My mother, like most women of 75, has a few health problems. She is a little heavy, she has cholesterol plaque in her arteries, her high blood pressure sometimes gets out of control and she has trouble sleeping. After losing heart over traditional mainstream medicine at some point, she decided to try something alternative – something holistic. She chose meditation. A half-hour session twice a day, each day. It’s not like it was easy for her to take the time out, running her florist’s shop as she does. But she just decided to go for it. That was five years ago. Today at 80, she has been regular with her transcendental meditation all this while.

So how does it actually help her? Did she actually gets her blood pressure or her cholesterol down? She certainly has. She only takes a small dose of blood pressure medicine now, much less than what she used to, and her blood pressure is completely normal for her age. And she’s managed to lose about 50 pounds too. As much as they tried before, she never managed to do it. There have been lots of studies into the logic behind meditation. Some of them have been more credible than others. The most credible ones were conducted by the National Institute of Health in accordance with all accepted standards of research. The least credible ones were commissioned by the Maharishi University, an establishment that has a great deal invested in the success of transcendental meditation.

A study at a venue as respected as the American Heart Association has found that transcendental meditation actually has real tangible benefits for people like my mother who are at great risk of a heart attack, people with long-standing coronary problems. The study didn’t just happen on that finding; they followed about 200 subjects for years and found that the people who were at high risk of a heart attack or a stroke. Half of them were subjects who were merely given the traditional advice about changes to their diet and their exercise habits. The other half, were 100 subjects who regularly meditated; of all the subjects who meditated, only 20 had heart attacks or strokes later in life. In the other group, there were more than 30. In general, the meditators dropped their blood pressure by five points, and had fewer complaints and diseases in general.

The encouraging thing about meditation is that it doesn’t need any special ability, education or attitude to be successful. The subjects in the study hadn’t even passed high school, and didn’t make more than $10,000 a year. All that meditation needs is, that you look inside, and help your body relax, loosen its stresses, and aid the body in cutting down on the production of stress hormones. One thing no one really understands yet, is why it is that lower levels of stress hormones should make you healthier. But as long as it works this way, and is easy to achieve, we could go along, and wait for the day that they find out why it works. From what we know now though, work it does.

power of observation

Personal mastery is about self-development and self-improvement. It is about loving yourself and accepting yourself as you are. You need to acknowledge your weaknesses and at the same time strengthen them. Personal mastery is about loving yourself.

To attain personal mastery and confidence, it is important to believe in yourself. It is also important to be content with yourself. To develop self- confidence, self-acceptance should occur. Self- acceptance is about accepting not only the good things in life, but also the failures in life.

Aside from self-acceptance what else can you do to achieve self-confidence through personal mastery.

? Understanding thoughts and emotions- forgetting about a bad habit or behaviour would make us more aware about thoughts and emotions. By becoming aware of our emotions and behaviour, then we will be able to overcome and correct our behaviour. But once you have decided to change habits and behaviour, there are different strategies and methods that you can do gain mastery over them.
? Self discipline. Changing attitude and behaviour, or even perspective might take a while. Change does not happen overnight. You need to gather enough knowledge and start learning and practicing the skills that you would like to improve and develop.
? Have a clear vision on what you want to happen in your life. To be able to move forward in your life, then it is important to have clarity. Seeing what you want to have in a clearer image would encourage you to work for it.
? The choice is yours. You can choose what you want to experience. Doing something important for you and something you love, would give you enough confidence to continue with what you have started.
? Commitment and trusting. To be able to attain personal mastery for development and growth, you need to trust yourself that you can undergo the process and commit yourself on the process.

When developing self-confidence through personal mastery, we would have to develop some characteristics. We would develop self awareness, which is about our readiness to look at our past, accept it and the same goes for the present. Aside from this, we also develop self-knowledge which is about understanding our past and our attitude. Not only should we understand them but also be able to comprehend the basis for such attitude or experience. Last, we develop self discipline. Self-discipline is about how we make sure that our goals and vision are translated in action and achieved. We need self discipline to make sure that we do not back-out just because of simple and little disappointments and setbacks.

