The Power of Love- Being on a Winning Team!

Whether you are single or married, you want love; you want to maintain the feelings of love. It is natural for you to crave good feelings. Love is good, however love isn’t everything. When love is mutually shared and expressed, it’s wonderful, fantastic, and phenomenal. Love gives properly to each person. Lack of love, unilateral, when one-sided, only one person is feeling it,  is lopsided, uncomfortable and unfortunate. That kind of love is self-serving, deprives the other of a good and fair close relationship. UN-returned or non-existent love deprive both people of having a good shot of sharing love from the get-go.

Love that is healthy between a woman and a man, friends, a parent and child feels good to both people. You both feel relaxed, seen, heard and understood. There is respect shown to one another, acceptance of differences, uniqueness, personal space and an appreciation of your shared togetherness. You find ways of working things out. You know what healthy love feels like. You know when love feels unhealthy, more like hate, a constant tug of war, or worse, apathy and is worthy of real relief, a real remedy, real change.

Lop-sided romantic love “pulls you under” makes you feel less than you are, challenges your authenticity, criticizes you for being (too much or too little) like someone else. UN-healthy love depletes you, makes you doubt yourself, challenges the choices you make and separates you. Healthy love respects and brings out the best in you, brings you closer, even if you are resistant to growth.

Best scenario in romantic love is to find someone who is peaceful in themselves, who is your friend, enjoys who you are; you enjoy them and have fun together. Your best mate is willing to communicate and willing to do the work alongside you because you’re on the same team. Essentially, in love, being friends and truly intimate lovers, able and willing to enjoy mature love is the best equation for happiness, your very best bet!

In romantic love, you have the choice to bolt, or stay and work it out. When you encounter difficult or selfish people you learn that there is no 2-way street, no middle ground, no real “we”. The world of one person takes over the world of the other or a shared world replaces both individual selves. Neither is healthy nor will lead to the power that real, mature, shared love can generate. You choose to love, you choose not to love and sometimes love chooses you. You can’t help but to enjoy and live by its seduction, its lusty, lofty calls.

Even when it comes to The Super Bowl, if your team doesn’t love you back (or better yet doesn’t know you): you know who you love and that’s plenty satisfying enough! In this case, unilateral love is acceptable and damned comfortable, especially when your beloved team wins!

Be honest about who you love, who you don’t love and act accordingly. After all, everyone deserves the truth and to feel like a champion, enjoy a lifetime of pride when you’re on a winning team, don’t you think? Live Inspired! R

Healthy eating trends, healthy aging

Today the topic is about healthy eating and what fuels people who are on board with current food and healthy aging trends. It seems that more people are becoming aware of healthy or clean eating. Television programs feature more cooking shows, with particular emphasis on using healthy ingredients with specific health benefits. Being active, pro-active with fitness is encouraged in magazines, and on daytime talk shows. More restaurants feature whole wheat versus white flour pastas and breads and substitute more natural sweets mixed in with the old stand by’s. Fruits, vegetables and lean meats are on more plates, organics available wherever you shop. Popular culture is obsessed with sexy anti-aging in a society that emphasizes youth and beauty above all else. So if you’re aging, and everyone is, then you may want to pay attention!

The emphasis on anti-aging, reversing the aging process and re-claiming self-care is directly related to the large number of “baby boomers” today, who are dealing with these issues. Since so many people in the US today are in their mid-aged numbers, are dealing with aging parents, many don’t want to collapse into old age anytime soon. We have more knowledge, resources and a renewed interest in trends that offer healthy aging, prolonged beauty and quasi-youth. Because of healthy eating, exercise and cosmetic advances we are or at least can look and feel younger, more beautiful and more marketable in the work/dating world than our predecessors.

The deal is that each person is in charge of how they view their life, their body and invariably, their aging process. Beauty is deepened with life experience, confidence that shows on the face of someone older and wiser. Seeing beauty at every age is a gift.

The key is to lock into the options that lead to better health, slower and more graceful aging. We all know that exercise plays a key part in staying flexible, strong and vibrant. Those words as the definition of youth can be maintained as you age. Depending on what you value most, are tuned into, pay attention to in the media, notice new discoveries, observations. personal priorities- your life become how and what you live.

