We never really know what is the most important thing we do in our lives. Maybe we offer a smile and some words of encouragement to a passing stranger and this helps them turn their life around and go on to do great things. We might not even be aware that this interaction had such a great impact on the world as we go about our daily lives. Or, it might be that one of our children, whom we nurture and love, goes on to make a big difference in the world. Perhaps our most important act was to have this child and to help them be the person they are today.

When my grandfather was a little boy, he remembered how one day he saw his father become extremely angry at another man. He observed his father’s face become beet red and he saw his father literally shaking with rage. He thought to himself how silly it was to ever let yourself become that upset about anything. He vowed to himself that he would never do this. I remember my grandfather as a very calm man and I never saw him become extremely angry about anything. My grandfather shared this story with one of my brothers when he was young. It made a great impression on him as well and he, too, told himself that he would not allow himself to be an angry person. This brother has also always been very calm and even-tempered.

My mother recently told me this story and I found myself thinking how profound my grandfather’s realization was. I marveled at how perhaps the most important thing my great-grandfather did in his life was to model how not to be. Ironically, by losing his temper, he helped others learn how to better manage the upsets in their own lives.

Dr. David R. Hawkins, author of incredible books about consciousness, such as Power vs. Force, recommends that we live our lives like a prayer. Since we can never really know what the most important thing we do is at the time we are going through our lives, this makes a lot of sense to me. We have to trust that our actions are important and that they do make a positive difference in the world. Often it is the little things we do that matter most. Life is a lot like dominoes- one small movement can effect everything.

I hope you will live your life as if every moment, person, and thing matters. For all you know today could be the day when you do the most important thing in your life. Even if you do the second most important thing, this will still be significant.

Love & Light,
Felicia

Recession. There. I actually said the R-word. No one wants to be there bearer of bad news, no one, it seems wants to “say it” fearing that it somehow will make it more real. Small business owners don’t need to watch CNN to know that economic slowdown happens. The mood of the country is one of caution and an election year brings with it added uncertainty.

However, when you take a broader perspective, and use a longer timespan as your yardstick you can easily see that downturn is always followed by acceleration. The question, of course, is what is the best course of action in these times? The Japanese, who’ve been through move than a few cycles in the past 5000 years have some advice.
Alvin Soon, who writes the Life Coaches Blog (lifecoachesblog.com), points out:

The character for the word nin in ninja means ‘to endure’ or ‘to persevere’. It combines the character for knife on top of the character for heart, it means to go on despite having your heart under the knife!

Thus, a ninja is somebody who perseveres with his heart’s intentions even under threat or pressure.

This ninja philosophy is really simple to remember, and is summed up in 2 words: keep going.

What does it mean to keep going? Continue to do business in ways that expand your market share. Find ways to increase your value to customers in ways that cost very little for you; or for them. Focus on being more efficient (waste-cutting) and more effective. For instance, rather than mail a wasteful cardboard folder with a promotion kit, we now email our kits (saving paper, ink and postage).

With online subscription, we’re now proud to announce that more digital copies are read than printed copies (30,000 vs 25,000). See our full-screen, page-flipping edition at HolisticNetworker.com/magazine/2008-2/

Someday we may have a “virtual wellness expo”, until then, we feel that it’s best to come out and experience your massage directly. However, now you can purchase your admission ticket online for only $4 (save $1), and bulk purchases are as low as $1/ticket in groups of 50. See WellnessExpo.net for details.

Regards,
Tony

You did it. Now your children are doing it, too. Somehow, each new generation manages to surprise their elders with attitudes and behaviors that parents find shocking and offensive.

Today, young people publish their private thoughts, photos, and videos, in essence—their lives—online in blogs, media sites and social networking web sites like Facebook. Camera phones and handheld video make this process as easy as “point-and-click”. Older baby boomers caution young people on the dangers of being so open with their lives. They warn that certainly, future employers will “Google them” to discover their party photos and other, potentially embarrassing, postings.

The idea that a private life and a public life are distinct is a concept that baby boomers hold dear to them. And yet, Generation X and Y and the Millennials have always felt free to share their joys and miseries online for the world to see. While former Pres. Clinton might proclaim that he “didn’t inhale”, our future presidents will have already shared their youthful follies online and no one will be able to “out” them.

