Discover the Power of Stretching Your Mind

 

We can stretch our minds so that we can achieve more out of life…

emember when everybody was talkin bout a new way of walkin? Mind stretching is the process of teaching the brain a new way of thinking!

It’s about effectively connecting the right/left brain. Each hemisphere controls certain functions and movement on the opposite side of your body.

The right brain is more creative and the left brain is more verbal. But it’s related to the brain, so it’s complicated. While each side has it’s strength, the two sides don’t work in isolation. Both side contribute their part to logical and creative thinking.

This is a complicated science. Scientists haven’t quite decided if our brain is the same as our mind, or is our brain simply a part of the mind.

Are they one in the same of different and separate entities? One entity is identified as neuroscience or ‘the study of the brain’, and the other is identified as ‘the mind’ and considered to be pure vibrating energy.

I like to think of the mind as the non-physical entity of our being.

Scientists and philosophers are still arguing as to whether the mind exists without the brain. So far, their explanation is that they are yoked, inextricably connected to each other by the body,

Our minds conduct ‘thoughts’ faster than the speed of light and retain all experience in detail whether consciously or not. Our minds create, project and receive thoughts. They express emotions and feelings, and determine the positive or the negative levels in our bodies.

The fascinating part is that the mind is associated with consciousness and it can stretch because our consciousness is able to expand!

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” Patanjali — yogic philosopher

When you expand your mental processes, you will initiate the flow of limitless thought and possibilities. This means your personal and work life, relationships and happiness levels will flourish.

We can stretch our minds by exploring and understanding how we process a new idea and reframe our thought patterns. By way of this process, we will ultimately stop limiting ourselves to past references and experiences. This will eliminate roadblocks to future thought and creativity.

Your life will take an importance because you are exploring your nature and environment with an awareness that is like a dance. When you stretch your mind, the idea of a life well lived is attainable. The best thing about it is that this can happen at any age!

Our experiences, thoughts, desires, dreams, passions, knowledge and everything you’ve ever done and everything you’ve ever been in your life is your “tool kit”. One of the ways in which you can stretch your mind daily is by digging into your tool kit. It’s like a human survival kit because it reflects you.

The Diet for Stretching the Mind

Sustaining and promoting good brain health consists of a diet that includes the following:

• Olive oil
• Fruits and vegetables high in Vitamin E, such as blueberries, broccoli and spinach
• Fruits and vegetable high in beta-carotene, such as spinach, red peppers and sweet potatoes
• Foods rich in antioxidants, such as walnuts and pecans
• Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish — salmon, mackerel and albacore tuna

A healthy brain diet also includes exercise of all kinds, as well as other brain challenging activities like crossword puzzles, chess, reading and creative hobbies.

Researchers have studied the effects of sleep and brain function. They found that sleep deprivation negatively affects memory, but improves learning and problem-solving skills. Surprisingly, they also found that we can learn new things during sleep!

Excessive alcohol consumption, as in long-term heavy drinking, can lead to serious brain damage because alcohol shrinks the brain. Contrary to popular belief, alcohol doesn’t kill brain cells, but it can cause deficiencies in white matter that resides between the folds or wrinkles of the brain’s landscape. White matter affects learning and brain function and helps manage communication within the nervous system.

We should all have a tool kit for stretching the mind. We may not be conscious of our tools, but they are an integral part of our nature and provide us with guidance and inspiration for stability, resilience and balance. Our tools are also responsible for clear thinking, better communication and well-defined relationships.

Stretch your mind and stretch your life. Young or old, it’s a free and measurable compass of how joyful your path in life can be.

“You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” Mahatma Ghandi

The Importance of Rituals in Everyday Life

 A ritual is an action that connects us to something that is meaningful. Rituals can be comforting and help us express feelings and bring on a sense of closure or keep an important part of the past alive.

