The Best 5 People In Your Life

Living an Uplifting Life

Jim Rohn said: You are the average of the 5 people that you spend the most time with.

Who are the best 5 people in your life?
Who upholds you?  Who lets you down?
Look at who is currently in your life and whether they support you or disparage your ideas and thoughts.
When you are surrounded by negativity it is hard for positive ideas to flourish.
Decide who you want to have in your life and who you want to spend time with.
Positive people will encourage your choices, ideas, and in-turn you will be happy in their company and they in yours.

I recognize who is helpful to me

I will stay true to my beliefs

I will seek out and find an environment that uplifts and supports me

AFFIRMATION:WATER

A single raindrop merges with the ocean.
Likewise, we are all connected to the Source.

The five elements of nature; earth, water, fire, air, and ether exist within our own body and cycle through us every 59 minutes. The last minute of this hourly cycle is where the potential for the subtle feminine energy called kundalini can awaken and give rise to both self-knowledge and a higher knowledge.

Water is a basic element of life and sustains us and mirrors our own existence on earth.
Life has a natural flow and we are carried along gently in its wake when we conserve our energy and realize what we cannot change and what we can and should ably resist.

Each one of us has unique qualities that enable us to go with the ebb and flow of life, just as water ebbs and flows along its own path moving over rocks and bumps, twists and turns, and soaring and shallow depths.

Water moves slowly or fast, depending on the terrain, and flows continually until it reaches its final destination where it blends with a large body of water or dissolves into the earth or air.

A river begins with a single raindrop that merges with others until it forms a powerful force that returns eventually to the source from where it started.

Likewise, we are born from a source of love and will return to that special place when our life has completed its flow. Disruption in the flow occurs when we waste our energy struggling to maintain the status quo and staying in the past rather than going where life is taking us. Belief in our separateness and individuality creates difficulties and we end up wrestling with the natural course of life. There are challenges to be overcome such as changes in our health, our environment, or people that we love passing on, but acceptance helps us to flow through life and acknowledge the connection that we have, one to another, and one to the universe. We are all connected and will return to the source one day where we will be re-united.

The water element has much to teach us; from its clarity and purity when it is healthy, to its darkness and odor when it is undrinkable. Look at areas where you can cleanse your life and be like the water element, rolling and flowing with grace and ease, compassion and love.

AFFIRMATION:

I am part of something larger than myself
I live in a loving universe
I am filled with the light and love of God
I am in harmony with the Universe

What role does meditation or affirmation play in your life?

Peaceful Meditation

Meditation promotes peace in mind, body, and actions

Mind-Body Connection
The connection between the mind and the body has been a subject of study for many decades. One hundred years ago, it was noted that when animals became distressed, they did not eat. Research then gravitated towards humans, noting the causal relationship between events that affect the psyche and consequently impact the health of the body and mind.

The connection between the mind and the body is not new knowledge though. We can go back thousands of years and see how ancient cultures treated the mind and body as one, and not as separate entities. Chinese medicine is well-known for its belief that certain organs and centers of the body represent mental or emotional conditions. This form of medicine, and practices such as acupuncture, yoga and similar Eastern techniques also believe that the body contains meridians or nadis that carry energy effortlessly through the body when there are no physical or psychological obstacles.

Stress is known to be a major factor in creating chronic health conditions. It creeps into a person’s life and festers, creating serious problems that impact the heart and blood-pressure, and also produces anxiety, fear, intolerance, anger, and other physiological changes that create a recipe for unhappiness and illness.
While short periods of stress can help an individual to accomplish a task, it is the long-term, insidious form of stress that takes hold and upsets the overall health and well-being of a person.

Happiness Factor
Researchers are now finding clinical evidence for techniques such as meditation and rhythmic breathing to alleviate the chronic symptoms of long-term stress. Meditation boosts the immune system, establishing not only a calm and peaceful mind and body, but manifests actual changes within the brain and neurological systems of the body.

