Mental Fitness

We hear a lot about fitness these days, mostly relating to physical fitness.  From weight training to jogging and walking, there is a whole array available.  Still, according to statistics, Americans are more unhealthy and physical unfit than ever.  I believe that the reason is that we are too much focusing on the external, physical parts of our lifestyles.  Here, I want to focus more on the internal aspect of fitness, fitness of the mind.  The mind is not just the brain.  The mind has three aspects: intellect, emotion and will.  Mental (inner) fitness has to include all three areas – the brain (thinking), the heart (feeling) and (good) action.


Intellectual Fitness

In regards to the brain we are concerned about our memory, the ability to make good choices, keep focus and concentration, and improve reasoning and cognitive skills.

Some people are hung up on their IQ.  So, how do we keep our brain flexible and alert?

* Play games like puzzles, Sudoku, Trivial Pursuit, Jeopardy, etc.

* Read – Reading inspires the imagination, memory and is just plain fun.

* Learn a new skill.  Learn a new language, play a different sport, learn public speaking.

* Telling stories.  Reflect on your life and share stories that will help with your memory.

* Be curious.  Explore a new way to work, be adventurous, eat new foods, listen to different genres of music, etc.

Emotional Fitness

Emotions are feelings we feel in response to someone or something.  The basic emotions are: acceptance, anger, anticipation, disgust, fear, joy, love, sadness, and surprise.  There are five basic aspects to emotional fitness:

* Awareness – accept your feelings and appreciate yourselves.  Being grateful for what is.  Keep a balance of all aspects of mental fitness and center them on a higher purpose.

* Behaviour (self regulation) – Practice patience and trusting in the process of life.  Practice good habits. Keep a sense of humour in your live.  Taking yourself too serious can be dangerous.

* Motivation – keep hope alive through a religious practice; make reasonable goals and fulfil them. Work hard and then let go of the goal. 

* Empathy – practice kindness and put yourself in other people’s shoes.  Sometimes a smile and a friendly word is all that’s needed.

* Relationship skills – The most important aspect of emotional fitness are relationships.  All relationships start in the family.  It is the school of love and the training ground for emotional wellbeing. Practice giving and receiving and forgiveness and life will become more pleasant.

Willpower Fitness:

What is willpower?  It is the discipline to control yourself.  It is the inner power to make good decisions and carry them out.   It gives you the strength and conviction to take action and perform tasks and plans, despite inner resistance, discomfort, laziness or other difficulties. It puts you in charge of yourself and leads you to self-mastery.

The action part of mental fitness is creating a balance between the intellectual and the emotional.  It takes us into the physical part of life.

* Good nutrition; eating a healthy, balanced diet it crucial.

* Physical exercise and athletic abilities

* Start out with being willing to make better choices

* Helps to exercise self-discipline

* Have a clear focus

* Choose fun things; enjoy your task, and it will be easier to stick to it.

* Use repetition to strengthen your willpower muscles.

* Helps to prevent procrastination

* Prevents negative habits and avoids addictions

* Helps to forgo immediate gratifications and pleasures for the sake of bigger goals.

What it comes down to is this: Take care of you; take control of your life; take care of your mind.  It helps to practice gratitude and keeping a balance between the brain, the heart and the action.

What we are really looking for is the unity of these different functions of the mind.  The real power lies in the synchronicity which can only come when we center ourselves on the heart.  Once we achieve that in our mind, we can translate it into our body, and from there it can transform all aspects of life: the family, society, nation, and the world.  

That’s what practicing mental fitness is all about.

Do You Sudoku?

I have always loved numbers; and MATH was my favorite subject in school.  A few years ago, a friend introduced me to Sudoku puzzles.  I have been solving some here and there, but recently, I developed more interest in this past time.  Do you think I am hooked?

What is Sudoku?

Sudoku is a number puzzle.  Numbers from 1-9 are placed into a grid of 9x9 squares so that each number only appears one time in each row.  Additionally, each 3x3 grid also allows each number to appear once.  The challenge is that each given puzzle shows only a certain random amount of numbers.  There are three levels of difficulty where the more difficult puzzle has less numbers to start with.  The creator of the puzzle provides only a partially completed grid, which allows only one solution.