A ritual can mark time as well as create time. It gives us structure in a social world by signaling a beginning or an end: Baptisms, Christenings, Bat Mitzvahs, Graduations, Engagement, Marriage, Divorce, Birthdays, First Day of School, Proms, Retirement party as well as Funerals and Memorials.

At my age, loss and transitions are more common. I transitioned from a young wife, stepmother, career builder to grandmother and single. These are some of our losses. I’ve also experienced the death of friends, family, as well as those who’s presence in this world I admired — authors, celebrities and leaders.

When we create rituals around loss, we honor both ourselves and those who we remember.

There are phases to rituals of grief:

• Separation from what used to be ; “My life is now without my spouse”
• Transition from what was to what is and will be from now on — navigating the void one step at a time
• Adjusting to the ‘new’ normal — not seeing my beloved, new label (widow), living alone.
• Rituals can restore our sense of control. Loss can make us feel that our lives are out of control, filled with deep grief and chaos — out of balance.

Creating a grief ritual is not complicated. Think about what the meaning of your ritual is. It could be to bring you comfort or to create some consistency in your chaos-or even to relieve your stress. Decide when the ritual will take place — such as once a day when you wake up or go to sleep. It could be once a year on the anniversary of the event — or anytime.

The ritual can take place wherever you decide. On their favorite chair, on the beach, at a restaurant, in your place of worship, anywhere you choose. You can decide who can participate. It could be with a group or you could do it alone. It could involve drinking coffee from their mug or going to a special setting or a space that is sacred to you. It can take seconds, hours or whatever you want it to be.

A ritual not only helps you heal as you balance your emotions, it gives you and others an opportunity to remember and reflect on the loved one’s life. Doing this is essential in a healthy grieving process.

Daily rituals provide a sense of comfort and continuity. When I wake up, I use the first hour of my day to write. This is when my mind is clearest and my most creative time. After an hour, I do a simple 10-minute Yin yoga stretching routine followed by a 10-min meditation, then some arm weights for upper body strength and tone (gotta keep those ‘bat wings’ under control!). Then I make some coffee and work on my journal — especially writing down all the things I’m grateful for.

I try to make most of my day as sacred as possible, making the most out the present moment by creating a ritual out of the mundane. I try to apply meaning to my small pleasures and actions throughout the day.

Lately, I’ve gotten into the habit of saying “thank you” out loud when pleasant things happen.

The last thing I do in the day is my skin care ritual. It includes looking in the mirror and saying “thank you”, and then cleaning, exfoliating, applying toner and moisturizing my face with love, care, and awareness before going to sleep.

What you do with awareness becomes living fully in the present. Isn’t that where we all strive to exist?

Ernest Hemingway was up at around 5:30am, even if he’d been drinking the night before.

Beethoven personally counted out 60 coffee beans to make himself the strong coffee his morning cup required.

Benjamin Franklin swore by “air baths”, which was his term for sitting around naked in the morning, whatever the weather.

The ritual of the midday cocktail was a favorite of VS Pritchett (among many others of us).

Create a Ritual that you commit to once a day or anytime that brings you a smile.

You Can Turn Your Passion Into A Viable Business

 

Do what you love. Make money.

These days we are living longer than ever and remaining vital into old age. Aside from outliving our significant others, most of us are outliving our savings and need to supplement our retirement income. Many of us have even outlived the corporate world and seek employment that would give our lives meaning.

Maybe you’re already thinking about starting a business to make money doing what you love. I run across news stories about people who have made millions with a simple idea. However, we must be smart before we invest valuable time and money and ask ourselves, “Is there a market demand for our passion?”

Regardless of whether our business is going to be digital or brick and mortar — we have to seek the answers to these questions by doing market research.

Is there a market for your passion?

Maybe you’re a writer and you also have a passion for art and you love doing research and solving problems. You may want to start a website design company. It would be a perfect melding of your interests.

Your services would be in demand since every business needs a new website, updates on their existing website, or maintenance services. There are also add-on services such as search engine optimization, blogging, and various forms of digital marketing that you could offer.

