Healthy Living DIY

Spring fever is at an all-time pitch. The calendar says it's spring. The sun's shining on my almost-created garden beds. The seeds I started a few weeks ago are looking forward to their new homes. But it's still too cold outside!

What's a backyard gardener to do, but extol the virtues of growing your own food? I hope that by the end of this short article I will have convinced you to consider planting something edible this spring. Even one little plant. How cool would that be?

Here are my top 3 reasons why...

If you're lucky enough to be the caretaker of a dog or cat, I suspect you already have an idea about the topic of this article. Within the last several weeks, the US pet food industry has been turned upside down as contaminated products have been pulled from the shelves.

Aside from the obvious tragedy of the sickened pets, two aspects of this situation really concern me...

Sleepy? Then you're sure to enjoy this article ... on the up-side and down-side of taking naps!

First the down side. If you've read Word Cures, you've already got my 2 cents on sleeping away your productivity. It's no great secret that people get unbelievably tired in the face of an activity they don't want to do.

Example: You work hard all day. You come home tired. Maybe you enjoyed the workday, or maybe it "drained" you. You keep telling yourself you're going to read that book on investing or get to the gym to exercise or clean up the family room. After work. One day. Honest.

But somehow by the time you get home, well, you know. Zzzzzzz. Now what was I saying? Zzzzzzz. Oh yeah. You're just too tired. Maybe a little nap would help. Zzzzzzz. On second thought, maybe you'd better just save that task until tomorrow. Zzzzzzzz.

Been there?

Sure you have.

But take heart. Napping has another side.

Stress and intuition. The connection is so clear! But apparently not to everyone, as evidenced by the questions and befuddled looks I've been receiving lately about the Intuition Infusion.

So let's explore.

Stress comes from what?

1. Disorder and chaos
2. Overcommitment of personal resources (time, talent, money, energy)
3. Personal conflicts and power struggles, especially self-induced ones
4. Failure to recognize and respond to changing circumstances
5. Failure to keep your word
6. Squelched creativity & self-expression

What do all six of these underlying causes have in common? Hint: it's the context. All six underlying stress-makers occur inside of one common context. Context means the setting, environment, or conditions in which something occurs.

So what is the common context for each of these six occurrences? Let's dig a little deeper and see.

Spirit of Place. One of the first places that comes to mind when I think of a public place with a striking personality is the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, part of the Nantahala National Forest in western North Carolina.

Ever been there? I have, and I'll tell you about it in just a moment. But even if you've never been to that specific place, you've probably been someplace like it.

• Acadia National Park on the Atlantic coast of Maine.
• The native pueblos of the American Southwest.
• Yellowstone Park.
• The wilderness areas of northern Scotland.
• Your local casino or watering hole.
• ...Just to name a few...

What do all those places have in common? Spirit of Place. What the Romans called Genius loci: "the unique, distinctive and cherished aspects of a place," according to Wikipedia.

Spirit of Place changes how you feel. It changes how you are. It's an effortless and automatic way to enhance (or detract from) your quality of life. Which is the reason for this article.

If you're tired of struggling to feel good, you're really going to enjoy this!

You know what you want next in life. You've got a sure-fire plan worked out to bridge the gap between where you are and what you want. Now if you could just get yourself to follow the plan, everything would be wonderful!

Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?

But in life, sometimes simple and easy don't match up. Occasionally, you've got to look at things a whole new way before you'll be willing to take those simple steps. Especially if -- in that particular area of your life -- you're used to making your choices based on feelings.

Now don't get me wrong. Feelings are valuable. They have great protective value in keeping you alive and ticking. And none of us can deny the incentive provided by the promise of warm, fuzzy feelings ahead.

But the people who make most of their choices based on what feels good and comfy in the moment? Those are some of the most unhappy people I know.

Fortunately, there's a clear alternative. The alternative option is practiced regularly by some of the most successful people I know. Which team would you like to be on?

If you side with the successful dudes & dudinas, then keep reading.

This one's science. Honest.

They inject some cute little laboratory animals with the bacteria m. vaccae, commonly found in soil. One group gets it, the other group doesn't.

Then they put the cute little laboratory animals into a stressful situation they have no control over. The cute little animals who got the friendly bacteria first handled the stress better than the ones who didn't.

End of story.

How does this affect you?

If you've participated in one of our Wellness Coaching projects, you know I'm sort of a fiend for planning. Honestly it has a lot to be said for it.

In fact, when you sign up as a first-timer for our Wellness Team, right there in your binder is a CD on project planning. I'll also bug you to ship off a project plan for feedback. Just so we know you're on track.

I'm a planning fanatic!

And for good reason. One of the biggest things I see that keeps people from accomplishing all they could in life is lack of planning. They think about the things they'd do if they ever got around to it. But they get stuck on working out how to pull it off. So I push planning big time.

Yet...

I've also seen people get stuck on the other side of the coin. Don't you just love a good paradox?