There are no special math skills required to solve the puzzle.  Only logic and persistence, if nothing else, you can spend hours with this intellectual entertainment.  Like everything else, practice brings better and faster results.

Some people like Jean-Paul Delahaye, call Sudoku a science.

“Solving a Sudoku puzzle requires no math, not even arithmetic. Even so, the game poses a number of intriguing mathematical problems.”

~ JEAN-PAUL DELAHAYE , French mathematician, born 1952.

History of Sudoku

There are several stories of the history of Sudoku.  It is an American invention but has a Japanese name.  The word Sudoku means "single number" in Japanese. It seems to be developed based on  the tradition of magic squares which first appeared in China during the 7^th century BC.  From there the information traveled through India and the Arabic world.

In modern times, during the 18^th century, a Swiss mathematician named Leonard Euler, put together number puzzles and transformed magic squares into Latin squares.

The prototype of modern Sudoku was the puzzle “Number Place” created by Howard Garns.  In 1979, Garns was an American architect who had retired from the Daggett architecture firm in Indianapolis.

A retired Hong Kong judge, Wayne Gould, was a fanatic Sudoku fan.  At the end of 2004, he developed a computer program which generates Sudoku puzzles of all different difficulty levels for which he didn’t asked any money.  The rest is history; you find them now in every newspaper, magazine and online.  There are even championships and international competitions.

Benefits of Sudoku

Sudoku has truly become an intercultural game.  It is the puzzle for everybody, old and young, men, women and children of all educational ranks.  It is a solitary game, and can be played on paper, online or just about anywhere.

* It helps with critical thinking and develops logic.

* It helps to develop patience because sometimes the solution is not as obvious.

* It helps with focus and organization; and also challenges creativity, if you want to develop faster and easier solutions. 

* Some researchers believe that it can slow the progression of brain disorder conditions such as Alzheimer's.

* It helps to develop both parts of the brain; the left side supports the logic, and the right side helps with the creative juices.

* It is called "the Rubik's cube of the 21st century" and is the "fastest growing puzzle in the world".

Have you played Sudoku today?

 My favorite sites for FREE Sudoku puzzles:

http://www.economist.com/node/3992476 down load for print and online.

http://www.sudokushark.com/sudoku.php online

The Paradoxical Commandments

You may have heard of the poem “Anyway:” It is traditionally contributed to Mother Teresa, (1910-1997) the Roman Catholic nun who lived and served the poor in India.

Mother Teresa's Anyway Poem

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

[Reportedly inscribed on the wall of Mother Teresa's children's home in Calcutta, and attributed to her. However, an article in the New York Times has since reported (March 8, 2002) that the original version of this poem was written by Kent M. Keith.]

When I went to a bookstore recently, I found a book called “TheParadoxical Commandments” by Dr. Kent M. Keith.  I learned that he originally composed the poem back in 1960’s as a Harvard student.  When he learned later that Mother Teresa  had posted the poem in the Calcutta children’s home, he was naturally very surprised and felt honored that a woman of her stature paid attention to his poem.  That’s when he wrote the book “Anyway – The Paradoxical Commandments.” 

Here is Dr. Kent Keith’s version of Anyway:

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

By reading up on Dr. Keith, I also learned that he is the CEO of the GreenleafCenter.  The Greenleaf Center is the training group for Servant Leadership about which I wrote about in my last blog. Isn’t that a coincidence?  

For those who love Mother Teresa; she did write her own poem about LIFE:

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.

Life is beauty, admire it.

Life is bliss, taste it.

Life is a dream, realize it.

Life is a challenge, meet it.

Life is a duty, complete it.

Life is a game, play it.

Life is costly, care for it.

Life is wealth, keep it.

Life is love, enjoy it.

Life is mystery, know it.

Life is a promise, fulfill it.

Life is sorrow, overcome it.

Life is a song, sing it.

Life is a struggle, accept it.

Life is tragedy, confront it.

Life is an adventure, dare it.

Life is luck, make it.

Life is too precious, do not destroy it.

Life is life, fight for it.