You could eventually sell courses, templates, and affiliate products. In this case, there is a market for your passion.

Who are your potential customers?

One of the most important factors is to have a good understanding of your target market. This will determine the way you brand your business. Your value proposition, your brand images and colors should be targeted to appeal to your target market.

Lucky for us, the advertising industry has spent billions of dollars doing this type of research. You can apply their findings for free.

When determining your target market, you should take the following into account:

• Age
• Gender
• Income
• Location
• Occupation
• Level of Education
• Familial status

You can build an “ideal buyer” model based on your knowledge. If your audience consists of well-educated women over 50 with a good income, then words like “exclusive ingredients”, “coveted product”, “indulgence” and “ageless” would go along with luxury packaging in colors that will appeal to over-50's.

Determine how big your market is

It’s important to decide if your business is going to be local or global. Understanding the size of your market helps you to determine how much earning potential you have.

Learn how to communicate your value to your clients

These days, it’s important to not just build websites, but write search engine optimized content that helps Google understand what those pages are about.

Your background as a writer allows you to tell your clients’ stories on a website in an interesting way while making the content all about what they can do for their own clients or customers.

Identify your competition

Surprisingly enough, there are many business owners that can’t identify their direct competition. Make valid comparisons of your product or service. Only compare with the like.

Determine your’s competition’s strengths and weaknesses

Take a look at your competition and study their website. See how clear they are about their messaging. Check out their customer service. Examine their products or services — read their reviews, use their services. See if they are using social media or ads effectively.

What can you do better than your competition?

Where can you shine? Which areas can put you ahead of your competitor? Maybe a better product, better customer service or better pricing. Your ability to write excellent search engine optimized content can be your superpower. Perhaps you can brand your customer’s websites to appeal to their targeted demographics.

Chances are, if you are able to answer these questions, you may be ready to start thinking about monetizing your passion!

How To Cultivate Your Free Time and Have Less Stuff to Do

 

Valuing time over money consistently shows greater happiness…

There are literally thousands of media pieces on how to get more done with your day, how to be more efficient, how to get more done with less time. The point is that we all seem to have too much stuff to do!

Here are some “Time Creator” tips that you may want to consider:

Cultivate quality leisure time. A 2013 study revealed that the most truly “time-poor” group of people were working parents. They found that when they had leisure time, they were either bored or they were stressed.

This is a phenomenon that you may have experienced in your life as well. You reach a public holiday, you wanted a day off, then you don’t really know what to do. Even though you may be constantly thinking about how much you love free time, when you actually get it, you don’t know what to do.

If you aren’t cultivating your free time, you will always feel like you don’t have enough time…

You won’t feel rested and you won’t feel restored because you aren’t resting and you aren’t restoring.

Treat your weekends like a vacation. Researchers suggest that you plan out what your weekends are going to look like. If you’re a type-A person, go ahead and plan it out in detail but keep in mind that overscheduling and creating pressure over time can suck the enjoyment out of it.

Aim for a rough plan like going to the beach on Saturday morning and sunset and coffee on Sunday.

Not surprisingly, researchers have also found that free time that’s spent on active activities like exercising or connecting or even volunteering tends to be much more fulfilling than the free time that’s spent on passive activities like Netflix.

There are times when passive activities like TicToc or Netflix are most enjoyable. However, spending an afternoon in nature with friends can be far more beneficial.

Have an Overwhelm Routine. When we are busy and feel we are overwhelmed, we tend to take on more tasks. Studies show that, when we do this, we take on more easy-to-complete tasks because they help us to feel more “in control” when we are in a state of overwhelm — which is when we need control the most.

I’ve noticed that when I have 5 things on my plate instead of my usual 3, I get the urge to clean my fridge. Or I finally decide to call and get the bump on my car fixed. This is literally me practicing self-sabotage.