Building self-confidence can?t be done on just a snap. Self- improvement can be a never-ending process. There are people who even acknowledge that self-improvement can last even for a life-time. Sometimes, we can only say that we are fully masterful of our life if we have reached our dreams and goals. Personal mastery can help use with growth and eventually with success. We just need to continue with our dreams and be patient.

From Masterytv.com

“A Piece of Blarney Stone” 10 ways to empower your communication

The Blarney Stone is a historical stone, or actually part of the Blarney Castle in Ireland where it was believed that kissing the stone can grant you the gift of gab. Yeah, it seems strange in this day and age, but who are we to question tradition? It’s not like I’m saying that Santa Claus doesn’t exist (OOPS!).

There is so much to know about conversation that anyone, even I, could ever realize. You can go though watching talk shows; radio programs; clubs dedicated to public speaking; ordinary conversations; certain rules still apply when it comes to interaction through words. It may sound tedious, I know, but even though it’s your mouth that’s doing the work, your brain works twice as hard to churn out a lot of things you know. So what better way to start learning to be an effective communication is to know the very person closest to you: yourself.

1. What you know.

Education is all about learning the basics, but to be an effective speaker is to practice what you’ve learned. My stint as guest at every Toastmasters’ meeting I go to taught me that we all have our limitations, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn to keep up and share what we know.

2. Listening.

It’s just as important as asking questions. Sometimes listening to the sound of our own voice can teach us to be a little bit confident with ourselves and to say the things we believe in with conviction.

3. Humility

We all make mistakes, and sometimes we tend to slur our words, stutter, and probably mispronounce certain words even though we know what it means, but rarely use it only to impress listeners. So in a group, don’t be afraid to ask if you’re saying the right word properly and if they’re unsure about it then make a joke out of it. I promise you it’ll make everyone laugh and you can get away with it as well.

4. Eye Contact

There’s a lot to say when it comes to directing your attention to your audience with an eye-catching gaze. It’s important that you keep your focus when talking to a large group in a meeting or a gathering, even though he or she may be gorgeous.

5. Kidding around

A little bit of humor can do wonders to lift the tension, or worse boredom when making your speech. That way, you’ll get the attention of the majority of the crowd and they’ll feel that you’re just as approachable, and as human to those who listen.

6. Be like the rest of them

Interaction is all about mingling with other people. You’ll get a lot of ideas, as well as knowing what people make them as they are.

7. Me, Myself, and I

Admit it, there are times you sing to yourself in the shower. I know I do! Listening to the sound of your own voice while you practice your speech in front of a mirror can help correct the stress areas of your pitch. And while you’re at it you can spruce up as well.

8. With a smile

A smile says it all much like eye contact. There’s no point on grimacing or frowning in a meeting or a gathering, unless it’s a wake. You can better express what you’re saying when you smile.

9. A Role Model

There must be at least one or two people in your life you have listened to when they’re at a public gathering or maybe at church. Sure they read their lines, but taking a mental note of how they emphasize what they say can help you once you take center stage.

10. Preparation

Make the best out of preparation rather than just scribbling notes and often in a hurried panic. Some people like to write things down on index cards, while other resort to being a little more silly as they look at their notes written on the palm of their hand (not for clammy hands, please). Just be comfortable with what you know since you enjoy your work.

And that about wraps it up. These suggestions are rather amateurish in edgewise, but I’ve learned to empower myself when it comes to public or private speaking and it never hurts to be with people to listen how they make conversations and meetings far more enjoyable as well as educational.