Notice what trends you follow, what trends you need to lead for your own self-care. Live by your own moral and physical code. Find your way, whatever you do. Work on improving yourself, develop and deepen your self-awareness. Deepen your most important relationships in whatever ways you can allow it to happen. Let go of negative relationships that pull you down, ask for you to be less of yourself, less to show to the world! What you eat, how you sleep, what you think and who you hang out with all determine the longevity and quality of your life moving forward! Take a good, hard look and choose wisely for yourself. Being your own best friend is a good start to healthy aging as you continue to grow through life. Live Inspired! TM

Resolve Your New Year!

You may be thinking that the holiday’s are finally here, perhaps can’t believe they are in full-swing already! With all the build-up, effort, social obligations, expectations and emotions associated with “the holidays”, it can be quite stressful and exhausting. Christmas and Chanukkah, sometimes Kwanza are well-advertised, creep into our consciousness since Thanksgiving; Madison Avenue’s onslaught can not be avoided. The  effects of “the holidays” remain a part of you, perpetually engrained well-after the New Year.

So what do you do with the aftermath of holiday time as you then quickly welcome in the New Year? How do you process the events, feelings, and expressions, religious and cultural meanings and put them into the mix of another New Year yet to resolve? How do you process another year yet to begin, another set of expectations and resolutions yet to be created?

When you ponder what areas of your life you feel compelled to improve, develop, resolve, extinguish or explore- a “new way” naturally begins.  You quickly determine your list of personal, professional resolutions and think back to last year’s list. You may be one of the fortunate ones, who have stood by your positive intentions and accomplished some or all of your goals. You also may fall into the catagory of most people who have good intentions, yet over time,  reality and practicality have replaced idealistic desires.

Key is to honor your dreams, your new year’s desires, no matter how lofty they may be at first. Spend some time and enjoy fantasizing about what is possible for you, what are your true heart’s desires. Be generous with yourself and throw in some honest  gratitude for what already works in your life now. Gratefully acknowledge what you want or need more of in the future. Let the sky be the limit, imagine your life exactly the way you want it to be! Record internally, write down or share your list with people you’re close to; whatever works to help you clarify and cement what’s most important.

Once done, have fun with your list! A New Year’s Resolution list doesn’t have to be a serious thing, a dramatic or life-changing declaration. Your intentions determine the quality of your personal proclamation, so the outcome of what’s best for you will naturally evolve. Stay with your initial list, leave it alone and then return to it as the days and nights transpire. Be willing to see a thread of common themes, personal dream details that emerge.

Once you take a little time and uncover the prioritized themes on your list, you are ready to make a final draft. Be as specific as possible to help you to realistically tackle what’s most important. In order to successfully accomplish your New Year’s goals, be realistic while you set-up some safe risks. Set yourself up for success, not failure so reach for what you will accomplish accordingly.

If you are a visual person, post your New Year’s Resolution list in words, images or a combination of both so that you can see them. You can add them to your vision board, if you have one or want to create a new one. If you are more auditory in nature, record your resolutions where you can listen to your list and hear the desires of your heart and life. If you learn and remember using tactile or kinesthetic means, create tangible reminders that cause you to feel your list. Anyway you slice it, honor your developing intentions for the upcoming year with a precise medium that you can easily relate to, most naturally digest.

Finally, enjoy the holidays as much as you can. Welcome in the new year as a chance to embrace what works and to start over, sorta speak. It’s your list, what you resolve for your new year if you choose to create it, do it for you! Your resolutions reflect your highest priorities and no one else, unless part of your desires are to improve your relationships with others. Either way, you can resolve that the new year is right around the corner, whether you think about what  it means to you or not! Live Inspired!TM

Giving During Tough Times!

Gift-giving during tough times, especially holiday times can be a tough deal! Let’s face it, everyone’s strapped, the economy’s suffering, people have less to spend, it’s harder to make a buck. You want to give as much as you can, your budget may be limited and telling you otherwise. Cost of living is higher, food, gas, higher education are at all-time highs. People are working harder, changing careers and trying to survive in a down-economy. Personal and business obligations take over and there’s less to go around. The thought of over gift-giving can be a daunting proposition, for some. For others, holiday gift-giving is an obligatory or heart-felt tradition that they can afford, or go into debt for.

