Antonia Harrison's blog

My Blog has Moved

2011-12-07T10:41:00.001+01:00

I have moved my blog to a new url: http://antoniaharrison.blogspot.com/

Come on over and join me.

Wanted: Internal Communications Specialist

2011-12-06T10:08:00.001+01:00

1. Internal Communications: Implement the standards of internal communications in line with a Universal roadmap and priorities. Adapt internal communications to the current local requirements. Responsible for internal channels and memorable interactive events.

2. Change Management: Through internal communications support change management processes and programs coordinating them lightly and closely with the creative sources. Advocate and promote the development of an even state of mind. Support adapting and implementing abundance for all on Earth, worldwide binding principles, codes and standards, like Vision and Values, in such a way that they are understood and lived by all participants at all levels in the world. Build a close relationship with a mentor and guides to develop Internal Communication programs that will achieve a sustainable value contribution and build a strong internal conviction.

3. Brand Management: Manage the universal brand operationally on the inside and in close cooperation with yellow. Encourage internal and external communications and events that determine and increase beauty on the planet.

4. Messaging : Invite internal messaging that combines a cosmic “message house” material with local heart/mind messaging to co-create briefing materials that will dazzle and inspire. Design and teach with sketches, doodles and documents for various participating audiences to build message consistency and skill.

5. Stakeholders and Media Relations: Establishing and cultivating respectful relations with all beings seen and unseen, focusing on close proximity audiences. Able to be a spokesperson for love. Play and organize interviews, film and photo shoots in Cape-Town with key listeners, thought thinkers, decision makers and friends. Give prizes and thank you gifts.

6. Communications: Effective communications plan that works with ancient wisdom and the corresponding strength to apply universal love. Co-develop and communicate the availability of helpful tools and training for use in internal communication and offer to the world at large. Participate in nature walks with business associates and senior management. These plans should blend with virtues such as compassion, tolerance and patience and understanding.

7. Sustainability : Support gardens and people at one with the natural environment in the communication of sustainability strategy and activities.

8. Management: Facilitator of a team, mind, body and soul, bringing added value, sharing best practises and lessons learned, developing stories to be used in global communications channels. Start immediately.

From a Henkel headhunting ad.

How to Make Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs

2011-09-13T10:31:00.004+02:00

Here are our three chickens. They give us delicious eggs so I wanted to know how to cook perfect hard boiled eggs and found this advice on a blog.

Cook time: 12 minutes

If you want hard boiled eggs that are easy to peel, make sure they are several days old. If this is Easter time, and everyone is buying their eggs at the last minute, buy your eggs 5 days in advance of boiling. Hard boiling farm fresh eggs will invariably lead to eggs that are difficult to peel. If you have boiled a batch that are difficult to peel, try putting them in the refrigerator for a few days; they should be easier to peel then. If you need to hard cook fresh eggs, and want them easy to peel, steaming the eggs works well. Even fresh eggs steamed for 20 minutes will be easy to peel.

METHOD
1 Put the eggs in a single layer in a saucepan, covered by at least 1-2" of cold water. Starting with cold water and gently bringing the eggs to a boil will help keep them from cracking. Some people add a tablespoon of vinegar to the water to help keep the egg whites from running out of any eggs that happen to crack while cooking, but some people find that the vinegar affects the taste. Adding a half teaspoon of salt is thought to help both with the preventing of cracking and making the eggs easier to peel. Put the burner on high and bring the eggs to a boil. As soon as the water starts to boil, remove the pan from the heat for a few seconds.

2 Reduce the heat to low, return the pan to the burner. Let simmer for one minute. (Note I usually skip this step because I don't notice the eggs boiling until they've been boiling for at least a minute! Also, if you are using an electric stove with a coil element, you can just turn off the heat. There is enough residual heat in the coil to keep the eggs simmering for a minute.)

3 After a minute, remove the pan from the heat, cover, and let sit for 12 minutes. If you are doing a large batch of eggs, after 10 minutes you can check for doneness by sacrificing one egg, removing it with a slotted spoon, running it under cold water, and cutting it open. If it isn't done, cook the other eggs a minute or two longer. The eggs should be done perfectly at 10 minutes, but sometimes, depending on the shape of the pan, the size of the eggs, the number of eggs compared to the amount of water, and how cooked you like them, it can take a few minutes more. When you find the right time that works for you given your pan, the size of eggs you usually buy, the type of stove top you have, stick with it.

I also find that it is very hard to overcook eggs using this method. I can let the eggs sit, covered, for up to 15-20 minutes without the eggs getting overcooked.
4 Either remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and place them into a bowl of ice water (this is if you have a lot of eggs) OR strain out the water from the pan, fill the pan with cold water, strain again, fill again, until the eggs cool down a bit. Once cooled, strain the water from the eggs. Store the eggs in a covered container (eggs can release odors) in the refrigerator. They should be eaten within 5 days.

Source: Elise - Simply Recipes

The Purpose of Life is to be Happy

2011-09-12T10:10:00.001+02:00

“I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very core of our being, we desire contentment. In my own limited experience I have found that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone. The key is to develop inner peace.” - Christopher Howard

Regain Control of Your Life

2011-09-07T17:17:00.001+02:00

Regain control of your life and your results so that you can begin to live with passion, purpose and power.

How Hugs are Proven to Help Your Health: Have You Been Hugged Today?

2011-09-07T16:26:00.001+02:00

Hugs certainly feel good, both on the giving and receiving end, and it turns out their effects are more than skin deep. A study by University of North Carolina researchers found that hugs increase the "bonding" hormone oxytocin and decrease the risk of heart disease.

Hugs are good for your heart, they lower blood pressure, and reduce stress, so make it a point to hug someone today.

In fact, when couples hugged for 20 seconds, their levels of oxytocin, released during childbirth and breastfeeding, increased. Those in loving relationships had the highest increases.

Meanwhile, levels of the stress hormone cortisol decreased in women, as did their blood pressure. Said lead researcher and psychologist Dr. Karen Grewen, "Greater partner support is linked to higher oxytocin levels for both men and women. However, the importance of oxytocin and its potentially cardioprotective effects may be greater for women."

Hugging for Your Heart
"Scientists are increasingly interested in the possibility that positive emotions can be good for your health. This study has reinforced research findings that support from a partner, in this case a hug from a loved one, can have beneficial effects on heart health," said Dr. Charmaine Griffiths, spokesperson for the British Heart Foundation.
Indeed, a previous study, also led by Grewen, found that hugging and handholding reduces the effects of stress. Two groups of couples were asked to talk about an angry event, but one group had previously held hands and hugged, while the others sat alone. It was found that:

• Blood pressure increased significantly more among the no-contact group as compared to the huggers.
• Heart rate among those without contact increased 10 beats a minute, compared to five beats a minute for huggers.

What's more, Grewen suggests that warm contact such as hugs and hand-holding before the start of a rough day "could carry over and protect you throughout the day."

Benefits of Touch Start Early
A hearty hug in the morning may help your loved one ward off stress all day.
Humans are clearly social animals, as evidenced by countless studies showing that those who have friends are healthier, as are people who are married.

We need social contact, and that includes touch, even beyond a couple's capacity. Take, for example, the fact that babies benefit from skin-to-skin contact with their mother with better physical development and positive bonding.

A telling example was a study of Korean infants in an orphanage. Those who received an extra 15 minutes of a female voice, massage and eye-to-eye contact, five days a week for four weeks, gained more weight and had greater increases in body length and head circumferences after the four weeks and at 6 months of age than children without the extra stimulation.

Therapeutic touch has also been shown to reduce stress and pain among adults, and reduces symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, such as restlessness, pacing, vocalization, searching and tapping.

Time to Get, and Give, More Hugs
"U.S. couples aren't very touchy feely in public," says Tiffany Field of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami Medical School. This is a shame as touch also releases two feel-good brain chemicals, serotonin and dopamine. Yet, according to Field's studies of U.S. and Parisian cafes, French couples spend three times more time touching than American couples.

So what are we waiting for? Grab your partner, friend or family member and give them a hug today. And if you're really feeling bold, check out the first link below and treat your significant other to a special treat tonight.

Recommended Reading
The Amazing Benefits of Massage and Different Types of Massage Explained
How to Drop the Drama and Master the Art of Loving Simply in Seven Easy Steps

Source: SixWise

The American Banker and the Mexican Fisherman

2011-09-05T14:59:00.003+02:00

The American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked.

Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, "Only a little while."

The American then asked, "Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish?"

The Mexican said, "With this I have more than enough to support my family's needs."

The American then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."

The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat: With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor; eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York where you will run your ever-expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"

To which the American replied, "15 to 20 years."

"But what then?" asked the Mexican.

The American laughed and said that's the best part. "When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions?...Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

Why Worry? Irish Philosophy

2011-09-04T11:51:00.005+02:00

Fear and Love Cannot Occupy the Same Space

2011-07-25T21:04:00.000+02:00

LifeShift101 Tips: "Fear and Love cannot occupy the same space (mental focus) at the same time. Fear also has no intrinsic reality (form) Other than the biological flight or fight response, it is a mental construct. This is a key to it’s release..

By simply focusing all our attention on something we are grateful for when anxiety has us in it's grip, we can literally alter our physiology and emotional state." ~ HT

Rob Lowe Quote on Children

2011-07-22T21:38:00.000+02:00

I love what Rob Lowe said about children:

"First they're yours they they're the world's."

The Glass Jar

2011-07-21T15:34:00.004+02:00

There are many versions of this story so here is mine:

A famous teacher sat in front of a group of new students. He placed a large glass jar on the table. He looked at the students but said nothing.

Then out of a bag he took ten rocks and began placing them, one by one, into the jar until there was no more room in the jar. When the jar was filled to the brim with rocks, he asked his students:

"Is the jar full?"

They all agreed that it was.

The teacher then took some pebbles from another bag and carefully poured them into the jar around the rocks until no more pebbles would fit. He again asked the group,

‘Tell me, is the jar now full?’

The students said, yes, this time it was definitely full. At that point, the teacher opened a third bag, this time full of fine sand and began to pour it into the jar. He filled up any empty spaces between the large rocks and the pebbles until no more sand would fit in the jar.

He turned to the group and said, “Tell me, is the jar now full?” No one dared to answer.

The teacher said nothing and turned to the floor to pick up a jug of water. He took the jug and carefully poured the water into the jar. He turned to the group and asked, “Tell me, is the jar now full?”

There was silence. He turned to find a small pile of fine dry salt. He carefully dissolved it into the water, around the sand, the pebbles and the rocks until no more salt could be dissolved in the water. Once again he asked the group, “Tell me is the jar now full?”

“Yes,”’ said the teacher. ‘Now the jar is full. What do you think I’ve been trying to demonstrate to you?’ He invited the group to consider the meaning of his story. How did they interpret it? Why had the teacher told it? There were as many interpretations as there were people in the room. The teacher listened to each person. He reflected that each person interpreted the experience through their own particular and unique perspective through which they understood the world.

Then he gave his own interpretation that the jar represents our life so it is up to you how you choose to fill it. The rocks represent the most important and long-lasting ie family, health, your mission, your passion. The pebbles are the projects such as work, education, home. The sand is everyday routine and chores. The water represents the flow of activity and the salt is the extra we can take on when the important has been looked after.

We have to make a solid foundation with the large rocks first because if we fill the jar first with sand, there won’t be any room for the rocks. Likewise, we should prioritize our time with the meaningful rather than all the small insignificant things we do every day. Focus on the important.

What are the plans we postpone, the adventures we never have, the loves we let go by? Ask which are the large, solid rocks that keep our passion alive in us and put them into your jar of decisions now, because very soon there will be no room for them.

Some Will Hear

2011-06-29T10:54:00.001+02:00

Some will hear, but not listen.
Some will listen, but not understand.
And some will understand, but not act.
Some will act and still not understand,
Some will understand and be still!!
And, the Wise will be Still and Learn...

Happiness Quote

2011-06-07T10:57:00.000+02:00

Happiness is like a butterfly, which when pursued is just beyond your grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly may alight upon you. (Hawthorne)

Coronation Chicken Recipe for the Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T10:34:00.006+02:00

I know it's corny but here is a recipe for easy Coronation chicken which I am making today, the day of the royal wedding of Prince William & Kate Middleton.

Quick and easy - you'll never go to the sandwich shop again. This recipe has a decidedly citrus twist, but feel free to embellish however you'd like - add sultanas, peppers, pineapple, nuts, spring onion, etc.

Ingredients
100g (4 oz) mayonnaise
75g (3 oz) mango chutney
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 dessertspoon lime zest
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
500g (1 1/4 lb) skinless, boneless chicken breast fillets - cooked and diced

Preparation method
1. In a large bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, chutney, curry powder, lime zest, lime juice and salt. Add chicken and toss with the dressing until well coated. Cover and refrigerate until serving.

Tip:
Use half mayonnaise, half crème fraîche for a lower fat version of this recipe.

Source: All Recipes

Top 10 Bad Things That Are Good For You

2011-04-27T19:06:00.004+02:00

Article by Heather Whipps / Source: Live Science and Mind Power News

Beer quells heart disease and chocolate staves off cancer? Though often tagged with a disclaimer, studies that tell us to eat, inhale and generally indulge in "bad stuff" is music to our ears. So go ahead and enjoy these bad-for-you remedies — everything in moderation, as they say — until the next study inevitably overturns the research.

BEER: The newest bad kid on the block, beer has long been overshadowed by its healthier alcoholic cousins. While no one's suggesting you switch that glass of antioxidant-rich Pinot Noir for a tall glass of lager—there's still that beer gut to worry about—new research has suggested that moderate beer intake can actually improve cardiovascular function. Now if only a scientist will discover the health benefits of ballpark franks and chicken wings. Heaven.

ANGER: If you're one of those people who tends to bottle things up, only to explode ... don't hold it in so long. Studies show that bursts of anger here and there are good for the health, and can be an even more effective coping mechanism than becoming afraid, irritated or disgusted. Anger, like the consumables in this list, however, is best in moderation: stay angry for long periods of time and you'll be plagued with a host of health issues, like blood pressure, sleep disorders and lung damage.

COFFEE: Java is one of the most debated substances around. Is it good for you? Is it bad for you? Both? The consensus, now anyways, seems to favor those who enjoy their morning jolt—unrelated studies claim coffee is a major source of antioxidants in our diet and can help lower your risk of diabetes. Something in the beans is also thought to ease the onset of cirrhosis of the liver and pancreatitis, good news for those who like to party hard all night before their morning caffeine boost.

LSD: We're definitely not in the business of advocating drug use. But check out this interesting science: In heavy drinkers, small doses of LSD have been thought to help bypass the rock-bottom stage of alcoholism and prevent relapses. These studies—some decades old—were done in closely monitored, clinical settings; many patients haven't had a drink in the many years since. It's an interesting finding that needs a lot more investigation, and not a remedy that should ever be tried at home. Meantime—and this may come as no surprise—a recent study of 36 volunteers who took an LSD-like drug in a lab setting had them reporting mystical experiences and behavior changes that lasted for weeks.

SUNLIGHT: Exposure to the sun's rays is necessary to survive, but can also kill you in gross, cancerous quantities. Asthmatics, at least, could benefit from measured doses of ultraviolet rays, according to scientists. Sunlight suppressed the immune reactions that cause asthma in some lab studies with mice and could be used to treat humans afflicted with the disease in the future. And sunlight—even if indirect, such as on a shaded porch—is known to boost the mood. Extra sunlight can help office workers avoid afternoon drowsiness, a recent study found. There's still no excuse to head outside and bake, however.

MAGGOTS: They're creepy, slimy and altogether ooky, but maggots can save your life. These squirmy larvae are science's newest wonder-cure and were approved in 2003 as the Food & Drug Administration's only live medical device. Placed on serious wounds, maggots mimic their "wild" lifestyle and munch on bacteria and dead tissue, stimulating healing and helping to prevent infection.

MARIJUANA: It's medicinal, we swear! Marijuana, often associated with memory loss, is ironically now being hyped as a way to stave off the ultimate form of memory loss—Alzheimer's. Recent studies on mice suggest that anti-inflammatories found in the drug prevent the clumping of brain proteins, one major cause of the disease. So when should you start preventative therapy? We suggest waiting for the human studies to wrap up.

RED WINE: A crucial ingredient in the diets of the world's heart-healthiest populations—like those Bordeaux-guzzling French—red wine has long been known to have potent anti-cancer and artery-protecting benefits. The key, some studies indicate, is an antioxidant found specifically in the skin of red wine grapes, called resveratrol. The latest studies even link resveratrol to greater endurance, a reduction in gum disease and Alzheimer's. White wine, which is fermented after the skins are removed, is less beneficial according to some studies.

