6 Princlipes of Transcendent Beauty

It seems to be hard-wired into our genes to want to be attractive and beautiful. The cosmetic industry knows it, and so do cosmetic surgeons–and their profits continue to pour in. But there are secrets to an ageless and infinite beauty that is within reach of all of us, without makeup, chemical peels, botox, or the surgeon’s knife.
These six principles of transcendent beauty are worth being passed along to your friends: they are real keepers. Read them here:
1. You must feel beautiful before you can look beautiful.
As the old saying goes, “There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.” When we connect with our inner beauty (which we can do with meditation), we connect with an ageless, infinite, and divine beauty that exists within all of us.
2. Get past the ordeal by mirror.
We need to get past the compulsion that drives us to root out our tiny imperfections and then feel guilt and shame when we see our reflections as inadequate. We need to get rid of negative feelings that cloud our vision of ourselves and instead begin to see ourselves the way our loved ones see us. And it also wouldn’t hurt to get rid of all our magnifying mirrors, which magnify “flaws”, and instead use lighting that enhances our reflections when we look into our non-magnifying mirrors!
3. Take responsibility for your own happiness.
Think of your inner self as a lighthouse standing steady with a constant beam despite the buffeting of the surrounding ocean. How powerful it is to envision your inner self as a sanctum protected from the vagaries of the outer world! It can also be empowering to analyze our situation, choose to be happy despite the aspects you can’t control, and take positive steps to change what you can control.
4. Live in the present.
One of the often overlooked ways to recognize the beauty within you is to concentrate on living in the present and to avoid basing your actions and feelings on thought and memories of the past. If you can become aware of this tendency, even for just for brief moments during your life, you’ll come to understand that others’ reactions to you are the result of what you project. If you want to elicit positive reactions from those around you, you need to express positive emotions and perform affirmative acts. From the beauty viewpoint, living in the present means accepting yourself as you are while not denying yourself as you were or might be.
5. Surround yourself with beauty.
Surrounding yourself with beauty–both tangible and intangible–is a time-honored technique for nurturing your soul. Keep living plants and animals in your home. Clothe yourself in beautiful garments–or, rather, garments that make you feel beautiful. Keep company with people who elevate you rather than bring you down–people who love you and show their love. Whether you believe in fortunes or fate, your life is yours to shape. And the most important and positive decision you can make is to bring beauty into your life.
6. Do at least one thing a day that inspires you.
We draw oxygen from the air we breathe, but we draw life from our passions. Keep your passions at the center of your days, whatever they may be–music, sports, cooking, reading, or writing. Whatever feeds your soul and makes it sing.

Adapted from Face Value, by Hema Sundaram (Rodale Press, 2003).

About Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is a person's sense of personal value or self-worth.  It also involves how people define themselves, which in turn influences their motivaions, attitudes and behaviors throughout life.

Healthy self-esteem is important for emotional well-being, and it is helpful in realizing life.

A Healthy Self-Esteem Involves:. People that believe in themselves and have a positive outlook in life are also more likely to have healthy self-esteem and generally tend be happier.
* Trust. Confidence and faith in oneself as well as others.
* Self Nurturing. Learning how to take care of others as well as oneself.
* Autonomy. Self-determination and independence.
* Identity. An individual’s sense of self.
* Intimacy. The ability to relate closely to others.If an individual is unable to develop these or loses sight of them, low self-esteem can result. How people feel about themselves can be related to various factors, including the environment, body image, personal and social expectations and experiences.

Low self-esteem can be damaging because it can affect a person’s body, mind and spirit.

Self-acceptance is crucial for developing a healthy self-esteem
Tips for Boosting Self-Esteem:

* Identify your positive attributes

* Recognize areas in which you excel

* Do not measure yourself using other people’s standards
* Take risks in order to succeed
* Learn to set realistic goals
* Develop a support system of friends and relatives
* Focus on accomplishments and don’t dwell on failures

5 Steps in Reclaiming Your Goals

Your intentions have been good. Deciding to change yourself, really committing to be a better person in some way, is not a decision arrived at easily. The fact that you’ve decided to make a change means that you’ve taken stock in yourself. You’ve reflected. What if you haven’t met your goals? You are not perfect and all-powerful. Self-change is hard, so it’s not surprising if you don’t get it right the first time. Stop feeling bad and follow these steps:

1. Tell yourself, "it's okay".  But don't given in and think "it's okay, I don't need to be better."  If changing wasn't so important, why did you decide to do it in the first place?
2. Congratulate yourself on wanting to be better.  Your decision to be better takes moral courage.
3. Figure out what went wrong.  Were you too ambitious?  Was your plan to vague?
4. Form a new plan that is informed by your failure.  For example, if you are the wrong foods because preparing healthy one took too long, find ways to make it less time consuming.
5. Finally, GET GOING!