You don’t have to travel to Tibet to discover your life purpose. In fact, your life purpose is right near the surface of your life just waiting to be expressed. To find your life purpose, you just have to know what questions to ask. Excercise Tips: If you get a hot button but you’re not sure what the opposite of it is, ask yourself “why?” or “what is it about this issue that triggers me?” For example, if you wrote “traffic jams” as a hot button it’s likely that its direct opposite “traffic flow” isn’t actually what you’re really after. In this case, ask yourself “why do traffic jams bother me really?” You might get an answer like “feeling stuck” or “waste of time.” To complete the excercise and find your life purpose, take the opposite of “feeling stuck” such as “flowing” or the opposite of “waste of time” such as “efficiency” and that should help point you towards your life purpose.

“What Really Makes You Tick?” 10 questions you should ask to yourself: a preparation to self-improvement

Be all you can be, but it’s not always in the Army. I often see myself as somewhat contented with my life the way things are, but of course it’s hard to think of anything else when where are real issues to be discussed.

Still I aspire for something deeper and more meaningful.

So we’re all pelted with problems. Honestly it shouldn’t even bother or even hinder us to becoming all we ought to be. Aspirations as kids should continue to live within us, even though it would be short-lived or as long as we could hold on to the dream. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? or can they?

1. What do I really want?

The question of the ages. So many things you want to do with your life and so little time to even go about during the day.

Find something that you are good at can help realize that small step towards improvement. Diligence is the key to know that it is worth it.

2. Should I really change?

Today’s generation has taken another level of redefining ’self’, or at least that’s what the kids are saying. Having an army of teenage nieces and nephews has taught me that there are far worse things that they could have had than acne or maybe even promiscuity. So how does that fit into your lifestyle?

If history has taught us one thing, it’s the life that we have gone through. Try to see if partying Seventies style wouldn’t appeal to the younger generation, but dancing is part of partying. Watch them applaud after showing them how to really dance than break their bones in break-dancing.

3. What’s the bright side in all of this?

With so much is happening around us there seem to be no room for even considering that light at the end of the tunnel. We can still see it as something positive without undergoing so much scrutiny. And if it’s a train at the end of the tunnel, take it for a ride and see what makes the world go round!

4. Am I comfortable with what I’m doing?

There’s always the easy way and the right way when it comes to deciding what goes with which shoes, or purse, shirt and whatnot. It doesn’t take a genius to see yourself as someone unique, or else we’ll all be equally the same in everything we do. Variety brings in very interesting and exciting questions to be experimented.

5. Have I done enough for myself?

Have you, or is there something more you want to do? Discontentment in every aspect can be dangerous in large doses, but in small amounts you’ll be able to see and do stuff you could never imagine doing.

6. Am I happy at where I am today?

It’s an unfair question so let it be an answer! You love being a good and loving mom or dad to your kids, then take it up a notch! Your kids will love you forever. The same goes with everyday life!

7. Am I appealing to the opposite sex?

So maybe I don’t have an answer to that, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try it, though. Whether you shape-up, change the way you wear your clothes or hair, or even your attitude towards people, you should always remember it will always be for your own benefit.

8. How much could I have?

I suppose in this case there is no such things on having things too much or too little, but it’s more on how badly you really need it. I’d like to have lots of money, no denying that, but the question is that how much are you willing to work for it?

9. What motivates me?

What motivates you? It’s an answer you have to find out for yourself. There are so many things that can make everyone happy, but to choose one of the may be the hardest part. It’s not like you can’t have one serving of your favorite food in a buffet and that’s it. Just try it piece by piece.

10. What Really Makes You Tick?

So? What really makes you tick? You can be just about anything you always wanted to be, but to realize that attaining something that may seem very difficult is already giving up before you even start that journey. Always remember, that self-improvement is not just about the physical or philosophical change you have to undergo, but it’s something that you really want.

<!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:”Angsana New”; panose-1:2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-2130706429 0 0 0 65537 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-font-family:”Angsana New”;} p.Normal, li.Normal, div.Normal {mso-style-name:”\[Normal\]“; mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:none; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Arial; mso-fareast-font-family:Arial; mso-bidi-font-family:”Angsana New”;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>