Life certainly takes many different turns.  It is our challenge to surrender to the journey and to accept rewards as a special blessing.  Rather than looking for the reward we want to do good for goodness sakes. It is wonderful that we have examples of leadership like that of Mother Teresa and Dr. Kent M. Keith.

The Servant - book review

The Servant is an easy read because it introduces important principles by telling a story.  We meet with Simeon, the teacher, whose name was Len Hoffman in the business world.  Then there are:

John Daily, businessman from Michigan; Lee, Pastor from Wisconsin; Greg, a drill sergeant from the U.S. Army; Theresa, a Hispanic public school principal; Chris, an African-American woman’s basketball coach from Michigan State University; and Kim, a head nurse from the Providence Hospital Birthing Center.  They all meet at a Benedictine Monastery in Western Michigan to learn about the internal aspects of leadership.

In their daily meetings they discuss and come up with a leadership model which is sometimes called: Servant Leadership.

Rather than just dealing with management issues, the group compares spiritual virtues of love and service to the traditional format of management.  Each of the participants contributes to the model:

Love and Leadership

Patience -- showing self-control

Kindness  --  giving attention, appreciation and encouragement

Humility --  being authentic without pretence or arrogance

Respectfulness  -- treating others as important people

Selflessness  --  meeting the needs of others

Forgiveness  --  giving up resentment when wronged

Honesty  --  being free from deception

Commitment  --  sticking to your choices

Their conclusion is that service and sacrifice is a worth-while result where one sets aside their own wants and needs and seeks the greatest good for others.

"What we think or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence.  The only thing of consequence is what we do.”

~ John Ruskin – English writer

 

In the process of one week all six participant work together with their teacher to put together a leadership model based on service and love.  They discover that leadership is not based on power, rather an authority which is built on love, relationships, sacrifice and service.  Simeon, the teacher draws from his many life experiences as business and family man, challenges the others beyond religious beliefs with principles which we all can apply in our daily lives.  Servant leadership is deeply rooted in all religious faiths. Therefore, it is unifying and touches the lives of each person present in the seminar.  But it also challenges the reader that change can only come from changing ourselves.  We learn that the Golden Rule applies to all of us and that love is not a noun (making us feel fuzzy inside) but a verb.  Love means doing for others. 

"It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature."

~ Robert K. Greenleaf, creator of the lifestyle of Servant Leadership

Mr. Greenleaf doesn’t consider servant leadership a concept or a principle. It is an inner standard of living which requires a spiritual understanding of identity, mission, vision and environment.

Another important fact is that nobody is born a leader or with certain talents for leadership.  Leadership is based on choices which allow us to adapt skills.  Most of these skills don’t come easily, they have to be earned based on discipline and sacrifice.

None-the-less, there are companies who use the servant leadership model as their management style.

Servant leadership doesn’t need a position, it can be practiced anywhere where there are people.  We can build a culture of heart where people are willingly serving each other.  Doesn’t that sound like the Kingdom of Heaven?

Expect Great Things

That sounds like a commercial slogan.  But it originated first from an English minister William Carey in 1792.

 I chose this topic based on my Sunday experiences.  It started with a sermon I listened to in the morning.  Joel Osteen talked about “UnprecedentedFavors.” He painted a marvelous picture of all the great things God has in store for us  – by longing for them and expecting them to happen in faith.

“An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality; our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing.”

~ Samuel Smiles, (Scottish author, 1812-1904)

Guess what our Sunday service was about?  Rev.In Jin Moon  elaborated further on the topic by creating an awareness of the root of our existence, recognizing our divinity.  She challenged us to avoid negative expectations by staying away from doubt, worry and self-pity.

 “Then there are expectations. The mind makes models of what it thinks will happen, which colors its perceptions of what is actually happening. If you give people a hand cream and tell them it will reduce pain, you are building a set of expectations. People really feel their pain diminish, even if the cream is just a lotion. People who are given a prescription they are told costs $2.50 a pill experience much more pain relief than those given what they are told is a 10-cent pill (even though all pills are placebos. As Jonah Lehrer write: 'Their predictions became self-fulfilling prophecies.'"

