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Welcome from Vantage Business Support & Insurance Services
As an added benefit to our customers and associates VANTAGE is publishing a semimonthly newsletter with information, interactive tools, podcasts and other resources to help you live healthier. We will explore topics on total health and resources for you and your family, including fitness, nutrition, mental and physical health, weight management and more.
Thank you for being part of the VANTAGE family.
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Please view our products list in the right sidebar.
This is just a sampling of what we feel would be important to you. We have much more to offer. If you have any questions or need more information please contact us at 877-886-8277 or click the link below.
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Make 2014 a New Year of Love and Trust
A New Year of love and trust is essential to your well-being. Instead of the ephemeral resolutions of the season, trusting yourself and others enough to know that you are worthy of love is life-changing. Three tools for daily use in the New Year invite you to do just that.
"I am because you are" is at the heart of the African wisdom tradition of Ubuntu. It says that a person is only a person in the context of others. It is a way of life in which trusting in your magnificence is as essential to your life as it is for others to claim for themselves.
Across the country the most frequent questions asked of me have to do with how we love ourselves and others; how to be worthy of love and goodness. The questions reflect a widespread yearning for a more robust experience of life. In the spirit of "I am because you are" these three tools are a yearlong companion for actualizing a year of more fulsome love and trust.
Across the country the most frequent questions asked of me have to do with how we love ourselves and others; how to be worthy of love and goodness.
1. Love yourself with intention. Instead of assuming that the deeply ingrained messages of conditional love are the norm or that you are less worthy of love than others choose to trust in your unconditional worthiness of love.
Each day name a quality or quirk that marks who you are and name why it makes you lovable.
Decades ago a wise man insisted that I do this exercise in front of a mirror each day. At first I thought it was a trite suggestion. The act of looking into my own eyes and naming something lovable was the threshold to moving beyond the unexamined internalized messages about why I was not as worthy of love as others. Find a trusted person with whom to share what you begin to name and love.
2. Discover the goodness in others. The journey to love and trust does not exist in a vacuum and is not about narcissism. When you love and trust your own magnificence your own foibles become part of a wide-angled lens of your life. With fresh compassion and tenderness toward yourself and others "I am because you are" becomes an invitation to discover the goodness in others.
Like many, my life was once blinded by assumptions, biases and easy judgment about others.
I chose to practice suspending those arrogant thoughts in order to discover a commonality of goodness with others. It revealed a more life-giving way of being in which the goodness of those with whom I differ is as important to our mutual well-being as vibrant disagreements are.
3. Detach from toxic people. Loving and trusting in yourself and others is a filter for responding to the abusive, bullying or toxic behavior of some. It illuminates the reality that such behaviors have little consciousness about "I am because you are." Instead, their actions diminish or deny the magnificence found in others and themselves. It is not your responsibility to invest in changing their behavior by putting your own life on lockdown.
For your sake and theirs detach. Unlike the choice to be trapped in anger or resentment, loving detachment from another person happens when you entrust their well-being to the Universe, God or a Higher Power.
Decades after detaching from a toxic relationship the person and I reconnected. She had done the inner work of choosing to change her behavior and we were able to forge a life-giving relationship. Detachment honored the truth that "I am because you are" with the hope of new love and trust emerging in the future.
Loving intention, discovering goodness and healthy detachment are tools for everyday use. They invite a New Year and life of richly textured relationships.
You are more fully alive and magnificent when fear of others is replaced by the choices to love and trust.
SOURCE: Robert V. Taylor is president of the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation in New York City.
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DID YOU KNOW???
Kale
 Kale is not only one of the more beautiful cruciferous vegetables, but it also one of the most nutritious. Here are nine health benefits of kale:
Diet and Digestion One cup of kale has only 36 calories and zero grams of fat, which makes it a great diet aid. Furthermore, one cup contains nearly 20% of the RDA of dietary fiber, which promotes regular digestion, prevents constipation, lowers blood sugar and curbs overeating. Finally, kale contains the glucosinolate isothiocyanate (ITC) that fights the formation of H. pylori (Helicobacter pylori), a bacterial growth in the stomach lining that can lead to gastric cancer.
