nakedness and nudity

i see these two as being quite different.

nakedness for me applies more to our love partner and the family whereas nudity i see as being in a public space without clothes.

nakedness is shedding clothes and looking at yourself with a certain sense of acceptance. i will not go so far as to say with total acceptance, because that is pretty tough i think, well it's certainly tough for me. maybe for you it's easy. but even a strong sense of acceptance is healthy enough. i think we need to have a love for our bodies to be able to roll around on the bed with someone and feel comfortable in our skin. to look, to touch and feel good about the other looking and touching. nakedness to me is feeling free and unashamed to look at each other within the family - accepting a healthy dollop of reservations here for exceptions or certain age-groups.

working towards accepting our bodies 'as is' i think is crucial. and if for some reason we're not happy with being this way, we don't like what we see in the mirror then perhaps embracing and not denying or rejecting, the impetus that this unhappiness may bring to help us set out on the road of healthy changes.

as for nudity ... i believe certain changes, certain growth can only take place once we shed the armour of clothing. to me this is huge. clothing is something to hide behind, something to give us 'a look', the look that we might have cultivated for years. it keeps people out and keeps us from feeling as vulnerable as we ought to feel in order to make profound changes to our thinking. once the initial embarassment is over i sense a deeper connection with those around me. shed the clothing and walk out with other people who are not clothed and there is nowhere to hide.

i've experienced such stupendous revelations when interacting with others in this way. to witness the rainbow of gender expression that is to be human (real life it is not as most forms would lead us to believe ... tick one or the other box :-); to see the human form 'warts and all' and to see power and beauty reflect in the faces of people who have survived cancer operations led me to look deeply within myself and understand some of my own weaknesses and negative preconceptions.

i've been humbled by the strength people have shown in their nudity.
reducing the anxiety to be seen without clothing also reduces tensions in ourselves that can manifest in different ways. of course we may not all have the opportunity to be nude in public, we can't take our clothes off and kinda walk out into the neighbourhood park, can we? but perhaps by looking around you might find a place, or group where this is possible. if a chance occurs for this, then take it. you also might find such an experience positive.

 :

profound videos ...

sometimes i come across something that really holds meaning for me.
these are amazingly powerful:


Why do people succeed? Is it because they're smart? Or are they just lucky? Neither. Analyst Richard St. John condenses years of interviews into an un-missable 3-minute slideshow on the real secrets of success.
8 Secrets of success

What should we eat? A powerful example of what food can do for us.
Dr. Terry Wahls - Minding Your Mitochondria

Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz's estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.
The paradox of choice

Statistician Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation's success by its productivity -- instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. He introduces the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use (because a happy life doesn't have to cost the earth). Which countries rank highest in the HPI? You might be surprised.
The happy planet index

At his Stanford University commencement speech, Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple and Pixar, urges us to pursue our dreams and see the opportunities in life's setbacks -- including death itself.
How to live before you die

TEDxHouston - Brené Brown, vulnerability, joy, creativity, belonging, love
Vulnerability, joy, creativity, belonging, love

Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.
Making the case for anti-obesity

William Li presents a new way to think about treating cancer and other diseases: anti-angiogenesis, preventing the growth of blood vessels that feed a tumor. The crucial first (and best) step: Eating cancer-fighting foods that cut off the supply lines and beat cancer at its own game.
Can we eat to starve cancer?

 :

life will be better ...

this is one of those articles that arrived as an email attachment … you know the ones … the ones i usually delete :-) but this one lives to see another day. the author is unknown.

i’m adding a post-script … a very poignant, personal post-script that i hope will resonate for you and give what is written here a special significance.

“We convince ourselves that life will be better once we are married, have a baby, then another. Then we get frustrated because our children are not old enough, and think that all will be well when they are older. Then we are frustrated because they reach adolescence and we must deal with them. Surely we’ll be happier when they grow out of the teen years. We tell ourselves our life will be better when our spouse gets his/her act together, when we have a nicer car, when we can take a vacation, when we finally retire.

