Posts tagged "health"

Running? Me? Who could ever thought?

Last week, I started something new.  When my friend Sandy and I went to Celery Fields hill, I saw 2 little kids and their mother running down the hill.  They had smiles on their faces, having a great time.  I thought for a moment, when was the last time I run?  I remembered my high school years when we used to run short-distance and long 2 km distance.  I was a pretty good runner in a long distance.  We even used to run in the snow.

So, I handed my camera to Sandy and I took off downhill.  Climbing up hill was not challenging enough, so I upped my game.  I run uphill 2 times.  My heart pounding, the wind in my hair, I felt ALIVE!  I was smiling ear to ear!  I put my arms in the air and at that moment I decided I want to get fit.  I want to be strong.  I want to feel alive!  … And I’m keeping my word.  I came back to the hill again.  I also run in my neighborhood.

In running, I became more aware of my surroundings.  Even my eyes became so much clearer, and this clear vision right now is staying for prolonged time. Before, my vision was a bit blurry, then clear, a little more blurry and then clear, and so on.  It was going from 20/40 to 20/25 most of the time.  Right now, even after finishing running, in this past week I can feel my vision stays clearer longer than usual.  And when I see 20/20, every leaf on the tree, I become ecstatic. WOW!  By running, I see beautiful front yards of neighbors.  Today, I saw a swing on a tree.  I see birds on a roof or flying by.  I hear hawk screaming.  My senses become alive.  My heart pounds, I breathe hard, then I start walking and later running again.  I become so aware of everything.  Even I pick up senses of flowers or blooming trees.  Oh, what a great fragrance!  It is so great to feel ALIVE!

Wow!  I just read some benefits of running.

6 benefits of running

I found this article helpful, too:

For Beginner Runners

Another great form of exercise and self-expression is dancing.  I danced this weekend, too.  My muscles were sore the next day, but it was so much well worth it.  My friends and I had such a great time.  Here is something I wrote awhile ago about dancing: What is your dancing style?

Recently I met my new friend.  We talked for hours, walked in a drizzling rain, went to the beach in the dark.  We had a great time and conversation.

In talking with her, I realized how far I came.  My attitude towards everything has changed.  Like the saying goes, “Do not look for me in the past.  I am not there anymore.”  It rings so true to me.

I realized all the struggles I been through in the past only made me stronger.  The people who treated me unfairly are no longer in my life.  Some things that I would be dead serious about before, just made me laugh.  I know what I want and nothing will stop me.

By talking to my friend, I glanced into my past and right now.  I came a LONG way. Wow!  I am not afraid of little setbacks anymore.  It only makes me stronger.  Setbacks are just a little building blocks that goes to the top of the castle of our dreams come true.

By summing up all our conversations about life and people, an enormous gratitude filled my heart.  I am grateful for:

1. My family and friends.  You are truly amazing, each one of you!

2.  My health.  Where I was and where I am now – HUGE difference!

3.  My pets who give an unconditional bundles of love and joy.

4.  A peace in my heart.  Forgiveness plays a huge part.

5.  My self-confidence.  Gosh, even my back is straight and I see clearer.

6.  My cheerfulness and positivity.  A simple smile makes the whole difference not only for me, but for others.

7.  My creativity and curiosity.  I LOVE making ordinary into extraordinary, to challenge myself to see in creative ways.

8.  Challenges.  They teach me lessons and test me how strong I’ve become.  It builds a character, so bring it on.

9.  New opportunities that unexpectedly present themselves.

10. LIFE.  I cherish every minute that I am alive!

What are you grateful in your life?

I found this really interesting from book Ageless Body, Timeless Mind by Deepak Chopra.  It made some great points about quality of life we choose to have, and how it affects our longevity.

