Have you ever felt ugly or unattractive? Sometimes people can feel that way if they put on a few pounds, if someone rejects them or after they acted out in anger.
No matter what society determines as being attractive, I believe everyone is beautiful in their own way. They key is that you must feel good inside to really express that beautiful self out in the world. Here are some simple ways to access authentic beauty in the world and in your heart:
1. Appreciate those you love. Thank someone in your life for something nice they did for you or just being in your world.
2. Take time to look at nature every day. There is a perfection in the balance of the earth, plants and animals that are unmatched by synthetic substitutes.
3. Daily meditation. Quieting your noisy, mostly negative mind can bring in a lightness and silence that heals the rough edges of your perception of yourself and your life.
4. Wear bright colors. The clothes you wear can make an impact on how good you feel. Clothing that is too tight, too loose or torn can drag down your confidence. Dress in the way that makes you express your best.
5. Engage in a healthy lifestyle. Eat nutritious foods that make you feel better about your body. Take time each day to move your body and thank your body for all that it does for you.
Instead of spending tons of money on expensive creams, plastic surgery or designer clothes, these ideas can be implemented with little or no financial investment and will give you greater results. You will truly feel more beautiful from the inside out.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Understand LOVE
Is love easy to understand? What makes it special or what makes it disturbing? What connects? What fails?
This article discusses essential characteristics of love. You will connect to these and connect to your soul mates.
Love is discovery: Love is the process of finding oneself in other eyes. It is about realizing your self-esteem in folks who have care for you.
Love is giving: Love is giving and expecting no return favor. Control is not the hallmark of love. Love needs no calculation to get love back.
Love is becoming: True love exists when you do not have to blame or explain, you just feel and connect.
Love is doing: You can either love what you do or do what you love. Any other combination will fail.
Love is demonstrating: A solicited love will fail. A demonstrated love will win. Those who are able to demonstrate their love without intruding in the space of
others get love back. Love is cooperation: The only way to win love and respect is to kill greed and cooperate for common goals.
Love is sacrifice: Love demands only one sacrifice and that is to love what you love more than anybody or anything else.
Love is blessing: Fear kills fear. Might kills right. Love wins all.
Love is correction: Punishment ensures you follow a set process. Love ensures you connect to the process. The results of punishment are immediate but divisive.
The results of love, though delayed, are sure and uniting.
Love is self-respect: To love your love, you need to love yourself. Without self-confidence, there is no love.
Love is direction: Lost in love, lost in life. Love connects to others; any other feeling stays mechanical.
Love is work: Love your work because nobody else should.
Love is creation: Love creates. It will make you what you want to be.
Keep loving!! It creates, refines and defines life.
This article discusses essential characteristics of love. You will connect to these and connect to your soul mates.
Love is discovery: Love is the process of finding oneself in other eyes. It is about realizing your self-esteem in folks who have care for you.
Love is giving: Love is giving and expecting no return favor. Control is not the hallmark of love. Love needs no calculation to get love back.
Love is becoming: True love exists when you do not have to blame or explain, you just feel and connect.
Love is doing: You can either love what you do or do what you love. Any other combination will fail.
Love is demonstrating: A solicited love will fail. A demonstrated love will win. Those who are able to demonstrate their love without intruding in the space of
others get love back. Love is cooperation: The only way to win love and respect is to kill greed and cooperate for common goals.
Love is sacrifice: Love demands only one sacrifice and that is to love what you love more than anybody or anything else.
Love is blessing: Fear kills fear. Might kills right. Love wins all.
Love is correction: Punishment ensures you follow a set process. Love ensures you connect to the process. The results of punishment are immediate but divisive.
The results of love, though delayed, are sure and uniting.
Love is self-respect: To love your love, you need to love yourself. Without self-confidence, there is no love.
Love is direction: Lost in love, lost in life. Love connects to others; any other feeling stays mechanical.
Love is work: Love your work because nobody else should.
