Laugh its funny!

A good story can always brighten up your day…..
Always wear underwear in public, especially when working under your vehicle. A story was posted in a newspaper a while ago of a Brisbane couple who drove their car to a shopping center, only to have their car break down in the parking lot. The man told his wife to carry on with her shopping while he fixed the car.
The wife returned a while later to see a small group of people gathered near her car. On closer inspection, she saw a pair of hairy legs protruding from under the chassis.
Unfortunately, although the man was in shorts, his lack of underpants turned his private parts into glaringly public ones. Unable to stand the embarrassment, she dutifully stepped forward and quickly put her hand up his shorts, and tucked everything back into place.
On regaining her feet, she looked across the roof of he car and found herself staring at her husband who was standing idly by watching.
The car mechanic however, had to have three stitches in his forehead.

One of the best feelings in the world is the deep-rooted belly laugh. It can bring people together and establish amazing connections. Everything from a slight giggle to a side-splitting guffaw can change the temperature of a room from chilly unfamiliarity to a warm family-like atmosphere.
There is so much to love about laughter that it seems greedy to look for more, but that’s exactly what researchers Dr. Lee Berk and Dr. Stanley Tan at the Loma Linda University in California have done. These two doctors have researched the benefits of laughter and found amazing results. Get ready to get your giggle on!

1. Laughing lowers blood pressure

People who lower their blood pressure, even those who start at normal levels, will reduce their risk of strokes and heart attacks. So grab the Sunday paper, flip to the funny pages and enjoy your laughter medicine.

2. Reduces stress hormone levels

You benefit from reducing the level of stress hormones your body produces because hormone-level reduction simultaneously cuts the anxiety and stress impacting your body. Additionally, the reduction of stress hormones in your body may result in higher immune system performance. Just think: Laughing along as a co-worker tells a funny joke can relieve some of the day's stress and help you reap the health benefits of laughter.

3. Fun ab workout

One of the benefits of laughter is that it can help you tone your abs. When you are laughing, the muscles in your stomach expand and contract, similar to when you intentionally exercise your abs. Meanwhile, the muscles you are not using to laugh are getting an opportunity to relax. Add laughter to your ab routine and make getting a toned tummy more enjoyable.

4. Improves cardiac health

Laughter is a great cardio workout, especially for those who are incapable of doing other physical activity due to injury or illness. It gets your heart pumping and burns a similar amount of calories per hour as walking at a slow to moderate pace. So, laugh your heart into health.

5. Boosts T cells

T cells are specialized immune system cells just waiting in your body for activation. When you laugh, you activate T cells that immediately begin to help you fight off sickness. Next time you feel a cold coming on, add chuckling to your illness prevention plan.

6. Triggers the release of endorphins

Endorphins are the body’s natural pain killers. By laughing, you can release endorphins, which can help ease chronic pain and make you feel good all over.

7. Produces a general sense of well-being

Laughter can increase your overall sense of well-being. Doctors have found that people who have a positive outlook on life tend to fight diseases better than people who tend to be more negative. So smile, laugh and live longer!

written by E.C. LaMeaux for Gaiam Life

Oh the places you will go!

YOU     HAVE     A       CHOICE!!

You have approximately 27,375 days in your life-why waste even one?

Spend your time like you would your money and carefully choose what and who you are going to spend it on.  Is it for a positive or negative?  How will you feel after spending time here? 

“So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life's A Great Balancing Act. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) Kid, you'll move mountains.”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Stress relieving tips

Today I am  writing about relaxation and stress relief.  We are offering a class on April 11 to learn more techniques and practice these strategies.  See Below for info.
I am going to look at quick and easy things that one can do to reduce stress in our day whether at the office,at home, with the kids, sorting through  email and  phone messages  or whenever you need a quick break.  5 minutes to work on stress relief  is less than 1% of the day.
 Create balance by trying out some new things!
 Some quick tools to get you started.

Focus on your breathing taking deep breaths in and out,  breathing alone,  is a great and quick tool to instantly bring calmness.
 Meditate - sit quietly, back straight, feet  flat on the floor  for one minute focusing on  where in your body you feel stressed. Think about  releasing the stress out of  each muscle of each area working from the top of your body to the feet letting it go out into the ground replaced by a calm, serenity and peaceful feeling.  Don't stress about getting it wrong!  It is a technique that needs practicing.

Try eating a healthy snack or a drinking a cup of green tea.  Instead of turning purple with rage, get green with a cup of herbal tea. Green tea is a source of L-Theanine, a chemical that helps relieve anger, also try chamomile for better rest at night. Dark chocolate  has quite a few chemicals that enhance your mood.  Just knowing chocolate relieves stress-relieves some stress from me!  One study found that women who drank four or more servings of lowfat or skim milk every day were about half as likely to experience stress-related PMS symptoms than those who drank less than one serving a week.  Oatmeal is also great for releasing serotonin a great hormone which calms your body.  So start the day with breakfast which makes you feel better and is much healthier as we tend to forget breakfast in our rush then make poor food choices just because we are hungry all day.

Finally, create a Zen zone for yourself, filled with things that make you feel good, a comfy chair, some incense or candles, any place you can go to be alone for 5 minutes to get your mind together and see things perhaps in a new light and restore some perspective on any situation. Sometimes you have a meditation room and  sometimes you have a bathroom stall a storage closet an empty classroom, the point is alone time to refresh yourself and bring you back in balance- and of course you can always visualize a beautiful spring day!