“Trying to articulate a specific “longevity personality” is too constricting for centenarians – the benign, quiet, wise grandfather or grandmother is only one type among many.  Living to be 100 also happens to selfish, sarcastic, and unsociable people.  The common thread is a sense of self-sufficiency that runs much deeper than personality.  To support this point, a 1973 study in New York of seventy-nine healthy people 87 years of age and older found that they almost never went to doctors, were never found in nursing homes, and were rarely in homes for the aged.”

“Jewett’s study saw longevity in broad terms, and the majority of the factors he came up with were subjective, having to do with how these people felt about themselves.  In comparison, the purely objective factors linked to long life were few and very general.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Not seriously overweight or underweight

Little weight fluctuation over their lifetime

Good general muscle tone

Good grip

Young appearance to skin

Still drives a car and engages in physical activity

PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS

(Including Lifestyle and Behavior)

Superior native intelligence, keen interest in current events, good memory.

Freedom from anxiety, few illnesses, not prone to worry.

Independence of choice in their vocations.  They tended to be their own bosses.  They worked at farming and in the nursery business, and in the professions of law, medicine, and architecture; others headed small businesses of their own, and in a few cases large businesses.  The majority did not retire early.

Most had been hard hit by the Depression, which came along in their fifties and sixties, but they recovered and built new futures.

They enjoyed life.  All had a degree of optimism and a marked sense of humor.  They responded to simple pleasures.  Life seems to have been a great adventure.  They could see beauty where others saw only ugliness.

Great adaptability.  While many cherished childhood memories, all preferred living in the present with its many changes.

They continued living with satisfaction from day to day.

All may be described as religious in the broad sense, but none exhibited extreme orthodoxy.

They were moderate eaters but willing to experiment.  No special diets.  Diet included a high variety of foods high in protein, low in fat.

All were early risers.  Average sleep was between six and seven hours, although they rested in bed for eight hours.  (Shortened or interrupted sleep is typical in old age.)

No uniformity in drinking habits.  Some drank moderately, some drank too much at times, some abstained.

Smoking – some abstained, a few had smoked very moderately but had long since given it up, a few were inveterate pipe smokers.

Medications – used less medication in their lifetimes than many old people use in a week.

Most drank coffee.

Here are the excerpts from brilliant book by Deepak Chopra, M.D., Ageless Body, Timeless Mind.

“This conclusion came after studying long-lived people from many diverse cultures and periods of history. Active mastery means having autonomy over one’s life and circumstances, not power over others.  Beyond any body of evidence about aging and how to prevent it, the single most important factor is that you make something creative from your existence.”

Ten Keys to Active Mastery:

1. Listen to your body’s wisdom, which expresses itself through signals of comfort and discomfort.  When choosing a certain behavior, ask your body, “How do you feel about this?” If your body sends a signal of physical or emotional distress, watch out.  If your body sends a signal of comfort and eagerness, proceed.

2. Live in the present, for it is the only moment you have.  Keep your attention on what is here and now; look for the fullness in every moment.  Accept what comes to you totally and completely so that you can appreciate it, learn from it, and then let it go.  The present is as it should be.  It reflects infinite laws of Nature that have brought you this exact thought, this exact physical response.  This moment is as it is because the universe is as it is.  Don’t struggle against the infinite scheme of things; instead, be at one with it.

3. Take time to be silent, to meditate, to quiet the internal dialogue.  In moments of silence, realize that you are recontacting your source of pure awareness.  Pay attention to your inner life so that you can be guided by intuition rather than externally imposed interpretations of what is or isn’t good for you.

4.  Relinquish your need for external approval.  You alone are the judge of your worth, and your goal is to discover infinite worth in yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks.  There is great freedom in this realization.

5. When you find yourself reacting with anger or opposition to any person or circumstance, realize that you are only struggling with yourself.  Putting up resistance is the response of defenses created by old hurts.  When you relinquish this anger, you will be healing yourself and cooperating with the flow of the universe.

