Creating Silence in a Noisy World

Creating peace amongst the noise.

Living in the city, such as myself, can be very noisy! The constant sounds of cars, construction and other many random noises can be over-whelming to say the least. From stress to serenity, here are some facts and tips for you to create peace and quiet.

Noise hurts- noise is a health issue affecting more than just hearing:

• Heart- noise is linked to high blood pressure, higher heart rate, and constricted blood vessels.

• Stress- sudden noises may increase cortisol levels and bring on feelings of anxiety.

• Sleep- high noise areas are associated with headaches, tenseness, and edginess. Sleep disturbances due to noise has an effect on mood and consequently, heart disease.

• Immunity- constant noise has shown an affect on immune function and strength making illnesses more easily contracted.

• Learning- noise has shown to impair reading, long-term memory, decline in coping skills, and reduction in motivation.

• Mental health- noise can lead to psychological problems such as, depression, nervousness, anger and fear.

Indoor places of silence:

• Art galleries
• Museums
• Places of worship
• Libraries
• Spas
• Yoga or Tai Chi studios
• Hypnosis

Outdoor places of tranquility:

• Snowshoeing, ski resorts
• Japanese garden
• Chinese garden
• Parks
• Seashore
• After snowfall
• Your own backyard

Meditation- beneficial to include daily practices of meditation to create peace. There are many health benefits including:

• decrease psychological distress
• increased vitality
• decrease body pain
• improvement in reaction and focus
• decrease in stress hormone, adrenaline and cortisol
• overall enhancement of quality of life

Although you may not be able to eliminate all noise, you can learn to create tranquility in your own life to better deal with stress. Make time and space to enjoy peace and quiet and you will greatly enhance your quality of life.

Bikram Yoga- Hot Yoga

Yoga has numerous health and wellness benefits for both the mind and body. The difference of Bikram Yoga needs to be experienced to truly understand why this community of Yogis keeps growing steadily.

The difference of Bikram Yoga is the heat (105 degrees) combined with the well thought-out 26 posture sequence. The Yoga community knows that Bikram Yoga is a superior Yoga sequence and for this reason, many studios have “burrowed” the sequence and called it their own. The Bikram sequence works your entire body in the hour and a half class, starting with the breath and ending in savasana.

Yoga tips:

• Wear comfortable yoga gear, preferably shorts and a sports bra. The heat will make you want to wear the least clothes possible.
• Bring water! All that sweating makes one dehydrated so drink up.
• Bring electrolytes to re-balance the minerals lost from sweating so much.
• Bring a Yoga mat
• Bring a towel to cover mat, to soak up all your sweat!
• Keep the hair out of your face for less distraction.
• Do not sweat on your neighbors mat so keep some space. Nothing worse than some sweaty person dripping all over your mat, gross!
• Have fun! Focus on the journey and refrain from comparing yourself to your neighbor. Yoga is an individual practice and everyone’s body moves and works differently, embrace yours.
• The greatest impact for one’s practice to be successful is the studio. Look for a well-maintained, clean and inviting studio. Look around and find a studio that is welcoming and built for a community feel. When you feel like you belong to a community, you are more motivated to keep going so choose wisely.

Now that you know what to expect, go try Bikram Yoga. Feel for yourself if this style of Yoga is right for you, you never know until you try. If the 1st class is hard, try again. Don’t let the 1st experience determine if this Yoga is right because most likely, the 1st class will be brutal! The heat is new and over-whelming in the beginning but once you get past that, you will actually enjoy yourself. Namaste!

Letter To My Brother On The Other Side

My younger brother Isaac, R.I.P

Dearest Isaac,

Happy birthday? Doesn’t sound right since you are no longer here…in person, not spirit. I miss you more than words can say.  How can I and how do I celebrate you when I feel at such a loss without you?

I feel like when you died, a piece of me died with you. I felt the loss of our older brother Ricardo, a year before you, created an even stronger bond between you and I. Forever, I will cherish our unconditional love for each other, our meaningful hugs and our enriching friendship; I miss all those things everyday, I miss you. I felt a certain strength from a relationship with you that I just don’t feel anymore. You were one of the last people who really knew me, my authentic self that I do not let many know.

I am afraid to let myself completely feel the loss of you no longer alive, out of fear of not being able to function, or raise a healthy, happy child. Yasmeen misses you, a lot. She asks about you often and questions who you were, I like that. I want her to know you because you were a good man and I was proud that you were my brother and always will be.

