Insights – Melannie Thomas

Archive for the ‘Finding Your Center’ Category

“Laughter is the best medicine.”  Couldn’t find who said it, but I believe that laughter is a great tool for healing, and I love to laugh!

“Research has shown that humor and laughter can reduce stress, control pain, improve our immune system and promote healing.”  So says Sheryl M. Ness, R.N. in her ‘Living with cancer” blog, (www.mayoclinic.org/…./humor-and-cancer/BGP-20056414).

Laughter increases blood flow to the brain, and promotes production of dopamine, endorphins and the stress hormone cortisol.

If you seek more information on this subject, enter ‘healing benefits of laughter’ in your search bar, and prepare to be amazed at the abundance of information.

Of course, I couldn’t end today’s blog without a few quotes about laughter.

“We don’t laugh because we’re happy- we’re happy because we laugh.”

~William James

“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”

~Victor Borge

“A person who knows how to laugh at himself will never cease to be amused.”

~Shirley MacClain

“The earth laughs in flowers.”

~ e.e. Cummings

I invite you to sprinkle laughter liberally throughout this week, and all the weeks to come.

As I prune my rose bushes and contemplate a hard pruning of my pear tree (and soon as time is running out), I reflected on pruning for personal growth.

Pruning is essential to the health, shape, beauty and flourishing of trees, shrubs, hedges, vines, and many flowering plants.  Hard pruning and light pruning all play a part in the process.  Even ‘root pruning’ is needed periodically for potted plants or they become ‘root-bound’ and die.

So, too, it is essential to regularly prune and trim our personal growth in order to attain mature, healthy form, strength and dis-ease free living.  I like the quote below from 1300AD:

“What is essential to practice the Tao is to get rid of cravings and vexations.  If these afflictions are not removed, it is impossible to attain stability.  This is like the case of the fertile field, which cannot produce good crops as long as the weeds are not cleared away.  Cravings and ruminations are the weeds of the mind; if you do not clear them away, concentration and wisdom do not develop.”

~Chang San-feng

I invite you to do some personal pruning…it is the season.

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.  The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

~Henri J. M. Nouwen

Saturday evening the heavens presented a glorious full moon in Leo.  Today Mercury goes direct, coming out of 2016’s first retrograde.  I am inspired to share some kernel of wisdom quotes and invite you to muse along with me this week.

“Progress is man’s ability to complicate simplicity.”

~Thor Heyerdahl

“You can lead a man to Congress, but you can’t make him think.”

~Milton Berle

“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.”

~Thomas Sowell

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”

~Terry Pratchett

“People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”

~Isaac Asimov

Enjoy your week!

While perusing my latest gardening book, exploring seed catalogs and admiring the beauty of the new bearded iris hybrid, Ninja Warrior, I was led to reflect upon seeds in a spiritual sense.

We plant seeds everyday; inside our hearts and minds, and outside, in the hearts and minds of others.  Seeds are hearty, and will take root in the most hostile of environments; and will bountifully flourish in fertile soils.  If a seed  planted inside in a pot of low self-esteem and unworthiness, is watered and fertilized regularly, it will bear abundant fruits of low self-esteem and unworthiness.  Likewise guilt, bitterness, anger, and hopelessness.

Seeds planted in pots of love, faith, charity, dreams, and graciousness, will put forth fruits of love, charity, manifest dreams, and grace.  The same is true for the seeds  planted in the outer world.  What is sown is what is reaped.

This quote by Sharon Salzberg expresses this action beautifully:

“Things don’t just happen in this world of arising and passing away.  We don’t live in some kind of crazy accidental universe.  Things happen according to certain laws, laws of nature.  Laws such as the law of karma, which teaches us that as a certain seed gets planted, so will that fruit be.”

This is the perfect time of year to review your seed catalog and determine what you will plant in your garden of life.

Everyone has it.  I love my intuition.  After years of trying to run away from this gift, I am now quite comfortably settled into a excellent rapport.  I have  learned not just to listen to the voice of intuition, but just as importantly, to trust the message.   I really resonate with the quotes below, and want to share them with you today.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.  We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

~Albert Einstein

“It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea.  I work with it and rely on it.  It’s my partner.”

~Jonas Salk

I invite you this week to reflect on your relationship with your intuition.

I found this quote by Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of Simple Abundance, A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, a wonderful follow up on last week’s post.  I invite you to relish and enjoy her words of wisdom.

“New Year’s Day.  A fresh start.  A new chapter in life waiting to be written.  New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved.  Answers to be discovered and then lived in this transformative year of delight and self-discovery.  Today carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in which to dream, pen in hand.  Only dreams give birth to change.”

Happy New Year!

45% of Americans make will make New Year Resolutions.  Losing weight is number one…no surprises there.  47% of resolutions will be about self-improvement, and 46% of us will be maintaining our resolutions beyond six months according to the Statistic Brain Research Institute.  Pretty impressive!

Resolving is an act or process of finding an answer, a solution for a challenge we face…a behavior we want to change or modify.  Resolution is also firmness and determination; consistent actions required to achieve the desired outcome.

On the prioritized list of resolutions provided by the University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology, enjoying life to the fullest is number five; learning something new is number seven; helping others is number eight; and lastly, spending time with family is number ten.

For me, the number one resolution will be ‘to enjoy life to the fullest’.  This means better boundaries everywhere.  It means finding the balance between ‘helping others’ and being faithful to my own well-being.  It means finding peace, especially peace within.

I invite you to reflect and commit to a New Year Resolution that best suits the current of your life.

Wishing you all an awesome New Year!!

Today is Winter Solstice and Friday is Christmas with a full moon in Capricorn.  This is a perfect time to reflect and give thanks. Wishing you all a very Blessed Holy Season!

Gratitude for the rain was last week’s post.  Now it is time to check your preparations for what is coming.  This could be a record-setting year for mudslides and flooding in California.

Last week’s devastating  floods in Oregon and Washington, and last year’s inundation of Texas are foreboding indications of what is a very probable scenario for us this year.

This is my personal preparation list.  Potable water, snacks and out of the can food, paper plates, disposable cups and utensils, flashlights with new batteries, LED lanterns with new batteries, first aid supplies, up-to-date medications, warm clothing, a good umbrella and adequate rain gear,  accommodation for pets, a portable radio, car maintained, with flares, water and a blanket in the trunk, gas tank always half full, working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, table games and reading material.  Check your roof and windows, gutters and drains.  Secure outdoor furniture and potted plants.

Power outages and flooding are disruptions of our normal routines.  Lastly, keep with you throughout this winter a very generous amount of patience.

For more information on flood emergency preparedness, see the following resources:

The Red Cross

FEMA

The Department of Homeland Security