6. Know that the world “out there” reflects your reality “in here.” The people you react to most strongly, whether with love or hate, are projections of your inner world.  What you most hate is what you most deny in yourself.  What you most love is what you most wish for in yourself.  Use the mirror of relationships to guide your evolution.  The goal is total self-knowledge.  When you achieve that, what you most want will automatically be there, and what you most dislike will disappear.

7.  Shed the burden of judgment – you will feel much lighter.  Judgment imposes right and wrong on situations that just are.  Everything can be understood and forgiven, but when you judge, you cut off understanding and shut down the process of learning to love.  In judging others, you reflect your lack of self-acceptance.  Remember that every person you forgive adds to your self-love.

8. Don’t contaminate your body with toxins, either through food, drink, or toxic emotions.  Your body is more than a life-support system.  It is the vehicle that will carry you on the journey of your evolution.  The health of every cell directly contributes to your state of well-being, because every cell is a point of awareness within the field of awareness that is you.

9. Replace fear-motivated behavior with love-motivated behavior.  Fear is the product of memory, which dwells in the past.  Remembering what hurt us before, we direct our energies toward making certain that an old hurt will not repeat itself.  But trying to impose the past on the present will never wipe out the threat of being hurt.  That happens only when you find the security of your own being, which is love.  Motivated by the truth inside you, you can face any threat because your inner strength is invulnerable to fear.

10. Understand that the physical world is just a mirror of a deeper intelligence.  Intelligence is the invisible organizer of all matter and energy, and since a portion of this intelligence resides in you, you share in the organizing power of the cosmos.  Because you are inseparably linked to everything, you cannot afford to foul the planet’s air and water.  But at a deeper level, you cannot afford to live with a toxic mind, because every thought makes an impression on the whole field of intelligence.  Living in balance and purity is the highest good for you and the Earth.

This is 4th book I read by Deepak Chopra.  Interestingly, when I read his thoughts, I catch myself thinking mostly the same.  I get pleasantly surprised when I find some of his expressions are exact like mine, as if we speak the same language.

Relationships and friendships come and go.  Sometimes we feel we put everything into it, but for some reason it is not working out.  We drift apart, and our hearts are broken.  Or are they?  Relationships and friendships might not work out, but our hearts keep beating.  They are strong and keep us alive.  Sure, they might hurt for awhile, if we let it.  We might start guarding our hearts by putting up the wall.  We think, “I’ll never get married again,” “I don’t want to get into relationship again,” “I will never trust anybody again.”  So, we lock our hearts away, put a huge protective wall and stop taking chances.  We tell ourselves, “We need time to ourselves,” or “We need time to heal.”  For some of us, it might take a short time, but for some of us it might take years to open up again.

So, when we think that our heart is broken, we carry with us our past hurts, a fear to be open again, a fear to be vulnerable.  Certainly, our hearts hurt because we carry with us all this baggage filled with hurtful memories, regrets, pain, anger, fears, what ifs, hopes, failed expectations.  Can you imagine life without all this heaviness?  Can you imagine heart feeling light?  It is possible.  It’s not easy, if we let our minds to control what we feel.  It is only possible if we get rid of all the past negativity through:

1) Forgiveness and letting it all go;

2) Letting our heart to feel what it wants to feel without mind interference;

3) Learning to love ourselves and focus on new possibilities.

Forgiveness…  Oh, I can now hear the protests, “But he or she did so and so!” Do you know that by carrying grudge, anger, or sadness and reliving painful moments, we only hurt ourselves?  It does not affect the person that hurt us.  It only affects us and our hearts.  So why torture ourselves with that?  The next thought:  What if that person who hurt us did not know any better given their own life experiences, or lack of?  There is no way this is an excuse, but from their point of view and circumstances, they thought they are right, they needed to be in control, or they might not be aware that they hurt us.  We are not in their shoes.  Therefore, we can not understand them where they were coming from at the time.  We all deal with stuff in our own ways.  Forgiveness is not for the sake of other person and does not excuse for the way they wronged us.  Forgiveness is a strength.  It is letting go what happened in the past, and not letting to affect us and our decisions in the now.  Can you imagine your heart free?  That’s the way to go.  Let it all be left in the past and not the present and the future.

