Building your immunity

Building your immunity

Winter is here and with no end in sight, it is tiresome to those non snow boarding loving enthusiasts. The endless bone chilling cold days and nights give way to the numerous common colds or flus that many endure during this season. Just like when children start going to day care or schooling systems they pick up respiratory or stomach infections that keep them ill and continuously walking petri-dishes of germs, winter season can be no different. One can take the point of view that it  is an immunity building phenomenon  and a rite of passage. Yet many frustrated parents will state that it is more immunity shattering for the adults as they join in the infectious pool. 

Your immunity is built by germs attacking your body systems, and you counteracting it with a response, be it fever, coughing, running nose etc. It wears you down yet more over than not you get over it and come out at the other end of it stronger  than before. Your body remembers the germ invader that caused the problem and stays always ready with its antidotes for future infections. Similarly we are always bombarded  by negative experiences. For example when people say or do nasty things to us, expected events do not go our way and so on. We may feel depressed, hurt, angered and frustrated. Yet if we learn to drive our responses to a more positive reaction we can mount a better and stronger defense against these emotional invaders if they come back, and they usually do. You can either let these harmful feelings rule you and in doing so give in to the infection and be subdued by it or you can fight it and build your own defenses and immunity. 

My personal cure for the case of the blues or blahs is positive meditation. Feeling the positivity of warm energy flow through you is like a phoenix reborn, with vigor and renewed strength. I envision brightness as it courses every part of me and my being. Leaving no cell untouched by this positive intensity I feel fully armed against any of the negative encounters that may come my way, and surely as I think I am fully protected, negative personalities and encounters and negative thoughts and naysayers come my way to pop my bubble of positive energy. If I find that there is a chink in the armor when I get affected by these negative experiences, I go back to basics and reenforce it with a renewed coating and not just a patch. Layer upon layer I add this positive energy till my immunity and defense systems are fully intact  and non penetrable by anyone else's targeted hatred or by anything negative. Every time I encounter a non positive experience it is actually welcomed as it only serves to make my mind and spirit to become more adaptable and be more likely to overcome the invader next time it raises its ugly head. I would like to go as far as saying that everything that has come in your and my life that we have deemed as being "bad" has in fact been a blessing. That friend  who betrayed you, the irritating boss that frustrates  you, the finances  that did not come at the right time, and the  infinite more items to your " reasons I hate my life" list, all came for a reason, namely to help build your immunity with the antibodies of positive responses.

So next time you are feeling like you are getting a cold and reach out for some Elderberry, or zinc or vitamin C or cold remedy to boost your physical immunity add on a healthy dose of positive self awareness to your armamentarium of cures, as you fight off yet another negative encounter. Feel free to do the same if your invader to your personal space of peacefulness is not microscopic.  

Laughter is the best medicine

Laughter is the best medicine

We hear the sound of laughter in the next room, it makes us smile. We see a child laughing their little head off at the silliest thing, we chuckle. Someone cracks a funny joke and we all roar with laughter. Jocularity is not only infectious but it is a necessary part of your well being, both mental and physical health. Laughter boosts your physical health through boosting your immunity, or at least it is suggested by Dr  Patch Adams. There are numerous research articles on the same topic of laughter and improvement of health. Moreover there is an endorphin release when we laugh that makes us happier and with it stronger in mind, spirit and consciousness. 

Roaming around everyday stressed, frowning and angry leads to negative emotions and depression. Walking about with a happier sense of being with the ability to laugh at the tip of your mouth leads to a more positive robust attitude towards life. It is not just laughing for the sake of laughing, yet being able to laugh at something comical or moreover at something that you have done is an art in itself. Laughing at oneself is not only humbling but it is self deprecating. It allows for a more complete look at yourself and then the  realization that you are who you are, and you can make mistakes, yet more over you learn from them. As I like to say" live and learn and then learn and live some more." The laughter brings in the spirit and the ego to the same playing platform where ego admits to the silly nature of whatever you have done and the spirit can laugh with and not at the ego-self.  

Laughter brings out honesty as even if I were to try to hide a secret, the guilty laughter or the nervous laughter is revealed. Laughter brings us all together. Just see this unfold at a comedy club, where even when the audience are being made fun of, yet everyone joins in together with loud belly sounds of amusement. We can sit together and laugh at jokes made about race, sexuality, gender, political or even religious affiliations all in the name of comedy, even if that ridiculed subset is us.  Why do we do this to ourselves? It is probably the subconscious that is having its "day in the sun." It is through laughter prejudices are overcome. In days long ago only the court jester could poke fun at the King, up to a point of course, and it was considered acceptable.  There are so many different ways to laugh that is unique to the individual such as chuckles, cackles, guffaws, giggles to belly laughter. In any event it is a de-stresser  and a way to calm down. Once calm you become more momentarily aware of the reason for laughter and have time to process it. If the target of the joke is about a "touchy or sensitive" topic related to mainstream issues then the laughter resets the guarded nature of the conscious and enables your unconscious to assimilate your prejudices and allow your true Self to chime in with  Your opinion on the topic. If I listen carefully during these quick and brief moments, I find that I am not prejudicial and can be swayed back to MY opinion of non judgmental points of view rather than that which is thrust upon me by media and literally everyone I speak to. 

Laugh a little or laugh a lot the choice is yours. Laugh with your belly or laugh with your heart, it does not matter. What matters is that you laugh sincerely. You have heard the joke " Why did the chicken cross the road?" There are so many combination punch lines to this joke over the years that some are funny and some are simply corny, yet this joke always will get a laugh or at least a chuckle. Whether it crossed to the other side because it wanted to, or just because it could, I do not know why it crossed the road or even if it did or even if there was too much traffic for it to cross. Which road was this? Did the chicken have faith that it could cross the road? How fast did it cross the road? We will never know the answer yet perhaps that is why we laugh at this joke, namely we laugh at the not knowing why, and the remarkable nature of the certainty of the unknown. What frightens us of the unknown is equally dismissed with laughter. This rapid movement of our chest with loud noises that emanate are a source of strength building in the face of anything that may give us cause for concern. 