Love is creation: Love creates. It will make you what you want to be.
Keep loving!! It creates, refines and defines life.
Monday, August 17, 2009
29 way to keep your relationship turned up
Why do some relationships last forever and others fall apart? Here are some ways you can make your partner feel appreciated again and prevent your relationship from becoming a casualty.
1. Treat your partner as you would your boss, best friend, or best customer.
2. Think about what your partner wants and give it to him or her.
3. Think of ways you can do the unexpected and be thoughtful. Remember how you acted when you wanted to win your partner over.
4. Pay attention to your appearance. Dress nicely; get into shape.
5. Express your thoughts carefully. Being married doesn’t give anyone permission to let it all hang out.
6. Spend regular time together alone.
7. Look for ways to compliment your partner.
8. Hug when you say hello and goodbye. It feels good and it makes people feel loved.
9. Learn and practice communication skills. Relating successfully to another person requires a set of skills that can be learned.
10. Be polite. Just because you are married doesn’t mean you can forget your manners.
11. When you want something, say please.
12. When your partner does something for you, say thank you.
13. When your partner comes home after a day at work, greet her at the door and say hello. Ask how her day went.
14. When your partner leaves for work in the morning, say goodbye and “I love you” or “Have a good day.”
15. When your partner faces a challenge at work during the day, ask how it went when you get home.
16. During your evening meal together, avoid the temptation to watch television or read the paper or mail. Look at your partner and have a conversation.
17. If you want to make plans that affect how your partner will be spending time, check with him first and make sure it’s convenient.
18. When you ask your partner a question, make eye contact and listen to the answer.
19. When you disagree with something your partner says, pay attention to your response. Do you express your opinion without putting her down? You can express your opinion assertively rather than aggressively. For example, you can say, “I have another opinion. I think we should wait until spring to have the walls painted,” rather than, “That’s silly! We should wait until spring.”
20. Pay attention to how much of your side of the conversation is asking questions versus making statements. If you tend to be the dominant one, ask more questions.
21. Ask open-ended questions to encourage your partner to open up and talk. Open-ended questions begin like this:
1. Tell me about...
2. What do you think of...
3. What was it like when...
22. Have you become passive with your partner because that’s the easiest way to avoid conflict? Over time, this is not a good idea. You will inevitably begin to build up feelings of resentment because you are stifling your feelings, thoughts, and opinions. If you think you are choosing passive behavior too often, think about discussing it with your partner and asking him to help you be more assertive.
23. Researchers have found that people whose marriages last the longest have learned to separate from their families of origin (their own parents and siblings) and have appropriate, healthy boundaries. They value and honor their own privacy and separateness as a couple. This means they have regular, appropriate contact with their extended family, but that it is not excessive or stifling. How do you compare?
24. Check your communication with your partner and beware of using “You” messages. These are statements that begin with you. For example:
You need to come home by 6:00 tonight.
You shouldn’t do that.
You should call me from the office and tell me when you’ll be home.
Here is what you ought to do.
“You” messages are damaging because they make the other person feel bad or disrespected. It feels like you are talking down to him or her.
25. If you want to demonstrate to your partner that you respect and esteem him or her, try speaking with “I” messages instead. When you start your statement with “I,” you are taking responsibility for the statement. It is less blameful and less negative than the “you” message.
You can use this formula: Your feelings + Describe the behavior + Effect on you. This is how an “I” message sounds: When I heard that you’d planned a weekend up north, I was confused about why you hadn’t asked me first, so I could be sure to get the time off. It takes some practice and you have to stop and think about what you are going to say, but your marriage deserves to be handled with care.
26. Make a list of your partner’s positive qualities. Share them with him and tell her why you think each is true.
27. Ask your partner to do the same for you.
28. Respect each other’s private space. Over time, many couples let this slide.
29. As the years pass, many couples begin to feel like they are living in the same house, but have parallel lives. Their paths cross in fewer places. What is the trend in your relationship and what do you want to do about it?