Often, it’s not the actual tasks on your plate that are causing the overwhelm, it’s how you feel about the tasks…

You probably feel confused or frantic or a little panicked. To combat this overwhelm, create an Overwhelm Routine and make sure that it’s somewhere obvious that you can access it with ease.

A good Overwhelm Routine would probably include taking a breath, doing a “brain dump”, deleting, delegating, and prioritizing.

Find your “enough” number and find your “ideal” number. Millionaires are only a tiny bit happier than the regular person, but we continue to prioritize money over time. Sometimes it begs the question — “what is it all for?”

Sit down and create an “enough number”. This is the number that covers the bills, regular expenses, savings, and fun weekends.

Then you can figure out your “ideal” number. This is the number that lets you spend on those extras that you want in life.

Set a goal to reach your ideal number, but stop as soon as you start feeling a need for more. In most cases, the more money you earn, the more stress you inherit, and the less time you have.

Create an aversion to a busy culture. An example of this would be to not be emailing back and forth with your coworkers during weekends or vacation.

Personally, I find that a lot of people email with clients and coworkers outside of work hours just to look really busy. When someone is emailing outside of working hours, we should not be impressed, we should be worried.

Create filtering questions for your goals and the projects you are taking on. Following are some questions you might ask when you come across an opportunity:

• Will this activity or effort make the highest possible contribution to my goal?
• What problems do I want?
• Am I the best person to be doing this?
• Is it a “hell yes”, if not, it’s a no.
• How do I want to spend my days? Will this violate that?

Create clear and strong cut-off times and deadlines, then back them up with boundaries. Boundaries aren’t just telling yourself that you won’t respond to emails past 5 pm, it’s also deleting the email app on your phone past 5 pm.

Prioritize maximizers. People who value their time prioritize tasks and activities that get them more time — creating templates, procedures, and checklists focusing on their goals all fall into this category.

Delegate. If you have the means to delegate, do it. If you don’t have the means to delegate, see if you can ask for help.

80/20 Your tasks. On a piece of paper, brainstorm the things that you spend the most time on. Of those tasks, highlight the things that create the biggest outcomes for you — the things that create the most time, the most money, and the most energy in your life. Make it your mission to delegate or reduce what’s left.

Your free time is precious, treat it like it’s precious.

Using Technology as a Door to a Better Life

 

Now, more than ever, it is important to connect across the generation gap...

Shortly after I became a widow, I had to negotiate my own car for the first time. I actually cried when I left the dealership, realizing all the things that I would have to do for myself.

It was time to start depending on myself.

The same was true when it came to my computer. For most of my life, I had relied on other people to handle technical tasks. If there was a problem with my computer, my “troubleshooting” consisted of turning it off and on again, tapping it on the top, closing any open programs, and finally calling my husband to help.

Things had to change.

These days, it is commonly accepted that seniors don’t understand technology. However, many seniors over the age of 50 have embraced their tablets and smartphones as much as the younger generation.

I’m not sure why this agist mentality about technology still exists.

Recent studies show that seniors are adapting to the digital space more than ever before. Many seniors are turning to digital options such as wearable devices, smart home amenities and digital medication dispensers to mitigate their needs.

Interestingly enough, baby boomers, or the “seniors of the future”, will be over the age of 65 by 2030 and will make up 21% of America’s population. This is a population that is simply too large to ignore or disregard as many previous generations.

Even if you’re just getting started online and want to know how to use your computer, there are plenty of free videos on YouTube. Just type in what you’re looking for and plenty of options will appear.

If you already have a good understanding of how your computer works, you can learn to edit digital photos and videos, learn how to write a blogpost, design and publish e-books, or improve your knowledge of chess.

I would be lying if I said that becoming more technical was easy for me. It wasn’t.

Being a senior doesn’t have to be a time of isolation. One of the most wonderful things about being alive in this age is that the tools for learning new skills have become super easy to use.

We’ve gone from “teaching an old dog new tricks” to “ a grandparent’s guide to emojis”.