The truth is that there is no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, then when? Your life will always be full of challenges. It is better to admit as much and to decide to be happy in spite of it all. For the longest time, it seemed that life was about to start. Real life. But there was always some obstacle along the way, an ordeal to get through, some work to be finished, some time to be given, a bill to be paid. Then life would start. I finally came to understand that those obstacles were life. That point of view helped me see that there isn’t any road to happiness.

Happiness IS the road.
So, enjoy every moment. Stop waiting for school to end, for a return to school, to lose ten pounds, to gain ten pounds, for work to begin, to get married, for Friday evening, for Sunday morning, waiting for a new car, for your mortgage to be paid off, for spring, for summer, for fall, for winter, for the first or the fifteenth of the month, for your song to be played on the radio, to die, to be reborn… before deciding to be happy.
Happiness is a voyage, not a destination.

There is no better time to be happy than… NOW!
Live and enjoy the moment.”

my post-script:
when my mother was diagnosed with cancer, the doctor came out of the consulting room to give me the diagnoses. he asked whether i wish to break the bad news to her or whether i’d like him to do it. i chose the former, planning to gather the family together and so we could all offer mutual support.

she had worked hard all her life, scrimped and saved and went without, to the point that life became a journey of frugality and self-sacrifice. i can fully understand this, since she came from a poor family, had to gauge out a living and did have to make sacrifices. life was hard for her and she raised her children with determination and overcame the constant struggle to put food on the table.

at the time of the diagnoses, she was in a really nice seniors’ home and had put her name down for a particular apartment that overlooked the harbour. it had a panoramic view over the city and the prospect of living there pleased her so much. we had only just moved her in and it must have seemed to her that she had finally arrived at some glorious point in her life, when the family gathered to break the news of her liver cancer.

she took the news in her stride and asked “so how long have i got … two, three years?”.

“no, only three months” was the bad news we had to give her.

i remember the moment well … she looked away, almost absent-mindedly, paused a few seconds and said “and i was just about to start living”.

 :

any moment

i found this poem hidden in an amazing book that’s full of truths:
Thus it is by Martin Exeter Published by Foundation House Publication Inc.
ISBN 0 935427 23 6

for me, this poem seems to stab to the very core of meaning in our attitude

        Any moment of hating
                Any moment of lying
        Any moment of resentment
                Any moment of dying

        Any moment of loving
                Any moment of giving
        Any moment of thankfulness
                Any moment of living

        All our moments add together
                Like digits in a sum
        And the answer tells us plainly
                Whether life or death shall come

 :

what’s important

some years ago i went on some courses in south africa run by dr. baruch banai

i attended Turning Point, Joyspring and The Mile, organized by by insight training center

i thought they were powerful. they were really good for me and i have no doubt that the way i am now has been affected by these workshops. i ‘d like to share one simple but hugely important item that sticks in my mind from one of these courses:

be clear on what is important to you

in its simplicity, this is saying to us that we can’t have things both ways. if we need to cross the stream and there is no bridge, we have to accept that we will get our boots wet. if it’s more important for us to keep our boots dry then we don’t cross the stream. simple. there is no compromise here.

in life we often come up against similar situations. we want something but can’t let go of something else. we often cause concern and anguish for ourselves simply because we don’t accept this simple fact. there’s a decision to be made … this or that … not both. we hang on and hang on and try all sorts of things to keep both. be clear on what is important to you.

once we’re clear on what’s truly important to us; what it is that we really want and then let go of the other thing, then life becomes so much simpler.

sex

sex is like air … it’s no big deal until you’re not getting any : - )

i’m starting with a joke because i don’t want this blog entry to be too serious. sex is a huge subject and very much up there in the forefront, alongside the subject of love and it can have a big influence on our wellness.

