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" 7 TRUTHS ABOUT MONEY, WORTH, HAPPINESS & CHOICE1. Money does not validate your personal worth. Just because the financial world uses the term " worth" as it applies to business, does not mean it applies to you as a person. People get that mixed up all the time and it's dangerous. You are worthy just for being. Remember that. You are priceless.2. When you like yourself regardless of the size of your bank account, success will follow because you're already successful. Think about it. Success begets success. Deal with that self-loathing garbage that holds you back, like yourself and get to work. 3. Don't try to validate your personal worth with money. If you do, your self-esteem may go up or down with the size of your bank account or the success or failure of your next venture. That's no way to live.4. The fallacy is that the more money you have the happier you are. Some of the saddest people in the world are filthy rich. That said, some of the happiest people are filthy rich. Likewise, some of the saddest people and some of the happiest people are dirt poor. Money is not the deciding factor in your happiness. You are the deciding factor in your own happiness. Take 100% responsibility for your life and watch magic happen.5. Now don't get me wrong. I live in the 21st century too. Money is like air. You don't know how important it is until it runs out. Money to humans is like water to fish. You can't live without it. Money is how we survive and money impacts our happiness, freedom, how and where we live and our ability to make various choices. 6. In the end, a) money will never determine your personal worth because you are worthy just by the fact that you are here, b) money may impact your happiness, but happiness is a choice regardless of the size of your bank account, and c) money is necessary to survive and enhances your circumstance.7) Bringing it all together: given a choice (which you are if you are reading this mini-essay), why not a) choose to believe you are already worthy regardless of your financial situation, b) make happiness a habit, and c) get a mentor to learn how to earn more income so you never run out of air or water? "
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" The Blue Mind Rx StatementOur wild waters provide vast cognitive, emotional, physical, psychological, social, and spiritual values for people from birth, through adolescence, adulthood, older age, and in death; wild waters provide a useful, widely available, and affordable range of treatments healthcare practitioners can incorporate into treatment plans.The world ocean and all waterways, including lakes, rivers, and wetlands (collectively, blue space), cover over 71% of our planet. Keeping them healthy, clean, accessible, and biodiverse is critical to human health and well-being. In addition to fostering more widely documented ecological, economic, and cultural diversities, our mental well-being, emotional diversity, and resiliency also rely on the global ecological integrity of our waters.Blue space gives us half of our oxygen, provides billions of people with jobs and food, holds the majority of Earth's biodiversity including species and ecosystems, drives climate and weather, regulates temperature, and is the sole source of hydration and hygiene for humanity throughout history. Neuroscientists and psychologists add that the ocean and wild waterways are a wellspring of happiness and relaxation, sociality and romance, peace and freedom, play and creativity, learning and memory, innovation and insight, elation and nostalgia, confidence and solitude, wonder and awe, empathy and compassion, reverence and beauty — and help manage trauma, anxiety, sleep, autism, addiction, fitness, attention/focus, stress, grief, PTSD, build personal resilience, and much more.Chronic stress and anxiety cause or intensify a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. Being on, in, and near water can be among the most cost-effective ways of reducing stress and anxiety.We encourage healthcare professionals and advocates for the ocean, seas, lakes, and rivers to go deeper and incorporate the latest findings, research, and insights into their treatment plans, communications, reports, mission statements, strategies, grant proposals, media, exhibits, keynotes, and educational programs and to consider the following simple talking points: •Water is the essence of life: The ocean, healthy rivers, lakes, and wetlands are good for our minds and bodies.•Research shows that nature is therapeutic, promotes general health and well-being, and blue space in both urban and rural settings further enhances and broadens cognitive, emotional, psychological, social, physical, and spiritual benefits.•All people should have safe access to salubrious, wild, biodiverse waters for well-being, healing, and therapy.•Aquatic biodiversity has been directly correlated with the therapeutic potency of blue space. Immersive human interactions with healthy aquatic ecosystems can benefit both.•Wild waters can serve as medicine for caregivers, patient families, and all who are part of patients’ circles of support.•Realization of the full range and potential magnitude of ecological, economic, physical, intrinsic, and emotional values of wild places requires us to understand, appreciate, maintain, and improve the integrity and purity of one of our most vital of medicines — water. "
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" Getting in touch with the lovelessness within and letting that lovelessness speak its pain is one way to begin again on love's journey. In relationships, whether heterosexual or homosexual, the partner who is hurting often finds that their mate is unwilling to 'hear' the pain. Women often tell me that they feel emotionally beaten down when their partners refuse to listen or talk. When women communicate from a place of pain, it is often characterized as 'nagging.' Sometimes women hear repeatedly that their partners are 'sick of listening to this shit.' Both cases undermine self-esteem. Those of us who were wounded in childhood often were shamed and humiliated when we expressed hurt. It is emotionally devastating when the partners we have chosen will not listen. Usually, partners who are unable to respond compassionately when hearing us speak our pain, whether they understand it or not, are unable to listen because that expressed hurt triggers their own feelings of powerlessness and helplessness. Many men never want to feel helpless or vulnerable. They will, at times, choose to silence a partner with violence rather than witness emotional vulnerability. When a couple can identify this dynamic, they can work on the issue of caring, listening to each other's pain by engaging in short conversations at appropriate times (i.e., it's useless to try and speak your pain to someone who is bone weary, irritable, reoccupied, etc.). Setting a time when both individuals come together to engage in compassionate listening enhances communication and connection. When we are committed to doing the work of love we listen even when it hurts. "
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" Imagination is absolutely critical to the quality of our lives. Our imagination enables us to leave our routine everyday existence by fantasizing about travel, food, sex, falling in love, or having the last word—all the things that make life interesting. Imagination gives us the opportunity to envision new possibilities—it is an essential launchpad for making our hopes come true. It fires our creativity, relieves our boredom, alleviates our pain, enhances our pleasure, and enriches our most intimate relationships. "
― Bessel van der Kolk , The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