CHOCOLATE: Chocolate lovers rejoice: study after study lately has touted the magical benefits of the indulgent treat, which is packed with the antioxidant flavonols that prevent certain cancers and keep your arteries from clogging. The most recent news? These powerful chemicals may even increase blood flow to the brain, warding off dementia. Just stick to the highest cocoa content possible—the bars packed with sugar don't help your health one bit.

SEX: Scientists have found that the benefits of sex go beyond immediate, ahem, gratification and satisfying the goal of procreation. Besides the obvious evolutionary purposes, we can all take pleasure in the news that having sex is an easy way to reduce stress, lower cholesterol and improve circulation throughout the body. As if you needed another excuse.

Note from Antonia:
I have never taken any drugs other than when medically prescribed. I have never smoked anything. I therefore do not advocate marijuana or LSD but am simply re-publishing this article which arrived in my inbox. Oh and who said sex was a bad thing?

Blonde Joke

2011-04-26T16:45:00.000+02:00

A blonde walked into a store to buy curtains.

She went up to the salesman and said, "I want those pink curtains to fit my computer screen.

The salesman mentioned, "Computers don't need curtains."

The blonde replied, "Hellooo…. I have windows!"

Why is it Good Friday?

2011-04-22T13:29:00.008+02:00

Today is Good Friday, the day when we remember Christ being crucified. Why is Good Friday referred to as “good”? What the Jewish authorities and Romans did to Jesus was definitely not good (Matthew 26-27). However, the results of Christ’s death are very good.

The name may be derived from 'God's Friday' in the same way that good-bye is derived from 'God be with ye'. The simplest explanation is that the day is truly good because in Christ’s death, the barrier of sin between God and his people was broken through redemption by the death of Jesus Christ.

Other Names for Good Friday
The Anglo-Saxon name for Good Friday was Long Friday, due to the long fast imposed upon this day. The day is also known as Black Friday or Sorrowful Friday. In the Eastern orthodox Churches, it is known as the "Great Friday".

History of Good Friday
The Good Friday date is one of the oldest Christian holidays, with some sources saying that it has been observed since 100 AD. It was associated with fasting during the early years of its observance and was associated with the crucifixion around the 4th century AD.

A Public Holiday in Some Countries
Good Friday is a most holy day to remember Christ’s crucifixion before his rising from the dead on Easter Sunday. It is a public holiday in the UK, one of only two days when shops and businesses are closed, the other being Christmas Day. The same applies in Sweden, Denmark and Norway,

Good Friday is a public holiday in many countries with a strong Christian tradition ie Australia, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean countries, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Germany, Malta, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, the Philippines, Mexico and Singapore. Also in 11 of the United States of America.

Ireland, a predominantly Catholic country, prohibits all alcohol from being sold on Good Friday. Banks and public institutions are closed but it is not an official bank/public holiday.

The Service of Darkness/Tenebrae
The Service of Darkness, known as the Tenebrae is celebrated in some Western Churches. During this ceremony the lights in the church are slowly dimmed marking the darkness that covered Earth upon Christ’s death. The Tenebrae ends with a loud noise known as the strepitus. This loud noise is used as a symbol to mark several sounds that are noted in scripture. They are: Jesus’ final cries, the earthquake at his death, the shutting of his tomb and the second earthquake when he rises from the dead. The purpose of the Service of Darkness is to recreate the betrayal, abandonment and agony of the events leading up to, and the death of, Christ.

As Jesus faced death literally, he needed God's help to save him from the world. Jesus' words from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" echo the human experience of seeking a reality beyond death (Matthew 27:46).

For Christians, Good Friday is a time to be with Jesus in his time of suffering and wait with him in hope of God's promise, eternal life to all who believe. The "good" in Good Friday reflects the Christian hope of resurrection and new life in Jesus, foreshadowing Easter Sunday, when Christians believe that God resurrected Jesus from the dead.

Lutheran tradition
In the Lutheran Church from the 16th to 20th century, Good Friday was the most important holiday and abstention from all worldly works was expected. It was a prime day to receive the Eucharist but in the mid-20th century, this moved to Maundy Thursday.

Not on a Friday for All Churches
Baptist, Pentecostal and many non-denominational churches do not observe Good Friday, regarding it as a papist tradition, and observe the crucifixion on the Wednesday to coincide with the Jewish sacrifice of the Passover Lamb, the Lamb being Jesus for the Christians. A Wednesday crucifixion allowed Jesus to be in the tomb “for three days and three nights” (Matthew 12:40) rather than two nights if on a Friday. John’s Gospel gives Jesus’ death on Thursday.

Catholic Traditions on Good Friday
Good Friday is noted and celebrated in many different ways throughout the world. Catholics mark the day by attending church and reliving the fourteen Stations of the Cross although it is not a public holiday. The Stations of the Cross are areas throughout the church that show the events that took place leading up to, and including, Christ’s crucifixion, death and entombment. No mass is celebrated but churches are often draped in black eg in Belgium.

Another tradition is to venerate, or honour, the cross by kissing a crucifix. On Good Friday, the altar in the Catholic Church has no decorations and the candle, which always burns to note God’s presence, is unlit. This is the only day that God is considered not present in the church and the only day in the Catholic Church in which a mass is not celebrated.

The day is solemn and a general air of sadness is felt in many towns and villages. Many Christians in Poland fast on dry bread and roasted potatoes. Egg decorating is also part of the Easter preparations in Poland and many other countries.

In Spain, it is another solemn day, part of "Semana Santa" (Holy Week).

Hot Cross Buns
In many English-speaking countries, it is traditional to eat warm 'hot cross buns' on Good Friday. Hot Cross Buns with their combination of spicy, sweet and fruity flavours have long been an Easter tradition.

Delia Smith’s Hot Cross Bun recipe

Hot Cross Bun recipe and other Easter treats for children

The pastry cross on top of the buns symbolises the cross that Jesus was killed on.

Hot Cross Buns nursery rhyme c.1798
Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns!
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns

Hot Cross Bun Ceremony
At the London Pub, The Widow's Son, a Hot Cross Bun Ceremony takes place each Good Friday. In the early 19th century, a widow who lived on the site was expecting her sailor son back home for Easter and placed a hot cross bun ready for him on Good Friday. The son never returned, but undaunted the widow left the bun waiting for him and added a new bun each year. Successive landlords have kept the tradition going after the pub was opened.

It is traditional to eat fish on Good Friday instead of meat.

Cramp Rings
From the reign of Edward III to that of Mary Tudor, monarchs used to bless a plateful of gold and silver rings every Good Friday at the Chapel Royal, within St. James's Palace. By rubbing the rings between their fingers, the royal touch was believed to cure cramp and epilepsy. The custom was abolished during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Good Friday superstitions
There are a number of superstitions relating to Good Friday:

A child born on Good Friday and baptised on Easter Sunday has the gift of healing.

Many fishermen will not set out for catch on Good Friday.

Bread or cakes baked on this day will not go mouldy.

Eggs laid on Good Friday will never go bad.

The planting of crops is not advised on this day, as an old belief says that no iron should enter the ground (i.e. spade, fork etc.).

Hot cross buns baked on Good Friday were supposed to have magical powers. It is said that you could keep a hot cross bun which had been made on Good Friday for at least a year and it wouldn't go mouldy.

Hardened old hot cross buns are supposed to protect the house from fire

Sailors took hot cross buns to sea with them to prevent shipwreck.

A bun baked on Good Friday and left to get hard could be grated up and put in some warm milk to stop an upset tummy.

Having a hair cut on Good Friday will prevent toothaches the rest of the year.

No shedding of blood should take place and no work undertaken with hammer, nails or wood.

Try to arrange your affairs to die on Good Friday so that you are rewarded by going straight to heaven without spending any time in Purgatory.

Finally, there is a British superstition that laundry should never be washed on Good Friday, based on a folk legend that a washerwoman mocked Christ on his way to the crucifixion by either throwing dirty water over him or hitting him in the face with wet laundry.

Brain Foods for Memory

2011-04-21T15:22:00.003+02:00

Here's the scoop on brain foods. Like you, I've always heard that certain brain foods can help you think better and improve memory. There are several types of foods that can protect your brain, improve how well it works and even build new brain cells.

First, let me clear up a common myth: yes, you can grow new brain cells as an adult! The myth that your brain stops growing is false. Lots of new research proves that your neurons (brain cells) can put out new branches and make new connections no matter what your age.

Of course, all cells need nutrients to grow. So including brain foods in your diet gives your brain the building blocks it needs. More neurons and connections in your brain equals a stronger memory and a mind that simply works better.

1. Healthy Fats - Build Your Brain

Much of a brain cell's structure is made up of what are called "healthy fats". The most important of these are the Omega-3 fatty acids. As your brain repairs itself and grows new neurons, it needs an abundant supply of Omega-3s from your diet.

The best sources of Omega-3 fats include cold-water fish such as salmon and albacore tuna. Other foods with Omega-3 are canola oil, soybeans, walnuts, wheatgerm, eggs, and flaxseed oil.

Recent studies have shown that Omega-3 vitamins can greatly improve memory and attention in some people.

2. Antioxidants - Protect Your Brain

As we age, substances in our bloodstream known as "free radicals" attack and break down our brain cells. If you don't fight this, you are likely to experience age-related memory loss when you get older.

Fortunately, there are a lot of foods that contain a helpful substance called "antioxidants". These antioxidants merge with the free radicals in your blood and make them harmless. So it pays to eat lots of antioxidant foods every day.

Good sources of antioxidants include tea (especially green tea), blueberries and other berries, red grapes, tomatoes, broccoli, garlic, spinach, carrots, whole grains and soy.

3. High-Tyrosine Proteins - Spark Your Brain

Besides neurons, your brain also includes important chemicals called "neurotransmitters". Neurotransmitters are the messengers that carry brain signals from one neuron to the next. You may have a great brain structure, but if your supply of the different neurotransmitters is insufficient your brain won't function properly.

Some components of neurotransmitters, such as tryptophan, can't be made within the body but must be consumed directly from your diet. Others such as tyrosine can be made by the body but still require the right foods in your diet.

The best neurotransmitter-building foods for boosting alertness, energy, and concentration include seafood, meat, eggs, soy and dairy products.

4. Water - Hydrate Your Brain

As you probably know, most of your body is water. It is very easy to not consume enough water and become dehydrated. Being even slightly dehydrated decreases your mental energy and can impair your memory.

Drink at least three or four liters of water a day. I like to carry around a one-liter bottle and just fill it up whenever I pass a water fountain.

5. Vitamins & Minerals - Brain Building Blocks

Certain vitamins and minerals are also important building blocks for your brain. You definitely want to avoid any kind of vitamin deficiency. The best way to do so is to supplement with vitamin and mineral tablets.

The most important for brain function are Vitamins C, B12, and B6. So take a Vitamin C supplement daily and consider taking a B Complex vitamin along with it.

Some important minerals for brain building include Iron (for women, especially) and Calcium. Deficiencies of either of these have been shown to impair learning.

An easy way to get most of your most important vitamins and minerals is to simply take a multivitamin each day. Also consider a fish oil capsule (for Omega-3 fatty acids), a 1,000 mg Vitamin C tablet and a B Complex vitamin.

Make sure you always take your vitamins with food and not on an empty stomach. Not only will you avoid a stomach ache, but vitamins and minerals need to combine with food in your digestive system or they will be to a large degree wasted.

6. Fiber - Regulate Your Fuel Supply

Fiber is a suprising brain food, but an important one. Okay, fine, it's not really a "food". But fiber does help your brain function at its best. The reason is that fiber helps slow the absorption of sugar from your diet.

Your brain operates 100% on sugar. But the trick is that the sugar must be delivered in a very steady stream and in the proper amount or your brain gets overwhelmed. Eating enough fiber slows your digestion and results in the sugar in your food being delivered into your bloodstream gradually.

Foods containing healthy amounts of fiber include dried fruits (such as raisins, dates, prunes, and apricots), vegetables (such as green peas, broccoli, and spinach), peas and beans (such as black-eyed peas, lima beans, and kidney beans), nuts and seeds (such as flaxseed and almonds), whole fruit (such as apples with the skin, oranges, avocados, kiwi, and pears), and whole wheat grains (such as barley, brown rice, and the various whole wheat pastas and cereals).

---

So there you have it. To keep your brain healthy and your memory at its best, simply start eating foods from all of these groups on a regular basis.

Slowly replace the high-sugar, high-fat foods in your diet with these healthy brain foods. Not only will your brain and memory benefit, but your body will, too. I guarantee you will notice a difference!

Source: http://www.memory-improvement-tips.com/brain-foods.html

The Samurai Asks the Zen Monk for Advice

2011-04-21T15:08:00.004+02:00

From Paulo Coelho's blog:

A Samurai who was known for his nobility and honesty, went to visit a Zen monk to ask him for his advice. When the monk had finished his prayers, the Samurai asked,
"Why do I feel so inferior? I have faced death many times, have defended those who are weak. Nevertheless, upon seeing you meditating, I felt that my life had absolutely no importance whatsoever."

"Wait. Once I have attended to all those who come to see me today, I shall answer you."

The samurai spent the whole day sitting in the temple gardens, watching the people go in and out in search of advice. He saw how the monk received them all with the same patience and the same illuminated smile on his face.

At nightfall, when everyone had gone, he demanded, "Now can you teach me?"

The master invited him in and lead him to his room. The full moon shone in the sky, and the atmosphere was one of profound tranquility.
"Do you see the moon, how beautiful it is? It will cross the entire firmament, and tomorrow the sun will shine once again. But sunlight is much brighter, and can show the details of the landscape around us: trees, mountains, clouds. I have contemplated the two for years, and have never heard the moon say: why do I not shine like the sun? Is it because I am inferior?"

"Of course not", answered the samurai, "the moon and the sun are different things, each has its own beauty. You cannot compare the two."

"So you know the answer. We are two different people, each fighting in his own way for that which he believes, and making it possible to make the world a better javascript:void(0)place; the rest are mere appearances."

A Rhyme To Remember English Monarchs

2011-02-21T14:55:00.003+01:00

These are little rhymes to try to fix historical dates in one’s mind. They make no pretence to poetry. They are purely practical. They are mainly in sequence of date, and are mostly concerned with English/British history.

English / British Historical Doggerel by Dr. Donald Stevens

The Celts were first, the Romans next,
The Saxons then by Danes were vexed.
Then Danes not long, then Normans came,
But England kept its Saxon name.

-- o0o --

King Will-i-am of Normandy,
The sons he had were only three,
Robert, Red William, and Henry One,
Came Henry Two when they were done.
Robert, he stayed in Normandy,
And never England’s King was he.

-- o0o --

In the Forest that’s New
Rufus the King, someone slew
(We don’t know who);
In one and one and nought and nought,
And Henry One to the throne was brought.

-- o0o --

(William Rufus, the Red William in the preceding rhyme,
shot by an arrow in the New Forest, in 1100.)

-- o0o --

In ten ninety-nine, Crusaders go,
Godfrey of Bouillon at the head of them,
To attack and vanquish every foe
And take by force Jerusalem.

-- o0o --

Eleven hundred and thirty-five,
Henry One is not alive.
Stephen says that he is King.
Matilda says another thing;
“If nephew Stephen had never been,”
Said she, “Then I would be the Queen.”
As both of them felt rather sore,
They decided to have a Civil War.

-- o0o --

(Stephen was the nephew of Henry I)

-- o0o --

Eleven hundred and fifty-four,
Stephen the King, he was no more,
When he was definitely dead,
Henry the Second was King instead.

-- o0o --

Hen. Two wedded Eleanor of Aquitaine,
By this the half of France to gain.

-- o0o --

(Hen. = Henry, of course)

-- o0o --

Richard, the King with the Lion’s Heart,
Decided quite early to depart
To fight the Muslims and conquer them,
And so retake Jerusalem.

-- o0o --

John, son of Henry and Eleanor,
Was disliked by the Pope and many more;
The Magna Carta in twelve fifteen,
Because the Barons were very keen,
Was signed reluctantly by John
The Island of Runnymede upon.

-- o0o --

Ned One was good, Ned Two was not,
Ned Three found he a war had got
A war with France that lasted near
A hundred year.

-- o0o --

(The three Edwards & The Hundred Years’ War)

-- o0o --

Lancaster’s Rose was red,
The Rose of York was white,
Because they couldn’t agree on the colour,
They both decided to fight.

-- o0o --

In one and four and eight and five
Henry Tudor (whose rose was red)
Won at Bosworth, and stayed alive
When Richard of York was certainly dead.

-- o0o --

Two Henrys, followed by poor little Ned,
The Mary and Liz when Ned was dead.