Once we got rid of the past headaches, we will feel our hearts filled with so much love:  love for family, friends, animals, nature, LIFE.  The key is not to let our minds to control what we feel.  If the mind remind us about being hurt and if we concentrate on that hurt, it might bring the same situation we been before.  Now, if we trust our hearts and let it feel, it might lead us into a new love.

By opening our hearts to life, we open ourselves to new possibilities, new ways to experience things.  Our hearts never wrong us if we only really listen to them closely.  We are born with a “hunch,” with “inner knowing.”  Sometimes all we need is to quiet our minds, to hear it.

The third way how to heal our hearts is to learn to love ourselves, to accept ourselves the way we are.  I do not say to be conceited, like “Look who I am.”  To love ourselves means to know what we want in life and go for it, to be the best we can be and share our passions and talents with the world, to establish who we are regardless of others’ expectations.  Once we learn to love ourselves, we will attract love and respect of others.  We will be strong to recognize environment and people who are harmful to us.  Therefore, we will not get into bad situations.  Once our heart is filled with love, we’ll concentrate on just that.  That’s how we will attract love to ourselves by giving love and care to others.

I can’t thank enough my brother Max Spiker and author Jacob Liberman, O.D., Ph.D. for giving my eyesight back (see my previous post).  It feels so incredible!  Each day, I feel spurs of joy when I start seeing something new.  A few nights ago, for the first time I saw a Big Dipper, and the sky filled with the brightest stars.  I see more and more stars now.  All without my glasses!  Even nights became brighter.  Now, I started to see smaller street signs, numbers on mail boxes, a menu board at Starbucks.  Each new seeing is a victory.  According to the eye chart, I went from 20/200 to 20/30 in two weeks.  Now into 2 and a half weeks, I read 20/25 line, and saw 4 letters in 20/20 line.  I left my eyeglasses and I did not put them on since I started this journey.  I even drove through a little fog and in the rain day and night without glasses.  Interestingly, rain made my vision even more clearer.

My vision is not constant yet, but I have longer and longer periods of great seeing.  One blink – I see everything absolutely clearly, another blink – it becomes a little blurry (but nothing like it used to be), a third blink – all clear again.  When outdoors and in the car, I see it better than being inside in the artificial light.  Sometimes, I see double or triple, but with adjusting blink it goes to normal again.  When that happens, I think it would be neat to capture what I see on the camera:  like a triple moon or a handsome double guy.  LOL!  It all depends on light, my mood, my thoughts, how I react to people’s conversations.  If a person is stressed out, I find myself putting blur blinds because I feel that person’s energy, and I do not like it.  If the person is excited and enthusiastic, my vision becomes really clear.  The same is with my thoughts.  If I get excited, the vision becomes really clear.  If I start to worry about something, the blur comes back.  The blur is not like used to be, though.  I used to see only fog.  Therefore, when I would get up, I would automatically put glasses on.  Not anymore.  When I wake up, in the first minutes, my vision becomes clearer and clearer (especially in the last few days, as at first it would take 15 minutes to half an hour for vision to clear).  Also, if I stress to see, it does not work.  If I relax and breathe, I see so much better.  Interestingly, the faces I start to see are so smooth.  Still have a hard time to see them in a distance, but I’m working on it.  Again, outside I see them so much better than inside in the low light.

This experience is unbelievable, and I am determined to have a perfect vision.  I can’t believe I do not need glasses and contacts anymore.  Without glasses, I feel as if somebody lit up my world.  It is not everything about my vision either.  The whole outlook changes.  I feel like I am peeling blur layers one at the time.