but people are divided. to some people, like me it’s very important but to others, it may not be. if you’re happy the way you feel then all is well. i’m not making recommendations one way or the other. for me sex is a beautiful gift. for me it can be used to make us happy; to show each other love; to bond a relationship; to play on a sunday afternoon; it can be the most wholesome and beautiful thing between people. it can be many things depending on how we feel, who we are with and what the moment brings. a previous partner would wake me in the middle of the night to have sex if she couldn’t get off to sleep - she swore that it was better than a sleeping pill. it can be strong and aggressive, it can be playful, it can be loving and dreamy, it can be casual, it can be with the intent of making babies – wow! can it be more wonderful than that?

of course we bring a load of baggage with sexuality - our mother’s and father’s influence, our early experiences, our fears about letting go, our fears about our bodies and being naked, our adult experiences – often having been let down or having been disappointed or even hurt. for me the never ending performance anxiety. i could go on and on. such a complex area of our lives is bound to affect our wellness.

if however, you are one of those people for whom it is not high on the list, then don’t read further. be truthful though … we must not pretend it’s not important if in reality it is, but our many failures (or what we perceive as failures though in fact they may not have been failures at all) have convinced us to pretend that we don’t care about it. that’s not a good idea. the thought will only continue on a much deeper level in our minds and it can spread poison into other areas of our lives.

i can’t even suggest that you ‘be yourself’, because i can see how i’ve changed over the years. when i look back on my own sexual path which started in such naivety, i see that i’ve learned so much from every person that i’ve met on that path. i try not be hold back, to go into each relationship with as much hope, openness and honesty as always and just keep on … trusting, loving, experiencing, and having fun.

happiness

am I happy? i don’t know … i think half the time it’s not knowing what level of happiness i should be at that stops me from saying – yes, i’m happy. i wonder if others are in fact much happier than i am? should i be feeling happy? isn’t there something more?

it reminds me of tree-planting, when rookies get cream. let me decipher this language to some of you who may not be planters … as a beginner planter, you (like everyone else) get good, bad, terrible or sometimes very good ground that we call ‘cream’. so when a new planter looks at their ground and doesn’t realize this is the best they are ever likely to get, they just start planting in the ordinary way – plant for a bit, sit down for a rest, eat a sandwich, have a smoke, plant some more.

when experienced planters gets cream they goes crazy! they know that if you don’t plant this quickly, soon enough others will start coming onto your land to ‘help’ you to finish it. there’s not much cream usually and it goes quickly. so the experienced planter pulls out all stops! no sitting down! nothing but plant, run back to bag up and plant like there’s no tomorrow. an experienced planter knows that this IS cream.

so knowing that yes, this IS happiness is a big thing.

but what IS happiness? does money bring happiness? well the scientific answer (and we so love scientific answers don’t we?) is that it’s the little things in life that govern whether we feel happy or not. for the purpose of the study, rich people and middle and low income people were given little bleepers and throughout the day at various times when their bleepers went off, they were asked to enter whether they felt happy or not at that precise moment.

the results of this study concluded that in fact, whether you were rich or not had nothing to do with your level of happiness. researchers found that the link between wealth and good mood to be “greatly exaggerated and mostly an illusion”. it was little things, like the joy in the cup of tea you were drinking, or whether you felt good after your night’s sleep, or whether any number of small seemingly insignificant things made you feel good at that particular time that determined your overall level of happiness. “even a life-changing event like winning the lottery or suffering a disabling injury doesn't preoccupy most people for ever” researchers said. “eventually, rich or poor, we all go back to focussing on how good our breakfast tastes and what's on TV.”

my good friend mary holding posted on facebook recently: ‘for the first time in my life, I'm not waiting for anything to happen so that I can be happy’.

don’t you just love what she said?

ps. this is an interesting analysis: The Economics of Happiness
Wednesday 31 August 2011
by: Jeffrey D. Sachs, Project Syndicate | News Analysis

just ordinary tea

Another little gem from The Orange Book - which I found lying on the table at a most unexpected place. Yes … when the student is ready the teacher will come.

