January 6, 2003

From the Inside Out
THE COSMIC KITCHEN

Imagine that the Universe is like a Cosmic Kitchen, ready and willing to take your orders and fulfill them. The Cosmic Menu is Infinite, so you can order anything you want. The key is knowing what you want and how to place your order effectively using affirmations and visualizations.

What DO you want? While that sounds easy — of course, I want good health, a great job, financial abundance, a romantic relationship, and- you fill in the rest — it often isn't! If you have conflicting thoughts and feelings about what you want, the Kitchen doesn't get a clear message.

For example, if you want a better job, but you also feel that the "better job" would mean longer hours and harder work, which you DON'T want, the Cosmic Kitchen can't fulfill the order until you are clear that you can have the better job with more fun, less work, and the same or fewer hours as you are working now.

Also, if you don't feel you really deserve a better job, the order can't be fulfilled. The Cosmic Kitchen receives your order from a combination of thoughts and feelings, and then fills it based on the Laws of Attraction and Allowing.

When thoughts and feelings are clearly aligned, and you feel deserving of what you want, manifestations happen quickly. Limiting beliefs from childhood may need to be cleared out as well to allow your order to manifest more easily.

Even if you've done a lot of work, there is always more to do because the unconscious mind is like the part of the iceberg underneath the water — the part beneath the surface is large compared to that above the surface. Take time to talk to your Inner Child about any beliefs that may be limiting you, or use other clearing techniques you've experienced.

Stop for a moment right now and think about an area of your life where there is a challenge. What are the typical thoughts you have about that challenge during the day. Are you obsessing about it and thinking there's no solution? Are you feeling hopeless about it? If so, your order to the Cosmic Kitchen is one that says "no solution" and thus there is none.

Create a positive, present tense affirmation that says the solution is already in Divine Mind and occurring to you quickly and easily, or that the resources you need to handle it appear.

The more you focus on what you don't want, the more strongly you are actually holding the challenge in your life. Today, every time you find yourself thinking about the "problem," refocus on sending an order for the solution to the Cosmic Kitchen.

You could affirm, "All is working out in the best possible way for everyone concerned" or "I am perfectly guided in the best way to resolve financial issues." When you meditate, FEEL that a resolution has happened.

One of the principles for placing your order with the Cosmic Kitchen is a willingness to trust the timing for the preparation of your order. Some dishes need only a few ingredients, while others need a lot.

While you're waiting for your orders to be fulfilled in career, prosperity, health, and relationships, enjoy yourself! Know that everything you need to be happy is in your life already. You are a precious child of the Universe and deserving of all good.

 

~Patricia Crane, Ph.D, Author, Heart Inspired Presentations

 

ORDERING FROM THE COSMIC KITCHEN: The Essential Guide to Powerful, Nourishing Affirmations Click for Book Details & Reviews (A portion of your purchases here helps support Inspiration Line programs.)

~Contributed by Dave Boufford
Positive News

Yes You Can!
CREATE A HEALING HOME

More experts are realizing what the Chinese have known for centuries — a pleasing environment can promote good health. Want to feel less stressed? Add touches of the great outdoors — moving water, plants, and images of nature in artwork — to your home. Want to feel more energetic? Splash a touch of red around your living room.

The field of health design is attracting increased attention these days, from consumers and healthcare professionals alike, as research mounts that our environment can have a profound effect on our physical, mental, and spiritual health. "To be truly healthy, we need to feed all areas of our life," says Hope Karan Gerecht, a feng shui practitioner in Stevenson, Md. "The key word is balance," says Gerecht, author of Healing Design: Practical Feng Shui for Healthy and Gracious Living.

Feng shui, a Chinese system of interior/exterior design that dates back thousands of years, is based on the idea that the items in our homes, and how they're arranged, can affect our life. The three fundamental principles of feng shui are to improve our lives by:

(1) Encouraging the flow of vital energy (chi) in our living environments.
(2) Eliminating negative energy (sha).
(3) Creating balance in our homes by including the five aspects of nature — water, wood, fire, earth, and metal.

Gerecht's 3 general rules of feng shui that support these objectives are to:
(1) Have nothing broken in your home.
(2) Get rid of clutter.
(3) Rid yourself of things you do not love.

When Gerecht enters a client's home for a consultation, she looks for subtle clues that the environment isn't supporting the people in the home the way it should. If a client is having trouble sleeping, she will look to see where the bed is arranged and what surrounds it. Placing the head of the bed against the wall, for example, and using a solid wooden headboard add a sense of stability and improve sleep, she suggests.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), Gerecht says, can be traced to a lack of light. One of the principles of feng shui is that all spaces in our home and workplace should be brightly lit (unless you're trying to create a specific mood). "Brightness supports more physical movement, and movement is life-giving," she says.

This isn't hocus-pocus, says Santa Rosa, Calif., architect Carol Venolia, author of Healing Environments: Your Guide to Indoor Well-Being, and co-founder of the National Building Network. This area of concern is finding its way into our homes and offices, but it's also entering healthcare institutions, says Venolia. "Designers and researchers are increasingly looking at how our surroundings can help us heal and thrive," she says.

In a 1984 issue of Science, Roger S. Ulrich, PhD, of Texas A&M University reported results from a pivotal study on healthcare. After examining records from a hospital recovery wing, he found that patients whose windows looked onto a green landscape had shorter postoperative stays, took fewer pain medications, and received fewer negative medical evaluations on their charts than patients with similar conditions whose windows looked out onto a brick wall.

Many healthcare institutions are acknowledging Ulrich's findings and are beginning to incorporate aspects of healing design into their spaces, says Venolia. To promote relaxation, the University of Arizona's Integrative Medicine Clinic — uses diffusers to spread the scent of lavender; decorates with a lot of blues and greens; has fresh flowers brought in every day; CD players in each room mask routine hospital sounds, and the art on the walls is chosen for serenity.