Family, cultural and religious traditions differ, with similar ends in mind during the winter holidays. The value is placed on what is received; the act of giving is more about getting the right, appropriate gift. Sometimes, the label, cost or location where the gift was bought is valued too. Reality is, many stores carry similar or identical products. There are good buys and expensive buys when shopping. Better to get a good or great buy than feel like you over-paid or spent more than you could afford. Be a smart shopper, save and spend wisely to make room for all of the important things and people in your life.

Bottom line is that it doesn’t really matter what gift you give to someone. What matters is that you give it from the right place. When your intentions are pure, you give from a place of giving, a place of peace, joy. Giving to another can be a joy when you give from a place of loving within your heart.  If you are honest and well-meaning, what you give will be enough. Your good intentions and moral character will come shining through!

Any way you slice it, there are just so many pieces of the pie you can cut up and serve out. Shift your attitude! Enjoy the holidays as a time to give from you, share your time, love, skills as a way of giving to others.  Spend what you can and be creative and thrifty when you shop. No harm in that. Thriftiness is the new cool!

Give to yourself, too. Make sure that you create a balanced, workable plan so you get what you need while you give to others. Get enough rest and use your down-time for rejuvenation and introspection. Give yourself your basic (and some special) needs so that you give from a well of fullness, rather than a pit of depletion. Give with intention and intentionally receive what others are giving to you. Live Inspired! TM

De-Stress Your Holidays with Nina!

How are you feeling as you experience this holiday season? It’s perfectly normal to experience stress, overwhelm, social pressure, some emotional up’s and down’s, decreased productivity, burn-out and the “holiday blues” during this time.

Stress in itself comes from a variety of stressors, big life events or a series of smaller events and issues calling for your attention. Typically, stress comes from outside sources beyond your control. Your reaction to stress is largely personal and is called your “stress response”. The way you interpret and cope with stress as well as the type of positive or negative stress that you encounter is what it’s all about.

Chronic stress effects health, relationships and productivity, while acute stress can be more manageable and less life altering. You choose to face your challenges head-on, find appropriate coping strategies and solutions to your stress or resort to less pro-active defaults. Because of that, you can be motivated to grow, seek out support and solutions because of stress. You may feel stifled and overwhelmed when you feel stressed, especially if it’s chronic or varied.  You may deny, avoid, and possibly sink into the inaction of oblivion, keeping the stress alive if it feels too over-whelming, foreign or long-standing to handle immediately.

Your task is to control what you can, release what’s outside of your control, reduce your stress and re-claim your inner peace, individual life progress. You have the right to take care of yourself. Use your self-care as a coping strategy that helps clarify your mind, calm your emotions, relax your body and soothe your soul.

Clarify what is stressing you out most and go from there. Are you partying too much or not quite enough? Is gift giving with limited finances getting you down? Are you feeling the pressure of the holiday’s spirit to be joyful, happy and giving when it doesn’t match up with your real feelings? Perhaps you are feeling the loss of a relationship or people have either exited or entered your life and you need to let go, transition, and adapt? For many, family interactions or the thought of spending time with family can stir up old, unresolved dynamics and create anxiety.

Your job is to figure out which category of stressors your life currently fall into and then create a workable action plan. If your stress is more temporary or transitional, mostly holiday-related, the good news is that relief is on the way as soon as the holidays pass. If you’re struggling with intense, ongoing or chronic stress you’ll need to seek out support to help you to make sense of, and then learn how to successfully rise above your plight. Wherever you are, no matter your circumstances or what you’re dealing with, remember that time and insight heals. Take the time to care for yourself, heal your life. You’re certainly worth it! Live Inspired! TM

For Your Well-Fare!

When you think about wellness and work-life balance, what comes to mind? In past decades health, wellness and beauty were perceived to be enjoyed largely by ego-driven narcissists, health club enthusiasts, athletes, and for celebrities in the public eye.  Being a “gym rat” took on its own meaning and still does to this day with a slightly different slant, more positive and socially accepted now. Those who watched their calories, ate carefully and intentionally were in the minority, maybe seen as a little extreme in some cases, at least to the mass majority. Wonderful now that the healing power of natural food is growing a bigger audience.

