99 Reasons to Start Meditating by: Trista Thorp

There’s big buzz around meditation, and for good reason. Research points to this once fringe practice as a highly effective technique for improving your life overall. With benefits ranging from physiological to psychological to spiritual, and scientific research to back its validity, there’s really no reason anyone shouldn’t be meditating at this point. Corporations, professional sports teams, school systems, and celebrities all recognize the value of adopting mindfulness-based lifestyle practices as part of their daily routine.

If you’re still not convinced, here are 99 reasons to start meditating, from the light-hearted to the scientific, and everything in between.

    Helps you better manage stress

    Boosts your social life

    Helps you accomplish more by doing less

    Cultivates compassion

    Enables you to become present in the moment

    Leads you to, and connects you with, your purpose

    Lowers your blood pressure

    Gives you laser focus

    Heightens your intuition

    Improves your memory

    Makes you a nicer person

    Broadens your perspective

    Gives you Jedi-like skills

    Reduces irrational reactivity

    Increases your immunity

    Cultivates more loving relationships

    Helps you let go of defensiveness

    Lowers your heart rate

    Enhances sensory perception

    Helps you achieve better grades and/or higher test scores

    Decreases inflammation

    Taps your creativity

    Improves problem-solving abilities

    Lands you cooler friends

    Makes you more giving

    Boosts your happiness

    Deepens your connection to the Self and others

    Increases your emotional intelligence

    Accesses higher states of consciousness

    Improves your sex life (yes!)

    Leads to self-discovery

    Decreases anxiety and depression

    Makes you resilient in tough times

    Expands your awareness

    Opens you to greater possibilities

    Helps you let go of baggage

    Gives you a richer life experience

    Hones mental strength

    Helps you discover who you really are

    Encourages peace of mind

    Reduces impulsive behavior

    Teaches you about forgiveness

    Promotes more restful sleep

    Evokes feelings of lightness

    Discourages the victim mentality

    Allows you to step into your power

    Guides you to make more conscious choices

    Helps you to get out of your mind and into your heart

    Leads to cultivation of a spiritual practice

    It’s easier than you think

    Helps you get to know your thoughts (so you can change them)

    Improves metabolism

    Improves exercise

    Makes you less judgmental

    Alters the genetic expression of your DNA

    Increases your energy

    Enhances your connection with nature

    Makes you more fun to be around

    Helps you connect more deeply with your children

    Improves your ability to communicate effectively

    Reduces signs of aging

    Improves your listening skills

    Generates helpfulness

    Helps you fight diseases

    Improves heart rate and respiration

    Promotes cellular regeneration

    Enhances gratitude

    Makes you more successful

    Helps you become more proactive

    You can do it anywhere—no studios, gyms, or props needed

    Improves functioning of your brain

    Improves conflict resolution

    Strengthens bonds with your pets

    Makes you fall in love with Apple products

    Lessons your desire to control other people

    Reduces negative emotions

    Improves overall athletic performance

    Helps you roll with the punches

    Improves digestion

    Makes you want to do nice things for the planet

    Enhances collaboration

    Enables you to find the silver lining in challenging scenarios

    Builds self-confidence

    Increases job satisfaction

    Provides greater levels of tolerance

    Reduces road rage

    Balances mind, body, and spirit

    Activates the parasympathetic nervous system

    Deepens your capacity for love

    Develops greater will power

    Makes you more outgoing and fun

    Enhances dream recollection

    Helps you develop patience

    Helps with headaches and migraines

    Decreases muscle tension

    Slows aging of the mind

    Enhances your memory

    Everyone else is doing it

    It’s free!

Just as the phrase implies, “the answers are within.” A daily meditation practice will teach you about yourself, others, and the world you live in. You will tap into your own truth without the influence of society or the validation of others. And, the level of insight and clarity you glean from within is the catalyst for unparalleled personal development and self-evolution. This is how you become the best version of yourself. This is how you create personal transformation, and it’s how you effect global change.

- See more at: http://www.chopra.com/ccl/99-reasons-to-start-meditating?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=Newsletter%20150526&utm_campaign=May#sthash.5ywdQJuY.dpuf

FOR THE JOY OF IT ALL - KARUNESH

To mellow out your day:

Article is from here:

It had some interesting stuff. I enjoyed.

The Final Obstacle Is Us

The Final Obstacle Is Us

by: Elizabeth Gilbert

Almost every night during book tour, I end up talking about the same subject with my audience. My audiences are pretty much entirely composed of women (though I love you, too, my emotionally-secure male who dare to come to my events!) and invariably there will be a woman in the crowd who will stand up and ask how to get courage to … well, whatever. Courage to write her book, courage to change her life, courage to travel alone, courage to endure her sorrows, courage to leave her toxic relationship, courage to start her own business, courage to stand up for herself.