First layer of blur is fear.  Some people are afraid to try this.  How can anybody go out in the world when all they see is blur?  Self-doubt sets in.  “What ifs” will boggle the mind.  I dove into this experience straight without any doubt.  If author could do it, so can I.  Bravery, determination, and persistence came into my world.

Second layer of blur is self-constriction and staying in the known.  Some people think, “It is great for you, but I’ll wear my glasses anyway.  I just got my new prescription.”   Although it was unfamiliar to me, I had no doubt I’ll succeed.  I opened doors widely to a new possibility of seeing, and I am succeeding.  Freedom came into play.  If I just breathe and relax, I see better.  If I stretch, freely dance, I see better, too.  When I dance, I express myself more through freeing motions.  I feel music with all my senses.  I let it flow through every fiber of my body.

Third layer of blur is a “wall of protection” (that’s huge for me).  To be safe, we often do not take chances.  When people hurt us, we start not to trust anybody.  We build a wall.  It is all about our thoughts and emotions.  Early memories might flow in, the way we felt before we needed glasses:  What we did not want to see, could not see a way out, did not understand.  I used to be really shy.  I did not trust anybody, including myself.  So, it might be one of the reasons why I had difficulty to see faces.  Right now, I’m re-framing my mind and the faces I see are so soft.  They become more clearer each day.  All it takes is to be open.

Life is incredible and I love seeing it without constricting glasses, fears, and self-limiting beliefs.  I want to see more, experience more, touch and feel more.  My self-expression is wide open.  Anything is possible, even a miracle of seeing, if we persist and really believe.

See how it all started: Seeing Miracle

See my latest update here: Mind over Body

Miracles do happen when we believe in them.  They are occurring every day, if we open our eyes to see it.  Literally…

My incredible brother suggested that what if I would take my glasses off and see.  I thought, “Are you out of your mind? I am blind without them!”  Then he told me about this book Take Off Your Glasses and See.  That sounded intriguing,  so I went to Barnes & Noble.  I asked at the desk, “Where can I find “Take off Your Glasses and See?” The lady looked at me offensively and said, “I beg you pardon?” She was wearing glasses.   Giggling inside, I bought the book.

As I started reading it, I could not put it down.  It all made sense.  I took my glasses off and start seeing the world.  It is only sixth day, and I am already driving without glasses day and night.  Every day, I am seeing more and more.  It is incredible!  I am living a miracle!

I wore glasses for around 24 years.  I thought I was doomed to wear glasses for all my life.  At first I hated them.  Then I got used to them.  Then I got contact lenses, and I loved lenses more.  I had no idea that our vision can be improved or restored.  Many people go as far as to get Laser surgery, when our eyesight can be improved naturally!!!

It is not only about vision.  It is about our mind and body connection!  It is about when we put our “blur blinds” on, what we are not willing to see, what we are afraid to face, what we do not understand.  It is about traumas in our lives and how we react to them.  It is about our fears, our hidden feelings, about how we see the world.  Eyeglasses and lenses are only our visual crutches.  We can see through them better, but they do not help to see and deal with reality.  It is like living behind the glass that makes everything smaller (if we have nearsightedness).  It is like living in aquarium with bottled up feelings.

It takes a courage to take off glasses and to have an open mind.  Eyeglasses, especially when we wear them for a long time, becomes our security blanket.  We see what we know, and what we know gives us comfort.  It is pretty scary to be without glasses when all we see is blur.  It is like walking in the unknown.  The miraculous change occurs if we are brave enough to keep glasses off.  We start seeing more clearly.  We got to be patient though.  It depends on our mental and emotional state.  If we feel down for some reason or get scared, the blur might come back, and we might be tempted to put glasses back on again.  It all takes is to be present and feel the emotions that we are not willing to feel.  We got to be brave to see through it no matter what.  If we persist, we might start feeling things that are unfamiliar that we wanted to block it off all our lives.  We got to feel them, express them, see through them.