-- o0o --

The Tudors: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI,
Mary, Elizabeth)

-- o0o --

In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,
Columbus sailed the ocean blue,
He sailed to America from Spain
And then, of course, sailed back again,
And Ferdinand and Isabella
Thought he was a splendid fella.

-- o0o --

Philip the Second of Spain
Caused a lot of pain
By the imposition
Of the Inquisition.

-- o0o --

In fifteen hundred and eighty-eight
The Spanish Armada met its fate.

-- o0o --

Great Liz had neither daughter nor won,
So cousin James from Scotland came,
And a new dynasty was begun,
The Stuarts was its name.

-- o0o --

In one and six and one and one,
The Authorised Version at last was done.
(1611)

-- o0o --

In sixteen hundred and five
All in Parliament alive
Were hoped by rebels soon to die
By being blown into the sky.
(The Gunpowder Plot)

-- o0o --

Jas. and Chas., then Noll and Dick,
Then Chas. and Jas., and Bill came quick.
(James I, Charles I, Oliver Cromwell, Richard Cromwell,
Charles II, James II, who lasted only three years, and was
replaced by William of Orange from Holland)

-- o0o --

James the Second was Charlie Two’s brother,
Because, of course, they had the same mother.
(Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I)

-- o0o --

Two years when deaths were rather higher:
Sixty-five Plague and Sixty-Six Fire.
(1665, 1666)

-- o0o --

It begins with W and ends with M,
And England was ruled by both of them.
(WilliaM: W = William; M = Mary)

-- o0o --

When the eighteenth century began,
We had a Queen whose name was Anne
She began her reign with Number Two,
But by Fourteen, her reign was through,
And Cousin George came quickly over
From Hanover.
(Anne: 1702-1714)

-- o0o --

Frederick really should have been King.
But he was killed by a silly thing,
Down he went in a fatal fall
Hit on the head by a cricket ball.
So it was that George number Three
Became the King instead of he.

-- o0o --
Source: Homeschool

Shit Happens

2011-02-14T18:36:00.013+01:00

Have you seen this poster? It is available from Amazon for £4.99: Humour Posters: Shit Happens - Quotes - 91x61cm

Humour Poster: A funny take on the famous saying 'Shit Happens'; an insiders view on how various religions and ideologies approach the saying; some samples: (1) Protestantism: "Shit happens; Amen to that." (2) Agnosticism: "Can you prove that shit happens." (3) Jehovah's Witness: "Knock, knock, shit happens."

EVERYBODY KNOWS...SHIT HAPPENS

TAOISM - "if you understand shit, it isn't shit"
HINDUISM - "this shit happened before"
CONFUCIANISM - "Confucious say 'shit happens'"
BUDDHISM - "shit will happen to you again"
ZEN - "what is the sound of shit happening?"
ISLAM - "if shit happens, it is the will of Allah"
SIKHISM - "leave our shit alone"
JEHOVA'S WITNESS - "knock. knock. shit happens"
ATHEISM - "i don't believe this shit"
AGNOSTICISM - "can you prove that shit happpens?"
CATHOLICISM - "if shit happens, you deserve it"
PROTESTANTISM - "shit happens, amen to that"
JUDAISM - "why does shit always happen to us?"
ORTHODOX JUDAISM - "so shit happens, already"
TELEVANGELISM - "send money or shit will happen to you"
RASTAFARIANISM - "let's smoke this shit"
HARE KRISHNA - "shit happens rama rama"
NATION OF ISLAM - "don't take no shit"
NEW AGE - "visualize shit happening"
SHINTOISM - "you inherit shit of your ancestors"
HEDONISM - "i love it when shit happens"
SATANISM - "sneppah tihs"
CAPITALISM - "this is MY shit"
FEMINISM - "men are shit"
EXISTENTIALISM - "what is shit, anyway?"
SCIENTOLOGY - "if shit happens, see Dianetics p.137"
MORMONISM - "excrement happens" (don't say shit)
BAPTISM - "we'll wash the shit right off you"
MYSTICISM - "this is really weird shit"
VOODOO - "shit doesn't just happen - we made it happen"
DISNEYISM - "bad shit doesn't happen here"
COMMUNISM - "let's share the shit"
MARXISM - "you have nothing to lose but your shit"
CONSPIRACY THEORISM - "THEY shit on us!"
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS - "tell me about your shit"
DARWINISM - "survival of the shittiest"
AMISH - "modern shit is useless"
SUICIDAL - "i've had enough of this shit"
OPTIMISM - "shit won't happen to me"
TREKISM - "to boldly shit where no-one has shat before"
SHAKESPEAREAN - "to shit or not to shit, that is the question"
DESCARTES - "i shit, therefore i am"
FREUD - "shit is a phallic symbol"
LAWYERS - "for enough money, I can get you out of shit"
ACUPUNCTURIST - "hold still or this shit's gonna hurt"
DOG - "i just shit in your shoe"
CAT - "dogs are shit"
MOUSE - "oh shit! a cat!"
POLITICALLY CORRECT - "internally processed,
nutritionally drained, biological output happens"
EINSTEIN - "shit is relative"
FAMILY GATHERING - "relatives are shit"
MATERIALISM - "whoever dies with the most shit, wins"
VEGETARIANISM - "if it shits, don't eat it"
FATALISM - "oh shit, it's going to happen"
ENVIRONMENTALISM - "shit is biodegradable"
AMERICANISM - "who gives a shit?"
STATISTICIAN - "shit is 84.7% likely to happen"
HIP-HOP - "motherfuck this shiznit, beeatch!"
TANTRISM - "fuck this shit"
CYNICISM - "we are all full of shit"
SURREALISM - "fish happens"
WICCA - "you can make shit happen but shit will happen to you three times"

How To Start a Conversation

2010-11-23T14:37:00.002+01:00

This is a great article. What do you think about the advice?

http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Conversation-When-You-Have-Nothing-to-Talk-About

Key Points
1. Begin by introducing yourself.
2. Be aware of your internal monologue.
3. Understand the secret to a good conversation.
4. Know how to ask an open question.
5. Put the location comment together with the open question and your conversation will be underway.
6. Know the stuff of small talk.
7. Use words of a sensory nature.
8. Synchronize.
9. Respond thoughtfully to someone who remains awkward or uncomfortable in your presence.
10. Maintain the equilibrium.
11. Practice getting conversations started.

Tips
• Speak with clarity and purpose. If you're mumbling, it makes conversing a lot harder.
• Reflect before speaking if it's your turn to talk and allow silence to also have its rightful place in your conversation. Don't be afraid of pauses – use them to change topics, re-energize the conversation, or to take a short breather even.
• Relax. Chances are that whatever small-talk you're making isn't going to stick out in anyone's mind a few months from now. Just say whatever comes into your head, so long as it's not offensive or really weird (unless, of course, the person you're attempting to converse with is into weird stuff).
• If you think of something in your head while you're talking, it's probably related.
• It will help if you watch some TV, listen to radio shows, and/or read a lot – newspapers, magazines, and/or books. Doing this will ensure that you have some idea of what's going on in the world.
• Remember and plan to share anything you like, think is funny, or find intriguing. This is a way of building up your own inner library of things that might be helpful to another person during a conversation someday. It can be amazing how you thread these interesting things when you least expect it, and make conversation an adventure instead of a dreadful task. If you take it to the next step and say things that you want the person to think of as adding value, and keep to yourself things that the person might not, you're actually honing your own personality to be appealing to the other person, and what is a greater act of kindness than that?
• If you're shy, it is helpful to have thought about a topic or two in advance that you feel comfortable talking about.
• A great entry into starting a conversation, especially for a guy approaching a girl, is to mention you can only talk briefly as you're meeting up with other friends. This relieves the girl of any fear of being uncomfortably stuck with someone she does not know, and gives you both an easy out if things don't progress well. If the conversation does progress well, you can always delay leaving your new friend for as long as you like. Remember not to overdo it, because she might think that you don't want to talk to her, but prefer to be with your friends.
• Follow the lead that your listener is expressing. If he or she appears interested, then continue. If he or she is looking at a clock or watch, or worse, looking for an escape strategy, then you've been going on for too long.
• Interesting and funny quotes or facts can lighten things up, and make way for things to talk about. You could also use a set of conversation starter question cards for inspiration.
• If talking over the phone, keep the person involved in the conversation at all costs. If you can't come up with a good topic, try the "questions" game. Just keep asking them questions; random questions work just fine as long as they are appropriate. This technique can save a phone conversation. The questions should be open ended questions that do not require a yes or no answer. For example "How do you know the hosts?" This way you can ask questions about what they just said or follow up with how you know the hosts (for example) instead of acting as if the conversation is an interrogation.
• Half of an effective conversation is the way you non-verbally communicate, and not necessarily what you say. Practice better non-verbal skills that are friendly and confident.
• Take a mental note of some amusing things that you saw or heard througout the day. For example, something funny someone said, a fun activity you did with your friends, or anything interesting. This can give way to future conversation.
• Watch some stand-up comedians or comedy shows to get an idea of how to start a conversation humorously. Usually, the leads you find will be funny, and you will not need much in common to talk about them.
• Remember, whoever you are talking to, you always have something in common. We all experience the weather, like good food, and enjoy a good laugh. When in doubt, just talk to them about what they are there for. For example, if you meet them at a bus stop, ask them where they are going. If they are from out of town, ask them about their life at home.

How To Add Google Gadgets To Your Blog

2010-11-23T13:31:00.001+01:00

Thanks for this helpful "How to" tutorial:

Homer Simpson Quotes

2010-11-23T13:17:00.006+01:00

• Operator! Give me the number for 911!

• Oh, so they have internet on computers now!

• Bart, with $10,000, we'd be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of useful things like...love!

• Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand.

• I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman.

• Son, if you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now quiet! They're about to announce the lottery numbers.

• Well, it's 1 a.m. Better go home and spend some quality time with the kids.

• Maybe, just once, someone will call me 'Sir' without adding, 'You're making a scene.'

• Marge, don't discourage the boy! Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals! Except the weasel.

• Doughnuts. Is there anything they can't do?

• You know, boys, a nuclear reactor is a lot like a woman. You just have to read the manual and press the right buttons.

• Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way.

• When will I learn? The answer to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle, they're on TV!

• Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose: it's how drunk you get.

• I'm going to the back seat of my car, with the woman I love, and I won't be back for ten minutes!

• [Meeting Aliens] Please don't eat me! I have a wife and kids. Eat them!

• What do we need a psychiatrist for? We know our kid is nuts.

• Marge, you're as beautiful as Princess Leia and as smart as Yoda.

• Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.

• The only monster here is the gambling monster that has enslaved your mother! I call him Gamblor, and it's time to snatch your mother from his neon claws!

• When I look at the smiles on all the children's faces, I just know they're about to jab me with something.

• I'm having the best day of my life, and I owe it all to not going to Church!

• Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it's that girls should stick to girls sports, such as hot oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such and such.

• I'm not a bad guy! I work hard, and I love my kids. So why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I'm going to Hell?

• Getting out of jury duty is easy. The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races.

• It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.

• Lisa, Vampires are make-believe, like elves, gremlins, and eskimos.

• I want to share something with you: The three little sentences that will get you through life. Number 1: Cover for me. Number 2: Oh, good idea, Boss! Number 3: It was like that when I got here.

• Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that.

• Remember that postcard Grandpa sent us from Florida of that Alligator biting that woman's bottom? That's right, we all thought it was hilarious. But, it turns out we were wrong. That alligator was sexually harrassing that woman.

• Old people don't need companionship. They need to be isolated and studied so it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use.

• How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?

• Television! Teacher, mother, secret lover.

• Homer no function beer well without.

• I've always wondered if there was a god. And now I know there is -- and it's me.

• Kill my boss? Do I dare live out the American dream?

• If something goes wrong at the plant, blame the guy who can't speak English.

• I'm never going to be disabled. I'm sick of being so healthy.

• I like my beer cold, my TV loud and my homosexuals flaming.

• [Looking at a globe map...country being Uruguay]
Hee hee! Look at this country! 'You-are-gay.'

• All my life I've had one dream, to achieve my many goals.

• Dad, you've done a lot of great things, but you're a very old man, and old people are useless.

• But Marge, what if we chose the wrong religion? Each week we just make God madder and madder.

• I think Smithers picked me because of my motivational skills. Everyone says they have to work a lot harder when I'm around.

• Dear Lord.. The gods have been good to me. For the first time in my life, everything is absolutely perfect just the way it is. So here's the deal: You freeze everything the way it is, and I won't ask for anything more. If that is OK, please give me absolutely no sign. OK, deal.

• That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!

• Beer: The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.

• If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing.

• I'm in no condition to drive...wait! I shouldn't listen to myself, I'm drunk!

• 'To Start Press Any Key'. Where's the ANY key?

Homer's words, not mine, but some are funny.

How Louise L Hay Healed Her Cervical Cancer

2010-10-22T13:16:00.003+02:00

A client came to me for hypnosis to help her relax and release anxiety. She has advanced cervical cancer so I started looking into how mind therapy can assist in the healing of cancer. I found Louise L Hay's own story:

Out of the work I was doing, I was inspired to put together the little book "Heal Your Body", which began as a simple list of metaphysical causations for physical illnesses in the body. I began to lecture and travel and hold small classes.

Then one day I was diagnosed with cervical cancer. With my background of being raped at five and having been a battered child, it was no wonder I manifested cancer in the Vaginal area.

Like anyone else who's just been told they have cancer, I went into total panic. Yet because of all my work with clients, I knew that mental healing worked, and here I was being given a chance to prove it to myself. After all, I'd written the book on mental patterns, and I knew that cancer was a dis-ease of deep resentment that has been held for a long time until it literally eats away at the body. I had been refusing to be willing to dissolve all the anger and resentment at “them” over my childhood. There was no time to waste; I had a lot of work to do.

The word incurable, which is so frightening to so many people, means to me that this particular condition cannot be cured by any outer means and that we must go within to find a cure. If I had an operation to get rid of the cancer and didn't clear the mental pattern that created it, then the doctors would just keep cutting Louise until there was no more Louise to cut. I didn't like that idea.

If I had the operation to remove the cancerous growth and also cleared the mental pattern that was causing the cancer, then it wouldn't return. If cancer or any other illness returns, I don't believe that it's because they didn't “get it all out”, but rather that the patient has made no mental change. He or she just re-creates the same illness, perhaps in a different part of the body.

I also believed that if I could clear the mental pattern that created this cancer, then I wouldn't even need the operation. So I bargained for time, and the doctors grudgingly gave me three months when I said I didn't have the money.

I immediately took responsibility for my own healing. I read and investigated everything I could find on alternative ways to assist my healing process. I went to several health-food stores and bought every book they had on the subject of cancer. I went to the library and did more reading. I checked out foot reflexology and colon therapy and thought they would both be beneficial to me. I seemed to be led to exactly the right people. After reading about foot reflexology, I wanted to find a practitioner. I attended a lecture, and while I usually sat in the front row, this night I was compelled to sit in the back. Within a minute, a man came and sat beside me--and guess what? He was a foot reflexologist who made house calls. He came to my home three times a week for two months and was a great help.

I knew I also had to love myself a great deal more than I had been. There had been little love expressed in my childhood, and no one had made it okay for me to feel good about myself. I had adopted “their” attitudes of continually picking on and criticizing me, which had become second nature.

I'd come to the realization through my work with the church that it was okay and even essential for me to love and approve of myself. Yet I kept putting it off--much like the diet you'll always start tomorrow. But I could no longer postpone it. At first it was very difficult for me to do things like stand in front of a mirror and say things like, “Louise, I love you. I really love you.” However, as I persisted, I found that several situations came up in my life where in the past I would have berated myself, and now, because of the mirror exercise and other work, I wasn't doing so. I was making some progress.

I knew I had to clear the patterns of resentment that I'd been holding since childhood. It was imperative for me to let go of the blame.

Yes, I'd had a very difficult childhood with a lot of abuse--mental, physical, and sexual. But that was many years ago, and it was no excuse for the way I was treating myself now. I was literally eating my body with cancerous growth because I hadn't forgiven. It was time for me to go beyond the incidents themselves and to begin to understand what types of experiences could have created people who would treat a child that way.

With the help of a good therapist, I expressed all the old, bottled-up anger by beating pillows and howling with rage. This made me feel cleaner. Then I began to piece together the scraps of stories my parents had told me about their own childhoods. I started to see a larger picture of their lives. With my growing understanding, and from an adult viewpoint, I began to feel compassion for their pain, and the blame slowly began to dissolve.