1. Treat your partner as you would your boss, best friend, or best customer.
2. Think about what your partner wants and give it to him or her.
3. Think of ways you can do the unexpected and be thoughtful. Remember how you acted when you wanted to win your partner over.
4. Pay attention to your appearance. Dress nicely; get into shape.
5. Express your thoughts carefully. Being married doesn’t give anyone permission to let it all hang out.
6. Spend regular time together alone.
7. Look for ways to compliment your partner.
8. Hug when you say hello and goodbye. It feels good and it makes people feel loved.
9. Learn and practice communication skills. Relating successfully to another person requires a set of skills that can be learned.
10. Be polite. Just because you are married doesn’t mean you can forget your manners.
11. When you want something, say please.
12. When your partner does something for you, say thank you.
13. When your partner comes home after a day at work, greet her at the door and say hello. Ask how her day went.
14. When your partner leaves for work in the morning, say goodbye and “I love you” or “Have a good day.”
15. When your partner faces a challenge at work during the day, ask how it went when you get home.
16. During your evening meal together, avoid the temptation to watch television or read the paper or mail. Look at your partner and have a conversation.
17. If you want to make plans that affect how your partner will be spending time, check with him first and make sure it’s convenient.
18. When you ask your partner a question, make eye contact and listen to the answer.
19. When you disagree with something your partner says, pay attention to your response. Do you express your opinion without putting her down? You can express your opinion assertively rather than aggressively. For example, you can say, “I have another opinion. I think we should wait until spring to have the walls painted,” rather than, “That’s silly! We should wait until spring.”
20. Pay attention to how much of your side of the conversation is asking questions versus making statements. If you tend to be the dominant one, ask more questions.
21. Ask open-ended questions to encourage your partner to open up and talk. Open-ended questions begin like this:
1. Tell me about...
2. What do you think of...
3. What was it like when...
22. Have you become passive with your partner because that’s the easiest way to avoid conflict? Over time, this is not a good idea. You will inevitably begin to build up feelings of resentment because you are stifling your feelings, thoughts, and opinions. If you think you are choosing passive behavior too often, think about discussing it with your partner and asking him to help you be more assertive.
23. Researchers have found that people whose marriages last the longest have learned to separate from their families of origin (their own parents and siblings) and have appropriate, healthy boundaries. They value and honor their own privacy and separateness as a couple. This means they have regular, appropriate contact with their extended family, but that it is not excessive or stifling. How do you compare?
24. Check your communication with your partner and beware of using “You” messages. These are statements that begin with you. For example:
You need to come home by 6:00 tonight.
You shouldn’t do that.
You should call me from the office and tell me when you’ll be home.
Here is what you ought to do.
“You” messages are damaging because they make the other person feel bad or disrespected. It feels like you are talking down to him or her.
25. If you want to demonstrate to your partner that you respect and esteem him or her, try speaking with “I” messages instead. When you start your statement with “I,” you are taking responsibility for the statement. It is less blameful and less negative than the “you” message.
You can use this formula: Your feelings + Describe the behavior + Effect on you. This is how an “I” message sounds: When I heard that you’d planned a weekend up north, I was confused about why you hadn’t asked me first, so I could be sure to get the time off. It takes some practice and you have to stop and think about what you are going to say, but your marriage deserves to be handled with care.
26. Make a list of your partner’s positive qualities. Share them with him and tell her why you think each is true.
27. Ask your partner to do the same for you.
28. Respect each other’s private space. Over time, many couples let this slide.
29. As the years pass, many couples begin to feel like they are living in the same house, but have parallel lives. Their paths cross in fewer places. What is the trend in your relationship and what do you want to do about it?
Menapause : A Metamorphosis
Once, when I was six years old, I broke apart a chrysalis to see what was inside.
There was nothing inside. Well, nothing recognisable, anyway.
