Most people believe that a little money will make them happier, but this is false, even if the sum is huge. If we win the lottery or go through a traumatic accident, happiness is neither assured for the lottery nor denied for the accident We tend to go back to an inner standard of happiness that is set by our own minds.

Happiness can not be taken away from you. However, if you begin to wish for it rather than to accept and express it you automatically create polarity in your mind and wish indirectly for unhappiness. Just as night and day follow each other, every happiness is followed by unhappiness, and each unhappiness is followed by a happiness.

The happiest people have a high self-esteem. They feel themselves and feel good about themselves. They engage in relationships that are mutual and varied. They seek challenges that keep them stimulated and that let them express their skills and feelings at increasing levels of refinement. They feel open and look to the future.

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Does not a day go by that many of us don't wonder how we manage to juggle the pieces of our lives and honorably hold up our responsibilities to family, friends, work, our health, our financial well-being, as well as lead full and satisfying lives? It sometimes doesn't take much to unsettle the delicate balance of forces that constellate as our world, sending it off into a wobble, leaving us struggling to right the course. How do we find a way back?

One route is in practicing mindfulness-based stress reduction. Intensive training in mindfulness meditation can cultivate states of relaxation, improve physical symptoms of pain and chronic illness, open our minds to greater insight, and enhance our physical health and sense of well-being for fuller, more satisfying lives. The course originated twenty years ago with Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the Center for Mindfulness at UMassMemorial Medical Center in Worcester. This form of meditation practice stems primarily from the Buddhist tradition and was intended as a means of cultivating greater awareness and wisdom, helping people to live each moment of their lives as fully as possible. While some forms of meditation involve focusing on a sound or phrase in order to reduce distracting thoughts, mindfulness training does the opposite. In mindfulness meditation, you don't ignore distracting thoughts, sensations or physical discomfort, rather, you focus on them.

"A word is dead
When it is said
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day."

   ~ Emily Dickinson

"The Zen school is based on our actual nature, on our true mind as expressed and realized in practice. Zen does not depend on a particular teaching nor does it substitute teaching for practice. We practice zazen to express our true nature, not to attain enlightenment.

~ Shunryu Suzuki

This time, though, you have a GOAL. Maybe it's to begin walking a few days a week to get that old heart pumping. Perhaps it's a plan to retire earlier at night in order to get up earlier the next day so you can enjoy that refreshing new morning and not have to rush off to work so fast— taking it a bit slower...enjoying the beautiful world of nature around you!

It could be some other goal that you have in mind, but it doesn't have to be some huge, hardly attainable goal. A simple change can be just as important to you and just as difficult to attain.... as we all get caught up in old habits and it takes time and effort—with a disciplined routine— to break them.

So, one day, you will decide to make a fresh start. Why not today? Better yourself. Begin Anew!!  Leave sticky notes here and there to remind yourself until it becomes a new habit. Do what you need to do to remind yourself of what it is you would like to change and the benefits you will gain from such a triumph.

Maybe next week or next month you'll think of another. Just follow these steps...

1. Make the decision.
2. Follow through with helpful reminders of what to do and why.
3. Finally change the old habit into a new reality!

Happy New Beginnings!

Traditional Chinese Medicine, or TCM, is one of the oldest medical systems with a written history dating back almost 2,500 years. Traditionally, there are several branches of Chinese medicine including: meditation, diet, exercise, massage, acupuncture, moxa and herbal medicine. This system of medicine was created by some of the best educated and brightest scholars in Chinese history who have recorded their theories and clinical experiences from generation to generation in literally thousands of books. It is estimated that there are between 20-40,000 books still existing on Chinese medicine that were written before the turn of the century. Since then, thousands more books and articles in professional journals have been written and published in China, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. Currently one quarter of the world's population uses Chinese medicine.

As a holistic medicine, TCM strives to understand the relationship between the parts as well as the parts to the whole. Health and disease are considered within the context of the entire person including physical health, emotional well-being, lifestyle, environment and family history. TCM is based on the belief that the person is an energetic system which can be in constantly fluctuating and varying degrees of harmony and disharmony. Energy pathways called meridians or channels run throughout the body circulating vital "qi." This qi or chi, is also associated with the body's organs and can become Deficient, Excess, Stagnant or Rebellious.

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Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field, by Barbara Ann Brennan, is a scientist's look at the field of bioenergetic healing, offering specific techniques towards expanding perceptual tools of healing, seeing auras, understanding psychodynamics and the human energy field, and spiritual healing. Trained as a physicist and psychotherapist, Brennan has spent the last 15 years studying the human energy field and working as a healer. Hands of Light goes beyond conventional, objective knowledge while retaining scientific clarity. It details a study of the human energy field and how it is intimately connected to a person's health and well being and contains essential information for anyone involved in healing and conscious health care, including people seeking to heal themselves. Science and spirituality may currently be at odds, but fortunately there will always be scientists who are spiritual seekers, and it is in the mingling of the two worlds where wisdom is born. - Jodie Buller (Amazon.com Reviewer)