Conforming to others or outer standards for beauty alone isn’t the issue anymore. In recent years, there has been a shift in the world’s attention to healthfulness. Specifically in The United States, obesity and health issues are at an all time high. More people have jumped on the health-kick band-wagon, simply due to a smart shift in cultural health awareness.

Some companies and most health insurance providers recognize the need for preventative as well as restorative health. Work-life balance is an integral work in progress for individuals and companies that value preventative health. Wellness is restored, more highly valued for more people. Once healthy, beauty, fitness, greater work attendance and productivity follow. So, it becomes a “win-win”scenario for all. You feel and look better, you work better and you live longer. What’s not to like? It’s all good.

When planning your wellness program, be sure to include all aspects of healthy living. Your physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual well-being all factor in. One contributes to the success of the other and so on. Stress and time management are key contributors that help you construct an overall healthy lifestyle, as well. When you know you make healthy choices, manage your time, responsibilities, stressors and relationships well; you’re on the right path! Fare well for your own welfare; you deserve to feel good and live your best and most productive life ever, starting now! Get the support you need to live your healthiest life. The time to feel well is now. Live Inspired! TM

Find Light in the Darkness!

The day’s murky grey color and softened quasi-rainy dampness makes me think of how you can see and work with dreary relationships and find a place of comfort and peace. Depending on your point of view you can learn to manage a difficult relative, boss, co-worker, ex and other difficult people in your life and still enjoy the day! It really depends upon your point of view. Essentially it comes down to what you focus on, what you resonate with and what direction you choose to go.

You go through the reality of the day and what appears before you, it may feel dark and chilly at first. You then realize that you still need to get on with things. You choose to make it happy and productive or not, and get to choose what you do next. You find the hidden treasure there to warm you within the cold. You learn to train your mind in the present, capture the reality of what is, make the best of it, learn because or in spite of it and go about your day. You are an active participant in how you create a good, productive, positive, livable outcome for what can be. You do so as best as you can, are responsible for your part; learn what works best and what does not.

You train your brain in habitual ways, know what you know, what you knew from recent events or from way back when. You respond to your environment, timing, feelings churned up, wishes and expectations of what you believe the outcome to be. The way your moments unfold are more up to you, what you believe and what you tell yourself, than you might think. You may feel powerless over the misty, cold, sunless day.

It’s true you can’t control the weather. You also can’t control other people. What you can do is choose to enthusiastically deal with what is, period, plain and simple. You deal with people like you do weather conditions, accept and embrace the chill of reality, enjoy the soothing warmth of new clarity. You find the best in your day, the best in other people. You see the lessons there for you and eagerly learn new ways of being peaceful.

A day like today is like the universe giving you the chance to deal with a harsher reality, leave the joy of sunshine and warmth to celebrate that reality for another day. Both kinds of days are gifts. Same is true for your relationships, how and what you make of them. You choose to learn from everything. If you notice momentary life lessons, signs, coincidences, feedback that repeat themselves in your life, you’ll understand this. The way you deal with life is the way life will deal with you. What you expect, you often receive. Like the principles of Karma and The Law of Attraction: as long as you continue to do something repeatedly and not learn from it, it’ll continue to re-appear for you. Once you learn the lesson, you experience a new reality, born of new perceptions, better choices, better outcomes… until new lessons appear.

Sometimes it is easier said than done to adopt new thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and actions into your way of being and living. Best way to push through that natural resistance is to focus on your ideal outcome. Focus on who you are and the kind of person you can be(come) proud of. Take a step back and see the whole picture, all its sides before you react, or do what you’ve always done. Hold a light to the darkened places that keep you entrenched in habit patterns of thinking, reacting and doing that may no longer serve you now. Everyone slips, sometimes falls. It’s okay as long as you get back up, look at yourself and learn from it. Know when to protect yourself so that you are safe. Once you feel secure expose yourself to new ways of processing your world. You are better prepared to deal with your rainy, cold, murky places, relationships that trigger and challenge you to rise above. You put on your symbolic rain gear, walk confidently, wade through the trenches and seek light. Live Inspired! TM