I later learned that after its cocoon is sealed and hardened, a caterpillar slowly disintegrates. It melts into a kind of sludge. Eventually, some time during winter, from out of this sludge of undifferentiated cells, a butterfly begins to form.
Nobody warned me that menopause is a lot like that. Maybe it is as well they didn't. After all, how do you go on feeling smart, sexy, capable, confident and all-round good about yourself if you know you are gradually turning into sludge? It probably doesn't bother a caterpillar, but it certainly bothered me heaps. Because you cannot come apart without feeling it. And if you are anything like me, you cannot be aware of the coming apart process without panicking. So I panicked.
My pre-menstrual syndrome was no longer pre- anything. It was most of the month, with a few good days scattered here and there like islands in a large ocean. My normally sharp thought processes were going blunt so alarmingly fast that I thought I was getting Alzheimer's. In place of a brain, I now seemed to have what felt like a wodge of thick cotton wool. Worst of all, my libido was going through the floor.
No-one had warned me about any of that.
My mother had sailed through menopause – or so she said – with no symptoms at all except that her periods stopped one day when she was fifty-five and never came back. That was it. End of story. Not even one hot flush. All my friends were the same age as me or younger. There was no-one to reassure me.
It was the mid-1980s, and the 'medical model' ruled. HRT was rapidly becoming the flavour of the month. But I was an alternative, vegetarian, health nut sort of a person and I instinctively recoiled from the idea of messing with my hormones. I decided to tough it out.
The more I thought about it, though, the more I started wondering if I could do more than simply tough it out. What if I went consciously, willingly into the cocoon and really felt what it was like to be a caterpillar coming unglued? What better way to find out what happens in there than to go in, wide awake and wondering? I felt like one of those early explorers, heading into the jungle with no map. And since I had been unable to find any decent maps, maybe I would make my own. All I had was one small fragment. It was something written by the novelist, Ursula LeGuin.
She wrote:
'..it seems a pity to have a built-in rite of passage and to dodge it, evade it, and pretend nothing has changed. That is to dodge and evade one's womanhood, to pretend one's like a man. Men, once initiated, never get a second chance. They never change again.. That's their loss, not ours. Why borrow poverty?'
A rite of passage? A second chance? This might be the weirdest journey of my life.
In some ways it was. Especially because, on the outside, I was trying to keep my 'normal' life together, while this other stuff was happening on the inside. I was presenting my habitual face to the world, then dashing home to write in my journal, analyse my dreams, meditate, and spend a lot of time just sitting quietly (or crying).
Hot flashes happened, wherever I was. So on the outside, I just made jokes about it like everyone else, took my jacket on and off, fanned my face and drank lots of cold water. On the inside, I was saying to myself: "Steady, girl. You're doing fine. This is how it feels to melt like a caterpillar." That way, each hot flush, rather than being a pesky nuisance, was a transformational process, bringing me one step closer to my new, butterfly self. But would that new self ever emerge?
My periods stopped. After I had not had one for a while, I started to regret that I hadn't marked their ending with some sort of ritual. But how can you mark the last of something if you don't know it is the last? When I realised that I would never see my own menstrual blood again, that thought made me inexplicably sad. Yes, I, too, had often referred to it as 'the curse.' But it was part of my womanliness, for all that. Now it was over. So I had to grieve.
In fact, I did bleed again, a few months later. So this time, I did a ritual, smearing some of the blood on a white seashell and putting it on my meditation altar in a gesture of reverence for what had been such an integral part of my life. After that, I felt different. As though I had turned a corner.
During that long time in the 'cocoon' of menopause, I discovered that there were many things which needed to be consciously mourned and let go: my ability to bear more children, my youthful looks, my sexual juiciness and so on. There was a lot of work to do. And as I let go of these old definitions of myself, I had no idea what would take their place. It was as though I had to clear the space, first. So sometimes, it was scary.
