
Do not worry whether you have strength enough for the journey.
It is on the journey that you will find the strength.
"One regret, dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough."
Hafiz
Additionally, although I didn't ask for a vote on the best link or video of the year, one reader cast a vote for "Best Video." Great idea! I'll keep that in mind for next year. This year's winner, by a margin of a single vote, is Mountain Wingsuit.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Welcome the Light!
"Life is a celebration of awakenings, of new beginnings, and wonderful surprises that enlighten the soul."
Author unknown
Today (Saturday) we celebrate the Winter Solstice. Although Mother Earth is still sleeping under a soft blanket of winter snow, we now welcome the lengthening days and increasing light in our lives.
So, how did I celebrate?
I was honored to join friends old and new and participate in a sweat lodge. The lodge is an insulated dome within a tipi where a dozen of us sat shoulder to shoulder in a circle as the fire keeper delivered hot rocks into the shallow pit in the center of the lodge. After delivering the rocks, she closed the entrance, leaving us in complete darkness except for the glow of the red-hot rocks which had spent the last couple of hours heating up in the sacred fire. Dry sage was sprinkled onto the hot rocks, followed by ladle after ladle of water. The resulting steamy heat is aromatic, and intense!
A sweat lodge is physically and mentally challenging, and deeply spiritually purifying. In the lodge -- the womb of the Mother -- we offer prayers to honor our Mother, Spirit and each other. As we sweat we shed that which no longer serves, awaken our inherent beauty and perfection, and allow our inner light to shine more brilliantly than ever before. Emerging from the lodge represents a new beginning in our lives. For me, among other things, I embrace this as an opportunity to become ever more committed to serving you as a healer, writer and speaker.
And whether you celebrated the solstice or not, pause to consider how today might be a new beginning for you, too...
Author unknown
Today (Saturday) we celebrate the Winter Solstice. Although Mother Earth is still sleeping under a soft blanket of winter snow, we now welcome the lengthening days and increasing light in our lives.
So, how did I celebrate?
I was honored to join friends old and new and participate in a sweat lodge. The lodge is an insulated dome within a tipi where a dozen of us sat shoulder to shoulder in a circle as the fire keeper delivered hot rocks into the shallow pit in the center of the lodge. After delivering the rocks, she closed the entrance, leaving us in complete darkness except for the glow of the red-hot rocks which had spent the last couple of hours heating up in the sacred fire. Dry sage was sprinkled onto the hot rocks, followed by ladle after ladle of water. The resulting steamy heat is aromatic, and intense!
A sweat lodge is physically and mentally challenging, and deeply spiritually purifying. In the lodge -- the womb of the Mother -- we offer prayers to honor our Mother, Spirit and each other. As we sweat we shed that which no longer serves, awaken our inherent beauty and perfection, and allow our inner light to shine more brilliantly than ever before. Emerging from the lodge represents a new beginning in our lives. For me, among other things, I embrace this as an opportunity to become ever more committed to serving you as a healer, writer and speaker.
And whether you celebrated the solstice or not, pause to consider how today might be a new beginning for you, too...
Saturday, December 15, 2007
The Life of Your Dreams
"The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams."
Oprah Winfrey
(Thanks, Mary Jo)
Here's an interesting thing. When I first typed this up and went back to proofread it, I found a typo that was so cool I was tempted to not correct it. What I originally wrote was, "...to love the life of your dreams." Was that typo just a clumsy-fingered accident...or maybe my subconscious mind slyly sneaking out the message that I really wanted to convey? Hmmm...
Either way, you get the point. Life itself can be the most thrilling adventure of all, but only if you're pursuing your dreams. Like these guys.
(Thanks for the video, Marsha.)
Oprah Winfrey
(Thanks, Mary Jo)
Here's an interesting thing. When I first typed this up and went back to proofread it, I found a typo that was so cool I was tempted to not correct it. What I originally wrote was, "...to love the life of your dreams." Was that typo just a clumsy-fingered accident...or maybe my subconscious mind slyly sneaking out the message that I really wanted to convey? Hmmm...
Either way, you get the point. Life itself can be the most thrilling adventure of all, but only if you're pursuing your dreams. Like these guys.
(Thanks for the video, Marsha.)
Healthy Toughts for Body, Mind and Spirit - 2007
Listed below are all of this year's previous Healthy Thoughts. Please vote for your favorites by posting a comment below, or by sending me an email at TurnOnLife@juno.com. I'll post the "Top 10 Greatest Hits" on December 30.
Enjoy!
"People living deeply have no fear of death."
Anais Nin
"I have a dream ..."
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Progress consists largely of learning to apply laws and truths that have always existed."
John Allan May
"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attracions."
Albert Einstein
"One regret, dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough."
Hafiz
"Truth doesn't need protection, it needs expression."
Lou Corletto, D.C.
"Nature and creativity obey the same laws to the same end.
Life."
Robert Redford
"He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything."
Arabian proverb
"The future is not someplace we are going to, but one we are creating."