In addition, I hunted for a good nutritionist to help me cleanse and detoxify my body from all the junky foods I'd eaten over the years. I learned that junky foods accumulate and create a toxic body. Junky thoughts accumulate and create toxic conditions in the mind. I was given a very strict diet with lots of green vegetables and not much else. I even had colonics three times a week for the first month.
I did not have an operation; however, as a result of all the thorough mental and physical cleansing, six months after my diagnosis I was able to get the medical profession to agree with what I already knew--that I no longer had even a trace of cancer! Now I was able to affirm from personal experience that dis-ease can be healed if we are willing to change the way we think, believe, and act!

Sometimes what seems to be a tragedy turns out to become the greatest good in our lives. I learned so much from that experience, and I came to value life in a new way. I began to look at what was really important to me,

Anger, resentment, unhealthy sexual experiences, junk food - all factors Louise identified as possible causes of the dis-ease in her body which led to cancer.

Her little blue book "Heal Your Life" is an essential addition to anyone's bookshelf. She has also made a CD on "Cancer: Discover Your Amazing Healing Power". She recommends you listen to it every day for 30 days.

Find Louise L Hay's books and CDs at Amazon.co.uk

Read Louise L Hay's full story

When God Created Man

2010-10-04T11:25:00.001+02:00

When God created man
he promised women
that good and ideal men
could be found in all corners of the world.

And then.......

...he made the earth round.

To Be 6 Again

2010-09-30T18:03:00.001+02:00

To Be 6 AGain...

A man was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching his wife, who was looking at herself in the mirror. Since her birthday was not far off he asked what she'd like to have for her birthday.

'I'd like to be six again', she replied, still looking in the mirror .

On the morning of her Birthday, he arose early, made her a nice big bowl of Lucky Charms, and then took her to Six Flags theme park. What a day! He put her on every ride in the park; the Death Slide, the Wall of Fear, the ScreamingRoller Coaster, everything there was.

Five hours later they staggered out of the theme park. Her head was reeling and her stomach felt upside down. He then took her to a McDonald's where he ordered her a Happy Meal with extra fries and a chocolate shake.

Then it was off to a movie, popcorn, a soda pop, and her favorite candy, M&M's. What a fabulous adventure!

Finally she wobbled home with her husband and collapsed into bed exhausted.

He leaned over his wife with a big smile and lovingly asked, 'Well Dear, what was it like being six again?'

Her eyes slowly opened and her expression suddenly changed.

'I meant my dress size, you retard!!!!'

The moral of the story: Even when a man is listening, he is gonna get it wrong.

SEND THIS TO ALL THE MEN & WOMEN WHO NEED A LAUGH

Odd Eggs

2010-09-30T17:17:00.005+02:00

We have three chickens, one of whom has laid four double-yokers in the two months she has been here.

The other day we found an egg without a shell. We were worried one of the chickens might be sick so I looked for advice and found that sometimes eggs come out as various oddities but there is rarely cause for concern.

Go to Poultry Help for info on double yokers, no yolk, egg within an egg, no shell, odd-shaped eggs, eggs with a tail and more.

2010-09-01T11:16:00.000+02:00

it's impossible to kid oneself indefinitely.

World Cup Statistics

2010-07-07T00:14:00.001+02:00

CHECK THIS OUT!

1.Brazil won the World Cup in 1994 & 1970(1994+1970 = 3964).
2.Argentina won its last World Cup in 1986 & 1978(1986+1978 = 3964).
3.Germany won its last World Cup in 1990 & 1974(1990+1974 = 3964).
4.Brazil also won its World Cup in 2002 & 1962(2002+1962 = 3964).

Conclusion = This year 3964 - 2010 = 1954.
The country that won in 1954 was Germany!!!See More

Who Remembers The Magic Roundabout?

2010-05-23T20:53:00.002+02:00

Here is an episode from the 1970s - Dougal, Florence, Dylan, Ermintrude but no Zebedee:

Nick Clegg is Confirmed Deputy Prime Minister

2010-05-12T00:12:00.005+02:00

Congratulations to David Cameron who must surely do a better job than Gordon Brown. "Goodbye Gordon" indeed.

This is a historic moment for the Lib Dems. In an ideal world we would be the government of choice but for that to happen in our lifetime, we need a fairer voting system and this will be the first step.

Nick Clegg has come from obscurity and irrelevance to the role of Deputy PM. What a wonderful achievement and one we could not have dreamed of a week ago.

Incidentally, I note with interest that Nick speaks the same languages as me: English, Dutch, French, Spanish and German. Another true European.

Not only Nick but other Lib Dems will have important roles in this coalition government. Stop back-stabbing please and give them your support.

I worked on Vince Cable’s winning campaign to take Twickenham from the Tories in 1997 so there is a personal delight for me.

As I don't live in the UK, I lost my vote. Only Brits with an address in the UK are allowed to vote for the government so in effect Brits (and Danes) are disenfranchised when working abroad. A Lib Dem MEP told me that anyone can register using a Citizens Advice Bureau address so I'll look into that.

What a historic night. Big smile on my face. :)

To the Guy Who Tried to Mug Me in Downtown Savannah

2010-05-01T15:13:00.000+02:00

AN ACTUAL CRAIG'S LIST PERSONALS AD

To the Guy Who Tried to Mug Me in Downtown Savannah night before last.

Date: 2009-05-27, 1 :43 a.m. E.S.T.

I was the guy wearing the black that you demanded I hand over, shortly after you pulled the knife on me and my girlfriend, threatening our lives. You also asked for my girlfriend's purse and earrings. I can only hope that you somehow come across this rather important message

First, I'd like to apologize for your embarrassment; I didn't expect you to actually crap your pants when I drew my pistol after you took my jacket. The evening was not that cold, and I was wearing the jacket for a reason. My girlfriend had just bought me that Kimber Model 1911 .45 ACP pistol for my birthday, and we had picked up a shoulder holster for it that very evening. Obviously you agree that it is a very intimidating weapon when pointed at your head ... isn't it?!

I know it probably wasn't fun walking back to wherever you'd come from with that brown sludge in your pants. I'm sure it was even worse walking bare-footed since I made you leave your shoes, cell phone, and wallet with me. [That prevented you from calling or running to your buddies to come help mug us again.]

After I called your mother or "Momma" as you had her listed in your cell, I explained the entire episode of what you'd done. Then I went and filled up my gas tank as well as those of four other people in the gas station -- on your credit card. The guy with the big motor home took 150 gallons and was extremely grateful!

I gave your shoes to a homeless guy outside Vinnie Van Go Go's, along with all the cash in your wallet. [That made his day!]

I then threw your wallet into the big pink "pimp mobile" that was parked at the curb ... after I broke the windshield and side window and keyed the entire driver's side of the car.

Later, I called a bunch of phone sex numbers from your cell phone. Ma Bell just now shut down the line, although I only used the phone for a little over a day now, so what 's going on with that? Earlier, I managed to get in two threatening phone calls to the DA's office and one to the FBI, while mentioning President Obama as my possible target

The FBI guy seemed really intense and we had a nice long chat (I guess while he traced your number etc.).

In a way, perhaps I should apologize for not killing you ... but I feel this type of retribution is a far more appropriate punishment for your threatened crime. I wish you well as you try to sort through some of these rather immediate issues, and can only hope that you have the opportunity to reflect upon, and perhaps reconsider, the career path you've chosen to pursue in life. Remember, next time you might not be so lucky

Thoughtfully yours

Alex

AMAL - A Film To Warm Your Heart and Change Your Life

2010-02-03T20:09:00.003+01:00

It’s been said that the best things in life are free – although in our hyper-consumptive culture, you’d be hard-pressed to find many people who would agree with you.

Our friends at Spiritual Cinema Circle www.coachingfromspirit.com/scc recently found a beautiful feature film entitled AMAL. It’s a modern-day parable that tells the story of a man named Amal – a simple, humble auto-rickshaw driver in the colorful, bustling city of New Delhi, India. Content with the small but vital role he plays in life, to drive his customers throughout the city as safely as possible, Amal is a man who lives simply to do “the right thing” in every situation.

One day Amal drives an eccentric billionaire who, disguised as a vagabond, is searching the streets for the last morsel of humanity; someone he can leave all his money to. His children are ungrateful spoiled brats and his colleagues are corrupt, money-sucking leeches. Despite all his wealth, the old man wanders the city hoping
to find the two things his money has never brought him – hope for humanity and peace for his soul. In Amal, he discovers a dying breed: a man who is honest, selfless, loving, and caring.

This riveting and surprising tale ultimately reveals that the poorest of men are sometimes the richest.

For just a small shipping fee, you can receive a free DVD ww.coachingfromspirit.com/scc
that includes AMAL plus three great short films, plus Mariel Hemingway’s very special in-depth interview with spiritual teacher Alan Cohen. Simply click here now!

“The Spiritual Cinema Circle is providing a great service to those who want to evolve and be entertained at the same time.” –Deepak Chopra

“It’s not often you can combine entertainment with personal growth, but that is exactly what The Spiritual Cinema Circle offers. These engaging films provide important messages about life, love, and the world we live in.” –Jack Canfield

The Choice

2010-02-02T18:13:00.000+01:00

Would you ever take a journey, if you knew ahead of time that you'd become hopelessly lost, have your heart broken into pieces and sometimes wish you'd never been born?

Now, how about if you knew ahead of time that on that very same journey you'd also find yourself, fall passionately in love, and live happily ever after?

Yeah, I know, you made the same choice a long, long time ago.

Why Women Shouldn't Take Men Shopping (joke)

2010-01-20T10:41:00.002+01:00

After I retired, my wife insisted that I accompany her on her trips to Target. Unfortunately, like most men, I found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out. Equally unfortunate, my wife is like most women - she loves to browse. Yesterday my dear wife received the following letter from the local Target.

Dear Mrs. Samuel,

Over the past six months, your husband has caused quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and have been forced to ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against your husband, Mr. Samuel, are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras.

1. June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in other people's carts when they weren't looking.

2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

3. July 7: He made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women's restroom.

4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, 'Code3 in Housewares. Get on it right away'. This caused the employee to leave her assigned station and receive a reprimand from her Supervisor that in turn resulted with a union grievance, causing management to lose time and costing the company money.

5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&Ms on layaway.

6. August 14: Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.

7. August 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told the children shoppers he'd invite them in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department to which twenty children obliged.

8. August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying and screamed, 'Why can't you people just leave me alone?' EMTs were called.

9.September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.

10. September 10: While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.

11.October 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the 'Mission Impossible' theme.

12. October 6: In the auto department, he practiced his 'Madonna look' by using different sizes of funnels.

13.October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled 'PICK ME! PICK ME!'

14. October 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed a fetal position and screamed 'OH NO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!'

And last, but certainly not least:

15. October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile, then yelled very loudly, 'Hey! There's no toilet paper in here.' One of the clerks passed out.

Visit Antonia Harrison’s blog for information, jokes, opinions, videos - anything that might be of interest.

Haiti Disaster Appeal

2010-01-17T11:44:00.002+01:00

Here are important messages about the Haiti disaster from Al Gore and Christophe Poizat of the International Network of Social-Eco Entrepreneurs:

Following the recent catastrophic events in Haiti, one of our members, Rick Feineis, has an important message to share with you:

"Our water filtration systems (http://www.sea-pack.com/hydrowellvillage.html) are perfect for use in Haiti. I can explain later if you want me to. We have a patron that has offered to purchase $100,000 worth of HydroWell Village and HydroPack systems to send to Haiti. We have figured out the logistics, located the 501c to donate the money to a US-based Haitian relief organization with 40 years of service; we are in the process of making it happen.

We are looking to see if there is anyone else that wants to donate money to purchase and send systems to Haiti while we have this opening for the plane to get into the country. We have a limited amount of time to get the plane into Haiti. It will be leaving within the next 24 to 48 hours. Interested in helping us help those in need in Haiti? Please visit our website to donate $25.00 USD to this cause: http://www.sea-pack.com -- please spread the word."

And I'd like to share another message I received from Al Gore, Chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection:

"The earthquake in Haiti has been catastrophic. More than three million people have been affected, and estimates are that over 50,000 have died. The human suffering is unimaginable. That's why I'd like to pause from our usual conversation and ask for your help.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with 85% of Haitians already living in desperate poverty. Now, with hospitals in ruin, dire shortages of even basic necessities like fresh water, and no way to find out whether family members are alive, the Haitian people urgently need our help. A number of organizations are already engaged in critical relief efforts, and I urge you to support as many of them as you can. One of them, Oxfam America, has an emergency response team of more than 200 people already on the ground.

The need for clean water and critical public health services is massive and immediate -- and our donations can help save lives. Make a donation to Oxfam's earthquake relief effort in Haiti:
https://secure.oxfamamerica.org/site/Donation2?df_id=3900&3900.donation=form1
Or, for a list of other organizations to donate to and ways to make a difference, see http://www.whitehouse.gov/haitiearthquake_embed.

There are moments when we, as human beings, must come together as a global community and as stewards of each others' health and welfare. It is that sense of interconnectedness that brought each of us to the climate movement, and it is moments like this that bring out the best in us -- as individuals, as a nation, and as a movement.

Let's make sure the people of Haiti do not face this disaster alone. Thank you for taking action in the face of this tragedy.

Al Gore Chairman Alliance for Climate Protection

Two Choices

2010-01-16T16:39:00.003+01:00

What would you do?....you make the choice. Don't look for a punch line,there isn't one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same choice?

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question:
'When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?'

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued,
'I believe that when a child like Shay who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.'

Then he told the following story:
Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me play?' I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much)if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.'

Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.

In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled
to be next at bat. At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.

The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher. The game would now be over.

The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling,
'Shay, run to first! Run to first!' Never in his life had Shay ever run that far but he made it to first base.

He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone yelled,
'Run to second,run to second!' Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second,gleaming and struggling to make it to the base.

By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball. The smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.
He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head.

Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home. All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay,all the Way Shay'
Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted,
'Run to third! Shay, run to third!'

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming,
'Shay, run home! Run home!' Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team

'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity in to this world'.

Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the
'natural order of things.' So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice:

Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?

A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it's least fortunate amongst them.

Mutual Admiration

2010-01-13T10:37:00.001+01:00

A note from the universe today:

It only seems like others have it all figured out, Antonia; that their challenges are simpler, their friends are jollier, and their grass is greener. But, Antonia, you should hear how they admire you.

Funny that. I've told people how much I admire them, their successes, their character and so on only to hear how much they admire me back. One woman said, "Are you kidding? I'm totally in awe of you."

We all see traits in others that they don't see in themselves and vice versa.

378 Predictions for Business in 2010

2010-01-12T17:43:00.002+01:00

I found an interesting ebook for free download:
"378 Predictions for Business in 2010"

on The Corporate Toolbox.

Many of my fellow networkers on Ecademy are contributors to this book. The Corporate Toolbox site also has training resources, articles, quotes, book suggestions etc.

I liked this quote,
"Limitations are like holograms: you recreate in your head the whole image of something which isn't there."

Il Divo First Perform Regresa A Mi

2010-01-11T21:25:00.001+01:00

Here is a recording of the first time we ever saw Il Divo, their world première of "Regresa A Mi" shown on Parkinson on 19 September 2004. I've loved them ever since that first moment.

Visit Antonia Harrison’s blog for information, jokes, opinions, videos - anything that might be of interest.

Love Changes Everything

2010-01-11T11:06:00.000+01:00

Be grateful for every single time you ever fell in love.

Whether or not it was obvious. Whether or not it lasted. And whether or not you were loved back.

It changed everything.

What People Say About One Another

2010-01-04T12:14:00.001+01:00

One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.

Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.

It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.

On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. 'Really?' she heard whispered. 'I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!' and, 'I didn't know others liked me so much,' were most of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.

Several years later, one of the students was killed in Vietnam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature. The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin.

As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. 'Were you Mark's math teacher?' he asked. She nodded: 'yes.' Then he said: 'Mark talked about you a lot.'

After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon.. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher.

'We want to show you something,' his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket 'They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.'

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him.

'Thank you so much for doing that,' Mark's mother said.. 'As you can see, Mark treasured it.'

All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, 'I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home.'

Chuck's wife said, 'Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album.'

'I have mine too,' Marilyn said. 'It's in my diary'

Then Vickie, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. 'I carry this with me at all times,' Vickie said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: 'I think we all saved our lists'

That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.

The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be..

So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important.. Tell them, before it is too late...

And One Way To Accomplish This Is: Forward this message on. If you do not send it, you will have, once again passed up the wonderful opportunity to do something nice and beautiful.

If you've received this, it is because someone cares f or you and it means there is probably at least someone for whom you care.

If you're 'too busy' to take those few minutes right now to forward this message on, would this be the VERY first time you didn't do that little thing that would make a difference in your relationships?

The more people that you send this to, the better you'll be at reaching out to those you care about.

