With the New Year upon us,  here is a list of things to do to make 2011 great!

1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.

2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Buy a lock if you have to.

3. Make time to practice meditation and prayer. They provide us with daily fuel for our busy lives.

4. When you wake up in the morning, complete the following statement, “My purpose is to___________ today.”

5. Live with the 3 E’s — Energy, Enthusiasm, Empathy.

6. Try to make at least three people smile each day.

7. Dream more while you are awake.

8. Spend more time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6.

9. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat fewer foods that are manufactured in plants.

10. Drink plenty of water. Eat more fruit, vegetables, nuts & seeds.

11. What other people think of you is none of your business.

12. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

13. Clear your clutter from your house, your car, your desk and let new and flowing energy into your life.  Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

14. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.

15. Smile and laugh more. It will keep the energy vampires away.

16. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

17. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

18. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

19. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

20. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

21. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: “In five years, will this matter?”

22. Watch more movies, play more games and read more books than you did in 2010.

23. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

24. Burn the beautiful candles, use the nice sheets, and wear the fancy clothes.  Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

25. Forgive everyone everything.

26. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

27. Have an attitude of gratitude.

28. Stay in touch with your friends and family.

29. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

30. Stay in the present moment!

31. The best is yet to come.

32. Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements: “I am thankful for __________.” Today I accomplished _________.

33. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.

34. Enjoy the ride.

35. Life is precious.

I’m sure there are many more, but this is a great list to start with. The bottom line is that we need more interior time than what our busy schedules allow. More reflection time. The interesting thing is when we take it, life is much more enjoyable.

Do you have a story to share? I’d love to get your feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all bloggers out there. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment; I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Happy New Year!

Charlene

Environment is an Extension of Us

Healthy Soul-utions is all about being healthy in all areas. This month there is a great focus on planet earth with Earth Day in a few weeks.

Throughout my experience in the health field, I have seen it over and over again, that when we try to heal in just one area, it is not a total healing.

Everything is interconnected. So our environment is really an extension of us. What we do to the planet, we do to ourselves.

The next few blogs will be a few reminders of becoming conscious with our buying habits. Here are 7 questions to ask when considering purchasing a product or material for your home or business.

1.  Apply life-cycle thinking
(think in a way that includes our future generations).

This includes:

• Does the product contain toxic materials?
• Where do the raw materials come from and where is the product manufactured?
• How much energy is used to extract and ship components or parts of a product?
• How much energy, water and resources are used to create and package the product?
• How can it be disposed of or recycled at the end of its useful life?
• Are there any environmental or health impacts of its use?

2.  Do you even need to purchase the product new?

Sometimes a used item is just as good.

3.  Exactly how much of it do you need?

Don’t buy more than you need; this wastes money and resources. Are you paying to have water shipped to you, meaning is the product concentrated?

4.  What type of packaging does it come in?

Environmentally-conscious companies are doing all sorts of creative things to green their packaging. This addresses the materials that packaging is made from, as well as the amount of it.

5.  Is the product well-designed for its intended purpose?

Often, cheaply made goods fall apart and are thrown away within 3 months of purchase. Think about our already full land fill sites.

6.  Does the use of this product require special ventilation?

If so, don’t buy it! There are plenty of alternatives for no-VOC cleaning products, paints, and adhesives. Check out the Get Clean products for instance. Not only are they safe for you, your home or workplace and the planet, they also save you thousands of dollars. Visit www.healthyday.net and click on ‘Healthy Home’.

7.  Labor Practices.

Depending on how far you want to take it, ask about labor practices. Does the manufacturer pay a living wage?  Do they give their employees benefits, and do they have a diverse workforce? Do they contribute to their community? Does the company offset the carbon emissions? Are they climate neutral? The social aspects of sustainability/green are sometimes overlooked, but have huge potential payoffs.

Do you have a story to share? I’d love to get your feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all bloggers out there. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment; I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Next week I will cover some more ways we can protect the planet.

Stay tuned.

Charlene

Spirit or Soul Qualities of Healing

Our bodies are made of different vibrations. Basically our physical bodies vibrate at a slow enough speed that we can see and touch them. But that is not all of us. We have parts of our bodies that vibrate at the unseen level. This is where our mental, emotional and spiritual bodies reside. Auras are indicators of these unseen levels of our bodies.

Most people have heard of the word chakras and they are energy vortexes that connect all the aspects of our bodies, the seen and the unseen. As well, there are pathways of energy known as acupuncture meridians running through our physical body. Along these acupuncture meridians are points which act like mini vortexes. So there are many connection points of energy flow in our body right down to each cell. These connection points are the openings for life energy to flow into and out of our aura.

The main points of flow or connection are the seven major chakras. They are wheel-like vortices which are considered the focal points for the reception and transmission of life energy. Their function is to vitalize the physical body and connect the mental, emotional and spiritual levels of consciousness.

These seven main chakras are described as being aligned in an ascending column from the base of the spine to the top of the head. Chakras are invisible to the human eye, but they can be perceived intuitively by trained energy workers.