~ David Brooks, Canadian born journalist

That was too good to be true to have two sermons on the same day.  So I did my own research on the topic and learned that expectation is an actual force – The law of expectation activates that force.  The Law of Expectations tells us that whatever one expects, with confidence, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When one expects with self-assurance that good things will happen, they usually will. If, on the other hand, one expects a negative outcome to a situation, then the outcome will usually be negative.

What else can we do to reinforce positive expectations?

The Tao of Positive Expectations states: Positive expectation begets positive experience.

 “Tao” means the Way of Nature, or the Way of the Universe - the way things work.  Taoism originated in China and is the base for the teachings of Confucius and Zen Buddhism.

 “Be realistic, expect a miracle.”

~ Rajneesh, Hindu teacher, 1931-1990

In the Western world positive expectation is known as the Pygmalion Effect. The Pygmalion Effect  is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.   It refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, often children or students and employees, the better they perform.

It is based on experiences of educators where teachers were told, that a class of students were especially selected based on their IQ.  The teachers had a wonderful experience with the students. At the end of the school year they learned that the students were just average.  The expectation of the teachers created the above average performance of the students.

“When we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur.”

~ (Rosenthal and Babad, 1985)

From all these teachings we can conclude that it is necessary to have a positive state of mind.  Positive thinking creates positive emotions and positive emotions create constructive habits.  They are supported by positive self-talk.  To round it all up: it is most important to be grateful.  Gratitude is the base for everything when you expect miracles.  That is not much to ask, is it?

Do You Want to Save Some Money on Laundry Soap?

When we visited Minnesota this summer, one of our friends told me: I am making my own laundry soap and I save a lot of money.  She told me the basic ingredients but I didn’t write them down.  Then I remembered that I had watched a TV program where a big family also made their own soap.

To say the least, I was interested.  I looked up different recipes  on the internet and made my own soap:

Recipe for 64 loads of home-made laundry soap:

1 cup grated soap (you can use any left-over bar soap and grate it on the kitchen grater), or 1/3 bar Fels Naptha utility soap

½ washing soda (from Arm and Hammer; NOT baking soda)

½ cup borax powder

 2-gallon bucket

Heat 6 cups of water and melt 1 cup grated soap until well dissolved.  Add ½ cup washing soda and ½ cup borax, stir to resolve.  Remove from heat.  Pour 4 cups of hot water into the 2 gallon bucket.  Add soap mixture and stir.  Add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir (makes a total of 32 cups or 2 gallons liquid).

Let soap sit for about 24 hours to make it gel.  Put detergent into covered containers like mason jars or empty detergent bottle.  Use ½ cup per load.

Here is a step by step approach in pictures from the Family Homestead.

Your laundry will be clean and have a fresh smell, without any fragrance.  For white clothes to be whiter, you can add ¼ - ½ tsp. of bluing liquid.

By drying your clothes with dryer balls,  you can avoid any softener additions since the balls take away static cling.  I bought mine for less than $5.00 at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

As for the cost of the laundry soap:

1 box of washing Soda (55oz.)  $3.09
1 box of Borax Bleach (76oz.)   $4.19
1 bottle of Mrs. Stewarts Bluing liquid (8oz.)  $2.69
soap left-over $0.03
total $10

For 10 dollars I have soap for 64 loads of laundry plus the many more mixtures I will concoct in the future.  According to the Family Homestead website it costs about 1 penny per load compared to 15 cents of the average bought detergent.

How’s that for saving money?

Are You Practicing the Worry Habit?

Did you know that worry is a habit? Worry is a form of thinking that can be stressful if taken to extremes. Key features of worry are that it is repetitive and non-productive.

Myth about worry:

* Worrying is caring

* Worrying is being open to many possibilities

* Worrying is being involved in the outcome

* Worrying helps in solving the problem

* Worrying keeps us in control

* Worrying is being responsible

We could continue the list.  To me the worrier feels helpless. When we feel put in a corner we often don’t see any way out.  Last year I wrote a blog on comparing a predicament to a problem. http://raysolution.blogspot.com/2010/05/predicament-or-problem.html

What it come down to is this: How much can I live in the present moment?  As Dr. Wayne Dyer describes it:

“Worry is a technique we created to fill the moments of our life.”