Remember, you reap what you sow. What you put into the lives of others comes back into your own.

May Your Day Be Blessed As Special As You!

Christmas Joke

2009-12-18T20:09:00.001+01:00

How many presents can Santa fit into an empty sack?

Only one... after that it’s not empty anymore.

New Friend Quote

2009-12-18T15:43:00.000+01:00

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive,and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born” ~ Anais Nin

How Fights Start

2009-12-16T12:33:00.003+01:00

My wife sat down on the settee next to me as I was flipping channels.

She asked, 'What's on TV?'

I said,'Dust.'

And then the fight started...

******************************************

My wife and I were watching "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" while we were in bed.

I turned to her and said, "Do you want to have sex?"

"No," she answered.

I then said, "Is that your final answer?"

She didn't even look at me this time, simply saying, "Yes."

So I said, "Then I'd like to phone a friend."

And then the fight started....

******************************************

My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary.

She said,

'I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds.'

I bought her some bathroom scales.

And then the fight started...

******************************************

When I got home last night, my wife demanded that I take her some place expensive...

....so, I took her to a petrol station.

And then the fight started...

******************************************
After retiring, I went to the Social Security office to apply for Social Security.

The woman behind the counter asked me for my Driver's License to verify my age. I looked in my pockets and realized I had left my wallet at home.

I told the woman that I was very sorry but I would have to go home and come back later.

The woman said, 'Unbutton your shirt'. So I opened my shirt revealing my curly silver hair.

She said, 'That silver hair on your chest is proof enough for me' and she processed my Social Security application.

When I got home, I excitedly told my wife about my experience at the Social Security office.

She said,

'You should have dropped your trousers. You might have gotten disability, too.'

And then the fight started...

******************************************

My wife and I were sitting at a table at my school reunion, and I kept staring at a drunken lady swigging her drink as she sat alone at a nearby table.

My wife asked, 'Do you know her?'

'Yes,' I sighed, 'She's my old girlfriend. I understand she took to drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear she hasn't been sober since.'

'My God!' says my wife,'who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?'

And then the fight started...

******************************************

I took my wife to a restaurant.

The waiter, for some reason took my order first.

"I'll have the steak, medium rare, please."

He said, "Aren't you worried about the mad cow?""

Nah, she can order for herself."

And then the fight started...

******************************************

A woman was standing nude, looking in the bedroom mirror.

She was not happy with what she saw and said to her husband,

"I feel horrible; I look old, fat and ugly. I really need you to pay me a compliment...'

The husband replied,

'Your eyesight's damn near perfect.'

And then the fight started

There Are No Coincidences

2009-12-15T12:15:00.003+01:00

Sometimes, it's the ones you love the most who are the best at pushing your buttons.

Coincidence?

I believe there are no coincidences. Read "The Celestine Prophecy".

A few months ago I received exactly the same email from two different sources on the same day, one in English, one in Dutch. Neither person knew each other nor knew that the message was exactly what I needed to hear that day. Neither person knew what I was going through so how appropriate it would be.

I recently read a book which is very popular but it did not speak to me at all. A friend started telling me how much it was helping him but I dismissed it. One evening it fell off my bedside table and opened at a specific page. The contents of that chapter just fell off the page and gave me the message I needed to hear.

Today someone I barely know posted something on my Facebook profile with a link to a video which almost shouted at me with what I needed to hear at that moment. Everything happens for a reason.

God/The Universe always answers but not in ways we expect.

Visit Antonia Harrison’s blog for information, jokes, opinions, videos - anything that might be of interest.

Thank You For The Virtual Tissues My Friends

2009-12-13T16:28:00.009+01:00

"When was the last time you experienced a crisis? Did it seem like it was the end of the world? The length of time it takes for you to recognize your outer crisis as a blessing correlates with your degree of wisdom. Crisis is ultimately blessings. Whenever a door shuts, a window opens. Wisdom is instantaneously seeing both sides." - Dr John Demartini

Friends are so valuable. I have a tendency to feel lonely, living alone with my sons in the middle of the woods where it is far too quiet for me. But over the last weeks since my relationship break-up I have learned so much from my friends, on the telephone but particularly the virtual friends on Facebook, Skype and MSN Messenger. We have shared a depth of communication about what is really important. I have been blessed by conversations with people I had hardly spoken to before. There truly are angels in this world. Everyone sees the world slightly differently according to their own beliefs, attitudes, values and experiences. This is what we NLP-ers call the deletion, distortion and generalization of the Reticular Activating System. (See NLP Belgium)

When I was hurting and lost in the grief, I could only see what I had lost, what would now never be. By holding on to what I was missing, I allowed only pain to be present in my heart. My friends, of course, did not feel my pain but in their love for me, they shared their wisdom. Not the flippant but well-meant, “Pick yourself up. Plenty more fish in the see.” Yes, fish but also sharks. When your heart is full of pain you cannot imagine there could ever be anyone else who would suit so perfectly as the lost love.

“Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” - Shakespeare

My wise friends allowed me to talk about the pain and loss because they knew it is the best way to work through the grief. But more, they shared quotes, recommended books and gave me self-discovery exercises to do to gain perspective on the relationship. I thought he was my soulmate and maybe he still is but we are not meant to be together at this time. What I thought was perfect I now see differently.

I see that I gave him my power. I acted as I thought he wanted. Instead of being the outgoing, sociable person that I am, the High Yellow, I settled down to domesticity, cooking every night and watching TV on the sofa. I said that I did not need anyone else and that I was happy with just his company. No more need to date, no more nights out in bars or clubs. I thought that was so superficial.

But now I see that I thrive with people. Social networking is important to me. He rejects all of that, does not even want to be one of the 350 million on Facebook.

On Friday, my birthday, I went out to dinner in an international group of 18 of which I only knew 3 people. I had some really interesting conversations, learned about cultural differences. At midnight, instead of going home to sleep with my boyfriend, I went to a new bar with four new friends: 1 South African, 1 Belgian and 2 Finns. I had never previously met someone from Finland. I thought I would feel lonely on my birthday without my ex but instead I had a fantastic evening and left at 3am. On Thursday I shall go to a Gala Cocktail party with 120 people of 37 nationalities. The possibilities are now endless.

I realize too that he was crushing my dream, causing me to doubt my ability to fulfil my vision and mission in life. He can only see life from his model of the world like most people but by limiting his contacts with the world and understanding other people’s way of being and doing, he also could not appreciate that our differences bring necessary balance. Yin and Yang in everything. Where he saw differences, I see rich variety.

The door to my ex is firmly shut because he wants to break all contact. That is sad and unnecessary but that is where he is at, cutting himself off from all social contact. His door is shut but I now have so many windows open.

A big thank you to my wise friends who sent me virtual tissues when I needed them. They kept telling me what a strong and amazing woman I am but I couldn’t see it. I no longer ‘need’ the love of my ex to make me complete because friends have poured out their love to me helping me to love myself in a way that will protect me. I no longer feel lonely in my house because I am surrounded by books full of experiences, inspirational videos on YouTube containing lessons I still have to learn. How much more interesting than sitting in front of the TV every night! I am saying yes to invitations and connecting with others but also enjoying staying in with my own company.

Our point of power is always in this moment. Instead of anticipating our heart’s desire in the future, we create it in the NOW because the NOW is all we have. The past and future are just illusion, our perception. By sharing my NOW with others, I hope, and in fact know, that others will also find strength and hope. I remain an optimist.

My previous posts:

Sadness Does Not Last Forever – Time to Move On

Bring the Light of Consciousness Into Your Pain

You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore

The Pain When Your Soulmate Leaves You

©Antonia Harrison 2009 from Personal Development in the 21st Century and Antonia Harrison's Blog. Antonia Harrison is the English Hypnotherapist in Belgium and Personal Development speaker giving workshops to groups and companies.

Music Gives Strength Quote

2009-12-13T15:25:00.000+01:00

"Every day, music gives the strength
to move that one stone in the river
one millimetre forward."

Birthday Greetings From the Universe

2009-12-12T12:16:00.000+01:00

Happy Birrrrthday to Youuuu,
Happy Birrrrthday to Youuuu,
Happy Birrrrthday Dear Antonia,
Happy Birrrrthday to Youuuu!

A few years back, not so long ago, heaven and earth erupted into a major celebration with the news of your impending adventure into this very time and space. You see, someone like Antonia Harrison doesn't come along all that often. In fact, there's never been a single one like you, nor is there ever ANY possibility that another will come again. You're an Angel among us. Someone, whose eyes see what no others will EVER see, whose ears hear what no others will EVER hear, and whose perspective and feelings will NEVER, ever be duplicated. Without YOU, the Universe, and ALL THAT IS, would be sadly less than it is.

Quite simply:

You're the kind of person, Antonia,
Who's hard to forget,
A one-in-a-million
To the people you've met.
Your friends are as varied
As the places you go,
And they all want to tell you
In case you don't know:
That you make a big difference
In the lives that you touch,
By taking so little
And giving so much!

Antonia, you are so AWESOME! For your birthday, friends and angels from every corner of the Universe, including buddies you didn't know you had, will be with you to wish you the HAPPIEST of days and an exciting new year in time and space. You won't be alone!

Sadness Does Not Last Forever - Time To Move On

2009-12-11T16:59:00.006+01:00

I just read Paulo Coehlo's "The Fifth Mountain" which was about Elijah, the Old Testament prophet. In the last chapter, I found these thoughts:

"Sadness does not last forever when we walk in the direction of what which we always desired.

It is always necessary to know when a stage of one's life has ended. If you stubbornly cling to it after the need has passed, you lose the joy and meaning of the rest. And you risk being shaken to your senses by God." - Paulo Coehlo

A few days ago, thinking about my lost love, I wrote these words:

"Does he support your dreams? If you have a dream, don't let anyone stifle your energy to make it real."

"Pain and sorrow are an inevitable part of life if we give of ourselves and play our life full-out."

"Only the emotionally repressed never feel pain but then they also don't feel love or joy."

"We cannot force someone to love us but we can fall in love with ourselves."

"People come into our lives at a specific moment to teach us a lesson we need to hear at that time. Hopefully, we are listening to the teacher."

"The regret of lost love may remain for years but we can overcome the pain by accepting that the lessons learned prepare us for a more fulfilling and content future."

"Although lonely, I feel tremendous love and support from friends and acquaintances all over the world. Their energy and encouragement has sustained me when I could not find my own."

"Energy is circulating all the time but only when we look outwards and upwards can we receive a tingle of this life force."

Today is my birthday. I'm taking a deep breath and moving on. I know I might be wobbly at times but there is hope, I remain an optimist.

Happy to be a High Yellow

2009-12-11T16:54:00.002+01:00

Life is a puzzle. The key to putting all of the pieces together and making a picture of Success and Happiness is found in Understanding Yourself and Others

As a High Yellow You are

•Enthusiastic
•Outgoing
•Talkative
•Emotional
•Friendly

Tips on how to get to know me better

Be flexible
Be quick paced
Be positive
Be open
Be generous with your praise
Be supportive of my ideas
Have fun!

Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou

2009-12-11T15:45:00.001+01:00

It's my birthday today and a friend sent me this lovely poem:

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
The palm of my hand,
The need of my care,

‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Quotes for Today

2009-12-08T16:30:00.003+01:00

"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same." - Carlos Castaneda

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." - M Scott Peck

"Every moment of your life you're in a character-building process. You cannot stop the process of character-building but you can control what you allow to build your character. The very nature of who you are." - Johnny Wimbrey

Jim Rohn Tribute

2009-12-07T14:24:00.001+01:00

Jim Rohn passed away on 5 December 2009. A truly great source of wisdom on life and business, he inspired so many and will be sorely missed.

He said, “I wish you a life of wealth, health and happiness, a life in which you give to yourself the gift of patience, the virtue of reason, the value of knowledge and the influence of faith in your own ability to dream about and achieve worthy rewards.”

Read the tribute to Jim Rohn

Jim Rohn quotes on Character:

"For things to change we have to change for things to get better we have to get better. Don't wish for less problems wish for more skills."

“It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.”

“The few who do are the envy of those who only watch.”

"Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you."

"Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors."

"We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment."

"The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become."

Jim Rohn Quotes on Problems and Challenges:

"Don't wish it were easier; wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems; wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenges; wish for more wisdom."

"You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of."

"To solve any problem, here are three questions to ask yourself: First, what could I do? Second, what could I read? And third, who could I ask?"

"Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming."

"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment."

"The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path."

"Take time to gather up the past so that you will be able to draw from your experience and invest them in the future."

Jim Rohn Quotes on Goals and Planning:

"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much."

"The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get."

"You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight."

Jim Rohn Quotes on Work and Success:

"We get paid for bringing value to the market place."

"You don't get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour."

"Work harder on yourself than you do on your job."

"Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day."

"Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don't fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day."

"You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of."

"Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness - great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy."

Jim Rohn Quotes on Relationships:

"The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy."

"One of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is the gift of attention."

"It's okay to send flowers, but don't let the flowers do all the talking. Flowers have a limited vocabulary. About all the best flowers can say is that you remembered."

Jim Rohn quotes on reading and self-education:

"Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune."

"Miss a meal if you have to, but don't miss a book."

"The book you don't read won't help."

"Words do two major things: they provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness."

"Don't just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it."

"If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn't need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around."

"Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins."

"Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people."

Jim Rohn on Keeping Journals:

"There are three things to leave behind: your photographs, your library and your personal journals. These things are certainly going to be more valuable to future generations than your furniture!"

"Be a collector of good ideas, but don't trust your memory. The best collecting place for all of the ideas and information that comes your way is your journal."

"Don't use your mind for a filing cabinet. Use your mind to work out problems and find answers; file away good ideas in your journal."

There are many more quotes you will find but these are some of my favourites.

Click this link for the complete text of Jim Rohn’s most famous speech about Success, Life & Business: “Success in Network Marketing” which applies to any business and so much of life in general.

My message to Jim:
"I saw you speak many times, I met you in person, I read your books, listened to your words. No one person has had more impact on my life. You leave behind a wonderful legacy that touches people all over the world. May your words live on in us, your students. - Antonia Harrison

Click here for the tribute and links to a free ezine with valuable training from Jim Rohn plus a store offering all of his books, DVDs and CDs.

Visit Antonia Harrison’s blog for information, jokes, opinions, videos - anything that might be of interest.

Bring the Light of Consciousness Into Your Pain

2009-12-07T13:10:00.011+01:00

Last night I read chapter 2 of Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" entitled "Consciousness: The Way Out of Pain". The last time I looked at this book, it did not speak to me at all but last night the words jumped off the page.

I want to share some key sentences.

It talks of pain being "some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is." The mind denies the NOW which is in fact the only reality that we have. The past and future are just our perception and an illusion. The memory is distorted by our own internal representations of how we absorb information from events, what was said, how we felt, what we told ourselves.

"As long as you are unable to access the power of the Now, every emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain that lives on in you. This accumulated pain is a negative energy field that occupies your body and mind.

Once this pain-body has taken you over, you want more pain. You become a victim. Look closely and you will find that your thinking and behaviour are designed to keep the pain going.

The pain-body, which is the dark shadow cast by the ego, is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness. If you don't face it, if you don't bring the light of your consciousness into your pain, you will be forced to relive it again and again.

The pain-body is trapped life energy. It may create physical aches and pains in different parts of the body but they won't last.

An unconscious fear of losing your identity will create strong resistance to any disidentification. In other words, you would rather be in pain - be the pain-body - than take a leap into the unknown and risk losing the familiar unhappy self.

Observe the resistance within yourself. Observe the attachment to your pain. Observe the peculiar pleasure you derive from being unhappy. Observe the compulsion to talk or think about it. The resistance will cease if you make it conscious.

Another aspect of the emotional pain that is an intrinsic part of the egoic mind is a deep-seated sense of lack or incompleteness, of not being whole.

People will often enter into a compulsive pursuit of ego-gratification and things to identify with in order to fill this hole they feel within. But the hole is always there. As long as the egoic mind is running your life, you cannot truly be at ease.

By saying yes to life, we see how life suddenly starts working for us instead of against us."

These words really spoke to me in relation to the pain I have been feeling over my relationship break-up three weeks ago. It is time to release that pain, push it away for it does not serve me. I have grieved the loss enough and it is time now to spend time alone, learning to be complete in myself, not looking to a partner to complete me.

I wrote down these thoughts:

"Sometimes it is necessary to feel very alone before recognising that the only person that we need is ourselves. Others may join our party but only if they bring value to our day."

"It is in the moments of deep loneliness that we need to search inside for our best friend - ourself - and enjoy our own company."