Each chakra relates to emotions and physical aspects of our being and these are clues as to which chakra is blocked when we are out of balance.

1. Root Chakra, which is located in your pelvic area and at the end of your tailbone. The base or root chakra is related to security, survival and also to basic human potentiality.
2. Sacral Chakra, which is located two finger widths below your belly button, is related to emotion, sexuality and creativity.
3. Solar Plexus Chakra, which is located in the soft spot at the base of your breast bone, is related to energy, assimilation and digestion.
4. Heart Chakra, which is located in the middle of the breastbone, is related to love, equilibrium, and well-being.
5. Throat Chakra, which is located in the soft spot at the top of your breast bone, is said to be related to communication, expression and growth.
6. Brow or Third Eye Chakra, which is located about one inch above the bridge of your nose, is the chakra of awareness and of light.
7. Crown Chakra, which is located on the top/center of your head, is said to be the chakra of consciousness, the master chakra that controls all the others.

So these energy centers or vortexes are the connection with the unseen energies and give us a direct relationship with the Creative Life Force. When you feel joy, all the circuits are open and the life force can be fully received and this results in a state of health and well being. When you feel guilt or blame or fear or anger, the circuits are hindered and the life force cannot flow as effectively.  This is when we experience ill health.

Be sure to read over past blog posts to get the whole picture of how our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual bodies all relate to our health and well being.

Do you have a story to share? I’d love to get your feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all bloggers out there. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment; I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Next week I will cover “Health is a Choice”.

Stay tuned.

Charlene

Going With the Flow

In my last blog post, we discussed how healing happens on all levels; let’s look now at the mental, emotional level of our thoughts and feelings.  We are filled with thousands of thoughts daily, moment by moment. Most of these thoughts go flitting by, but when an emotion is attached to a thought, it remains with our consciousness longer and elicits a vibration.

There are basically two emotions. One feels good and one feels bad to us. But it doesn’t matter whether the feelings are deemed good or bad as they are just vibrations. All these feelings with their corresponding thoughts vibrate with no judgment. When we place meaning on the feelings, we lose the real message.

The vibration is what we need to be paying attention to, not judging the feeling.  If everything is energy, it is easy to see that our thoughts and feelings vibrate as energy too. The Source or the Universe is always responding to our vibration. So if we are looking for total healing, then the vibration has to be a match.

What is holistic or total health?

All the vibrations are in harmony with all that is. We feel connected with our Source or Creator or Collective Wisdom energy.  People describe this as feeling at peace and in harmony with all that is, feeling total gratitude and appreciation, feeling bliss and love. No matter how you describe it, it means that we are in total alignment with who-we-really-are.

If we know that the way we feel is our indicator of how connected we are to Source, then we know what we can focus on to create total health. Conversely, if we are out of alignment in terms of our vibration and feel cut off from our Source energy, then we will experience the vibration of dis-ease.

What do we need in terms of healing? All aspects of ourselves need to be in a vibrational alignment…physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.  Healing comes to us in response to our vibrations of good-feeling thoughts. Every day when we don’t affirm or vibrate that we are healthy; then we are in a default pattern and whatever vibration is flitting by may affect our health.

The good news is that have complete control over our own thoughts, emotions, and resulting vibrations and when we work on improving these, we can turn around anything including ill health or dis-ease. We are the creators of our own life experience, and as the creator of our experience, it is important that we understand that we are creating with our thoughts and the associated feelings which are vibrating either positively or negatively. Let’s choose the vibration of health.

What do you think? I’d love to get your feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all bloggers out there. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment; I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Next week we will cover how the spiritual energy fits in to our healing model of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

Charlene

Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On…

Welcome to my first blog post.

Healthy Soul-utions is all about being healthy in all areas.  This called the holistic model. Looking at the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of healing.

Throughout my experience in the health field, I have seen it over and over again, that when we try to heal in just one area, it is not a total healing.

I’ve seen people who only deal with their illness on the physical level and within a few years, it shows up again.  One story that demonstrates this is about two fellows I met many years ago when I was studying in the States.

I met both of them at an AIDS support group. They were partners and they were traveling around sharing their story. One of them was into the holistic model and worked on dealing with the virus on all levels.  He looked at and worked on all the aspects of his health and went into total remission.

His partner on the other hand was into the medical model (traditional medicine as we know it, based on allopathic medicine) and kept dealing with his illness just on the physical level with more invasive therapies.  He kept getting sicker and sicker.

At one point he realized that his partner was getting well and that maybe he should look in to what he had done to heal. When he looked into the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of his being and searched for answers there, he too started to get well.

Their story is a great reminder that all aspects of ourselves are interconnected.

Everything is energy, everything vibrates.  When we understand this premise, it makes it easier to see that all aspects of ourselves are really just different vibrations of what we call self… physical self, emotional self, mental self, spiritual self.

When we align all the vibrations, we are in total harmony again.  So true healing brings us into a state of harmony on all levels of our being.

Do you have a story to share? I’d love to get your feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all bloggers out there. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment, I’m looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Next week I will examine the acid/alkaline balance in the body.

Stay tuned.

Charlene Day

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