When you are happy, corresponding signals travel to your brain, which in turn boosts your immune system. Your feelings impact you on a deep level whether you are aware of this or not.
Thinking unhealthy, sad, hopeless thoughts really does affect the cells of the body detrimentally; while thoughts filled with hope, kindness, and love promote health and well-being.

It actually takes less energy to be positive than it does to think and act in a negative manner.

What Meditation Will Achieve
Through self-direction, you decide whether to see the positive rather than the negative in any situation. This awareness enables you to choose to create your best life. Smiles are contagious! And so, by default, are scowls, frowns, and a cantankerous attitude.

Speak to yourself in positive language and you will increase your emotional and physical health.
Meditation affects your perception, your awareness of time, and by promoting a positive mental state enables you to be free from the negativity that creates disorder and ill-health.
It helps to forge new pathways in the brain thereby enabling you to develop new habits.

Affirmations
You can self-generate power by using positive thoughts and vibrations.
Speak a word such as “Love,” or a phrase such as “I am Healed,” or the universal sound of AUM pronounced OM.
I am responsible for my life and have the power I need to have joy.
The happier I am with people around me, the happier I am as a person.
I see my life anew.

After Your Meditation Practice

• At home, practice smiling and capture the relaxed and carefree emotions that you generate.
• Keep a comfortable internal expression to maintain a positive mood and your feelings will show externally on your face and body language.
• Become active rather than reactive to situations, e.g. thinking before you speak or act
• Carry the feeling of peace and contentment with you wherever you go and watch the responses you receive from people around you.
• Give full attention to what you are experiencing physically, and what you are feeling, thinking and doing.

POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS

POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS CHANGE THE MIND LIKE THE CHANGING SEASONS

We all use affirmations hundreds of time every day. However these affirmations are not the ones that we want to continue using. Every thought that you have affirms a choice or a decision that may or may not be in your best interest. They're filled with doubts and negativity, but are powerful nevertheless.

Changing your thoughts and life is possible through the use of POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS.
They allow you to nurture yourself through kindness and are an internal cheerleader, helping you achieve your goals.

How Affirmations Work
Your mind cannot hold two thoughts at the same time.
You have a choice therefore to replace negative thoughts with powerful positive ones.

Holding a positive affirmation in your mind, carrying it with you, repeating it, believing it, makes the mind less resistant to change and eventually it slips into a positive way of thinking on a deep subconscious level.



All Affirmations must be positive in nature and use the present tense as though you already have what you need in your life and have created the changes that you seek.

When you are open to change, you will see opportunities present themselves before you for you to take hold of and use to your advantage. What you need will come to you, often when least expected. Even if you don't feel ready or prepared enough, accept that it has arrived for a reason and will help you.

You will not be given more than you can cope with. You will grow as an individual and in turn be able to help others by perhaps being the answer to or the completion of an affirmation that they have asked for.

Affirmations for Happiness:
I choose to be grateful and kind
I am successful in all that I do
I am happy
In this moment I am at peace
I have peace in all areas of my life.

Affirmations for Love:
My family life is loving and kind
I choose to give love
All aspects of my being are filled with love

Affirmations for Health:
I am filling each cell with light and creating a new body.
I have abundant energy to complete all my tasks
I am filled with vitality in body, mind, and spirit

Affirmations for Wealth:
All my needs are being met
I have abundance in my life
I receive whatever I need


Affirmations: Positive, Powerful, and Your Key to Happiness

Create Your Own Affirmations

1. All your affirmations must be positive in nature and in the present tense.
2. State your affirmation as though it is already happening.
3. Determine what is important to you, whether it is already a part of your life or not.
4. Decide what you want to have in your life.
5. Write it all down. That way you can see if you are using the correct positive language.
6. Create your list
7. Ignore any negative internal voices that tell you:

• you don't deserve to have...
  
• it won't work
• you're being silly
  

You are starting a new way of thinking and it will take a little while for you to replace your past thoughts and behavior pattern. Have faith in yourself and in your affirmations.
Your affirmations cost nothing but they achieve everything that you need. Throw out the doubting, negative-accepting thoughts and start believing in yourself.

Thoughts can be changed and by doing so you change your life.