Our generation has the potential to stay connected in ways that our parents only dreamed.

Tiny Thinking Habits that Have a Huge Impact

 

If you want to change your life, doing new things, starting new habits, and taking on new behaviors are going to make a huge difference.

What could change your life, even more, is changing the way you think. Working on how you think is just as important as working on what you do.

They go hand in hand. Tiny changes in your thinking can make a huge difference in your life.

Create ease in your life. The next time you are struggling with something in your life that feels more difficult than you think it should be, sit back and ask yourself this question: How could I make this easy?

Making time for your friends, getting through your task lists, setting healthy boundaries — are all things that you can make life really hard or reasonably easy depending on your perspective.

Making time for your friends can sometimes be wildly difficult. It turns into these back and forth text conversations about when to meet, where to meet, what restaurant to meet at. But you can make it easy by organizing a once-a-month date where you all go to someone’s house and bring food.

Getting in movement can also be wildly difficult if you force yourself to wake up at 4 am, go to a gym in an environment that you hate, and do exercises you don’t enjoy. But it can also be easy. Consider parking farther away from places to make sure you’re getting in walking and signing up for dance classes that make you feel happy.

You don’t realize how many things you approach in the hardest way possible until you reflect…

So often we go for the hardest option possible and we’re not aware of it. We don’t know at the moment that we’re picking the hardest option. When you sit back and ask that question (how can I make this easy?), you find obvious solutions that are far easier than whatever you’re trying to do.

This is a little mindset shift that can hugely impact your life.

You’re going to find yourself overcoming weird false expectations that you’ve set on yourself. You’ll move from doing things that you’ve always done one way to a way that feels so much better for you. You’ll also move to simply not doing the things that just don’t need to be done.

Instead of just powering through the difficult, let that question become a go-to question in your mind to create ease in your life.

Create a more intentional life. Ask yourself this question: What’s it all for? Asking this question regularly, whenever you are making decisions, is going to radically change your life.

What’s it all for? What is my business for? What is my relationship for? You can “zoom-out” and ask this question of your life in general or on more specific questions in your life.

If you’re planning a vacation and you ask “what’s it all for?” — and your answer is “to feel refreshed and relaxed”, you’re going to plan a different vacation from someone who wants to feel energized and enthused.

Ask “what is it all for?”. Are you doing the wrong things in your life? Are you getting together with the wrong people?

Make life more enjoyable. The next time you have to do something that you wouldn’t usually enjoy, ask the question “how can I make this more enjoyable?”.

Let’s face it. Some things in life simply aren’t that enjoyable. For me, that is driving in traffic for a long time. But with some tweaks, I can make it more enjoyable. I can choose to put on a podcast or listen to an audiobook that I’ve been wanting to read.

Fun is the aftermath of deliberately manipulating a familiar situation in a new way — Ian Boyett

If you have to do mundane things or you have periods of time doing things that you don’t enjoy, ask yourself “How can I make this more enjoyable?”.

Create a happier life. This is about letting your emotions inform you rather than overwhelm you. When you find that emotions come up you’re bitter, you’re angry, you’re resentful; instead of letting yourself be swallowed by these emotions and sitting in them and wallowing in them, ask yourself the following questions:

What is this emotion trying to inform me?

What is it trying to tell me?

What is the message that it’s sending me?

Resentment is usually trying to tell you that you need to set some kind of boundary in your life. You need to make a change.

Emptiness might be trying to tell you that you haven’t looked at or practiced your values in months.

Frustration might be telling you that you need to have a conversation with someone or that you need to eat or sleep.

The more you get to know your feelings, the easier it becomes to figure out what your emotions are telling you. This is not at all about pushing your emotions away. If anything, you are embracing your emotions and acknowledging their existence.

By paying attention to your body and to how you react to things, paying attention to what works and what doesn’t, then finding little shifts from there, you’ll find a way that works for you.