Deborah James
"What you wish to experience, provide for another."
The Dalai Lama
"I hate gettin' old."
"Then quit gettin' old!"
A conversation I overheard at the gym
The Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
Kent M. Keith (This is the original, historically accurate version)
"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
Calvin Coolidge
Do not worry whether you have strength enough for the journey.
It is on the journey that you will find the strength.
"If I am through learning, I am through.
John Wooden
"Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does."
Josh Billings
"As your consciousness expands, so will your level of expectation. Keep asking yourself, 'am I selling myself short?' Most of us are."
John R. Spannuth
"Your dreams are your real job."
Joyce Spizer
"Sustained happiness stems from being and becoming, not acquiring and possessing. Happiness is a byproduct of living life to the fullest."
Steve Siebold
"Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstances."
Bruce Barton
"We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the Godlike in ourselves."
Abraham Maslow
"...to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession."
Carlos Castaneda
"Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple."
C. W. Ceram
"Repeat anything long enough and it will start to become you."
Tom Hopkins
"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So...get on your way!"
Dr. Seuss
"You can!"
Dick and Rick Hoyt
"The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."
Charles Dubois
"None of us can change our yesterdays but all of us can change our tomorrows."
Colin Powell
"Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives."
Louise Hay
"Point two fingers, not one."
Alix Bryan
P.E.A.C.E. Scooter
"We attract back to us the world we perceive. It's like being in school and getting to choose your own grades. Why not give yourself an A? Many people are giving themselves a C when the universe would gladly give them an A."
Steve Siebold
"The miracle isn't that I finished.
The miracle is that I had the courage to start."
John "The Penguin" Bingham
"We stand tallest while reaching for our dreams."
Inside a greeting card.
"Accuse not Nature, she hath done her part.
Do thou but thine."
John Milton
"You are a being of beauty and perfection!"
Doctor Mark William Cochran
"To succeed you must first organize your life to do so."
Elinor Fish
"If your spirit is willing, you body will follow."A fellow triathlete I ran with during a race in September.
"You weren't an accident. You weren't mass produced. You aren't an assembly-line product. You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on the Earth by the Master Craftsman."
Max Lucado
"This very moment is a seed from which the flowers of tomorrow's happiness grow."
Margaret Lindsey
"There is only one journey: going inside yourself."
Rainer Maria Rilke
"I run because it gives me amnesia."
An ad for running shoes (I think).
"The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough.
Professor Randy Pausch
A Dying Professor's Last Lecture.
"I am whole, perfect, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious, and happy!"
Jerilyn Whitaker
"Be driven by your vision or you'll be taken for a ride in someone else's!"
Craig Valentine
1999 World Champion of Public Speaking
"Struggle ends where commitment begins."
Sumner Davenport
"Pur-r-r pur-r-r..."
My cat, Mochi
"Gratitude grows when we give it away."
Inside a Thanksgiving card
"What humans can be, they must be."
Abraham Maslow
"People are unreasonable, illogical, and self- centered.
Love them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulerior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building someone could destroy overnight.
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
Give the world the best you have and and it may never be enough.
Give the world your best anyway."
Often attributed to Mother Teresa
Enjoy!
"People living deeply have no fear of death."
Anais Nin
"I have a dream ..."
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Progress consists largely of learning to apply laws and truths that have always existed."
John Allan May
"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attracions."
Albert Einstein
"One regret, dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough."
Hafiz
"Truth doesn't need protection, it needs expression."
Lou Corletto, D.C.
"Nature and creativity obey the same laws to the same end.
Life."
Robert Redford
"He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything."
Arabian proverb
"The future is not someplace we are going to, but one we are creating."
Deborah James
"What you wish to experience, provide for another."
The Dalai Lama
"I hate gettin' old."
"Then quit gettin' old!"
A conversation I overheard at the gym
The Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
Kent M. Keith (This is the original, historically accurate version)
"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
Calvin Coolidge
Do not worry whether you have strength enough for the journey.
It is on the journey that you will find the strength.
"If I am through learning, I am through.
John Wooden
"Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does."
Josh Billings
"As your consciousness expands, so will your level of expectation. Keep asking yourself, 'am I selling myself short?' Most of us are."
John R. Spannuth
"Your dreams are your real job."
Joyce Spizer
"Sustained happiness stems from being and becoming, not acquiring and possessing. Happiness is a byproduct of living life to the fullest."
Steve Siebold
"Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstances."
Bruce Barton
"We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the Godlike in ourselves."
Abraham Maslow
"...to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession."
Carlos Castaneda
"Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple."
C. W. Ceram
"Repeat anything long enough and it will start to become you."
Tom Hopkins
"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So...get on your way!"
Dr. Seuss
"You can!"
Dick and Rick Hoyt
"The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."
Charles Dubois
"None of us can change our yesterdays but all of us can change our tomorrows."
Colin Powell
"Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives."
Louise Hay
"Point two fingers, not one."