Making changes in your lifestyle is difficult.  Learning to forgive yourself is equally as difficult.  Pick yourself up, set your mind on the goals you set out to achieve.  And get your motivation back.  Set backs will happen, but keep focused on the bigger and brighter future you have planned for yourself!

9 Principles for Positive Change

Everyone is always looking for the positive side of life and in daily events.  If you're having diffuculty focusing in on where to look or what to change to bring in more positive interactions, here are some simple guidelines to follow. 

1. Love Yourself - Don’t make limitations. If you can truly love yourself then your life experience has no limits, no boundaries.
2. Forgive Everyone and Release the Past - When we hold something inside for any amount of time it starts to eat away at our soul. These bits of anger drain us of our life’s energy and creates sickness.
3. Awareness - Start living consciously. Become aware of our actions, thoughts and words.
4. Gratitude, Prosperity and Abundance - Be open to and grateful for the natural abundance that you can see everyday.
5. Honesty - Be honest with yourself and others. With the ability to be honest with oneself and with others you will make changes in your life for the good of yourself growing.
6. Being Positive - Start seeing the positive side of things. By thinking positive we raise our performance in everything we do.
7. Take Responsibility for Yourself - By doing so you are better placed to start leading the life that you want and making the choices that will lead you to your own destiny.
8. Be Open and Trusting - Let go of all fear. Trust in the process of Life. Be open to all opportunities around you. Know that the Universe is yours for the taking.
9. Self-Care - Start looking after of yourself. Acts of self-care are acts of self-love.

You can begin by making one positive change at a time.  Choose it, implement it, and live it.  Focus on it as if it were the only change that you have an opportunity to make.  Once you are successful with this positive change, it becomes habit.  Move on to another one to implement.  In no time at all, you will be attracting more and more positive aspects into your life.

Starting Off the New Year with You in Mind

“It is never too late to become the person you might have been.”
- George Eliot, English Victorian Novelist

A new year, a fresh start. You have lots of ideals in mind. You are going to do better this year than ever before. You are determined to set goals for yourself and achieve them. But how? What will make this year different from any year in the past?

Here are a few guidelines to make 2011 your year:

1. Commit to Thirty Days - Four weeks is all the time you need to make a habit automatic. When you make it through the initial phase, it becomes much easier. A month is a good block of time to commit to a change since it easily fits in your calendar. 
2. Stay Consistent - The more consistent you are, the easier it will be. If you want to start exercising, try going at the same time, to the same place for your thirty days. When cues like time of day, place and circumstances are the same in each case it is easier to stick.
3. Associate With Role Models - Spend more time with people who model the habits you want to mirror. You become what you spend time around.
4. Use “But” - A great technique for clearing negative thought patterns. When you start to think a negative thought, use the word “but” to interrupt it. “I’m no good at this, but, if I work at it I will get better.”
5. Do it For Yourself - Don’t worry about all the things you “should” have as habits. Instead tool your habits towards your goals and the things that motivate you. Weak guilt and empty resolutions don‘t work.

Whatever changes you implement, do so with your heart. Place your intentions on the person that you want to be and the changes you want to make. Plan your actions, then take that first step. Once you get your momentum going, the rest becomes easier and easier.

Finding Time for Yourself

Quiet moments during the day soothes the soul, settles the inner being, brings out your integrity. Having a time for solitude can be an amazing thing. Here are some ways to find your quiet time and see how getting away from it all can allow your true self to emerge.

Alter your sleeping habits. Try getting up a few minutes earlier than normal to watch the sun rise. If your day is too busy to find time to be alone to have stillness and silence, getting up a bit earlier can be a good solution. If you’re not an early riser, then nighttime can be just as peaceful when everyone else has gone to sleep. Stay up a bit later at night and enjoy the mysteries of the dark.