My life is getting brighter because I made a conscience decision to recognize the good in my life. I will continue to make the most out of my life and make you proud, as I know you are with me…I feel you. Until the day we meet again, I will carry you with me in spirit on my journey through life. I will think of the good times and let those memories give me strength on days I need it most…like on your birthday (today) and the anniversary of your death.  Thanks for those experiences we had, the relationship we created and for being the kind of brother I needed. I love you.

Don’t Take Life So Seriously!

I am guilty of getting caught up with all the daily pressures of life be it family, career, or drama but I also recognize when it is time to take a vacation from my life. I have endured too much drama, stress and trauma in these last few years and I just want to laugh at life sometimes to feel better…and I do feel better.  So take a mental and emotional break from your daily stresses and go have some fun! Laugh more, act silly, do whatever it takes to find that kid inside, we all have, and chill out! You will be able to handle adversity better if you remember to balance life with play.

Hope for Haiti

The recent devastation in Haiti, due to the massive earthquake, is unimaginable. With so much destruction and death, it is hard to see the positives…but there are positives and lessons to be learned. Sometimes it takes catastrophic events to occur for us all to get a wake-up call in life.

First and foremost, we all need to be grateful for what we have and where we are in life RIGHT NOW! So often people say, “When I have…, I will be happy,” or “When I look like…, I will be happy.” We all need to be grateful now, as now is the only time and space that exists and our attitude towards the now will affect all aspects in our lives. When thinking about what you are lacking in life, put yourself in the shoes of a Haitian and that with give you a new perspective.

Haitians are devastated by the condition of their homes, schools, hospitals and everything that it takes to have a thriving community. I feel for all the Haitians that are going through such a traumatic event and hope to help in any way possible…starting with donating money. Many Haitians are not only dead, or alive but many have injuries, needing help asap! The Doctors who have been there since day one are so amazing. These Doctors show a super-human kind of compassion that teaches us all to give more of ourselves to those in need. And by witnessing the way the world responds to the most helpless people is a true reflection of where we are as a society; I hope we value all human lives.

To help, watch Hope for Haiti Telethon tonight where Brad Pitt, Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Clint Eastwood, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jon Stewart, Julia Roberts, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Meryl Streep, Morgan Freeman, Nicole Kidman, Robert Pattinson, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks and Will Smith are joining George Clooney (in Los Angeles), Wyclef Jean (in New York) and CNN’s Anderson Cooper (reporting from Haiti) for the event. It will be quite amazing to see how we all band together to help out those most in need, the Haitians.

Creating The Life You Want

Mind, Body, Soul

We all have the power to create the life we want, be the person we want to be and obtain the things we desire to have. When striving to have all these outcomes, one should follow a holistic approach. The holistic philosophy is to nurture the Body, Mind and Soul. All three areas make up our complete being for a feeling of wholeness.

Beginning with the Body, we want to treat our body with the utmost respect. We want to nourish ourselves with high quality, whole foods, as well as, exercise our body to stay strong and healthy. We must pay attention to how the foods we eat affect our mood because what one puts in their body does affect the way one feels. We can supplement with vitamins, homeopathic remedies and other alternative measures to support a healthy body. Exercise is a very important key to maintain a strong and youthful body. Think outside the common gym mentality and explore Yoga, Tai-Chi, trampolines, swimming, dancing or any other activity that gets your body moving while feeding your pleasure centers.

Focusing on the Mind, we can explore visualization, meditation, or affirmations. There are psychological techniques like Hypnosis, dream work, or art therapy to name a few. There is no 1 technique that will fix all your problems so it is vital that one explores different ways to quiet the mind so you better improve your life in the here and now.

The Soul may be the most neglected area of one’s self-discovery but may be the most important area to focus on. Connecting to one’s spirit can involve prayer or meditation to connect to the higher Source, or whatever name you give to the unknown realm. Practicing  forgiveness and unconditional love could be considered spiritual practices. There are many avenues to self-realization and spiritual discovery so try something new.

There is no one method, one person or one group that has all the answers for everyone. We need to seek out different options until it feels right for ourselves. Understanding what makes up our total being, Mind, Body and Soul, allows one to fill in the gaps that might be missing to feeling complete.

Dealing With The Death of a Loved One

Death of a loved one.

These days, it seems as if more and more people are dealing with the death of a loved one. Be it from Cancer, ailing health, accidents or suicide, the death of a loved one will be the hardest experience many will go through.

Death has such a ripple effect, it affects the one who loses a loved one and  it affects the friends that feel at a loss about what to say to the mourner. Although I am no psychologist, I have lost my 2 brothers to suicide in the last 3 years so I can offer first hand experience and personal advice.

