After two years of sending rather elaborate newsletters, I've decided to pare down on the newsletter and bulk up on my blog. There is an RSS feed on the top right on the blog site if you would like to subscribe.
Healthy Spicy Life Blog has recipes, yoga, meditation instruction, healthy lifestyle tips, special interests, inspirational people, photos, and more.
The reason I send out newsletters and write a blog is because people read them. I am grateful for the feed back and encouragement.
We are constantly changing. Our environment is constantly changing. This is apparent when we see the trees blossom and the leaves fall. If the leaves didn't fall, that would be weird. The waves of the ocean roll in and the waves roll out. We see a large body of water, but yet it's so much more than this one thing that we think we see. To some beings, it's not even an ocean. To a whale, the ocean is where it lives, eats, procreates and dies.
One day you notice a brand new building on your block and you think "When was that built?" It seems sometimes like things happen all of the sudden or overnight, but most likely, they do not. There's a whole lot of subtle changes, work, baby steps, that makes something seem like it happened all of the sudden. Before we could run, we crawled, then stood holding onto a hand, then we teetered and fell, took some steps, then a milestone to actually be walking on our own, and lastly, run. Changes in how we see ourselves seems a bit more subtle. Some days we wake up and notice some new gray hairs - not me of course, but for the rest of you. These external changes are difficult enough to notice, so how do we become aware of our internal changes? And how are we a part of guiding who we become? This is the juicy information. Right?
I feel pretty good that I have some valid answers to those last few questions. "There's
nothing I can do," or "it's
always going to be this way," are just not truthful statements. If there's change available at any given moment, then these statements are inaccurate.
I can help you with these answers.
Kelly Slater, a record 11 times World Champion surfer, has said in interviews that he just "knows" the waves will come. Not only will the waves come, but while he's waiting a crab will visit him on his board and chill until it's time to crawl back into the water. (Thanks for that story Mike Rad). When we begin to trust the choices we make the waves will just come. When our actions come from a place of compassion and wanting to help others, see others succeed, see others more at ease and less confused, our lives become this way, too. It's not magic and it's not coincidental.
Ethics are a huge part in changing how you feel about yourself and your environment. When you choose to be a part of the solution rather than the problem, take action, you will feel better. Your speech, livelihood and actions are amazing trio to start to look at and see where you can make a difference in how you see yourself and start to heal.
Embrace change, be aware and mindful of your choices, or you can fight it and keep getting knocked over by the waves. Really, it's up to you.
RIP Adam Yauch
In addition to his career with the Beastie Boys, Yauch was heavily involved in the movement to free Tibet. A founder of the Milarepa Fund, Yauch was instrumental in the first Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park 1996, which drew 100,000 people - the largest U.S. benefit concert since 1985's Live Aid. After 9/11, Yauch and the Beastie Boys organized New Yorkers Against Violence, a concert benefit for some of the victims least likely to receive help from elsewhere. ~ Rolling Stone