I recently read a book: How to StopWorrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie.

If I had any doubts before that worrying is fruitless this book convinced me completely.  Based on countless peoples’ testimonies, Mr. Carnegie formulated rules which applied to everyday living, that can one can “cure” oneself of the worry habit.  I am amazed how many people worry themselves sick.  This sickness cannot be cured by taking any pills (even though it may cover up temporary symptoms).  From housewives to business tycoons, he accounts for people’s experiences on how to expel the worry habit for good. 

He sums up his advice in 3 points:

* Ask yourself what could possibly be the worst outcome?

* Accept that problem mentally.

* Concentrate on the difficulty and see how you can improve on your crisis which you already accepted mentally (Face the situation and act on it).

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

Another writer who gives great advice on how to get rid of the worry habit is Dr. Wayne Dyer.

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer says worry is a technique you created to fill the moments of your life. Get his 5 suggestions for eliminating worry from your life.

What is worry? Dr. Dyer defines it this way: Worry is the act of becoming immobilized in the present moment as a result of things that are going, or are not going, to happen in the future.

The key words here are "present moment." Worry, then, is a technique you have created in order to use up the "now" moments of your life, rather than choosing to use these precious, present moments living a fully functioning, happy life.

Everything that has ever happened to you did not happen in the past—it happened in the present moment. And everything that will ever happen to you will not occur in the future—it will take place in the "now" as well. So every moment you elect to spend in worry is your way of using up your "nows" by not being fully present in your life.
Your worry list can be long indeed: your health, your family, the economy, your security, your job, etc. All of it is a means for you to occupy your mind here and now as an excuse to avoid living. A worrier sits around and thinks about things and remains inactive, while a doer refuses to occupy the precious, present moments of his/her life and sets aside futile mental activity.

1. Begin to view all of your present moments as times to live, rather than to obsess about the future. When you catch yourself worrying, ask yourself, "What am I avoiding now by using up this moment with worry?" Then begin to take action on what you are avoiding.

2. Recognize the preposterousness of worry. Ask yourself over and over, "Is there anything that will change as a result of my worrying about it?" For example: Will my worrying affect the stock market? Will my worrying affect the weather? Will my worrying affect whether or not my child has an accident?

3. Give yourself shorter and shorter periods of "worry time." Designate 10 minutes in the morning to worry—and when that time period is up refuse to worry until your afternoon worry segment.

4. Make a worry list of everything you worried about yesterday or last year, and then see if your worrying did anything to affect the outcome.

5. Keep in mind the most useful advice I can give you for eliminating worry from your life; I learned it a long time ago from a teacher I had in India:

It makes no sense to worry about the things you have no control over, because if you have no control over them, it makes no sense to worry about them. And also, it makes no sense to worry about the things you do have control over, because if you have control over them, it makes no sense to worry about them. And there goes everything that it is possible to worry about. Either you have control or you don't, and worry is just a waste of your precious, present moments.

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer is an internationally renowned author and speaker in the field of self-development. He's the author of more than 30 books, including the New York Times best-seller Excuses Begone! How to Change Lifelong, Self-Defeating Thinking Habits.

From Oprah’s website: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/How-to-Eliminate-Worry-From-Your-Life-Wayne-Dyer/2#ixzz1XNP0hmxJ

 "Inch by inch, life's a cinch;
yard by yard life is hard;
mile by mile, life's a trial."

Another very interesting observation was made by Tim LaHaye in his book The Battle for the Mind.  Mr. LaHaye points out that in today’s multi-media, open society we are constantly bombarded with pictures of tragedy, war, catastrophe, health crisis, pornography, and many other negative images.  The mind feeds on these images and can build up a reality in our mind which is emotionally and intellectually stimulating.  That is very overwhelming, especially for a worry mind.

On our long journey of life we encounter many choices; worrying is one of these options we are given freely.  Once we learn more about the power of the mind, and we understand that the mind has three different functions which are: intellect, emotion and will we can make better use of it.  From there we can conclude that we can fill our life with worry, fear and anxiety or we can choose happy thoughts, joyful images and loving feelings.

If we can fill our mind moment by moment with positive stuff we can live a more constructive life.