Meditation:Healing Stress

Meditation: Healing Stress
When you are in control of your thoughts and emotions, you are in control of your physical body and able to view the world with clarity of vision and compassion. You are able to envisage a better way of living and you also gain a unique perspective of viewing the world around you.

We don’t often think about the importance of maintaining awareness of our thoughts. Think about a race car driver though.


He or she cannot risk the mind wandering and thereby losing concentration. It’s easy to see what may happen.

When any aspect of the body is unhealthy, other parts suffer. A stressed mind adversely affects the body if there is no release from the undue tension. Disease spreads if healing is impinged in any way and when one person is in pain they affect others who see their suffering.

As you take care of your home and environment, should you not also look after your living body and the thoughts that you keep?

Your body, thoughts, choices, and mind all undergo many transitions through each stage in life and you have a choice to either respect and maintain your body at each level to enable it to achieve its highest potential, or to consume and do whatever you want with no thought to the end result either on your own body or on the environment around you.

Meditation

Maintaining a healthy life is determined in part by what you eat and drink, how you think and act, and increasing your devotion to a spiritual path.

All decisions lie with you and it is by taking time through meditation that you are able to know what you should be doing and take the steps necessary to stay on the path even if you do not know where the journey will end and have only a rough idea of the destination.

Meditation both frees and clears mind occurs when you remove the existing thoughts and preconceptions that you carry with you everywhere you go.
It sweeps the area clean for a fresh beginning.
Remaining focused on the present, consciously choosing to act in a loving manner, and living in gratitude on a spiritual path directs the mind inwardly and away from distractions.

Through meditation you achieve conscious relaxation and freedom from stress. Meditation gives you the peace that you seek and helps you keep it.


Affirmation
Release yourself from stress using the following affirmations or words of your own choice that meet your daily needs.
You may first speak them aloud then draw the words in and out silently with each breath.

I am relaxed and free
I am at peace
I am loved and accepting of others
I trust my inner self to lead me in the right path.
I am always connected with the Divine Love in the Universe.

If you have any suggestions for meditation articles please write to me from the website (there's a place at the end of each posting to do this) and I'll be happy to write on this subject.
New meditation information is added to the site every week with links to my additional articles on how to meditate, reduce stress, and gain inner peace.

Breathe Easy

Breathe easy

Your breath, your mind, and your meditation practice are all intertwined with each other.

The breath is both a sign that the emotions are out of control and a means of drawing peace and harmony to the Self.
Troubled thoughts release adrenaline and stress hormones that increase outbursts of anger and undesirable consequences.

Researchers at the University of Miami found that controlled breathing, guided imagery, and meditation promote not only a positive mental attitude in women being treated for stage I or II breast cancer, but provide significant health benefits in supporting the immune system and the overall health of the body, including reduced serum cortisol levels in only 10 weeks.

Awareness of your reactions to what you experience enables you to release anxiety and block out the cause of your distress.

With awareness, you cultivate peace through control of the breath and become calmer, more loving, and in full control of your emotions.

Rather that being tossed about by the chaos of life, with the mind filled with hurtful and punishing thoughts, you can observe your thoughts, your reactions, and choose to hold onto the peace that resides within.


THE DAILY EDGE
Helping You Expand Your Possibilities
TODAY'S EDGE: Breath

As I breathe in, I fill my body with light
As I breathe out, I let go all internal impurities that arise from:

the foods that I consume
all pollutants I absorb from my environment
the toxins released from my thoughts.

I feel balanced and peaceful with each breath.


Meditation is for life.

Easy to Use Mantra

Patanjali: author of the Yoga Sutras

What's in your mind?
It is estimated that the average person has over 60,000 thoughts every day. Not all of these thoughts are happy approving ones though.

When you get into the habit of monitoring your thoughts and subsequent actions through meditation, you develop the ability to discern what you are thinking and can then choose to replace the negative, nay-saying thoughts with ones that are encouraging, upbeat and supportive in their energy.