You don't have to go to a hospital to take advantage of a healing environment, says Venolia. The first and most powerful thing you can do in creating a healthier home of your own is to be aware, she says. "Tune in to your senses," she says. "Note what's around you and how it affects you. If something is annoying you or making you feel bad — whether physically or mentally — that's what you need to fix first."

~Carol Sorgen, WebMD Health.MSN.com

 

Willemstad Floating Market

First settled in 500 A.D. by Caiquetio Indians of Venezuela, the Caribbean isle of Curaçao remained obscure until Spain's Amerigo Vespucci landed in 1499. After Spanish abandonment, the Dutch West India Company claimed it in 1634 and Curaçao remained a Dutch colony until 1954, when it attained self-rule as part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Today, Curaçao's picturesque port, Willemstad, endures as a bustling trade center. Visit the "Floating Market" along Sha Caprileskade. For the last 150 years, traders have docked schooners along the roadside wharf in Waaigat Canal to sell their wares under colorful canopies.

LINKS
THAT SHINE

"HEART INSPIRED PRESENTATIONS"

Patricia Crane, Ph.D. and Rick Nichols present a website dedicated to empowerment, self-esteem, creativity, stress management, workplace wellness, and communication skills. www.HeartInspired.com

Fascinating Facts
MIND OVER MATTER

Both placebos and strong painkillers activate the same areas of the brain, which suggests that pain relief may often be literally a case of mind over matter. The research experiment also suggests the brain has a built-in mechanism for dealing with pain, which might lead to the development of better drugs to treat pain.

Martin Ingvar of the Neurophysiology Research Group in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues there and in Finland exposed volunteers to painful heat and took scans of their brains to see what happened when the volunteers got painkillers or placebo injections of salt water. "Placebo treatment and treatment with painkiller of the opioid family they induced activity in the same region," Ingvar said. "We had nine volunteers each with 12 scans," he said. The volunteers, who knew they were taking part in a pain study, had a heat probe taped to the backs of their hands. It could deliver anything from a warm glow to a 118 degree F near-burn. The volunteers were told they would get two different injections for the pain, which led them to believe they were getting two drugs. In fact, they got a fast-acting opioid drug, remifentanil, or plain saline.

While this was going on, Ingvar's team took positron emission tomography (PET) scans of each person's brains. PET scans can show brain cell activity. Both the drug and the placebo activated two areas of the brain — the rostral anterior cingular cortex and the brain stem. "This indicated that we were actually able to get the same system spinning both with placebo and with the opioid," Ingvar said.

What was unexpected was that the people who responded most strongly to the drug also responded most strongly to the placebo injection, Ingvar said. Perhaps they have stronger pathways in the brain for pain relief, he guessed. It is known that different people perceive pain in different ways and at different intensities.

Ingvar hopes the findings might help researchers find better ways to treat pain. Opioid drugs lose their effectiveness over time, causing patients to need larger and larger doses and eventually causing addiction. Pain is a valuable mechanism to warn that something is wrong, but once a person is aware of an injury, disease or damage and is taking care of it, pain loses its value. "Pain, once you know it hurts, it's just pain," he said.

~REUTERS Health.com

Laughing It Off
OLD GRANDMA SHOES

When I was very little, all the Grandmas that I knew
All walked around this world in ugly grandma shoes.

You know the ones I speak of, those black clunky-heeled kind,
They just looked so very awful that it weighed upon my mind,

For I knew, when I grew old, I'd have to wear those shoes;
I'd think of that, from time to time, it seemed like such bad news.

I never was a rebel, wore saddle shoes to school,
And next came ballerinas, then the sandals, pretty cool.

And then came spikes with pointed toes, then platforms, very tall,
As each new fashion came along, I wore them, one and all.

But always, in the distance, looming in my future, there,
Was that awful pair of ugly shoes, the kind that Grandmas wear.

I eventually got married, and then I became a Mom
Our kids grew up and left, and when their children came along,

I knew I was a Grandma and the time was drawing near
When those clunky, black, old lace-up shoes were what I'd have to wear.

How would I do my gardening, or take my morning hike?
I couldn't even think about how I would ride my bike!

But fashions kept evolving and one day I realized
That the shape of things to come was changing, right before my eyes.

And now, when I go shopping, what I see fills me with glee
For, in my jeans and Reeboks I'm as comfy as can be.

And I look at all these teenage girls, and there, upon their feet
Are clunky, black, old Grandma shoes,
and THEY really think they're neat.


~By Betty Cessna in Pennsylvania, August 1999
(printed with permission of the author)

Untangling the Web

WHAT A SITE!

Take this online quiz to find the best places
to live, work, & retire. Discover perfect hometowns rated to match YOUR unique interests. Compare the best cities and small towns with free reports. Then search for jobs in your career field in your Top Spots. It's fun and FREE at www.FindYourSpot.com

COMPUTER-EASE

Know Your Computer System's Information: Press the Start button, and select the Run command. At the prompt, type MSINFO32 and
a dialogue box will appear with all kinds of
important information about your computer.

Look at THAT!
NURTURING CHOICE

 
Photo: M. Telewa /REUTERS

It's nurture over nature for Kamuniak,
a lioness in north Kenya's Samburu National Park, who has adopted her fifth newborn oryx antelope. Kamuniak, whose name means "the blessed one" in the local Samburu language, has been adopting oryxes since last year. On each occasion she has protected the calves from other predators and even let their natural mothers feed them. Eventually, the calves escape with the help of their birth mothers or the park wardens.

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