"Think of wholeness like an orange. A protective skin outside with a bright, cheerful colour. But the skin can be pierced and reveal segments representing different areas of our life. Segments when squeezed produce a juice of tears but also a juice of vitality. The skin is the image the world sees, not necessarily what is living inside."

Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now (amazon.co.uk)

Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now (amazon.com)

©Antonia Harrison 2009 from Personal Development in the 21st Century . Antonia Harrison is the English Hypnotherapist & NLP Coach in Belgium and Personal Development speaker giving workshops to groups and companies.

Om Vibration Video

2009-12-07T12:56:00.002+01:00

I am not a Buddhist but I find this short video (3 minutes) with an Om vibration to be both calming and uplifting. Watch it in full screen mode for the best effect.

You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore

2009-12-06T15:10:00.004+01:00

He gave me a red rose from his garden on our second date, wrapped in foil and plastic to keep it fresh. A week later, another one for his “Milady”. He treated me as a lady, looked after me, cared for me lovingly.

This sad song by Neil Diamond mourns the loss of a time when the relationship was good, when the relationship has turned sour, empty and the love is lost. Normally relationships go through phases and you can reflect where it started to go wrong.

“You don't bring me flowers
You don't sing me love songs
You hardly talk to me anymore
When you come through the door
At the end of the day

I remember when
You couldn't wait to love me
Used to hate to leave me.”

But when you are so happy and the other person suddenly goes, how do you make sense of that?

“It used to be so natural
To talk about forever
But "used to be's" don't count anymore
They just lay on the floor
'til we sweep them away .

And baby, I remember
All the things you taught me
I learned how to laugh
And I learned how to cry
Well I learned how to love…”

I can understand that some relationships run their course and one or both partners decide it is time to move on. But what I don’t understand is how both partners can be so happy, so close, still talking about forever and suddenly one day one partner decides to go, walk away and not look back. Not even want to stay in contact. How could he do that? How could he tell me one night that he loves my children then walk away from them the next day? How could he ask me at 2pm where we should live when we retire then walk away at 6pm, knowing he was not coming back?

I thought we went too fast and he got scared of the plans before us and how to make them come true. Worried about the financial responsibility of bringing two families together. I thought he had doubts that I would want to settle down with him. Maybe an insecurity that I would go back to my ex. But no, he told me that he formed an image in his mind and put me in that image, fell in love with that image then one day realized I was not that image and his heart went cold. Instead of seeing the real me, the wonderful me, with all the qualities I offered him, he just walked. He told me I could not have been any better a girlfriend, could not have done anything more. His heart just changed. He agrees with all the rational reasons for being together but does not find any love any more. He does not want to even start again slowly, just go out and do fun things together. Just close it down, concentrate fully on his work, pretend I don't exist. Yet my love for him runs so deep and after three weeks, the pain of a broken heart is still so very present.

On Thursday I gave him a red rose with the word “cherish”, cherish the wonderful time we had together. But I think he has already forgotten and I just don’t understand how he could do that so quickly.

“You Don’t Bring me Flowers” with the lyrics over beautiful images of flowers:

"A relationship is like a rose. How long it lasts, no one knows. Love can erase an awful past, love can be yours, you'll see at last. To feel that love, it makes you sigh. To have it leave, you'd rather die. You hope you've found that special rose, cause you love and care for the one you choose." - Rob Cella

©Antonia Harrison 2009 from Personal Development in the 21st Century and The Secret and Law of Attraction . Antonia Harrison is the English Hypnotherapist in Belgium and Personal Development speaker giving workshops to groups and companies.

Visit Antonia Harrison’s blog for information, jokes, opinions, videos - anything that might be of interest.

The Chinese Woman's Cracked Pot

2009-12-06T12:22:00.008+01:00

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck.

One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.

At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.

Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments.

But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream, "I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."

The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house. Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding."

You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them. Follow the Pareto principle and spend 80% of the time looking for the 20% good in a person rather than picking faults, keeing them at arm's length, finding reasons to build walls between you instead of bridges.

Here is a cute video to illustrate this story:

SO, to all of my cracked pot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path. None of us are perfect, nor can we expect to be. Flowers are priceless gifts from nature, each one sent to bring us a little joy into our lives. Many flowers have flaws but together, with their friends, they bring beauty and variety.

Video Buddhist Chanting

2009-12-01T17:48:00.000+01:00

This is so calming and beautiful.

Amazon.co.uk 12 Days of Christmas Sale

2009-11-27T14:52:00.003+01:00

Amazon.co.uk is currently holding its 12 Days of Christmas Sale where you'll find great gift ideas across all Amazon.co.uk categories including DVD, Electronics, Music, Jewellery, Home & Garden, Health & Beauty and more.

Gratitude quote

2009-11-26T11:52:00.001+01:00

"On Thanksgiving Day, we must be thankful for what we have, rather than focus on what we have lost. We have so much. An attitude of gratitude is received by the universe and rewarded with more of what is good. Resentment, hurt, bitterness and sadness just close our hearts and fill us with negative energy leaving no room for anything of value." - Antonia Harrison

Video: How to Do the Moonwalk

2009-11-26T09:47:00.001+01:00

Great. We've been trying for years. Now we know how, in slow motion.

Visit Antonia Harrison’s blog for information, jokes, opinions - anything that might be of interest.

Soulmates

2009-11-25T22:15:00.003+01:00

I want to research about finding a soulmate. Here is what Wikipedia has to say:

A soulmate is somebody with whom one has a feeling of deep and natural affinity, love, intimacy, sexuality, spirituality, and/or compatibility. A related concept is that of the twin flame or twin soul – which is thought to be the ultimate soulmate, the one and only other half of one's soul, for which all souls are driven to find and join. However, not everyone who uses these terms intends them to carry such mystical connotations.

One theory of soulmates, presented by Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium, is that humans originally consisted of four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces, but Zeus feared their power and split them all in half, condemning them to spend their lives searching for the other half to complete them:

"[Primeval man] could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast …Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made an attack upon the gods ... Doubt reigned in the celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: 'Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg." —Aristophanes, Plato’s Symposium, [1]

Some people believe that souls are literally made and/or fated to be the mates of each other, or to play certain other important roles in each other's lives.

According to theories popularized by Theosophy and in a modified form by Edgar Cayce, God created androgynous souls, equally male and female. Later theories postulate that the souls split into separate genders, perhaps because they incurred karma while playing around on the Earth, or "separation from God". Over countless reincarnations, each half seeks the other. When all karmic debt is purged, the two will fuse back together and return to the ultimate.

Mother Teresa Quote on Love

2009-11-25T21:54:00.000+01:00

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love." - Mother Teresa

21 Wise Tips in Life

2009-11-25T21:49:00.001+01:00

ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully

TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

THREE. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

FOUR. When you say, 'I love you ,' mean it.

FIVE. When you say, 'I'm sorry,' look the person in the eye

SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight.

EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone's dream. People who don't have dreams don't have much.

NINE. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.

TEN. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

ELEVEN. Don't judge people by their relatives.

TWELVE. Talk slowly but think quickly.

THIRTEEN. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, 'Why do you want to know?'

FOURTEEN. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

FIFTEEN. Say 'bless you' when you hear someone sneeze.

SIXTEEN. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

SEVENTEEN. Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions.

EIGHTEEN. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

NINETEEN. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.

TWENTY-ONE. Spend some time alone.

Don't Say You Love Me Video - The Corrs

2009-11-25T19:05:00.000+01:00

I love this song by The Corrs:

Quotes for Today

2009-11-25T18:38:00.002+01:00

“Be yourself, because everyone else is already taken.”

- Oscar Wilde

“You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.”

~Jim Rohn

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

- Paulo Coehlo

"You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.

" - Jim Rohn

"We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same."

- Bob Proctor

Love Quotes

2009-11-24T14:12:00.004+01:00

A few love quotes to reflect how I feel today:

‘I was born when you kissed me. I died when you left me. I lived a few weeks while you loved me.' - Humphrey Bogart

"When the heart grieves over what is has lost, the spirit rejoices over what it has left." - Sufi Epigram

"Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.
Mature love says: 'I need you because I love you." - Erich Fromm

“Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” - Shakespeare

“It really changed my life. When we split up, something changed, permanently, in me. My heart sort of broke that day, and it will never be the same." - Gwyneth Paltrow

So, as I go back to the universe and focus on the Law of Attraction,

"The basic question for every human being is... is the universe friendly?."

- Albert Einstein

Life of Brian Ending

2009-11-23T12:27:00.001+01:00

"Always look on the bright side of life..."

A friend sent this video to me this morning. Corny but good advice.

The Pain When Your Soulmate Leaves You

2009-11-22T23:37:00.006+01:00

Three months ago, I asked the angels to bring me a man who:
1. Would love me.
2. Would be emotionally available to me.
3. Would accept my kids.

My cousin commented that all three was maybe too much to hope for but I might find someone with one quality.

Two weeks later, Luc came into my life. He gave me all three and more. He offered me love, safety, security. We work in a similar field and discussed opportunities for working together with clients. I didn’t think I wanted a steady relationship and certainly not with someone who had kids but after four dates in one week and our children meeting one another, we knew we wanted to be together. He spoke of a “coming home” feeling. He wanted me to stay in his life for a very long time. He brought me a red rose from his garden. He told me loved me and we agreed to grow old together. "No more dating, I asked the Greek gods for a Lady and they brought me my Helen of Troy: Now we can grow old together". Dating was behind us. We had found each other. His parents were delighted that he had found such a good woman and looked forward to meeting me in the next couple of weeks. He told me he had always wanted to be married by 50 (nine months to go.)

Within two weeks we were talking of living together. Within three weeks he found us a house to buy. It suited us all. The children chose their bedrooms. His youngest son wanted to live with us full-time and the mother agreed that he could go to the same school as my sons.

After five weeks we went to London for five days and he met all my family who thought he was super and they were so happy for us. Everyone warned us not to go fast but we felt we had known each other for so long. There was every certainty that we really had found the person, Mr & Mrs Right.

Every day I was grateful that this loving, supportive, amusing, intelligent rock was in my life and would never leave me. We cherished our time together. We called each other, “Darling”, “My love”, “Sweetheart”. We cuddled, we held hands, we kept close to one another, even when working on our laptops.

But after 7½ weeks he walked out of my house for the last time unbeknown to me. Two days later I received an email, “end…sorry”. A wave of shock went through me. No particular reason. Just a feeling over the last week that this was not right and he did not want to carry on. His early feelings of love had dwindled.

Yet during that week he seemed so happy to me. He was living at my house going to work, cooking together, watching TV – normal family life. We were settled and had no need for anyone outside of our unit. On the Saturday he told me he loved my children. We talked about possibly staying in my house and he looked forward to putting in a vegetable garden as a hobby to supply fresh food.

I’ve sent him countless emails and only received one back saying that he is sticking to his decision. He asked me not to call, to give him space and distance to come to peace.

Every day pain, questions. Why did he do this? Did I do or say anything wrong? If so, I want to know to avoid doing it in the future. If I was the “top woman” he kept calling me, why did he stop loving me? Did he get overwhelmed by the reality and the responsibility of the future we were planning together? Did he worry that we could not afford the finances to provide for our monthly outgoings? Why did he see differences as a problem rather than just individuality that makes a relationship more interesting?

He once asked if a London lady could settle down with a “baker’s son from the village”. Did he not realize that I see him as he is now, not where he came from? I have enormous respect for what he has achieved in the last five years in a new field of business after he lose his first business. Some people would hide the “skeletons in the closet” but I was so glad that he told me everything. He expressed concern that he might be at the top of his earning power and might be lacking in work over the years. I see him as very competent and believe that his opportunities will grow. I would help him to grow and provide him all the support for continuing success.

Was he scared that I might go back to my ex-boyfriend who has been pining for me? Does he not believe in my deep, lasting love for him?

He said he still thinks about his ex. So what, I still think about mine. Anyone we have loved remains a part of us for always but we move on, our love for them changes, whether or not they stay in our life. I was glad with his honesty but I reminded him that she did not and does not love him. There is no way back to her. They are friends and she is pleased that he found someone who could give him what she could not. My ex said the same to me. He was happy that he no longer stood in my way because he believed Luc was the right man for me and my children.

So many questions. So many rational reasons why he could have talked himself out of this relationship but if there were doubts, we could have discussed them. I never heard any. I just heard assurances.

Our sons talked openly about becoming step-brothers if we got married. We joked with them about who would be the first to provide grandchildren.

We have booked a week in London at New Year and the boys were excited. Now we won’t be going and the costs cannot be refunded.

We are all going to lose so much because he changed his mind yet I don’t even know why.

My eldest son wrote to him,

“Mummy was very sad about your message and wishes that you could at least see each other or call each other. She was so happy with you and we were happy that she was happy. You looked very happy with Mummy. I had never seen Mummy so happy before. It was a big shock when Mummy told us.

We both think you were all great friends. Please change your mind. Please come back together.”

He wrote that we went too fast and I had warned him that we should not do that. Did he get carried away with the dream instead of taking time to know the person? Yet he kept telling me how much he truly loved me.

A friend wrote,

“What a very sad letter we received this morning. I am amazed and terribly sorry that this happened - things seemed so perfect that it is quite a shock to us as well. You must be going through the agony of the damned and my heartfelt sympathy is with you.”

I replied,

“I am stunned and in so much pain. I don't want to sound dramatic but I honestly thought a heart attack was starting this morning. I just wish Luc would talk to me and explain why he changed apparently from one hour to the next.”

I was loving, kind, a good listener, supportive, I cooked for everyone, I did everything, the sex was great and yet he dumped me by email without even an explanation. Just wishing me happiness. Happiness! I found joy with him, a peace, a togetherness that I have never known.

I truly believe that he is the soulmate I never dared to hope I would find. I know with every ounce of my being that he is the right man for me and I thought I was the right woman for him. He is the father that my boys need and I showed that I could be a great second mum to his boys. He seemed so interested in my boys and just the day before he left, told me that he loved them.

How could he change so suddenly? How could he do this, to all of us, to his sons who also wanted us to be together? How could he shatter everyone’s dream?

Just a week before he was talking to a girlfriend of mine about a business opportunity with her company, telling her how happy we were and that we would visit together to discuss the business.

Four weeks ago, he left me a note thanking me for being such a wonderful mother and woman, such a good girlfriend, signed love you truly, yours forever.

A male friend asked me what I had done to “attract this into my life?” How did I attract this??? I was so happy, I never doubted him or us. I believed him and trusted him totally. I had asked the angels for such a man and here he was and I remembered the line from The Thornbirds, “You have the love of a man who will never leave you.” I was secure. I could give myself totally to this man and trust him with my heart, with my children’s hearts. He went on, “Change your mindset. You've been there before - so you should be getting better at recovery. What are the lessons?”

Change my mindset? Just ignore my pain, my grief, move on. Actually one more rejection makes it more difficult to recover, less reasons to believe there is someone who will love me, truly, for who I am.

Another male friend,
“A man who breaks up a relationship in a way like that is not worth to be with you. He isn’t even worth crying over … You deserve someone much better than that.” Sure, rationally, in cold light but I love this man so much.

Luc is a Leo, the lion. I wrote to him, “You were my strong man, my protector, my helper, my friend. I was safe with you and we could achieve everything together.”

There is a time to learn, a time to pick myself up and move on. But not yet. Men and women are different. Even the strongest women sometimes need to be a little girl again, reach for the tissues and allow the pain to come out. If it doesn't, it will never truly go away. My girlfriends are encouraging me to talk, to write as many emails as I need, to Skype and to say the same things over and over. It's not "poor me". It's the way that (most) women operate. I need to grieve, I need to understand. I can't just say "sod him" and look for someone else.

I don't want to be miserable and a burden but this has come as such a shock for me. I keep going over and over in my mind what could have caused this. Fortunately, I have friends who encourage me to keep talking to them, keep writing over and over, to let the pain out.

I need answers to find closure. I still don't know why Nicholas split up with me back in 1987 and that has kept him as the love of my life all this time. I need to know. It is the only way I can find any peace. One girlfriend said leave him be, connect with God/spirit/angels/the universe and you will found out why but I need to hear it from him. There could be some huge misunderstanding. I keep telling myself it is just panic on his side, realizing that he really had found what he wanted and this was it for the rest of our days. Yet he wrote, “The early love is melting like snow in the sun.” How can that be?

We should have been together this weekend, all six of us. Our sons should have been swimming together yesterday, receiving a visit from Sint Nicholas afterwards. He should have been sitting at the head of the dining table as head of our joined families. We should have been playing Monopoly today, the new World version that he bought for us in London three weeks ago. Instead, I have spent the day sharing my pain with the tremendous people who have been showing love and support to me.