Why did the chicken cross the road? No idea but wouldn't it be a funny sight if it did. HA HA HA !!!

Last call

Last Call

It is closing time, the bar tender calls out asking if anyone wants another drink. The conductor blows his whistle one last time before the doors close and the train sets on its way. Last call....then we depart this planet. An entire life lived ends with a last call. All one's hopes and dreams completed or not is reduced to rubble at this last moment. I have often wondered how does one live their life knowing that they have only 3 months to live, and moreover how does that change if you did only have 3 months to live yet you were unaware of it. This was recently experienced by me when a close family member passed after having suffered for little over 3 months with a terminal disease. Our ends are already known, just not by us, but what if they were? Would I radically change my  thinking about how I treated friends, family, coworkers or strangers? Would I use my time more wisely to enjoy every moment by spending time with those I cared about or spend more time doing the hobbies that give me most fun? Would I get religion in a hurry? These questions are not designed to make me try to hurry up and do everything before my last call, but moreover are posed in an effort to improve the quality of the living that I am doing at this very moment, in other words right NOW. So that I do not regret my life, yet celebrate it fully at its final moments, these questions must be answered.

Letting go of the past troubles and worries about the future is an extremely necessary step in order to allow the present moment to unfold. The answer  lies in just being and not hoping to be, type of mentality. Once you have written down your own personal cardinal questions, and you start the answering process, what you are really doing is reverse engineering your life. The answers are what you are truly desiring and it is your illogical mind that prevents you from hearing them with questions of its own. Such as what will achieve you if you just do your hobbies? who is going to pay bills? what will people say with your liberating course of action? Who put you up to this foolish endevor? And the list goes on. Except the difference is that these questions will constantly keep coming up to thwart you from your true purpose. It was said by Donald Trump " life is what you do while you wait to die." I would agree with this statement except that I would say " dying is what we are doing while we wait to live." The natural order of things is to decay and die. Making a life full is an achievement in itself. A full life is not obtained by necessarily just doing numerous things, it is obtained by doing things to be happy. 

Here are my answers. Love, peace, compassion  are all qualities that I endevor to envibe and treat everyone to this standard. I do and I will try to utilize every moment given to me to spend it with everyone I love, and since I chose to love everyone, my life is continuously being spent within this framework towards all that I meet. I am doing all the hobbies that I enjoy and find fun to do, as long as I am happy doing them. I have studied numerous religions, and find them all to follow the same tenant as my first question, so no need to change. So in reality as long as I maintain my present course of action of being in the moment and staying fluid within that moment of now, then regardless of knowing how much time I have or do not have is ergo immaterial. So in fact the above quote can now be further modified into "Life is what I choose to do while I continue to live."  Perhaps a more affirmative slant, yet the attitude and tone makes all the difference in the world. I wish you a wonder-full life without regrets making the last call worth it. 

Last call?  Happily  I am on board, see you later.

Amnesia oh I miss thee !

Amnesia,  Oh I miss thee!

As a child I used to run and climb trees carefree of whether I would fall down or hurt myself. I would create art or write without much hinderance or doubt of whether I would earn critique from someone else. I would befriend anyone without the fear of the stranger being someone who could harm me. Many adults do still remember the days when they would be allowed to play in the streets, or play in the playgrounds that were clearly not childproof by todays standards. I did many things as a growing child that for some reason as a parent I instinctively would not allow my child to do today. Why? Fear. Somewhere along the way as I "grew up", and I use that term loosely, I may have fallen in the playground  or seen someone get hurt, or be indoctrinated by the media that we need to lead more protected and safer lives, and so I want the same safety for my child.  Yet clearly missing the fact the neither my child is any different from any child past or present and the concept of falling, getting hurt and getting up and then walking away are part and parcel of human psyche evolution.

 Granted that streets are busier today with more traffic so playing around on streets are more challenging, and perhaps the lessons of the past teach us to be more cautious for future, yet it is the carefree nature to explore, learn and advance without the feelings of being ridiculed, hindered or shamed that prevent us from doing so. Fear makes us forget the easier, simpler and more energetic times. We have come under the spell of amnesia and been gripped with fear on all levels of heart, mind and consciousness. Moreover unknowingly so mesmerized that we go about our day like as if we have control over everything without any awareness of this deeply unconsciously seeded problem.  With the example of the playground, we may intellectually know that there is nothing to fear, yet through some encounter a hook of fear has been attached to our minds and so we perpetuate the same to an unsuspecting generation of children who are ready and waiting to learn and explore and make mistakes yet, we shorten their experiences by our fearful ideas. Yet the irony is that we already had that experience and did encounter the joy and the dangers of the experience.

 We further lose out as through our amnestic fog we alienate OurSelves when we were more awake and alert as innocent children learning to explore strange new worlds each day all those years ago. It is time we remember who we were, who we Are and therefore who we can become. Tapping into the carefree creative unapologetic energies of our freer selves we move forward without compromise, and not held back by fearful ropes of consequence that may or may not have falsely been binding us. Caution is a state of the intellect, yet fear is the state of the mind. One is helpful, the other is not. When I have been told that fear helps us drive and succeed, I would suggest that perhaps that it is the cautionary tale of failure that makes us succeed and lunge forward, yet fear only serves to keep us stuck in the mud of mediocrity. 

Fear? Sorry I don't remember you.