Forgiveness

 Forgiveness

 Forgiveness is something that can be really difficult to deal with. If I am angry or resentful I have to reflect, when I can, on how that is affecting me.  You see its not about proving you are right or wrong, its about living the best life you can free of the chains of worry, denial, anger and fear.  Eventually for my own sanity I must come to some resolution about the matter because I am sick and tired of renting out real estate in my head to the person that has angered me.  I have been told holding on to resentments is like peeing on yourself...only you feel it. 

Now you may be saying how can I forgive when it hurts so much? With forgiveness  hurt lessens and creates a space for repairing relationships to occur.  You see you aren't forgiving someone for their benefit at all, you are forgiving them for YOUR own peace of mind.

Here are some steps to take

Willingness

You have to be at least willing to consider forgiving someone.  Forgiveness repairs relationships.

Prayer (talk to a higher power)

Say a prayer for the other person even if it’s just “I hope he gets everything he deserves!” eventually it won’t be so hard.  Do this every day for 2 weeks.  This is private and doesn’t need to be shared with anyone unless you want to.

Release

Release the resentment so it no longer has power over you.  Set your self free.

Affirmation

I fully forgive this person and am now living a life filled with harmony and serenity.

In return you will begin to see changes in your perception of the offence and it may not be as important as it once was to be right.

I don't have to tell anyone about it until I am ready, I don't even have to tell the person I am forgiving if I don't want to because its not for them.  If I want to live in peace and harmony and repair relationships than I have to forgive there is no way around that. Forgiving someone may not seem fair, and in fact usually it isn't fair, but its essential to your mental and emotional well being.  The hardest person I have time forgiving is myself, I can get into self doubts, or feeling like I shouldn't have said or done something, or done something I am deeply ashamed of.  Its always hardest to forgive ourselves because that bar is set really high.  If you can't forgive someone today can you say a prayer for them?  My typical prayer is God I hope he gets EVERYTHING he deserves, maybe not the best prayer but its a good start.  Pray for them for 30 days, and if you don't pray send them positive energy once a day for thirty days.  After that reflect on what you need to forgive and assess how bad is it really?  Is there a tiny hope of forgiveness.  Start there the universe loves a challenge.  All that is required is willingness to do so and the desire to claim back your sanity and peace of mind. 

Liana Gramza

Back on Top Life Coaching

Fall Newsletter 2014 

Celebrate our success!

 

 

There are many things we do to self sabotage our success.  When we tend to generalize or distort our thinking patterns using the same phrases we have used for a life time-surprisingly we get the same results that we got for a lifetime.
Here are some examples of phrases that we have all used repeatedly because we didn't know better.


Extreme thinking-using the words like all or nothing.  For example "If I don't win every time there is no use in playing."   We take this kind of thinking to extremes and set ourselves up to fail. Another example of this is "-I'm not going to the beach unless I am 100% in shape."    This kind of thinking is very black and white and doesn't allow us the luxury of the grey areas.  It sets us apart using impossible standards, and it isn't the truth at least to me,  because I haven't met anyone yet who says they are 100% in shape.  The same kind of extreme thinking generates words like Always and Never."He Always says that, does that...etc.  He Never thinks before he speaks."..again extremes are rarely true there has to be a middle ground. They say there are three versions of every story-yours, mine and the truth look for the truth.  There is great freedom in the truth.   I challenge you to rethink these sentences and put them in a more positive and honest light.



Secondly -The word Should-This one was recently pointed out to me, I was doing it repeatedly  without thinking. I was using should, need to or must to motivate myself and then feeling guilty if I didn't follow through, or angry and resentful if someone else didn't follow through.  By saying should it means that I know it must get done but I am not doing it. For example I should do the laundry before I go out today.  Clearly that illustrates that I am NOT doing the laundry. So I have two choices, accept the fact that it isn't going to get done or Do it and let go of the rest of the baggage that comes with should.



The last distortion I will talk about  is not recognizing or discounting the positives.  For example the words "That doesn't count because anyone could have done it."  Why worry about others putting you down when you are doing a great job all by yourself.  The word humility means to me, that I am recognizing who and what I am and have a sincere desire to do better.  That means when someone compliments me on my new pants I should not respond with "yeah but I got them on sale" because it puts down my jeans and myself and it also  discounts the other person who chose to compliment you because you are taking what they are saying and making it less than. I choose instead to say...Thank you and let it go at that.
So the next time you find yourself using these words and phrases, stop and assess is that the truth?
And now you know better.

How I got into life coaching and why I became a coach

I worked for 20 years in healthcare and nursing had come to a point in my life and my career where I felt like it was going nowhere and I wasn’t making a difference anymore.  I was getting very frustrated and resentful and I didn’t know what to do.    I researched life coaching online and went to my friend Sunni who is a life coach for advice and she suggested that I take the 8 sessions of life coaching before I decide if I want to do it.  For me it was a win/win cause the very least I would come out of it was with some direction.  I never realized how much fear was holding me back from being successful.  Sunni and I sat down looked at the 8 areas purpose, career, money, health and wellness, home and car, relationships and spirituality.  She helped me set goals and find my purpose.  I took the life coaching class and finished my year practicum and now am leading a richer more fulfilling life. I get to use my people skills, my faith, and my teaching ability to help others on their journey into an awakened life.  I get to see miracles and be part of an amazing support system to the people I work with. I am very glad that I chose this path or perhaps the path chose me! 

Affirmations today!

Affirmations

I am living my full potential.
All my relations are harmonious
I attract to me unlimited abundance.
I live debt free.  I always have more than I need.
I radiate positive energy which is returned to me two fold.


Liana