What helped me the most was the fact that I was documenting the process. The same spirit of scientific curiosity that had prompted my six-year old self to smash that chrysalis and peer inside was now leading me to study my own transformational process and to write about it. And because I was doing some postgraduate work in psychology at that time, as well as having a clinical practice where many of my clients were mid-life women, I was able to study not just my own process but that of other women also, and to write my thesis on it. By then, I had become so fascinated with the whole thing that I went on and turned the thesis into a book.
I was fifty-five years old. A whole new energy seemed to be stirring within me. With the publication of that first book, it felt as though I was entering a completely new phase of my life. (I never dreamed, back then, that I would later go on to write several more books, including one about the post-menopausal life).
Come the day of the book launch, I felt nervous. I had invited everybody I knew. Friends, relations, acquaintances, colleagues – the room was full of people, all from different compartments of my life. It's a weird feeling when those hitherto watertight compartments come together and people from very different parts of one's life are all tipped out into one, large room. I felt decidedly nervous – even a little bit foolish.
Some close friends had devised a ritual that would not only mark the publication of the book but would be my 'croning', my official rite of passage into the third phase of my life. They had incense and candles and all sorts of hippie things. Here were colleagues in suits and ties who had only ever seen the professional outside of me, yet here I was, making public those strange and sludgy internal processes of my menopause. I felt like running away and hiding.
But it was too late. The candles were lit. The ritual began.
My daughter sang a song in my honour. My friends crowned me with flowers and gave me a cauldron to hold. Finally, I was declared a crone.
The people all clapped.
I walked to the front of the platform, looked at the sea of faces, took a deep breath and made my first speech as a crone, or elderwoman. They all cheered.
The first person to come up to me afterwards was a man in a suit – one of the sales reps for the company handling the book's distribution. He thanked me, saying that it was by far the most beautiful book launch he had ever been to. He asked me to sign a copy of the book for his wife. He had tears in his eyes. I was utterly amazed.
That was when I realised I had wings.
© Marian Van Eyk McCain 2007
There was nothing inside. Well, nothing recognisable, anyway.
I later learned that after its cocoon is sealed and hardened, a caterpillar slowly disintegrates. It melts into a kind of sludge. Eventually, some time during winter, from out of this sludge of undifferentiated cells, a butterfly begins to form.
Nobody warned me that menopause is a lot like that. Maybe it is as well they didn't. After all, how do you go on feeling smart, sexy, capable, confident and all-round good about yourself if you know you are gradually turning into sludge? It probably doesn't bother a caterpillar, but it certainly bothered me heaps. Because you cannot come apart without feeling it. And if you are anything like me, you cannot be aware of the coming apart process without panicking. So I panicked.
My pre-menstrual syndrome was no longer pre- anything. It was most of the month, with a few good days scattered here and there like islands in a large ocean. My normally sharp thought processes were going blunt so alarmingly fast that I thought I was getting Alzheimer's. In place of a brain, I now seemed to have what felt like a wodge of thick cotton wool. Worst of all, my libido was going through the floor.
No-one had warned me about any of that.
My mother had sailed through menopause – or so she said – with no symptoms at all except that her periods stopped one day when she was fifty-five and never came back. That was it. End of story. Not even one hot flush. All my friends were the same age as me or younger. There was no-one to reassure me.
It was the mid-1980s, and the 'medical model' ruled. HRT was rapidly becoming the flavour of the month. But I was an alternative, vegetarian, health nut sort of a person and I instinctively recoiled from the idea of messing with my hormones. I decided to tough it out.
The more I thought about it, though, the more I started wondering if I could do more than simply tough it out. What if I went consciously, willingly into the cocoon and really felt what it was like to be a caterpillar coming unglued? What better way to find out what happens in there than to go in, wide awake and wondering? I felt like one of those early explorers, heading into the jungle with no map. And since I had been unable to find any decent maps, maybe I would make my own. All I had was one small fragment. It was something written by the novelist, Ursula LeGuin.