Just ordinary tea – enjoy it!

Live moment to moment.

For three weeks, try: whatsoever you are doing, do it as totally as possible; love it enjoy it. Maybe it looks silly. If you are drinking tea it is silly to enjoy it too much – it is just ordinary tea.

But ordinary tea can become extraordinarily beautiful – a tremendous experience. Make it a ceremony: making tea … listening to the kettle and the sound, then pouring the tea … smelling the fragrance of it; than tasting the tea and feeling happy.

Dead people cannot drink tea; only very alive people. This moment you are alive! And don’t think of the future; the next moment will take care of itself. Think not of the morrow: for three weeks live in the moment.

Source: The Orange Book, The Meditation Techniques of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

regular exercise

one of the major hurdles in exercising regularly is time and money. time to go to the gym: to get our gear together, pack it in to the car, drive there and back … it takes so much time and money. how many of us has decided that - This year, we will exercise? how many of us have exercise bikes, or weights that are gathering cobwebs in some remote corner of the house. that’s the problem with gadgets. they seem great when we are full of enthusiasm. the gym sales people love us in january, but often don’t see us from february or march onwards because we get bogged down with other things.

so the best way of overcoming this difficulty is to not go to the gym – which means exercising at home. i find this the best way because there are no excuses – there are no gadgets, no travel time. ask yourself if you are worth 11 minutes a day to keep healthy? the answer has gotta be YES!

so here’s the deal:

there’s an exercise program that was developed in the 60’s by the canadian air force. no gadgets, no travel time, it can be done in your home, in the bedroom or any spare room. i’ve been doing it for many years and it works. 5 basic exercises for men and 10 basic exercises for women (don’t ask me why it is 10 for women … i too am puzzled). these exercises hit all the major body parts, the upper body, the big muscles of the leg, the stomach. they can be done by anybody whether you are totally unfit or whether you are close to being an olympic athlete. no, i am not kidding, these 5 basic exercises are even good for the superfit person – check out the star-jumps in exercise 5, page 29 of the Chart.

the thing to do is to start doing them and develop the habit of exercising. i find the mornings are the best for me, my stomach is empty and i do them as i roll out of bed (unless someone is sharing my bed in which case i don’t feel like just rolling out :-) check out the original booklet which gives you charts for different fitness levels.

start with the level that is recommended for you – check with your doctor if you feel you need to.

start now. read my blog ‘until one is committed’ if you’re hesitating.

ps. these exercises were developed in the 60s, and show straight back sit-ups and not crunches. i don’t know much about these things but i believe, it is crunches we should be doing to exercise our stomach muscles and we should also be doing them obliquely (cross over – left elbow to right knee) and not with straight backs: raise heads first, shoulders and then upper body in a smooth rolling motion.

our correct weight

we are organisms - many celled, largish, intelligent, but for all that, still simply organisms. as such, we have a certain build, a certain weight that is the correct weight for our organism.

i feel much better if i have to climb a few flights of stairs and my weight is correct – if my muscle to weight ratio is correct. when i go hiking and have a hefty backpack to carry: the tent, the spare clothing, and the food - the going becomes much more difficult, i’m out of breath easier and i get tired quicker and need to rest more often. the weight i have to carry (the backpack plus my body weight) is not in balance with the heart. the heart has not only to be fit (and i’ll talk about fitness in another blog) but also has to be the correct size for the organism – and that’s me.

regular size heart working hard all the time to pump blood to a large body = trouble.

sportspeople -long distance runners, climbers, talk of their muscle to weight ratio as being crucial for participating in their particular sport. for each pound of extra fat we carry our heart has to pump blood through between 100 to 500 miles of capillaries – see discussion here

body mass index (bmi) is a is a tool used to assess our weight which in turn helps us to learn about our health risks. are you at your healthy weight? you can either look up your bmi on the chart below or find out fast here