the goode life

Green Girls Global Post

Here's my latest post from Green Girls Global:  Traditional Medicinal Goes Wild

World Gratitude

grat-i-tude:  the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

That's how the dictionary feature on my computer defines Gratitude.  We tend to express gratitude when something good we were hoping for actually happens for us; we show our thanks and appreciation after the fact.  What about before?  Why not be grateful without having received anything in return?

There's a movement that has been started by Stacey Robyn called World Gratitude.  She has gathered a community together of other like-minded individuals who express their gratitude everyday for everyday things.I would encourage you to peruse her website and maybe even sign up for the 42 days of the gratitude gathering (I've followed along twice), even though the new wave has already started you may join any time.

I really enjoyed the daily reminders of being grateful for things I tend to overlook! Go Gratitude!!!

Give Thanks

Cultivating gratitude can boost well-being—and may help you sleep better.

By Jill Duman

Gratitude is a fundamental component of most spiritual paths, and a growing body of research suggests that it has important health implications, too, including better sleep, fewer physical ailments, and a greater ability to cope with stressful situations.

"Gratitude elevates, it energizes, it inspires, it transforms," says Robert Emmons, a University of California, Davis, psychology professor who has helped champion the study of gratitude as a factor in mental and physical health. A series of studies he conducted in 2003 found that people who kept weekly written records of gratitude slept longer, exercised more frequently, had fewer health complaints, and generally felt better about their lives when compared with those who were asked to record only their complaints. In another study, he found that students who wrote in gratitude journals felt more satisfied with their lives and their school experience.

Practicing conscious gratitude has also been linked with positive mental health. Todd Kashdan, associate professor of psychology at Virginia's George Mason University, found that when veterans with posttraumatic stress dis-order kept gratitude journals, they experienced a greater sense of overall well-being in their lives. "There are two parts of being grateful," Kashdan says. "One is recognizing that someone benefited in some way, then mindfully seeing the connection to yourself. You have to really be in the present to see what's happening in your life, what's causing things to happen, and how you fit into things bigger than yourself."

A gratitude practice is a natural companion to yoga, which "offers numerous opportunities to reflect on all there is in one's life to be grateful for," says Emmons. To begin consciously cultivating gratitude, try considering what life would be like without a pleasure you now enjoy, or think about who you are grateful for. A daily gratitude journal can help you be more mindful of these things in your life. But your gratitude practice doesn't have to be scripted: Simply taking time on a regular basis to mentally note your blessings is a big step in the right direction.

This article is from the Yoga Journal newsletter.

It's nothing personal....let it go

The article below could not have showed up in my box at a more perfect time.  This is something I am currently struggling with at the moment -----> you know when you can't stand some of the people you have to work with.........

 

God said:

I will go so far as to say that no one has wronged you. This is what you must understand. They have wronged themselves. Who they think they are and what they said to you or did to you have nothing to do with you. You are not less because of them.

It is like this. A driver of a car who does not see you runs his car into yours. It is not personal to you. You happened to be there. This is the true story of how life is in the world. There are drivers who hit other drivers.

When someone is angry with you, it is the same. Even if someone goes out of his way to find you and let you have it, the anger he happens to lash out at you is his anger. His anger belongs to him. It is not meant to be yours.

 

And the same goes for you, beloveds. You are also a one-man show. The anger you have, the hurt you have, the coldness you feel, are yours. Your reaction is yours. You find justification for your resentment, and yet I will tell you that there is no justification. There is no justification. Because a wrong has been done where you happen to be standing does not justify your resentment.

If the driver of a car hits your car, you don't then ram your car into his. Nor do you think: "He can't do that to me." He did that, but he didn't really do it to you. The driver of the other car is also a one-man show. He didn't see you. It could have been anyone.

Someone else's anger does not come from you. You do not cause it. Their anger was ready to be set off. The same goes for your anger. If you must be angry, be it, and then be done with it, and do not let burning embers of anger be long-lasting. You are meant for greater things than holding a grudge.

Let there be no obstacle to love in your heart. Not one. Free all those who threw their anger or poor behavior at you. Free them. Free the whale of your heart.

You have heard this before: "You only hurt yourself." Whatever you do to another, you do to yourself. If you are a victim, you are a victim of your own reaction. Leave the scene of the crime, beloveds. Get back to the street of love where you belong.

Do not think I am speaking only to others. I am speaking to you. I am speaking to you with all the love in My heart. I am asking you to abandon any feelings in your heart that are not love. They have been there long enough. Any feelings in your heart that are not love are barriers to yourself. Take down the ramparts. Allow your heart to flow.

There has been too much accumulation of wrongs. No one can go back and rewrite the script. In that sense, no one can right a wrong. Yet you must right the wrong that got stuck in your heart. Who is going to remove it if you don't?

I am asking you to remove pent-up anger and hurt and such in your heart. I am asking that, once and for all, you dispense with it. What are you saving it for, beloveds? Throw it away. Throw it away now, and be done with it. Let all you never really wanted get out from your heart where it never belonged in the first place. Hold your heart above the throng. Hold your heart high. Your heart is Mine.

