Move Out of Your Own Way

Characteristics of a Healthy Relationship

Our intimate relationships are the most important aspects of many people’s lives. Good, solid, fruitful and fulfilling loving relationships not only provide us with great joy and happiness, they also support our dreams and careers, inspire us towards the achievement of our deepest and most cherished goals, and provide a deeper sense of both physical and spiritual well-being.

If you haven't had much chance to see how healthy, loving relationships work on a daily basis, taking some time to really study the characteristics of healthy relationships can give you a much better chance of having one yourself. There are lots of different styles of relationships, but all those successful relationship styles tend to have a few things in common: They allow the friendship to be governed by love - respect,communication, intimacy, equality and freedom. Each individual is able to be themselves within the relationship. Both people grow independently of each other and as a couple. Building strong fulfilling and fruitful relationships requires constant diligence, work and effort. However, this doesn’t mean that it can’t be enjoyable and fun.

Beauty full

As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can. John Muir

Music is everything

Choices made every day with enormous impact: Fair Trade Shade Grown Carbon Neutral Salt Spring Coffee

Fair Trade Coffee on Salt Spring Island,British Columbia

Fair Trade may be applied to most items for purchase such as cloths, jewelry, food, coffee beans. Purchase power means casting a vote for the farmer and workers who labour. The purpose of fair trade is to promote healthier working conditions and greater economic incentive for producers.

Shade Grown Coffee is cultivated under the canopy of the forest, preserving the natural habitat needed for migratory songbirds and other creatures.

Organic Coffee beans are grown without the use of artificial fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides. However, only about one sixth of the 2.4 billion pounds of coffee sold each year in the United States alone are grown organically.Coffee is the third most heavily sprayed crop in the world, after cotton and tobacco.

For more information about Fair Trade:

http://maketradefair.com/en/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade_coffee

Dr. Vandana Shiva: Farmer's and Seeds

Besides being a physicist, ecologist, activist, editor and author of numerous books, Dr. Vandana Shiva is a tireless defender of the environment. She is the founder of Navdanya, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmers' rights. She is the founder/director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy. Her most recent books are entitled, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge and Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply.


Nuclear physics was Dr. Shiva's chosen specialty until she realized that the science had "dark side to it." She changed course to become a theoretical physicist and worked in foundations of quantum theory. She was working on her PhD at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, fully expecting to stay on and become a professor when she was confronted with the nagging thought that she wasn't informed enough about how society works. "We (India) have the third biggest scientific community in the world. We are among the poorest of countries. Science and technology is supposed to create growth, remove poverty. Where is the gap?" She wanted to answer that question for herself, so she took three years off to "look at science policy issues...be a little more educated, socially, and then go back to physics." It was off to the Indian Institute of Scie
nce and the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore where she studied interdisciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy.

For more about Dr. Vandana Shiva http://www.navdanya.org/ Earth Democracy

Why is it called organic?

Why is it illegal for farmers to save their seeds?

To affect the quality of the day that is the highest of arts.

Engagement and absorption in the creative process is a journey of self development that demands openness. All individual's are unique in their experience so it’s important to approach each person as such and this means getting creative.By considering the value of expressive activities and experimenting with expressive activities you will greatly affect the quality of your days. These are just simple little activities that brighten the day and lighten the load. What can you do each day to add new flavors, texture, color, verve, and zest?! Adding a bit of zest affects the “Quality of the day.” By experimenting with and engaging in new activities you get inspired to do more and engage in different activities and really figure out what it is you love to do. Take a risk. Try something new and do something that scares you everyday, you are changed just by the energy of the attempt! This helps you gain a new perspective of old fears. Eventually, you conquer the fear.

Be diligent about yanking the beauty out of plain sight and hold it up for clear viewing.

Practice paying attention and notice the little things. Practice using all of your senses. Using our eyes is a great start, however, we must practice using the rest of our senses. Touch the flower petals of the flower you are admiring – really feel it. Cook up a batch of garlic and onions just for the smell of it! Check out different restaurants and taste some ethnic cuisine. Take your socks off and walk on the grass and in the sand. Climb a tree. Do a cartwheel. How many times do you look up into the sky? See the clouds? Take the subway everywhere, bike everywhere, notice those little cafes, the quaint sidewalks, a chunk of grass, the museums, the spas, the 100 year old trees. Become attuned to the beauty that is always available to you should you choose to see it.

Do it especially if you don't want to do it or find yourself coming up with excuses - that just means that you think too much and don't enjoy having fun.

Pay Attention

Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. Henry Miller

How many times have to attempted to read a page of your book and 3 pages later you don't know what you read - you were caught up in your thoughts and not present. Children are always present and in the moment. They are not caught up in their thoughts - that is because they are in the moment...so they are not caught up in their thoughts...

Practice. The next time you are at a stop light waiting for it to change, gaze upon a building that is unkempt and old. See the angles and shadows worn by nature. Observe the swirl of the peeling paint, like abstract art, moving and flowing without effort. See the chipped cement with its smooth contours and sharp edges. The ridges are a virtual mosaic of sensation and texture. The building becomes alive; the building has a pulse, a history, a frequency of vibration.

Create your own Blueprint with One Decision

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant flame than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time. Jack London

Lack of individual identity can't be good.

David Schnarch, Ph.D, suggests that in order to grow within an emotionally committed relationship, we must experience the process of “differentiation.” This means holding onto yourself within a relationship, staying true to what you want out of life while sharing your life with a partner.

An experience of being alive.

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. Joseph Campbell

Every day you are either moving toward or moving away from your goal.

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. Andre Gide

Determine with clarity what it is you want to change

Adventures don’t begin until you step into the forest. That first step is an
act of faith. – Mickey Hart

Friends listen to what you dont sayº

You’re the strange business. You have the energy of the sun in you, but you keep knotting it up at the base of your spine. You’re some weird kind of gold that wants to stay melted in the furnace so you won’t have to become coins.

Sufi Poet Rumi

Grounded is groundless - if you are in the moment.

When your strengths rather than your deficits are emphasized, you are uplifted. This provides incentive to further your successful efforts, facilitate your own sense of authorship in your life and is therefore the epitome of self-empowerment.

Reality doesn't have to bite.

With Solution Oriented Creative Counselling you gain a deeper, broader awareness of yourself, sensing for the first time in a long while, feelings and experiences you may have forgotten or avoided. As you gain awareness, you reclaim lost parts of yourself. You bring more of yourself forward to be seen and heard maybe for the first time.

Creativity is movement.

Creativity can be defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others. When you perceive change going on in your life, some part of the creative process is on the move! Creativity is born in movement, be it physical, intellectual, emotional or spiritual or any combination thereof. When different challenges arise you may ask yourself "Why can't I do this?" or "Why is this always happening to me?" Instead, get creative and ask yourself,  "What's my solution?"

Gratitude is not intellectual exercise.

Gratitude as an expressive activity 'excites life' - it's more than just acknowledging thanks, it's a state of being that appreciates all that is good and welcomed in our life. With a focus and attention on gratitude each day, it heightens a sense of energy that could be thought of as aliveness. Gratitude is more than intellectual exercise. It is much more than an obligation. Expressing appreciation involves both an expressive action and an inner attitude. Gratitude appreciates from the mind through intentional thought that recognizes the richness of our emotional connections with others, and all good things in our lives.