Protecting your mind
A mantra is a mental or auditory word or phrase, often with a personal or sacred meaning. Derived from the roots of two Sanskrit words; manas, referring to the mind, and tra, meaning that which protects, a mantra is therefore a thought, word, or sound which protects the mind.

It serves as a replacement for unwanted thoughts by pulling the mind back to concentration, allowing you to develop single-pointed focus. You can repeat or chant a mantra, focusing on the meaning and the sound, while hearing the mantra vibrate within you.


View from the foothills of the Himalayas

Your very own shield
With regular meditation, you become familiar with detecting thoughts as they appear and by the use of a mantra, your chosen word or phrase rises up like a shield to protect you from either your own self-deprecating thoughts or hurtful energy directed at you from another person or situation.

OMMMM

Om is known as the first mantra. If the mind has a tendency to wander or unwanted thoughts enter the field of awareness, it provides a simple means to relax the mind and allow it to surrender into the peaceful influence of this singular point of focus. Om (also known as AUM) will be written about in more detail in a future blog. To begin though, develop the habit of repeating a mantra, either Om or one of your choice.


Know God, by Sri Ganapati Sachchidananda Swamiji

THE DAILY EDGE
Helping You Expand Your Possibilities
TODAY'S EDGE: Mantra

Traditionally, mantras are repeated 108 times, signifying one complete round. You can say as many rounds as you want to every day. Over time, you will notice that the mantra does have both a protective and a positive effect on the way that you think and subsequently act because you are replacing negative thoughts with more beneficial views and beliefs.

Try looking at yourself in the mirror and telling yourself “I Love You.” Do it 108 times every day for a week. Notice how you feel every day.

You can continue with this phrase or repeat a different one, so long as it is meaningful to you and not derogatory in any way.

Om is the most powerful mantra and the vibration is said to resonate with the universe. Meditation upon the sound of Om will therefore give you knowledge of Om and of the whole universe.

Mantra can be repeated silently during meditation or when walking and is easy to carry around with you and perform.

Keep it short and say it like you mean it.

Soon you will not only mean it, you will believe it even when you’re not saying it.

Meditation is for life.

Peace

A breath of meditation.
The breath is linked to all the emotions.
When you feel angry or watch a scary movie, the heart rate increases and the breath becomes shallow and rapid.
When you are watching a sunset, strolling in a park, or meditating, the breath is slow and steady.

The breath is very powerful because it is closely linked to the mind. When you lose control of the breath through your thoughts and feelings, you find that your subsequent actions are also impacted.

Taking control of the breath through meditation enables you to to know what a calm mind and body feels like. With practice, you develop a new mental habit so that anytime you are faced with a stressful situation, you can recognize how you are breathing and adjust the rate and rhythm accordingly.

Controlling the breath helps you to control your actions. Any time that you sense that you are experiencing anger, frustration, or irritation with a person or situation, simply return to the rhythmic flow of the breath and you will find yourself calm, relaxed and able to think clearly.


THE DAILY EDGE
Helping You Expand Your Possibilities
TODAY'S EDGE: A Breath of Meditation
With the eyes gently closed
Follow the breath from the tip of the nose to the base of the lungs
Follow the breath all the way out
Notice the rate and rhythm of the breath
Adjust it so that is it slow and steady
Center yourself by seeing the belly rise and fall
With each exhalation, let the breath become deeper and deeper
Let the mind follow the breath
Let the body relax with the longer and deeper breath
Feel a deeper connection with the Self
Feel the body and mind relax
Feel calming detachment from anxiety and stress
Enter into meditation

With practice, you will be able to return to a calm and peaceful breath with ease and eventually maintain inner and outward peace at all times.
Meditation is for life.

A Marathon Meditation

Emma approaching the finish line: 2009 Boston Marathon

Meditation for life.
Endurance and Fortitude. We don't automatically associate these words with meditation, however when faced with adversity, questions, and everyday struggles, endurance and strength are qualities that you really want in abundance and meditation gives you the ability to free yourself from the pain and doubts associated with day-to-day living.

For Emma, maintaining her focus and believing she could run this marathon enabled her to leave thoughts of failure far behind.