Get back to nature. Our work stations can be filled with noise, conflict and chaos. To get away from this, get out into nature as much as possible. Perhaps a walk in the park or on the beach, a nature trail hike, or sitting on the banks of a river is just what you need. Pay close attention to everything around you - the sights, the sounds the feeling of the breeze and sun.

Begin to practice mindful meditation. An easy way to start is to close your eyes and pay attention to your breathing. Notice your breath as it enters your body, and again as it goes out. Focus on the sounds around you. Listen carefully to whatever is going on - the ticking of a clock the sound of traffic or the humming of the refrigerator. Do this for at least one minute and increase over time.

Take time to read. Choose your favorite novel, poetry, inspirational quotes or whatever inspires you for the day. Fill your mind with beautiful and encouraging words to carry with you to keep you focused on greatness and thankfulness for all the world has given you.

Finding time for yourself is not a luxury, it is a necessity. Begin with 10 to 15 minutes daily and try to work up to a couple of hours each week. You will be pleasantly surprised to find your true self emerging and the amazing thoughts, feelings and actions you posses and can share with the world around you.

Seven Ways to Know "Who Am I?"

Adapted from Life After Death, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2006).

Deepak Chopra is a world-renowned authority in the field of mind-body healing, a best selling author, and founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing.  He has more than 55 books, including 14 bestsellers on mind-body health, quantam mechanics, spirituality and peace. Here is a little advice from his book Life After Death.
Below are seven ways to help you define who you are.

1. What is your story?
Your story is more than just a list of events in your life. It is about your self-image, how you see yourself, what shaped your mind, which memories imprinted themselves on you.  Taken altogether, your story tells you where you are in the cycle of life.

2. What are your expectations?
Expectation are seeds.  Once planted, they manifest into those things we gain from life, or lose.  When you become aware of your own expectations, you discover the unspoken limits you have set on yourself.  There is a huge difference between those who expect great things and those who don't.

3. What is your purpose?
This is the meaning you are trying to find.  Purpose runs deeper than the superficial things we hope to get, which mostly center on money, possessions, status, and comfort.  If you know your purpose, you know the deeper project to which your life is dedicated.

4. What is your destination?
This is about fulfillment.  Human goals are endless; they unfold, not like a road that has an end but life a river that flows to join the sea, merging with ever larger possibilities.  If you know your destination, you can envision your highest fulfillment.

5. What is your path?
Having identified your purpose and your destination, there must be a way to get these.  "Path" has been adopted as a spiritual term, but in fact everyone, spiritual o rnot, follows certain ways to get where they want to go.

6. Who are your adversaries?
Forward motion is never without obstacles.  On your path you will find yourself blocked.  At times the adversary is external, but if you examine yourself deeply, you will find it is always internal as well.

7. Who are your allies?
We all bring others with us on our journey.  Just as your adversaries did, you may identiry these allies as
external, but they only reflect your own inner strength, just as an opponent reflects your inner vulnerability.

Tapping Into the Happiness in Your Life

Living a life of happiness does not happen by mistake.  There are certain factors that need to be present in your everyday lifestyle in order to truly appreciate who you are and what you have. Happiness is not only a state of mind, it is a condition of a good life.  Here are a few key tips:

1. Accept yourself as who are. Don’t be too critical about yourself. Just learn how to love the person that you have become.  A happy life begins with self-actualization and acceptance.
2. Happiness is a state of mind. No one can make you unhappy if you have decided for sure that you will be happy in most situations.  Always look at things that don't go the way you wanted as an experience to learn from and how can you benefit from this. 
3. Prioritize your life. Learn how to balance the various responsibilities that you may have (work, relationships, and family) so that your priorities are being met.  Priorities need to include self-indulgence activities such as leisure time and hobbies. 
4. Take care of your health. An unhealthy body cannot be the home of a happy mind.  Good nutrition feeds the mind, body and spirit.  Set aside time for physical and mental activity.
5. Stay in the company of happy people. Being in the company of people who have a habit of criticizing is likely to divert your mind toward negative thoughts.  You become what you spend time with.  Spend it with people who exhibit behaviors that you wish to acquire.
6. Be grateful. Saying a small “thank you” for what you have can make a lot of difference.  Gratitude is the seed for more wonderful things coming into your life.  Take advantage of how easy it can be to show appreciation for what life has given you.

Setting aside a few moments everyday to evaluate your level of happiness and how you have achieved those good feelings is very important.  This plants the seed for a brighter, happier and more fullfilled tomorrow.