I believe that we are entering an age of “Authentic Living”. Our media already reflects this shift: movie DVDs are increasingly devoted to special features such as “behind the scenes” and “bloopers”, and popular TV shows are predominantly unscripted reality shows. We prefer the real over the scripted and the contrived. This shift, while so highly visible in the media, is also a reflection of a shift in our collective consciousness. Over time, the new reality of authentic living, a shift towards being real, will become part of our entire society, not just our youth.

What part of your life is fake? Which thoughts, feelings and actions do you prefer to keep secret? When we carefully script our lives and show people our fake smiles and practiced lines (”I’m doing great!”), we live shallow, hollow pretend lives that lack integrity. We pretend in order to make others like and accept us.

My experience has been that my friends, family, and even strangers, react more positively to my authentic self. When I share my true feelings, people react in kind—they can feel that I’ve taken off my armor—that I’ve become vulnerable and that it’s safe to share. It’s in this space that relationships deepen, friendships develop, and true love blossoms.

Warm regards,
Tony Cecala

I’ve heard Wayne Dyer say that it is more important to be kind than it is to be right. I have often thought of these words and have done my best to live by them, finding a great deal of freedom in living according to this value. Kindness definitely has its own rewards. It brings people closer together, whereas attempting to prove to someone that you are right about something often pulls people apart.

When my children were young, I would often remind them that “two wrongs don’t make a right”. One day I even came up with the expression that “two rudes don’t make a polite.” It’s interesting how often people can feel justified in this type of behavior when someone else acts in this same manner. The problem with behaving in this way is that it perpetuates a downward spiral. It is only when one person chooses kindness, even in the face of another not being kind, that the downward spiral is interrupted. The other person is then given a chance to respond more kindly as well. Even if they choose not to, they are often able to realize that it is they who are choosing unkindness and not the person they are being unkind to. Also, it takes away their feeling of being justified in their actions. It really is hard to be unkind to someone, who is being kind to you, without eventually realizing that perhaps the problem resides within you.

I recently finished reading Gary Zukov’s new book, Soul to Soul: Communications from the Heart. He reminds us that “the intentions of your soul are harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for Life”. He invites us to create authentic power in our lives, which involves holding our soul’s intentions. He also continually asks us to look at ourselves rather than others if we wish for things to be different. He points out that how much of our potential we realize is a result of the choices that we make. “For example, a person who speaks rudely to you gives you an opportunity to choose how you will respond.” He believes that we are given several doorways to choose from and that in each instance there is an optimal choice, which is to grow spiritually.

I hope you will choose kindness and spiritual growth and that you will experience the joy that these choices bring.

Love & Light,
Felicia Weiss

Money! Power! Health! Relationships! Great Abs! You can have it all! Self-help books consistently top the bestseller lists, and workshops based on “The Secret” and other success formulas consistently sell out. Why does our society have such a strong fascination with self-improvement?

There is, of course, an underlying message and feeling that who you are right now is not good enough. Just one more workshop, and maybe you’ll discover the secret to a lifetime of happiness. As nations go, we have wealth beyond compare, lavish malls, plentiful food, and the highest levels of energy usage in the world. So why do we crave more and better?

Abraham Maslow, a psychologist, categorized the needs that humans have on a hierarchy. At the base level are physiological needs (food, sleep, stimulation, activity), safety needs (security; protection from harm), love and belongingness needs (love, friendship, comradeship), and esteem needs (self-respect, personal worth, autonomy). Maslow points out that we satisfy these needs in order: the lower needs get fulfilled, then we go ahead and seek to fullfill the higher ones. Self-actualization occurs when we transcend the needs of the flesh, of the mind, and seek to satisfy our spiritual needs.

Considering that most workshop-going Americans have just about all their physical needs handled, where are we getting hung up? At the upper levels of the hierarchy there is a crossover point from the needs of the one, to the needs of the many. From what I call “service-to-self” to “service-to-others”. Unless we make that shift in seeking to help others, we become stuck and unsatisfied. Satisfaction at the spiritual levels of consciousness occurs when our attention is removed from the self, from worldly pleasures, and is focused outward on helping others.

So do we need to handle all our physical and intellectual needs before developing our spiritual lives? I’ll leave that question for you to ponder. How quickly we shift out of a “me” society to a “we” society, and how soon we begin to co-create planetary solutions for the needs of the many depends upon your answer.

Warm regards,

Tony Cecala