Follow your intuition—that little voice in your head

How many times have you heard the “little voice” in your head, only to disregard it and perhaps regret that decision later on? I can say for sure this computer glitch definitely has me wishing I had listened.

A while back, my mom sent me this great little backup device for my PC that was totally easy to set up—even I could do it. I moved it from my kitchen to my office to right next to my computer in order to trigger my memory to use it. Still, I didn’t. Now my PC [was] at the shop, and hopefully the technicians will be able to retrieve all on my hard drive, all I haven’t yet backed up. [All was retrieved and rescued in the end.]

My point is: Listen to that voice. It usually if not always knows the right path to take. And if you hear a warning over and over: heed it! It might be that all-knowing part of yourself trying to alert you to something that may be blocking your path up ahead.

I wish I had listened, but lesson learned—again!

Also see:

• Life in Transition: Take this moment for You
• Accepting what is—or else
• The Webs We Weave

Hot water and lemon to the rescue

I went on a 3 ½ hour hike today up to Green Mountain in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. I ran into a few hikers who were feeling the effects of the night before. In other words, they were hungover. I wondered if they took any “hangover helpers” before they went to bed last night or if they did anything this morning to help their bodies—specifically their livers—recover from too much alcohol.

If you’ve had a night of drinking (too much) or even if you’ve just had one or two, the next day is a good time to treat your liver to a little pick-me-up. It’s simple and you can get it anywhere: Hot water and lemon. The lemon juice is a good liver tonic and can help it recover from alcohol consumed the night before. Water is obviously hydrating, and since alcohol acts as a diuretic, leaching water from your body, it is essential during and after drinking alcohol.

This lemon-water drink really tastes good too—if you like lemons! Simply squeeze ¼ to ½ of a lemon in a cup of hot water. Not only will you receive detoxifying benefits, but lemons are high in vitamin C.

If you can, drink one or two glasses of water in between each glass of wine, beer, or liquor. Also, taking evening primrose oil before you go to bed will help with the inflammation and dehydration caused by alcohol, helping to allay a hangover the next day. And do try to drink hot water with lemon juice to give your liver a pick-me-up the morning after.

For more ideas to help you after a night of overindulgence, see 

• A Quick Tip to have fresh lemon water at the ready—always
• Holiday Hangover Helpers
• The Many Uses for Evening Primrose Oil 
• Emergen-C—a little effervescence for your health

Summit marker with the names of the 12’ers, 13’ers, and 14’ers to the west of Green Mountain in Boulder CO.

The Webs We Weave

I was hiking up a trail this morning and came across a beautiful newly woven spider web. I assumed it was new because the night before we had torrential rain storms, something a delicate spider web wouldn’t have survived. It got me thinking about life and how we weave our web, making connections with people and things and building our world all encased in our personal web.

Sometimes there are events and turns in life that cause our web, our security, to get destroyed or otherwise disrupted. Being the strong, persevering humans we are we build and rebuild, and so it goes. We have this wonderful capacity to continue moving forward, even if we have to rebuild our web numerous times—just like a spider.

I want to remember this the next time a storm (a major life event) comes and takes out my web (causes angst and stress and disruption in my life and home). I have the power to rebuild—every day if necessary—and create another web and to create new connections in my life. And in this rebuilding perhaps create a stronger web than the one before.

Also see:

• Coping through tough times 
• Axioms for Life
• Moving Through Loss

Taking Time Out—Less IS More

Lately I have been taking on a lot more than is normal for me. Consequently, I’m tired! What my body is telling me is get more sleep—please! And unfortunately, I haven’t really had time to catch up.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed and can’t get off the treadmill of your life? At these moments, it’s time to take care and listen to your body.

During this time of overload, I have been able to take little cat naps. Even though it’s not getting me caught up completely, these little moments of rest are helpful. If I’m home between working and meeting up with friends, I’ll lie down on my bed—even for just 5 minutes—and relax. Any amount of relaxation during a stress-filled or otherwise busy time will help to recharge your batteries, even if just a little bit.

Without listening to your body and its needs, sometimes your body will just find a way to get what it needs anyway. Many times this will appear as some sort of illness or an injury—anything to get you to slow down! Our bodies are truly brilliant (and efficient) in this way.

Rest well and take care of yourself. I’m saying this to myself as well as to you!

Also see:

• Too Busy for Skin Care
• Bathtime Quick Tips (plus Do Not Disturb Me sign ideas)
• Moving Through Loss

Accepting what is—or else

Is the following a matter of computer viruses or (if you’re into astrology) perhaps Mercury is in retrograde?

A few Fridays ago, late in the day, both my PC and Mac computers shut down for no apparent reason. I’m somewhat computer challenged so I was a bit helpless until I could take my PC into the shop the next business day, which was that following Monday morning. I didn’t have any idea they’d be keeping my precious computer for two weeks. At the time, I used my PC on a daily basis. Now with both computers on the blink, I was going to be stuck—Internet-less.

I felt this “happening” was an important reminder for me: Take life as it comes, and then relax. Eckhart Tolle (author of The Power of Now and A New Earth) talks about accepting what is. Not an easy concept right off the bat, but without acceptance we usually cause ourselves unneeded mental anguish and suffering. Sometimes happiness comes from simply accepting what is.

At the very time my computers gave out, I had a lot of work to do on my website along with articles to write for this blogsite. I also do a lot of communication with clients (as well as family and friends) online, so it was incredibly inhibiting to not have access to my own, personal computer and running over to Kinkos to keep up with my business emails. (And that is exactly what I ended up doing!)

The good news is I got through this computer glitch without too much pain and suffering. I decided to just let go and let life do what life wanted to do. I could have gotten upset and found all the reasons why this event was causing hardship in my life. Instead, I decided to just relax into the now and do other things in the meantime. Things that didn’t involve a computer.

It’s not that easy to “just relax” when life takes unexpected twists and turns. But what other choice is there—really? The alternative to breathing and relaxing in the moment is to stress and worry about things that usually you have no control over. Obviously, computer problems don’t compare to real life traumas like the loss of a loved one or news that actually changes your life. But staying in the moment and not letting your thoughts go too far into the future or delving back into the past can really help you from getting too stressed-out at any given moment. It is not effortless to do—actually, that is exactly what it is!

Happiness is having my PC back

Practice staying in the moment and accepting what is as often as possible—especially when things go sideways. Once you get used to relaxing in the now, the calm state that follows will come more naturally to you, and I believe it will serve you when the winds of change come blowing through your life.




Also see:

• Axioms for Life 
• Coping through tough times
• The Webs We Weave