She wrote:
'..it seems a pity to have a built-in rite of passage and to dodge it, evade it, and pretend nothing has changed. That is to dodge and evade one's womanhood, to pretend one's like a man. Men, once initiated, never get a second chance. They never change again.. That's their loss, not ours. Why borrow poverty?'
A rite of passage? A second chance? This might be the weirdest journey of my life.
In some ways it was. Especially because, on the outside, I was trying to keep my 'normal' life together, while this other stuff was happening on the inside. I was presenting my habitual face to the world, then dashing home to write in my journal, analyse my dreams, meditate, and spend a lot of time just sitting quietly (or crying).
Hot flashes happened, wherever I was. So on the outside, I just made jokes about it like everyone else, took my jacket on and off, fanned my face and drank lots of cold water. On the inside, I was saying to myself: "Steady, girl. You're doing fine. This is how it feels to melt like a caterpillar." That way, each hot flush, rather than being a pesky nuisance, was a transformational process, bringing me one step closer to my new, butterfly self. But would that new self ever emerge?
My periods stopped. After I had not had one for a while, I started to regret that I hadn't marked their ending with some sort of ritual. But how can you mark the last of something if you don't know it is the last? When I realised that I would never see my own menstrual blood again, that thought made me inexplicably sad. Yes, I, too, had often referred to it as 'the curse.' But it was part of my womanliness, for all that. Now it was over. So I had to grieve.
In fact, I did bleed again, a few months later. So this time, I did a ritual, smearing some of the blood on a white seashell and putting it on my meditation altar in a gesture of reverence for what had been such an integral part of my life. After that, I felt different. As though I had turned a corner.
During that long time in the 'cocoon' of menopause, I discovered that there were many things which needed to be consciously mourned and let go: my ability to bear more children, my youthful looks, my sexual juiciness and so on. There was a lot of work to do. And as I let go of these old definitions of myself, I had no idea what would take their place. It was as though I had to clear the space, first. So sometimes, it was scary.
What helped me the most was the fact that I was documenting the process. The same spirit of scientific curiosity that had prompted my six-year old self to smash that chrysalis and peer inside was now leading me to study my own transformational process and to write about it. And because I was doing some postgraduate work in psychology at that time, as well as having a clinical practice where many of my clients were mid-life women, I was able to study not just my own process but that of other women also, and to write my thesis on it. By then, I had become so fascinated with the whole thing that I went on and turned the thesis into a book.
I was fifty-five years old. A whole new energy seemed to be stirring within me. With the publication of that first book, it felt as though I was entering a completely new phase of my life. (I never dreamed, back then, that I would later go on to write several more books, including one about the post-menopausal life).
Come the day of the book launch, I felt nervous. I had invited everybody I knew. Friends, relations, acquaintances, colleagues – the room was full of people, all from different compartments of my life. It's a weird feeling when those hitherto watertight compartments come together and people from very different parts of one's life are all tipped out into one, large room. I felt decidedly nervous – even a little bit foolish.
Some close friends had devised a ritual that would not only mark the publication of the book but would be my 'croning', my official rite of passage into the third phase of my life. They had incense and candles and all sorts of hippie things. Here were colleagues in suits and ties who had only ever seen the professional outside of me, yet here I was, making public those strange and sludgy internal processes of my menopause. I felt like running away and hiding.
But it was too late. The candles were lit. The ritual began.
My daughter sang a song in my honour. My friends crowned me with flowers and gave me a cauldron to hold. Finally, I was declared a crone.
The people all clapped.
I walked to the front of the platform, looked at the sea of faces, took a deep breath and made my first speech as a crone, or elderwoman. They all cheered.
The first person to come up to me afterwards was a man in a suit – one of the sales reps for the company handling the book's distribution. He thanked me, saying that it was by far the most beautiful book launch he had ever been to. He asked me to sign a copy of the book for his wife. He had tears in his eyes. I was utterly amazed.
That was when I realised I had wings.
© Marian Van Eyk McCain 2007
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