The Advent Conspiracy

This is the message from the "The Advent Conspiracy": Love All, Give More, Spend Less, Worship Fully.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc2IQdbZ2hs

Christmas Flash Mob

I loved this flash mob.   To me,  it epitomizes love, togetherness, family, friends and giving.  

Christmas Flash Mob

Voting is a Privilege

Booster & Bootsie helped us to study all the campaign literature

Today is election day.  All of my grandparents were immigrants, coming through Ellis island.  My maternal grandmother, Nana, could not read, but she always insisted on voting.  Back then, they allowed her daughter, my Mother to accompany her into the voting booth and she would place her "X" by the candidates of her choice.  Nana considered it a privilege to be a US citizen and to exercise her voting rights.  Since I became eligible to vote, in honor of Nana, I have not ever missed voting in an election.

Wherever I go there I am

Our Minister discussed "wherever I go, there I am".  To briefly explain, this means that I can change where I live, my job, friends, surroundings, etc, but it is still me in the middle of it all.  To affect change to my outer world, I must change my thoughts.  She said something that I found poignant:  we must watch our thoughts as carefully as we would a coiled rattlesnake ready to strike. 

Happiness by Shawn Achor

Shawn Achor claims we can train our brains to be happy.  Who knew?
Excellent podcast on training our brains  by Shawn Achor

http://goodthinkinc.com/media/

Develop New Habits by Shawn Achor

http://hbr.org/2012/01/positive-intelligence/ar/1

Training your brain to be positive is not so different from training your muscles at the gym. Recent research on neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to change even in adulthood—reveals that as you develop new habits, you rewire the brain.

Engaging in one brief positive exercise every day for as little as three weeks can have a lasting impact, my research suggests. For instance, in December 2008, just before the worst tax season in decades, I worked with tax managers at KPMG in New York and New Jersey to see if I could help them become happier. (I am an optimistic person, clearly.) I asked them to choose one of five activities that correlate with positive change:

·       Jot down three things they were grateful for.
·       Write a positive message to someone in their social  support network.
·       Meditate at their desk for two minutes.
·       Exercise for 10 minutes.
·       Take two minutes to describe in a journal the most   meaningful experience of the past 24 hours.

The participants performed their activity every day for three weeks. Several days after the training concluded, we evaluated both the participants and a control group to determine their general sense of well-being. How engaged were they? Were they depressed? On every metric, the experimental group’s scores were significantly higher than the control group’s. When we tested both groups again, four months later, the experimental group still showed significantly higher scores in optimism and life satisfaction. In fact, participants’ mean score on the life satisfaction scale—a metric widely accepted to be one of the greatest predictors of productivity and happiness at work—moved from 22.96 on a 35-point scale before the training to 27.23 four months later, a significant increase. Just one quick exercise a day kept these tax managers happier for months after the training program had ended. Happiness had become habitual.   Awesome!

Make a Difference Day October 27 2012

I'm going to make my calendar to do something on "Make a Difference Day".  Links are below

http://makeadifferenceday.com/getting-started/

and on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/makeadifferenceday

I was here

I highly recommend viewing this incredible song & performance by Beyonce.  The multimedia background images are amazing as is the message.

http://vimeo.com/50194613

World Humanitarian day:
http://worldhumanitarianday.org/

Question:  What if there were lines of people waiting to bless other people like the people lining up to buy the iphone 5. Would we change the world?

Thoughts, happening

I attended classes to study the prayer of St. Francis.  We used the book "Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace", by Kent Nerurn.  Here is the prayer:  

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog.

Dear readers, I have been quite overwhelmed with grief this weekend over the loss in Sandy Hook, CT, of  those precious, innocent children and the brave caretakers who tried to protect them.  I've been asking myself what can I do, what should I do, what is the right thing to do, how can we prevent this in the future?

This is a very insightful piece about gun control written by a young woman from Texas (don't mess with my guns), ROTCer,  and an expert markswoman.  Thank you Stephanie.

http://bigmariolife.blogspot.com/2012/12/on-my-mind-this-monday_17.html