Now Is the Time for Women

I always begin my response by saying something along these lines—that it is down to us now. There has never been a better moment in human history than right now to be a woman. While there are still huge stretches of earth where the lot of womankind remains trapped in subjugation, the industrialized modern western world is the best environment women have ever had—the best and only shot we ever got at full personhood.

The life that I was offered, in comparison to the lives of my great-grandmothers, is so radically different that I might as well be a new human species altogether. I am a female with biological, political, financial and emotional autonomy. Such a thing was never heard of before. Ever.

Could things still be better for women? Yes, of course, and I fight for that, as we all must. Do we have perfect parity yet? Maybe in Sweden, but certainly not everywhere. Is there still discrimination and stupidity? Sure. Will there always be? Probably. But the fact remains—nobody in the history of womankind ever had a better chance to manifest his or her own life than us, right now.

The Internal Obstacle

Many of the big external obstacles (political, legislative, cultural) have been cleared for us by the great and brave women who came before us. We stand on their shoulders and we should be grateful.

But now we are left to battle the lingering prejudices in our own minds that convince us we are not worthy—not good enough, not strong enough, not talented enough, not brave enough. We must battle the residual interior voice that says things like:

• We are not important
• We shouldn't raise our hand
• We shouldn't ask to lead the project
• We shouldn't run for office
• We don't deserve a promotion
• We can't set boundaries
• We can't have a child alone
• We can't support ourselves
• We can't defend our vocations
• We can't apply for that grant or that graduate program
• We can’t define our own spiritual and emotional lives
• We shouldn't speak up and say, "No, let's do it my way."

We must battle the interior prejudice that says we aren't perfect yet, in other words, and therefore we must hold ourselves back.

And while it's understandable that about a billion years of being beat down would keep a woman believing she is imperfect, we really have to get past that obstacle in ourselves. Because I've said it before and I'll say it again: Imperfection never stopped men from putting themselves forward. SO DON'T LET IT STOP YOU. (I don’t say that as an insult to men, either; I like that they throw themselves into the arena of life. I want us to do it, too.)

Get out of your own way, women. It's time. And nobody can do this part for you. No act of Congress (no social or political legislation) can get you out of your own way. Gloria Steinem can't get you out of your own way, and neither can Oprah, Brené Brown, Martha Beck, Hilary Clinton, your uncle's dog, your mother's cat, or me.

Don't wait to be rescued or discovered by anyone, and for heaven's sake, don't wait to be given permission from the principal's office to take full ownership of your own destiny. You’ve got to do it yourself.

Step forward out of your own lingering residual sense of smallness, take up every inch of life that is your blessed inheritance, and start doing your thing. Today.

It's down to us now—down to you. And there’s never been a better moment than right now.

Let’s get on it.

"Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we really listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other. We are constantly being re-created.”  ~ Brenda Ueland

Updates

HAHAHAHAHA!
I guess I kinda lied about posting here more often. Oh wellllllllll.....

Work has been insane. I am learning a new job and trying to finish mine. My younger sister's life fell apart and she is staying with me for a few days...the SD has been at her mom's and doesn't know of any of this yet and her dad is worried about it upsetting her so much she decides to leave. My older sister was the catalyst for all this drama and now doesn't want anything to do with any of us, and, me? I am just trying to stay that little bit of sane I have left and keep the peace.

It's nice I have detached enough that I am able to keep on keeping on, but, I still need my younger sister to be ok. I won't be ok if she is not ok...Seriously, on all fronts I am doing the best I can with what I have. I really am. Just knowing that, I feel better. I used to feel so bad that I couldn't just "Fix" everyone and everything all the time. I have, through therapy, or meditation, or whatever, been able to let most of that go. People can think for themselves, few of them are actually interested in your advice and even fewer are going to actually take it. So, you have to let go in the most loving way possible. You have to ask them what it is that they need from you, and if that is something you are able to provide do so with love and send them on their way.

About 2 weeks ago, due to an argument with my partner I went all full immersion positivity again. It was of course fake and hard at first, but you really have to force it. Force the positive view of everything at first, and then you start to really see the positive in each situation.

Now, to jump back into that fire..

~Syd

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."  —Mahatma Gandhi

"Security . . . it's simply the recognition that changes will take place and the knowledge that you're willing to deal with whatever happens."  —Harry Browne

"Life is the art of drawing without an eraser."  —John Gardner

"Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude."  —Denis Waitley