Stress, Life, and how to not let them control you (part 1)

As we live through everyday life, we have stress factors that can affect us at every turn. Work, money, bills, relationships, and children are all factors that can cause us stress in our lives. We can not control whether we have stress, but we can control how we allow the stress to affect us. 

I have studied traditional chinese medicine and believe in Ch'i.  Ch'i is the life-force which many people call energy, holy spirit, or feelings.  Regardless of what you may want to name it, it is the driving force which resides in all of us. Ch'i flows through our body like blood through our bloodstream. It flows along what is called meridians. Meridians are the lines or pathways similar to our veins and arteries.  Ch'i can affect our emotional state.  It can make us angry, happy, sad as well as many other emotions when it is not flowing properly. Ch'i can also affect our physical bodies.  Blockages in our Ch'i can cause sore muscles, illnesses, and many other physical issues. Learning to clear those blockages can also treat many of those illnesses and other issues. There are many ways to treat blockages in our Ch'i, acupuncture being one of the more well known methods, as well as acupressure, massage, herbal remedies, and meditation.

Meditation is also a method of maintaining and controlling our Ch'i.  Meditation is used as a way to help us deal with the everyday struggles which affect our physical and mental well-being. There are various forms of meditation that are used by people, and you may use it and not even know it.  Have you ever sat and taken five minutes to just relax and breathe?  That is a form of mediation. Meditate is defined by Webster's dictionary as the engagement of thought or contemplation.  Many people believe that meditation is a religious, fake, or new age farce. Many people that don't understand meditation see it as pointless with no beneficial purpose. People that pray are mediating, sitting to relax and clear your mind is meditating.  Whether you do these things to feel better emotionally or to be more focused it is still a form of meditation.  Once you can view meditation as a tool used widely and not within the confines of a belief system or far-fetched  new age remedy, you can begin to allow the benefits of a balanced Ch'i help with the stresses that affect you everyday.

This will be a three part series, in the next series I will go over meditation principles and practices, methods of mediation,  and patterns to help deal with different emotional states.

Happiness: Choice or Condition?

I sometimes like to put a random quote on my facebook page and today's quote stirred a thought.  The quote was: "Happiness depends upon ourselves. - Aristotle".  Now what you can take from Aristotle is that happiness is a choice that we choose to either be happy or not be happy. This made me wonder is happiness truly a choice, or is it a condition of our environment and social status? I started doing some research on happiness beliefs and came across this article: "Choosing Happiness in Our Lives Revisited". (http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/choosing-happiness-in-our-lives-revisited/)

I believe that happiness is a choice because it is our choice to be happy with our lives regardless of the situation we are in at the moment. But you must choose. You may either choose happiness or misery. But a choice is always made. Here is an excerpt from the article I found interesting when Dr. John Grohol talks about it being easier than you think to choose happiness:

It is only as complicated as we make it. Sometimes we make things more complex than they are, because we grope around in the dark for excuses not to be happy. You heard me. Some people don’t want to be happy, but can’t admit that to themselves. They wouldn’t know what kind of life to live, or what kind of person to be if they gave up their past hurts, their past failures, and their past choices. While we are all the product of our histories, we are not beholden to keep repeating them over and over again unless we so choose. Many of us, fearful of the unknown, choose what is known, even if it’s misery and unhappiness.

Our past is what has brought us to where you currently are today, but it is your choices today that will take you to where you are tomorrow. Don't think about what has happened to you, and that you will never get past that point.  Think about what you want from tomorrow, and look forward. Change is the only constant, and your choices will help whatever changes are going to occur to be positive. You have to make the choice though because no one can make that choice for you. Your relationships with friends, family, and significant others will blossom if you allow yourself to accept changes and be positive about them. So the only real question here is, will you let your happiness be a choice or a condition?

Maintaining a Healthy Relationship

I have spoken many times about how technology can hinder a relationship and is a cause of cheating in many relationships. But it CAN be used to help a relationship and cause it to grow.  Today we spend much of our time checking our Facebook status, or Tweeting what we are doing at the moment. We may not realize it, but  throughout the day we are doing things that are necessary to our own evolution. We are interacting socially, looking for acceptance, and trying to be validated. Whether that validation is through our work, family, or among society as a whole. What most of us want is to matter to at least one person. So in a relationship take a minute to text your loved one, set a status update, or tweet during the day a little note letting them know you are thinking of them. Doing something small like continually over time is the same as watering your plants everyday. Over time you will watch your relationship grow. Jealousy and other killers will subside, and you both will be stronger.