Meditation has long been known to bring inner peace and the corresponding external tranquility within relationships and all activities. However, for many people the starting point to begin meditation often arises out of pain, anxiety, or finally deciding that enough is enough and you really want to change your life for the better.
It is well known that if you keep on doing the same things, you get the same results.
That's why meditation is a steady method to practice and bring about the changes you desire.

You cannot think two thoughts at the same time.
When you maintain a constant vigil over physical pain, rehash angry conversations, and see only the sufferings of the world, you draw your attention to negative energy.
Meditation releases you from this, giving you peace and joy to focus on.


With practice, your meditation becomes like the gentle flow of water seeping into the cracks of your life and smoothing out the rough parts.
A great transformation occurs as you focus less on what cannot be done because of perceived limitations and see instead that your mind and body have no restrictions.

Let yourself flow in your meditation practice and as you leave your old self behind, see what personal mountains you can move and what you can achieve.


THE DAILY EDGE
Helping You Expand Your Possibilities
TODAY'S EDGE:Marathon Meditation

Meditation is one-pointed focus, yet often during the day our mind drifts away from peace and happiness and becomes focused on finding fault either personally or by criticizing other people.

In your meditation practice, focus on releasing critical behaviors.
Focus on seeing the beauty in life, rather than being fixated on what is dull and unexciting.

Have a mantra that you can repeat during your meditation and throughout the day.
Examples include:
I choose to be grateful
I choose to be kind
I choose to give love
I choose to feel joy
I choose to see the good within
I choose to be happy

Use your chosen word or phrase whenever you hear yourself revert to fault-finding. Feel yourself draw back to your light and the peace within via the use of your mantra.

In time, you stop thinking negatively because you are too busy thinking only good and positive thoughts.

Your time is too precious to waste on negative thinking. Look at what can be achieved if you put your mind to positive use.

While running a marathon may not be your desire, find out what is and what is holding you back.
Use your meditation to help you get there.
Meditation is for life.

Expanding Your Possibilities

When you think of meditation, the concept of someone sitting in quiet contemplation comes to mind. That individual is seen as being someone who is at peace with their Self and the world.

Meditation offers many possibilities beyond Self peace though.

We all have a finite amount of energy to see us through the demands of daily life.
If we don't rest, consume proper nutrition, and breathe correctly, we literally run out of fuel and eventually come to a grinding halt.

Likewise, our time here on planet Earth is limited and yet all too often we throw away our thoughts, words, and actions in wasteful activities, in arguments, or in thinking negatively about a person or situation.

If we're not careful, or mindful, we end up frittering our precious energy on matters that do not lead us and the world around us to a better place.

When teaching yoga asanas (poses) and synchronizing the activity with the breath, students are encouraged to deepen and lengthen the breath in order to "expand the mind and body in all directions." This means that the student will no longer cling to the limitations of the physical body, but release thoughts, feelings, and emotions in order to allow the mind to expand and create space within for love and peace to grow and knowledge to emerge.



When the mind is too blocked by lists, anxiety, comments from other people, and internal discouraging remarks there is a limit to how you can use your energy.

Just as a car engine and its filters need to be cleaned, serviced and filled with gas and oil, you also need to to use meditation in order to clean out the mind of clutter that you don't need, to replenish your will, and allow your Self to shine through.

Then You, as the silent witness observing all that goes on in the mind, can finally allow your mind to be open to receive wisdom and allow intuition to flourish.

Your mind then, will know no boundaries or limitations.

Meditation is your golden key to unlocking wondrous possibilities that are contained within you. Use meditation every day to free your mind and expand your possibilities.

THE DAILY EDGE
Helping You Expand Your Possibilities
TODAY'S EDGE: Watch Your Thoughts

For today's meditation I wanted to leave you with the following words taken from The Upanishads; a major work from India that discusses aspects of philosophy and spirituality.

Watch your thoughts; they become words.

Watch your words; they become actions.

Watch your actions; they become habits.

Watch your habits; they become character.

Watch your character; for it becomes your destiny.

All photos by Katarina 2353, on Flickr">

Meditation is for Life. Practice it daily.