Alix Bryan
P.E.A.C.E. Scooter
"We attract back to us the world we perceive. It's like being in school and getting to choose your own grades. Why not give yourself an A? Many people are giving themselves a C when the universe would gladly give them an A."
Steve Siebold
"The miracle isn't that I finished.
The miracle is that I had the courage to start."
John "The Penguin" Bingham
"We stand tallest while reaching for our dreams."
Inside a greeting card.
"Accuse not Nature, she hath done her part.
Do thou but thine."
John Milton
"You are a being of beauty and perfection!"
Doctor Mark William Cochran
"To succeed you must first organize your life to do so."
Elinor Fish
"If your spirit is willing, you body will follow."A fellow triathlete I ran with during a race in September.
"You weren't an accident. You weren't mass produced. You aren't an assembly-line product. You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on the Earth by the Master Craftsman."
Max Lucado
"This very moment is a seed from which the flowers of tomorrow's happiness grow."
Margaret Lindsey
"There is only one journey: going inside yourself."
Rainer Maria Rilke
"I run because it gives me amnesia."
An ad for running shoes (I think).
"The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough.
Professor Randy Pausch
A Dying Professor's Last Lecture.
"I am whole, perfect, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious, and happy!"
Jerilyn Whitaker
"Be driven by your vision or you'll be taken for a ride in someone else's!"
Craig Valentine
1999 World Champion of Public Speaking
"Struggle ends where commitment begins."
Sumner Davenport
"Pur-r-r pur-r-r..."
My cat, Mochi
"Gratitude grows when we give it away."
Inside a Thanksgiving card
"What humans can be, they must be."
Abraham Maslow
"People are unreasonable, illogical, and self- centered.
Love them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulerior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building someone could destroy overnight.
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
Give the world the best you have and and it may never be enough.
Give the world your best anyway."
Often attributed to Mother Teresa
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Anyway...
"People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building someone could destroy overnight.
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.
Give the world your best anyway."
Often attributed to Mother Teresa**
This reminds me of when I was about 5 or 6 years old and my Mom told me to wash my hands. I asked her why and pointed out that my hands were just going to get dirty again, anyway. I'll never forget her reply: "Well then, why eat lunch? You're just going to get hungry again, anyway."
Can't argue with Mom's wisdom.
Take a look at all of the excuses above, including my excuse for not washng my hands. They all have one thing in common. Can you see what that one thing is?
They're all TRUE!
But they're still just excuses.
** Note: I used a slightly different version of this quote for my Healthy Thought back on March 25th of this year. This quote is usually attributed to Mother Teresa, but was originally written in 1969 as The Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership by Kent M. Keith, a 19 year old sophomore at Harvard. Mother Teresa is known to have had the quote hanging on the wall of her children's home in Calcutta.
To learn more about The Paradoxical Commandments, and to read the original version, click here.
Love them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building someone could destroy overnight.
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.
Give the world your best anyway."
Often attributed to Mother Teresa**
This reminds me of when I was about 5 or 6 years old and my Mom told me to wash my hands. I asked her why and pointed out that my hands were just going to get dirty again, anyway. I'll never forget her reply: "Well then, why eat lunch? You're just going to get hungry again, anyway."
Can't argue with Mom's wisdom.
Take a look at all of the excuses above, including my excuse for not washng my hands. They all have one thing in common. Can you see what that one thing is?
They're all TRUE!
But they're still just excuses.
** Note: I used a slightly different version of this quote for my Healthy Thought back on March 25th of this year. This quote is usually attributed to Mother Teresa, but was originally written in 1969 as The Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership by Kent M. Keith, a 19 year old sophomore at Harvard. Mother Teresa is known to have had the quote hanging on the wall of her children's home in Calcutta.
To learn more about The Paradoxical Commandments, and to read the original version, click here.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Are You Ready to be Extraordinary?
We all have the extraordinary coded within us, waiting to be released.
Jean Houston
Are you ready to do something extraordinary?
Well, no need to wait. You already are extraordinary! All you have to do is reveal your extraordinariness. It's the gift that you have been given to share with the rest of us. Revealing it may take a little (or a lot) of work. You may not even know what it is yet. Even if you think you know...who knows...there may still be something waiting inside of you yet to be discovered. If you continue focusing on maximizing your human potential, your extraordianry gifts will reveal themselves at the perfect time and place.
Visit this link to watch a very short video of a unique (REALLY unique) and extraordinary talent.
Jean Houston
Are you ready to do something extraordinary?
Well, no need to wait. You already are extraordinary! All you have to do is reveal your extraordinariness. It's the gift that you have been given to share with the rest of us. Revealing it may take a little (or a lot) of work. You may not even know what it is yet. Even if you think you know...who knows...there may still be something waiting inside of you yet to be discovered. If you continue focusing on maximizing your human potential, your extraordianry gifts will reveal themselves at the perfect time and place.
Visit this link to watch a very short video of a unique (REALLY unique) and extraordinary talent.
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