I love him and miss him to the core of my being. Yes, it was short but I thought it was forever so that does not make it easier to get over. Of course, it is better to know now rather than when we would have bought a house together, leaving me with huge financial responsibility. If he had doubts, why didn’t we talk about them? It would be easier to bear if I had known he had doubts. But we were so together, so happy to just settle down together.

A male friend thinks that if I want him back - of course I do - the only way is to leave him completely alone which in itself might make him think because a man can only reflect when he is alone, his sons are not with him, he is watching TV alone, weekends that he could have been with me etc. In “Women are from Venus, Men Are From Mars”, John Gray says that women need to talk but men retreat to their cave. He has gone home to his house, his things so I shall leave him to concentrate on his work. If I want to write to him, I will draft an email but not send it. No texts, no phone calls. Just be brave and wait and hope.

If you want to pray for me, please do. I am calling on the angels - the universe - spirit to bring him back.

Maybe one day, he will contact me to explain. Maybe one day he will be ready to meet, to talk and I hope to the bottom of my heart that we could start again but in a different way. Slow down, just date, have fun rather than pore over financial details and discuss problems.

It might take weeks, months or maybe never and I have to accept that. Right now I cannot even start to believe there could be someone better for me and the boys. My son and I just had a long talk because he is as baffled as anyone. Over the next six weeks I have to get through my birthday, Christmas and New Year.

It might be wishful thinking but I believe he is my soulmate and “there can be only one” as he used to say. I’m a good woman. Why wouldn’t he want me?

I'm not giving up on my dream, our dream, the boys' hopes. I'm not prepared to get angry, call him a bastard and look for someone else. My ex always says he admired my determination to obtain my goal.

Why am I writing all this? To help me to grieve but also because I’d like to think my bearing my soul, sharing my experiences will speak to someone else, warn others not to go so fast, to fall in love truly with each other, not fall in love with love. Maybe that’s what he did. Found someone to tick his boxes then discovered I wasn’t that person. No, but I am worth being with. I have many qualities and so much love to give.

I hope you respect my honesty, my authenticity in sharing my most heartfelt and raw emotions.

I’m re-reading Richard Bach’s book “The Bridge Across Forever” in which he describes his search for his soulmate and the subsequent relationship with his future wife, Leslie Parrish. Very different people, different ideas, some different values but they found common ground, discussed differences and allowed love to develop. I think we were too busy looking at house details instead of just dating. By so doing, we lost sight of "us" and now we've lost what money cannot buy.

© Antonia Harrison 2009

BraveHeart Women

2009-11-20T15:24:00.003+01:00

When I first read this quote by The Dali Lama I was quite intrigued. He said, "The world will be saved by the woman."

I sincerely believe that The Dali Lama is spot on regarding the powerful influence women have in our world today. We all know women who are inspiration in action which is exactly why I knew I had to share this with you...

Ellie Drake, rocked the business world in 2007 by creating the BraveHeart Women's Online Community, an innovative resource she designed to help women entrepreneurs
join together like never before in a mutual commitment to success.

Ellie told about the powerful women (Dr. Maya Angelou, Leeza Gibbons, Mariel Hemmingway, Susan Anton,and Lisa Nichols of 'The Secret' fame, just to name a few) who are part of the BraveHeart Community.

This (FREE) social networking site empowers women of all ages to discover their own voices, expand their potential, and be the change they want for themselves, their family, their community, and the world. Ellie and The Women of The BraveHeart Community have extended a special invitation to Unemployed Millionaires which I
encourage you to take advantage of right away:

BraveHeart Women Global Community

Here are a few things you will learn from The BraveHeart Community:

How ONE SIMPLE SHIFT IN YOUR AWARENESS produces astronomically more results in less time, with less effort (you'll be astonished at how productive you are with this devastatingly easy change);

How the thoughts of successful WOMEN LEADERS ARE DIFFERENT from the thoughts of average women (and how those differences play out in all personal and professional
achievements);

How to banish useless energy like GUILT, SHAME and REGRET from your brain so you can stop beating yourself up (women in particular play out negative emotions over and over in their heads, which can make them feel horrible);

How to buck the PROCRASTINATION PATTERN any of us can slip into (you can't step up to being your strongest self if you can't get stuff done);

How to INSTANTLY shift your attitude to transform your personal ability to lead and inspire (moods and emotions don't have to control your destiny);

How to easily break down and dissect the steps of TRUE PERSONAL, PROFESSIONAL and GLOBAL FULFILLMENT (it's shockingly simple when it's laid out for you);

How to 'DETOX' areas of your life today so you can realize your dreams and get out of your own way (break the cycle of repeating habits that don't serve you anymore);

How to quickly discover your 'LIFE PURPOSE' and put it into action (the Braveheart Community is tailored for meaningful connections and insights);

How to easily uncover and OVERCOME BLIND SPOTS that hold you back from being your most magnificent self (all too often it is US holding ourselves back);

Please feel free to share this with any woman who is inspiration in action:

BraveHeart Women Global Community

P.S. Did I mention the cost for registering for the *BraveHeart Women Global Community* is 100% FREE of charge?

Four Tips to De-Stress Your Spirt

2009-11-19T22:01:00.001+01:00

Loss of zest, life purpose or identity stresses the human spirit.

How you define who you are, and the meaning and purpose of life is core to the health of your spirit. You experience spiritual stress when these definitions are challenged or unclear. The human spirit asks, “Who am I”, “What is life about” and “What is my purpose”?

These questions peak at times of significant life change or loss as in the identity challenges of adolescence and mid-life or loss of a child, spouse, job or body part.

Attaching identity and purpose to variables outside your control makes you vulnerable to spiritual stress.

Here are four tips to de-stress your spirit.

Tip # 1 ~ Connect with Self
Look deep into your eyes in a mirror. Contemplate. Who is looking? Realize the same awareness inside of you today has been there from the beginning of your life. Your body, emotions and thoughts change yet abiding through the changes is an unchanging, You. This invulnerable core is a foundation for inner strength and support.

Why it works ~
When you are not dependent on outer conditions to define yourself, you feel free. While the outer world is constantly changing and undependable. Your inner being is solid, grounded in reality and invulnerable to attack by others. Viktor Frankl describes this beautifully in “Man’s Search for Meaning”.

Tip # 2 ~ Connect with the moment
Feel the water on your hands as you wash them. Notice the specific way you wash them, the slipperiness of the soap, the temperature of the water. Feel your feet on the ground, notice the sights, sounds and smells around you.

Feeling your experience in the moment is a practice in being present that helps you connect with life in a deep and meaningful way. Set an intention at the beginning of your day to stop and be present more often. You will find this practice reduces stress by increasing awareness and meaning.

Why it works ~
Your mind can only attend to one thing at a time. When your mind is focused on the details of the moment, it cannot ruminate about the past or worry about the future, which are stressful.

Connecting to the present moment centers, relaxes and enlivens your life experience. The insight, knowledge and experience of this moment is available to you. You have a sense of control within your self, which reduces stress.

Tip # 3 ~ Connect with your purpose
How do you know what is important to you? You feel it in your body.

Notice the small voice or sense of knowing inside when something is attracting you.Your body alerts you to what is dangerous or attractive long before your mind can explain why. Pay attention to those cues. This is your intuition.

Your deepest values and purpose are not in your head, but in your heart. What does your heart respond to; what touches you?

Purpose is the force that energizes. It inspires you to get up in the morning. What excites your passion for life?

Why it works ~
When your inner promptings guide you, you cannot make a mistake. These are signs that lead to your truest desires and lasting happiness. Joseph Campbell, the great mythologist says, “Follow your bliss”. When you follow your true path or calling, you are invigorated rather than stressed.

Tip # 4 ~ Connect with nature
You are part of a larger cosmos. You are not isolated as the boundaries of your body suggest. Whether you look at life from a religious, spiritual or scientific perspective, what you think and feel affects the environment and the environment affects you.

Spending time in nature reconnects you to your natural rhythms. It is easy to lose your center when your attention is constantly captured by other people, television, computer, shopping, and so on. Taking time every day to be quiet in a
natural setting, reflecting, journaling, or just being present re-connects you to your truth.

Take a moment to smell a flower, watch the river flow by, or appreciate a tree when you take a break or before going home at the end of the workday.

Why it works~
Earth vibrates at a certain frequency. Spending time in nature synchronizes our vibrations to the natural vibrations that support us.

Closed up in hermetically sealed buildings with florescent lighting and re-circulating air all day can cause a loss of balance and connection with your self and your natural rhythms.

Pulling it together
Spiritual stress results from the loss of connection to your true self, values, purpose and nature. Taking time every day to re-connect with these aspects of your life reduces stress and supports happiness, security and connection.

© 2009 Aila Accad

—————————————————-

Aila Accad, RN, MSN, Your Stress-Busters Coach is an award-winning speaker, best-selling author and spiritual coach who inspires and supports people to free their lives from stress and reclaim inner power. Quick tips to de-stress fast with no extra time or money” is available now with $1200 in free self-growth downloadable gifts at www.stressbustersbook.com

Sign up for De-Stress Tips & News at www.ailaspeaks.com and receive the “Ten Instant Stress Busters” e-book.

Everyone Wants to Be Loved

2009-11-18T14:25:00.000+01:00

"Understand that everyone (including you) just wants to be loved and appreciated for who they are, not what you or others expect them to be. Their own set of values determines their identity and who they are. Everyone makes their decisions according to their own values. Every decision will be made according to what they feel will give them the greatest advantages over disadvantages, greatest rewards over risks."
- Dr John Demartini

Richard Bach Quote

2009-11-17T10:06:00.001+01:00

"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly." - Richard Bach

When to Prospect for New Clients

2009-11-10T12:01:00.000+01:00

It's been said that there are only three times when you should be prospecting for new clients:

1) When you don't have enough clients

2) When you have too many clients

3) When you have just the right number of clients

Life is a Gift

2009-11-06T16:53:00.000+01:00

Today
before you say an unkind word - Think of someone who can't speak.

Before
you complain about the taste of your food - Think of someone who has nothing to eat.

Before
you complain about your husband or wife - Think of someone who's crying out to GOD for a companion.

Today
before you complain about life - Think of someone who died too early on this earth.

Before
you complain about your children - Think of someone who desires children but they're barren.

Before
you argue about your dirty house someone didn't clean or sweep - Think of the people who are living in the streets.

Before
whining about the distance you drive Think of someone who walks the same distance with their feet.

And when
you are tired and complain about your job - Think of the unemployed, the disabled, and those who wish they had your job.

But
before you think of pointing the finger or condemning another - Remember that not one of us is without sin.

And when
depressing thoughts seem to get you down - Put a smile on your face and think: you're alive and still around.

True Love Means

2009-11-06T16:48:00.001+01:00

Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot...
..who calls you back when you hang up on him...
..who will stay awake just to watch you sleep...
..wait for the guy who kisses your forehead...
..who wants to show you off to the world when you are in your sweats...
..who holds your hand in front of his friends...
..wait for the one who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares about you and how lucky he is to have you...
..wait for the one who turns to his friends and says, "...that's her

Just think about it

There was a blind girl who hated herself because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend. He was always there for her. She told her boyfriend, 'If I could only see the world, I will marry you.'

One day,someone donated a pair of eyes to her. When the bandages came off, she was able to see everything, including her boyfriend.

He asked her,'Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?' The girl looked at her boyfriend and saw that he was blind. The sight of his closed eyelids shocked her. She hadn't expected that. The thought of looking at them the rest of her life
led her to refuse to marry him.

Her boyfriend left in tears and days later wrote a note to her saying: 'Take good care of your eyes, my dear, for before they were yours, they were mine.'

This is how the human brain often works when our status changes. Only a very few remember what life was like before and who was always by their side in the most painful situations.

Graphic Designer vs Client video

2009-09-30T10:46:00.000+02:00

If you are easily offended, do NOT watch this movie. I think it is absolutely hilarious and shows what graphic designers have to go through with their customers. Actually it applies for everyone who has to deal with clients, not ? ;-)

Best Motivational Video

2009-09-29T17:07:00.000+02:00

Visit my blog: Personal Development in the 21st Century

Friendship

2009-09-27T10:53:00.001+02:00

This should probably be taped to your bathroom mirror where you could read it every day. You may not realize it, but it's 100% true.

1. There are at least two people in this world that you would die for.

2. At least 15 people in this world love you in some way.

3. The only reason anyone would ever hate you is because they want to be just like you.

4. A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone, even if they don't like you.

5. Every night, SOMEONE thinks about you before they go to sleep.

6. You mean the world to someone.

7. You are special and unique.

8. Someone that you don't even know exists loves you.

9. When you make the biggest mistake ever, something good comes from it.

10. When you think the world has turned its back on you, take another look.

11. Always remember the compliments you received. Forget about the rude remarks.

And always remember......When life hands you lemons, Ask for Tequila and Salt and call me over!!

Good friends are like stars.....You don't always see them, but you know they are always there.

"Whenever God Closes One Door He Always Opens Another, Even Though Sometimes It's Hell in the Hallway."

I would rather have one rose and a kind word from a friend while I'm here than a whole truck load when I'm gone.

Happiness keeps You Sweet, Trials keep You Strong, Sorrows keep You Human, Failures keep You Humble,Success keeps You Glowing.

Why Is Breast Cancer Usually Found Near the Armpit?

2009-09-21T12:53:00.001+02:00

I just received this email from a friend:

Some time ago, I attended a Breast Cancer Awareness seminar and I asked why the most common area for Breast Cancer was near the armpit. I challenge you all to rethink your every day use of a product that could ultimately lead to a terminal illness. As of today, I will change my use.

I showed it to another friend going through chemotherapy & she said she learned this fact in a support group recently.

The leading cause of breast cancer is the use of anti-perspirant.

*What ???*
*Yes,* *ANTI-PERSPIRANT*.

Most of the products out there are an anti-perspirant /deodorant combination, so go home and check Deodorant is fine, anti-perspirant is not!

Here's why :- The human body has a few areas that it uses to purge toxins ; behind the knees, behind the ears, groin area, and armpits. The toxins are purged in the form of perspiration. Anti-perspirant, as the name clearly indicates, prevents you from perspiring, thereby inhibiting the body from purging toxins from below the armpits. These toxins do not just magically disappear. Instead, the body deposits them in the lymph nodes below the arms since it cannot sweat them out. Nearly all breast cancer tumors occur in the upper outside quadrant of the breast area. This is precisely where the lymph nodes are located.

Additionally, men are less likely (but not completely exempt) to develop breast cancer prompted by anti- perspirant usage because most of the anti-perspirant product is caught in their hair and is not directly applied to the skin.

Women who apply anti-perspirant right after shaving increase the risk further because shaving causes almost imperceptible nicks in the skin which give the chemicals entrance into the body from the armpit area.

PLEASE pass this along to anyone you care about.
Breast cancer is becoming frighteningly common.
This awareness may save lives.

Female Heart Attack - Please Read and Pass On

2009-09-11T13:23:00.004+02:00

This has been passed on from an ER nurse and is the best description of this event that she had ever heard. Please read, pay attention and send it on.

FEMALE HEART ATTACKS

I was aware that female heart attacks are different, but this is the best description I've ever read.

Women and heart attacks (Myocardial Infarction). Did you know that women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have when experiencing heart attack ... you know, the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, grabbing the chest & dropping to the floor that we see in the movies. Here is the story of one woman's experience with a heart attack.

I had a heart attack at about 10 :30 PM with NO prior exertion, NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might have brought it on. I was sitting all snugly & warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking, 'A-A-h, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy Lazy Boy with my feet propped up.

A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you've been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you've swallowed a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn't have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly and this time drink a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was my initial sensation - the only trouble was that I hadn't taken a bite of anything
since about 5:00 p.m.

After it seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (hind-sight, it was probably my aorta spasming), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum (breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR).

This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws. 'AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening - we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI happening, haven't we? I said aloud to myself and the cat, 'Dear God, I think I'm having a heart attack!'

I lowered the footrest dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself, If this is a heart attack, I shouldn't be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else ... but, on the other hand, if I don't, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in moment.

I pulled myself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the Paramedics .. I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I didn't feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts. She said she was sending the Paramedics over immediately,asked if the front door was near to me, and if so, to unbolt the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came
in.

I unlocked the door and then lay down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don't remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived and saw that the Cardiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull
my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions
(probably something like 'Have you taken any medications?'' but I couldn't make my mind interpret what he was saying, or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the Cardiologist and partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart where they installed 2 side by side stents to hold open my right coronary artery.

I know it sounds like all my thinking and actions at home must have taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the Paramedics, but actually it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call, and both the fire station and St. Jude are only minutes away from my home, and my Cardiologist was already to go to the OR in his scrubs and get going on restarting my heart (which had stopped somewhere between my arrival and the procedure) and installing the stents.

