Searching For the Waters of Antiquity

A very insiteful, and still relevant book was written sometime in the 60s on the benefits of laughter as a stress and pain manager. The book was written by Norman Cousins, Anatomy of an Illness, he wrote it after his first encounter with a debilitating disease. Over the years he wrote more books on this and many subjects, showing his strong determination not only to live, but to enjoy the life he had left. Norman was the editor of Saturday Review for about forty years. Later he was on the faculty of a prestigious University.

He died 1990, of a heart attack having lived years longer than doctors had predicted: ten years after his first heart attack, sixteen years after his collagen illness, and twenty-six years after his doctor’s first diagnosed heart disease. His books taught me a lot about staying healthy and attitude on having an illness. I still use laughter in-between meditation when I need some fun and to di-stress. Love those belly laughs…The last one I saw that I would recommend is Failure to Launch, a romantic comedy with some great one-liners.

Laughter is being taken more seriously these days in the medical and therapeutic communities. Research is seeping into professional journals validating the various benefits of laughter. (more…)

Meditation not only heals, but it also keeps our energy strong, balanced and flowing easily and effortlessly. I think this is what true success is, making choices that allow ourselves to live at our highest states of being. Energy is in everything and choosing how we use it means that we are living intentionally and mindfully. Constrict the flow with fear, anger and sadness and life and flow get stuck. As we concentrate on those negative places in life, we only get more negativity, and this does nothing to fix it. We stay where we are and feel like we are going nowhere.

So what do we do?

Practice keeping balance everyday and you will strengthen the flow within you and your Emotional IQ, keeping life humming. A great starting point is to really get in touch with your feelings. Easy enough you say, but that is not how we operate.

Some of us don’t feel our emotions fully enough and usually get into judging our self. Some of us have no problem emoting all over the place and judging everyone else. Most of us were taught by institutions like schools, churches, friends and our family systems that it is not OK to respond with our true feelings, worse yet, look how we feel. This is especially true for the forbidden and very universal feelings of fear. When we don’t know how we feel, we probably don’t know that we are afraid. Then how can we live lives of abundance and prosperity? (more…)

I would like to talk this week about some new movies out that inspire, while giving more evidence to the weight of mindfulness and meditation. There are so few movies out there that set the stage for enlightenment that I felt compelled to share. They may not get an academy award, but they can help you to begin to awaken spiritually and that is a good thing. Both of the movies are selective showings, so they might be hard to find in your theaters, but persevere, it is worth it. I don’t buy many movies, but I would buy both of these movies for the inspirational qualities they can bring to your day.

The Celestine Prophesy — Movie
The Prophesy was produced by the author, James Redfield and his wife Salle M. Redfield and since they kept creative control it was true to the book. I felt torn by the notion of keeping it true to the book, and some of the possibilities that might have been missed due to funding, which also means giving up creative control. One argument might be that a more experienced Director/Producer might have added to the movie overall quality. Nevertheless, The Redfield’s did fine job in bringing this movie to the screen. There were some great visual effects, and the movie still retained the depth of spirit and awesome scenic qualities of Peru. (more…)