Death has 7 stages:

• Shock or Disbelief
• Denial
• Bargaining
• Guilt
• Anger
• Depression
• Acceptance/Hope

I have experienced all these stages and most likely, I am still going through the stages. Some days are worst than others and at times, I still feel a great loss and emptiness. There is no time limit as to when one will feel happier and there is no guarantee that one will ever feel “back to normal.” Everyone grieves differently and death has an effect on one that is unpredictable.

What I do know is I decide when and how life stops, or begins again. I mean, only I have the power and ability to make myself happy and I am the only one who can walk through all the sadness and loss and make myself better. I know that what I focus on expands and so I have consciously decided, I am going to focus on the good memories and celebrate the lives of my brothers. No longer will I fixate on the way my brothers died, how they must have felt the day they decided to take their own lives, all the “what ifs” and what I could have done to prevent this death from taking place. All these thoughts keep me in the black hole of depression and prevents me from getting out.

So my advice to you is, allow yourself to truly feel the loss. Allow yourself to think about your loved one, as much as, you need and allow the process of grief to take place. Don’t apologize for your sadness and don’t worry about making others feel uncomfortable. You have lost one of the most important people in your life and you need to give yourself the time and space to heal.

The 7 Principles to Making Marriage Work- Book Review

Having been married for 5 1/2 years, gone through separation and dealing with many road bumps in my relationship, direction on how to repair and improve my marriage has been very beneficial. I recommend anyone going through similar situations, or wanting to prevent marital hardships, to check out this book.

Key concepts:

1. Enhance your love maps- making an effort to continually learn about one another. This book offers great exercises to stay up to date with one another.
2. Nurture your fondness and admiration- focus on what you do like and appreciate about your partner. Focus on the positive qualities to change your outlook on your spouse and relationship. As the saying goes, “what you focus on expands” so focus on the good.
3. Turn toward each other instead of away- when having issues with one another, turn to each other and not other people. You are each other’s best friend, or should be, so talk with one another and leave others out of your issues.
4. Let your partner influence you- you both come from different backgrounds and have different outlooks on life and how it should be so be open to seeing things from each other’s perspective. Those who allow their partner to influence them are the happiest in their marriage because they say to each other that they value each other’s opinions and ideas.
5. Solve your solvable problems-

• Soften your start-up with conflict resolution
• Learn to make and receive repair attempts
• Soothe yourself and each other
• Compromise
• Be tolerant of each other’s faults

6.  Overcome gridlock- move from gridlock from differences to dialogue. The problems may always remain but your goal is to get to a place where you can talk about issues without hurt feelings.

7.  Create shared meaning- having a marriage that incorporates both partners’ dreams and is flexible as both people change and grow. Establishing your own family culture to grow together and share your inner and outer world together.

Obviously this is a very summed up version of this very detailed and helpful book. To anyone married, getting married or in a relationship that they want to keep...pick up this book!

Free Fitness Tip- Dance Party!

Here is a great way to have fun and get fit with your family, I hope you enjoy:)

Please feel free to ask any questions and I will do my best to answer them all.

Random Acts of Kindness

Random acts of kindness are not only good for the recipient, good for the soul but random acts of kindness are good for your health. Giving to others is known to help one  feel fulfilled, lessening the effects of depression.When you do something for others, you are also doing something for yourself.

Here are random acts of kindness to try:

1. Send someone a hand written thank you note.
2. Make a card and send it to a friend for no reason.
3. Buy a lottery ticket for a stranger.
4. Put some coins in someone else’s parking meter.
5. Cut your neighbor’s lawn.
6. Walk your friend’s dog.
7. Compliment your waiter/waitress to his/her manager.
8. Send someone a gift anonymously.
9. Help someone replace their flat tire.
10. Let someone go ahead of you at the bank.
11. Pay for a drink for a person behind you at a café.
12. Treat a friend to the movies.
13. Give a tip to someone when they least expect it.
14. Hold the bus door open for someone rushing to get in.
15. Give up your seat for someone, not just an elderly person.
16. Write notes of appreciation at least once a week.
17. Talk to a homeless person and have a “normal” conversation.
18. Pick up some trash.
19. Compliment a work colleague for their excellence.
20. Give another driver your parking spot.
21. Give a piece of fruit to a delivery person.
22. Help an elderly neighbor carry the garbage out.
23. Tell all your family members how much your appreciate them.
24. Leave a book on a train/bus.
25. Buy an inspirational book for a friend.
26. Send a thank you note to a person who has helped you in the past.
27. Smile a lot.
28. Give someone a flower for no reason…other than your loved ones.
29. Give someone your time.
30. Give someone a hug.

After trying a few of these suggestions, I know you will have made the world a brighter place, the recipient feel better and you feel more joyful. The power of an act of kindness has a ripple affect with endless possibilities.