In my first try of driving, I put glasses on the tip of my nose, just in case.  I wanted to see how it is like, so I drove some seeing through glasses, and some through my blur.  The next morning, I did the same, but I found that glasses were just in my way, so I took them off and put them by my seat.  To my amazement, the vision got clearer and clearer.  Right now, I feel like a grade school student after learning how to read.  I read businesses signs everywhere.  I started seeing street signs, some even in small print.  It is amazing!  I still can not believe it!  Right now, I am training my eyes to see faces.  I see them on and off, blurry and in all detail.  I had a flash of great vision where I could see faces across the street.  It is work in progress.   I am persistent, though.  I’ll break through that barrier, too.

Another thing is when I see the real world and not hiding behind glasses and contact lenses, I have surges of joy when I start to see more and more.  My heart is filled with love and passion.  I want to touch, see, feel, experience everything.  I want to push my limits, be brave.  I am already brave.  If I can drive without glasses, I can do anything!  I do not have limits anymore.  Everything feels more beautiful, more fuller, more bigger, more closer.  I am facing uncomfort straight.  I see it eye to eye.  Today for the first time, I left glasses on my desk.  Before I carried them with me in hands, just in case, like a security blanket.  Yes, it felt uncomfortable at first, but I made it!!!

I can’t wait for each day to see more.  The whole new world is opening up before me where I am brave to see through anything. My vision went from 20/200 to 20/60 in 6 days.  I have flashes of vision where I can read 20/50 and even some 20/40 line.  I even started to see more stars at night when before if I would see one, I would be lucky.  Thank you, my brother, and Jacob Liberman, O.D., Ph.D. (the author) for opening my eyes where I can live my life to the fullest.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart!  You are my heroes!

See my update here: Seeing Miracle Continues

See my latest update here: Mind over Body

The only constant is change.  Yet we resist change with all our might.  We afraid of it like a bad case of flu.  We fight it, we deny the reality, we put the blinds on the change.

What if instead of resisting, we embrace change.  What if we would accept what is happening with us? What is resistance anyway?

Resistance is a being afraid.  It is filled with darkness, fears, anger, victim-hood and unhappiness.  Resistance is looking back to the past, to the familiar and known.  It locks us up in the box within our past experiences.  There is no freedom in it.  It only allows us to see what we already know, a known comfort.   It prevents our growth and learning.

Acceptance, on other hand, is a first step towards the change.  It is intermediary.  Acceptance lets us to go on, gives us an opportunity to glimpse in our future, the first steps to take.  It opens us to the whole new world of possibilities.  Acceptance comes from the place of love, lightness and courage.  It is feeling of the present.  It is like an open canvas.  It is up to us to fill it with colors we want.

What if we’d go about the day or week accepting everything in our life? It might be a struggle at first.  If resistance creeps in,  lets accept it, too.  Let’s acknowledge it, and be present to it.  Let’s see how it feels.  It might be a knot in a stomach, a headache, sleeplessness.  Now, let’s feel it, accept it and let it go.  Letting go is like taking that huge stone out of our chest.  We’ll feel so much lighter.  Now, let’s see what is opening up to us?  What colors we will use in our present and future?  We are masters of our life.

When we look at the mirror, what do we see?  Do we see tiredness, sadness, wrinkles?  Or do we see happiness, enthusiasm, smile?  Do we see pain and struggles? Or do we see sparkling energy and love?

Now, let’s look at the outside world.  What we notice first? How we relate to people?  Do we see them struggling or being successful?  Do we encounter sadness or happiness?

Usually, our inner state reflect our outside world.  What we choose to concentrate on, that’s what we see.  What we feel inside, that’s what we feel and see around us.  That’s why it is so easy to feel empathy for people who are going or went through similar situations that we did.  We can feel their pain or joy.  Now, if somebody is going through entirely different experience that we never been through, we will not understand it; it will feel odd to us.