Why have I written all of this to you with so much detail? Because I want all of you to know what I learned first hand.

1. Be aware that something very different is happening in your body not the usual men's symptoms but inexplicable things happening (until my sternum and jaws got into the act). It is said that many more women than men die of their first (and last) MI because they didn't know they were having one and commonly mistake it as indigestion, take some anti-heartburn preparation and go to bed, hoping they'll feel
better in the morning when they wake up ... which doesn't happen. My female friends, your symptoms might not be exactly like mine, so I advise you to call the Paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you've not felt before. It is better to have a 'false alarm' visitation than to risk your life guessing what it might be!

2. Note that I said ''Call the Paramedics.'' And if you can, take an aspirin. Ladies, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER you are a hazard to others on the road. Do NOT have your panicked husband who will be speeding and looking anxiously at what's happening with you instead of the road. Do NOT call your doctor -- he doesn't know where you live and if it's at night
you won't reach him anyway, and if it's daytime, his assistants (or answering service) will tell you to call the Paramedics. He doesn't carry the equipment in his car that you need to be saved! The Paramedics do, principally OXYGEN that you need ASAP. Your Dr. will be notified later.

3. Don't assume it couldn't be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count. Research has discovered that a cholesterol elevated reading is rarely the cause of an MI (unless it's unbelievably high and/or accompanied by high blood pressure). MI's are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better chance we could survive.

A cardiologist says, if everyone who gets this mail sends it to 10 people, you can be sure that we'll save at least one life.

**Please be a friend and send this article to your friends (male & female) **

Visit Antonia Harrison’s blog for information, jokes, opinions - anything that might be of interest.

Good Advice on Reducing Cancer Risks

2009-09-09T15:03:00.002+02:00

Johns Hopkins Update - Good article

AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY ('TRY', BEING THE KEY WORD) TO ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHNS HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY .

Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins:

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.

3 When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors..

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply..

CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. Better alternative is Bragg's aminos or sea salt.

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soy milk cancer cells are being starved.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water.. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines becomes putrefied and leads to more toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the bodies own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, un-forgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

1. No plastic containers in micro.

2. No water bottles in freezer.

3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well. Dioxin chemicals cause cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic. Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Cast le Hospital, was on a TV program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers. This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else. Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

This is an article that should be sent to anyone important in your life.

Antonia Harrison is the English Hypnotherapist in Belgium, passionate about personal development, helping people to make positive change and generally living the best life possible. This includes keeping healthy and minimising the risk of harmful dis-ease.

Congratulations to All You Survivors

2009-08-24T23:09:00.002+02:00

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, full-cream milk, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitch hiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Nandos.

Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Toffees, Gobstoppers, Bubble Gum and some bangers with which to blow up frogs.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because....... WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii , X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY, no video/dvd films, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms ....... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no Lawsuits from these accidents.

Only girls had pierced ears!

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time...

We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!

RUGBY and CRICKET had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on MERIT.

Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and bullies always ruled the playground at school.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

Our parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla'

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Don't bother sending this to the young generation. They'll think it's a script for Monty Python!

10 Paulo Coehlo Books for Only £18

2009-08-23T11:43:00.004+02:00

Great news for Paulo Coelho fans - I just bought 10 of his books from amazon for only £18:
(The Alchemist, The Pilgrimage, Eleven Minutes, The Zahir, The Witch of Portobello, Veronika Decides to Die, The Fifth Mountain, The Devil & Miss Prym, The... Valkyries, By the River Piedra)

Follow this link to order, Paul Coelho Collection - 10 Books with free P&P in the UK:

How to Make a Million Dollars While Eating Lunch

2009-08-10T14:02:00.003+02:00

Posted: 09 Aug 2009 03:01 PM PDT by Millionaire Mommy Next Door

In response to my last post, Would You Ditch A Car For $1,000,000?, a reader made the comment: “As a grad student in an urban area, I don’t have a car (nor could I afford one) and I use public transit. … I wish there was a “big ticket” item like that that I could easily cut out of my life, but there just isn’t. Instead I try to cut back on small things and aggressively invest for cashflow.”

While savings do accumulate faster when you cut back on the biggest budget-buster categories (housing, transportation, insurance and taxes), the little things do add up. Take for instance:

My Million Dollar Lunch Recipe

Replace your $9.50 restaurant lunches (sandwich, fries, soft drink, sales tax, tip and mileage) with a nutritious $3.00 lunch brought from home.
Deposit your $143 monthly savings ($6.50 daily, 22 working days a month) into a Roth IRA retirement account.
Invest in equities (stocks, mutual funds) at a 10%* annual long-term average rate of return.
Let your account simmer for 41 years.

Recipe Yield = $1,000,837

Serve: During retirement with whipped cream and a cherry on top.

Ingredients:
Total deposits = $70,356
Total interest earned = $930,481
Total taxes paid = $0
Total Saved= $1,000,837

Optional Garnishes:

Combine with a 20 minute walk to the park for lunch.

Yield: 1,277,232 calories– enough to keep off (or lose) 365 pounds! (Calculated for a person weighing 140 pounds walking 4mph for 20 minutes (1.33 miles) 5 days a week for 41 years.)

Pack a lunch for your spouse.

Yield: An additional $1,000,837

Add a group of supportive friends for lunch to work on the Baby Steps to Financial Freedom together. Yield: Financial freedom – with friends who will have the resources to enjoy it with you!

Isn’t it amazing how much money you can amass by investing small amounts over long periods of time?

Once you think in terms of investing instead of spending, look for ways to duplicate this process in other ways. Consider the following actions:

- buy staples in bulk and invest your savings

- invest your employee bonuses

- invest unexpected financial gifts and inheritances

- invest your tax refunds

- buy a term life insurance policy instead of a whole life one and invest your monthly premium savings

- buy a used car instead of new and invest the difference in price

- borrow books, movies and music from your local public library and invest your savings

- save and invest your pocket change

Imagine this: Starting with $0 and depositing $5,000 annually in a Roth IRA account over 41 years (at a 10%* annual rate of return compounded monthly), you will have $3,081,554.

Ingredients:
Total deposits = $210,000
Total interest earned = $2,871,554
Total taxes paid = $0
Total Saved= $3,081,554

Choose affordable and cost-effective options and rather than feel deprived, feel excited that you get to invest the difference in yourself and your future.

~ Bon Appetit!

ooOOOoo

*The actual rate of return is largely dependent on the type of investments you select. From January 1970 to December 2008, the average annual compounded rate of return for the S&P 500, including reinvestment of dividends, was approximately 9.7% (source: www.standardandpoors.com).

Obviously amounts and interests rates will vary per geographic area but you get the idea.

Total savings are calculated in actual dollars (not inflation-adjusted). A common measure of inflation in the U.S. is the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which has a long-term average of 3.1% annually, from 1925 through 2008.

Read Antonia Harrison's blog

We Just Bought a Wii

2009-08-10T11:46:00.009+02:00

My sons have just ordered a Nintendo Wii Console (Includes Wii Sports) from Amazon.co.uk for £164.99 (including free delivery) which meant they could pick another game for just £15. They chose Mario Kart with Wii Wheel (Wii) - Wii Remote Not Included. The price is adjusted at the checkout stage.

I treated myself to Wii Fit (Wii) which includes strengthening exercises, Yoga and balance sports like ski slalom. My son needs to strengthen his back muscles so this will also benefit him. I also bought a Wii Fit Balance Board Rechargeable Battery (Wii) for just £4.87, a Logic3 Wii Fit Balance Board Cushion Mat (Wii) and a Remote Charging Stand (Wii)

We are going to install the Wii in their playroom so there is enough space to play the games. This is not just sitting in front of computer games because these games use your muscles by imitating the movement of the sport in question. I have only played bowling up to now but I really felt it the next day. I have a friend who uses his Wii to play tennis so no more excuses about cost, weather, time etc. as a reason not to play in a tennis club. Now he just switches it on and enjoys the exercise.

I think I shall be buying Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Wii) and Wii Sports Resort (Wii) with Wii MotionPlus Accessory for Christmas. The Sports Resort has 12 different categories on game including wakeboarding.

Antonia Harrison lives in Belgium. Read Antonia's blog.

Social Media and Affiliate Marketing for Small Business

2009-07-29T14:59:00.004+02:00

Check out this London event on Social-Media and Affiliate-Marketing for Small Business.

If you are launching or growing a business, you simply must learn about two massive trends that have stacked the odds in the favour of small business (finally!).

By far one of the biggest Game-Changing trends on the planet at the moment is Social-Media. For the first time ever, global media is in the hands of the many rather than just a few very powerful people.

Today (and everyday) over 200M people created blogs, videos, podcasts, messages and other media presentations for the world to share.

This is big news for small business. It is not just the "Net-nerds" anymore, EVERYONE is using the internet to find the best products and services they want.

So what are you saying about yourself online? What are other people saying about you?... and can you reward people who take your product to market?

Affiliate Marketing is the biggest trend in the Marketing World. Why? because you only pay your marketing bill AFTER a sale is made. How could it get better than that!

With the right systems in place you can get people talking about your products and only pay for results.

So back to this event... It is run by Daniel Priestley, who 2 years ago came to the UK with a suitcase and a credit card and built a national business without a single hard cost ad. He built the whole thing through the power of Affiliate Marketing and Social Media.

He is an excellent speaker and I recommend this event Social Media Meets Affiliate Marketing.

Antonia Harrison

Social Media Training to Grow Your Business

2009-07-29T14:32:00.004+02:00

Just over two years ago Daniel Priestely arrived in the UK with nothing more than a suitcase and a credit card. He knew less than 3 people in the whole of the UK!

Today he is one of the most talked about young entrepreneurs I know of.

The reason people talk is because he built a successful company without taking out any ads in the paper, he used no radio, no fliers and no television. In fact, he built a national business without any hard cost marketing at all.

He used two very powerful tools:
1. He pioneered some cutting edge affiliate marketing systems.
2. He became an expert in Social Media (Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, Online Networking, Etc).

With these two tools he was able to scale up very quickly. What's more, he did this before the trend really got going... as it is right now!

This year, is the year where YOUR clients are spending more time online than ever before. YOUR clients want to read about you on blogs, they want to hear about you through podcasts, they want to see your videos, they want to connect with you on Facebook and follow your Twitter.

If your not doing these things you are missing serious opportunities and you are behind the times.

If you are already doing these things then I can assure you that you could still learn some great strategies from Daniel Priestley.

I strongly suggest you attend this half day training with Daniel Priestley and get your business moving online:

Details of Daniel Priestley's YouTwitt Face in London during August 2009.

Try the FT and FT.com for Four Weeks For Just £1

2009-07-28T12:52:00.001+02:00

Try the FT and FT.com for four weeks for just £1

You'll benefit from premium delivery or flexible vouchers, and unlimited access to FT.com.

You'll also enjoy membership of the FT Privilege Club, where you can take advantage of exclusive content and editorial, including the FT ePaper.

Terms and conditions: Premium delivery only available in and around the M25 area, plus other selected business centres. FT.com offer is for Premium access and only available when combined with the newspaper. Four-week trial for £1 only available if you sign up via Direct Debit. This £1 is not refundable. Offer open to new individual customers only and just available in the UK. Savings based on weekly cover price of £11.30 and FT.com weekly price of £3.83 over equivalent period. Please allow up to 15 working days for your trial to begin. Offer expires December 31 2009. Only one order per customer. FT vouchers are day-dated and must be redeemed on day of issue.

Click here for your four weeks trial for just £1.

Antonia Harrison

How to Create Success with LinkedIn Groups

2009-07-20T13:20:00.001+02:00

How to Create Success with LinkedIn Groups shows you how to use LinkedIn groups to communicate your message, build your network, and drive new business. It includes a review of taking the Linked Itnuition blog from 2,200 visitors in March to close to 50,000 in June...primarily using LinkedIn Groups.

Price $7.97

Click here to visit Social Media sonar website!

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Some Days it is just not worth getting out of Bed

2009-07-07T17:42:00.001+02:00

A man went to the hospital to have his wedding ring cut off from his willy.

According to the attending Nurse, the girl friend found the ring in his pants pocket and she got so mad at him, she used petroleum jelly to slip the ring on his willy while he was asleep.

He couldn't figure out what is worse:

1) Having your girl friend find out you're married.
2) Explaining to your wife how your wedding ring got on your willy.
3) Or finding out your willy fits through your Wedding Ring !

$75 Billion Annual Cost of the Conflict in Iraq

2009-07-01T14:29:00.005+02:00

I was struck by this page in Losing My Virginity: The Autobiography of Sir Richard Branson published in 2007, p461.

The Pentagon suggested that the cost of the conflict in Iraq would by approximately $75 billion per year over ten years. In accepting the Nirwano Peace Prize on 8 May 2003, Dr Priscilla Elsworthy of the Oxford Research Group said,

"We must compare this $75 billion to the costs of building international security in other ways.

(a) In the year 2000 world leaders estimated that it would require $25 billion to $35 billion annually to raise levels of health and welfare in Africa to Western standards.

(b) Unesco estimate that all the world's children could be educated if we were to spend $7 billion per year for ten years.

(c) Clear water and sanitation could be provided for everyone in the world for $9 billion annually.

(d) HIV and Aids now claim 5,500 lives a day around the world - more than the Black Death, and twelve million in children in Africa have been orphaned by the disease.. Kofi Annan has called for $10 billion annually to address the Aids epidemic.
So, all these goals could be reached, all this suffering prevented worldwide for less than the United States spends on military action in Iraq."

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Seen in a Doctor's Office

2009-06-22T18:58:00.003+02:00

I'm sure that you have seen pharmaceutical advertising in doctor's offices on everything from tissues to exam table cover paper. Well, in my book, this one should get the prize....

My Chinese doctor e-mailed back: 'If the light stays on for more than 4 hours, call your "erectrician.'"

Little Girl on A Plane

2009-05-13T12:43:00.001+02:00

A stranger was seated next to a little girl on the airplane when the stranger turned to her and said,
'Let's talk. I heard that flights go quicker if you sart a conversation with your fellow passenger.'

The little girl, who had just opened her book, closed it slowly and said to the stranger, 'What would you like to talk about?'

'Oh, I don't know,' said the stranger. 'How about nuclear power?' and he smiles.

OK, 'she said.'That could be an interesting topic. But let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, a deer all eat the same stuff - grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose that is?'

The stranger, visibly surprised by the little girl's intelligence, thinks about it and says, 'Hmmm, I have no idea.'

To which the little girl replies, 'Do you really feel qualified to discuss nuclear power when you don't know shit?

Find The Guy Who...

2009-05-06T18:24:00.001+02:00

When a GIRL stares at you ... she is wondering why you are lying. When a GIRL lays on your chest ... she is wishing for you to be hers forever. When a GIRL wants to see you everyday... she wants to be pampered. When a GIRL says " I love you " ... she means it. When a GIRL says " I miss you " ... no one in this world can miss you more than that.

Life only comes around once make sure you spend it with the right person. Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will stay awake just to watch you sleep. Wait for the guy who kisses your forehead. Who wants to show you off to the world when you are in your sweats. Who holds your hand in front of his friends. Who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares about you and how lucky he is to have you. Who turns to his friends and says, " That's her!! "

Wine or Water?

2009-05-06T18:14:00.000+02:00

To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine... (and those who don't).

Benjamin Franklin was perfectly correct when he said:

In wine there is wisdom,
in beer there is freedom,
in water there is bacteria.

In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 litre of water each day, at the end of the year we would have ingested more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. coli) - bacteria found in faeces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop.

However, we do NOT run the same risk when drinking wine & beer (or tequila, rum, whiskey or other liquor) because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and/or fermenting.

So ............
Water = Poop,
Wine = Health.
Therefore, it's better to drink wine and talk stupid, than to drink water and be full of shit.

There is no need to thank me for this valuable information: I just thought I'd do you a special favour

Technical Support for Installing a Husband

2009-04-26T12:49:00.002+02:00

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as
* Romance 9.5
* Personal Attention 6.5
and then installed undesirable programs such as
* NHL 5.0,
* NFL 3.0 and
* Golf Clubs 4.1
Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2. 6 simply crashes the system.
* Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?
Signed,
Desperate.

DEAR DESPERATE ,

First, keep in mind,
* Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package while
* Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install theGuilt 3.0 update.
* If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.
However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5 ,Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1.
* Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Farting and Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, D0 NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

In addition, please do not attempt to re-install the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend:
* Cooking 3.0
* Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck Desperate
Tech Support

Can You Read This?

2009-04-25T16:40:00.000+02:00

I CAN READ IT! CAN YOU ????

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too.
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the
olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a
pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot
slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.

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