Antioxidants Kale is a superstar in the arena of carotenoids and flavonoids, two powerful antioxidants that protect our cells from free radicals that cause oxidative stress. The key flavonoids kaempferol and quercitin (not to dismiss the 45 other distinctive flavonoids in kale) have also been shown to specifically fight against the formation of cancerous cells. With the addition of high doses of well-known antioxidants like vitamin C, vitamin A, and manganese, kale is certainly a smart choice in the battle against cellular oxidation.
Anti-Inflammatory One cup of kale provides about 10% of the RDA of omega-3 fatty acids that helps regulate the body's inflammatory process. A megadose of vitamin K further aids to fight against excessive inflammatory-related problems, such as arthritis, autoimmune disorders, and asthma.
Cancer Not only do kale's antioxidant and anti-inflammatory qualities work together to prevent and even combat cancer, a healthy diet of kale also provides glucosinolates, which have been shown to prevent colon, breast, bladder, prostate, ovarian cancers, as well as gastric cancer.
Cardiovascular Support The high fiber content of kale lowers our cholesterol by binding with bile acids that the liver produces from cholesterol for digesting fat. Because many of these bile acids are coupled with fiber, the liver is charged with producing more bile acid to digest fat, and therefore requires more cholesterol to so, ultimately lowering the amount of cholesterol within our bodies.
Detox The isothiocyanates (ITC) from glucosinolates found in kale aid in both phases I and II of the body's detoxification process. The high sulfur content of kale has further been shown essential for phase II of detoxification.
Vitamin K Kale provides a whopping dose of vitamin K (providing 1327% of the RDA in one cup), which is necessary for the synthesis of osteocalcin, a protein that strengthens the composition of our bones. Vitamin K also prevents calcium build-up in our tissue that can lead to atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease and stroke. Finally, vitamin K is essential for synthesizing sphingolipid, the fat needed to maintain the myelin sheath around our nerves, and therefore our nervous system as a whole.
Vitamin A With over 192% of the RDA of vitamin A, one cup of kale is an effective antioxidant, boosts immunity, maintains healthy bones and teeth, prevents urinary stones, and is essential to our reproductive organs.
Vitamin C Vitamin C, which one cup of kale heartily provides (over 88% of our RDA), is not only a powerful antioxidant, but also lowers blood pressure, ensures a healthy immune system, and fights against age-related ocular diseases, such as cataracts and macular degeneration.
SOURCE: Health Diaries
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Here's your "QuoteAction" for this issue:
"There are two ways of meeting difficulties: you alter the difficulties; or you alter yourself to meet them."
Writer, Phyllis Bottome
Your action for today is to identify one change you need to make to meet one of the challenges you are currently facing.
Have an extraordinary day!
SOURCE: Betty Jo Waxman
Productive Learning & Leisure, LLC |
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Disclaimer of Liability
Our firm provides the information in this e-newsletter for general guidance only, and does not constitute the provision of legal advice, tax advice, accounting services, investment advice, or professional consulting of any kind. The information provided herein should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional tax, accounting, legal, or other competent advisers. Before making any decision or taking any action, you should consult a professional adviser who has been provided with all pertinent facts relevant to your particular situation. Tax articles in this e-newsletter are not intended to be used, and cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding accuracy-related penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer. The information is provided "as is," with no assurance or guarantee of completeness, accuracy, or timeliness of the information, and without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of performance, merchantability, and fitness for a particular purpose.
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| Health & Wellness Products |
VANTAGE has a wide range of products designed to aid in health & wellness for both your personal and business life.
These products include:
Health Insurance Exchange
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Life
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Small Business Tool Box
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| CONTACTS |
Please contact one of our VANTAGE professionals for assistance or click on the help picture. Paul White 510-595-0904
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