We are all conditioned by our past, good or bad and by what we know.  We’ve been through ups and downs and sideways.  We view our world through our past experiences, what is familiar to us.  If we been through pain, we view our world through pain.  We encounter people who are going through the same pain.  Sometimes pain becomes anger, hatred and revenge.  An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  We want the person who hurt us to be hurt.  We want them to suffer the same way they made us suffer.  Where does it get us, though?  Like Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” It does not do anything good, except it causes more pain.

Now, if we would concentrate from a place of love and compassion, no matter of circumstances, the outcome would be completely different.  We would start caring for each other.  Instead of war, there would be peace.  Instead of hatred, there would be love.  One man can make a world of difference.  Let that be us.  Gandhi is one of many examples.  He saw peace for India; he stood for his beliefs and by being himself, he reached seemingly unattainable.

So, how about instead of wrinkles, let’s see lines of wisdom. Instead of tiredness, let’s see rest.  Instead of sadness, let’s consciously smile more.  Instead of struggles, let’s imagine our dreams come true.  Instead of pain, let’s fill our hearts with love.  Love does conquer it all.  If we change our outlook in life and see our world through new open possibilities, we will change our life for the better.  Let’s reflect goodness from our hearts into the mirror of outside world and make a difference now.

How many times do we make trips to our past?  Ah, memories.  Some of them are sweet, bring a smile to our faces, warm our hearts.  “Those were the good old days, ” we sight.  However, for some of us the past was not that sweet.  We cringe even thinking about it.  It haunts us like a bad nightmare.  We carry it with us like the heaviest baggage; or we bury those memories in the back of our minds.  We lock them and we loose the key.  Our minds shut it off and we forget, until something triggers, and we find ourselves in pain again.

What to do with this haunting hurtful past?  How to make it all to go away?  How to start a new?

To go on, we need to make a peace with our past.  It is not easy.  It might take a moment, months or even years.  We got to be ready for it.  It is something we can not push it.  It depends what eats away at us, and severity of it.  Possibilities could be:

1) regrets;

2) sorrow;

3) people

Regrets usually come equipped with “what ifs.”  What if I would have done it differently?  Each of us have different experiences in our lives.  If we chose to be one way, that means we were not experienced enough to make different choices back then.  We all make mistakes.  That’s what is learning all about:  it gives us lessons and new experiences.  Now we know better from it.  We cannot change our past, only now and the future.  Because of those mistakes, now we can make better choices which we should be grateful for.  There is no use to have regrets about our past decisions, when we can make a better ones now.

We lose someone we love, or someone leaves us.  In our lives, people and pets come and go.  Instead of concentrating of losing them, we should be grateful that they were a big part that touched our lives.  We should feel fortunate to know them and love them.  Each person and animal leave a footprint in our hearts, and we are better because of them.

Then, we meet people who hurt us, betray us, even in some cases abuse us.  These memories could linger for the longest time if we let them.  It keeps hurting us when we look back as if it is still happening now.  That’s where a beautiful thing comes in – being in control of our minds.  We can stop our memories at any time.  Bad thoughts and remembering do not serve us.  It only gives us a headache.  Anger does not serve us either; it only hurts us.  Each person we meet bring something to us:  lessons needed to be learned, a cause of being a stronger person, new experiences.  We might not seen it then, but after time, we can find the reasons why we encountered these people, no matter what painful experiences we had.  The key to these negative situations is to never feel like a victim.  Going back and remembering is like putting ourselves in “victim” mode over and over again.  Now there will be a time where remembering will not affect us that anymore – then the true healing begins.

We all have our minds.  Therefore, we can choose to have thoughts.  If we choose to be angry, depressed, resentful, we only hurt ourselves with our thoughts, and we may even reflect that on our loved ones and not be aware of it.  Now if we choose to make a peace with our past, knowing that past stays in the past, and we only can change now and future, we open ourselves to new possibilities and experiences.  We know that we do not need to make the same mistakes again and let anybody treat us badly.  We can start a new without heavy baggage of our past.