Permanent Link: http://www.heavenletters.org/a-one-man-show.html

Thank you for including this link when publishing this Heavenletter elsewhere.

 

Letting Go of the Past

God Said:

What if you really are all right? Whatever the past has been, whatever you have perceived, what if you perceive differently now? What if I tell you that I erase the slate of the past, and it no longer belongs to you. It never did belong to you, you understand. Words may have come from your mouth, your hands taken action, your heart sickened with fear or anger, and yet I tell you unequivocally that that was not you. It decidedly was not you. You attributed it to you, the world may have attributed it to you, and I tell you now that it was not you.

In any case, I have erased the slate clean, and now so must you let this perpetuity of the past go. Poof. It is gone.

You were not so bad, my dear loves. Even your errors were not so bad. Let your heart of love for yourself be strong. Let the lesser actions of the past crumble, and your heart be strong.

Despite whatever crimes you hold against yourself, of omission or commission, let them go now. A Higher Power tells you to let go of them. You have been punished enough for what was not you, and you have punished yourself enough for what was not you.

What do you think is better to give the world? Pain of regret and sorrow, or joy of stepping forward now onto a new plane of life? Choose, beloveds. Stop choosing actually. Just come with Me and go the way I take you.

Throw away the past. It is of no good to you. It is the past. It has had its teeth into you. Pat the past goodbye and enter with Me now to where you would love to be.

I take you to a new meeting ground. The past does not exist here. There is no place for the past here. The past weighs you down. It doesn't belong to you. It never did. Leave it. Scatter its ashes, and come onto the new grass with Me where we shall build a new structure for you to perceive as I would have had you perceive all along.

Your perception was always amiss.

You were never correct in the first place. Cease accusing yourself. Well, you never were correct unless you perceived the joy I gave to you, and you gave to Me.

Never mind your errors. You saw awry. That was your crime, beloveds. You saw mistakenly and so you acted mistakenly. Be done with that now.

Beloveds, even the beauty of the past, you cannot keep. It has to fly away as well, and now you make new beauty. I don't care who or where you think you were or where you think you are now, you are to create new beauty.

I ask you only to create that which you are capable of creating, and that is beauty and love. Where there is not love, put love anyway. Wash the windows of your mind so that when you look out, you will see better than you have ever seen before. I do not speak of flash, you understand.

If you were a car, I am not talking about your shiny appearance, nor am I talking about the mud the tires may have accrued nor your mileage. I am not talking about the upholstery. I am talking about the heart of you, that fine engine I created and placed in you. It matters not how fast you have sped, or how slow you have gone. It matters not what roads you went down or what roads you did not.

What matters is what gear you enter now and where you take off for.

I invite you to come to Me, just as you are. If you have flat tires, I will put air into them. If you need oil, I will anoint you with oil.

You must excuse yourself from the past. Right now, if you please.

Permanent link to this Heavenletter: http://www.heavenletters.org/the-windows-of-your-mind.html

I'm Baaaaack!

After a super long hiatus - work, teaching, school, other writing projects, and much ado about nothing; I have finally returned to my blog.  I'm really sorry to have lost many of my faithful readers from days gone, but I hope once they see I've returned maybe they will too and hopefully I'll gain some new readers as I've decided to shift the focus of this blog a little.

No longer will I just focus on what's green, and eco-friendly, and good for the environment, and blah, blah, blah.  Part of the reason I was distracted from writing here was because I was suffering from green fatigue.  I'm still into green just tired of it constantly being shoved down my throat.  And when you work in this industry as well, you feel like you can never get away from it!  I needed a break, change of pace and some new scenery. 

I started to explore living my life not only in a green fashion, because it's the trendy thing to do, but just doing things that were goode whether I got green points for it or not.  Things that are goode just for the sake of being goode tend to be green anyways, right?

So from now on the good life will be just that, finding ALL that's goode in life, green or not.  No topic is off limit and no idea too obscure.  I'll return to some of my traditional postings on goode books, good links, good fashion, etc....but over the year I've come across some really goode (great!) people, quotes, ideas, ways of living, and just some general stuff I would like to share with all of you.

                         

The Race for President: Who's Green?

Forgive me for not having posted in a while.  I can't seem to turn my attention away from CNN.  This election year has been nothing short of just fascinating to watch and as a poli sci major in college, this is right up my alley. 

Although our country is divided up into red and blue, I'm really concerned with whose green.  I wrote an extensive article at my column at Bellaonline (the environment section) on the candidates and where they stand on environmental issues.  Obviously we are down to the top three contenders, Hilary and Obama for the Democrats and John for the Republicans.  So I will give you a brief synopsis of the three, but to learn about all the previous candidates please read my full article at Bellaonline here.  That's important because the nominee may choose one of them as a running mate and it's important to know where they stand as well.

The Democrats:

Barack Obama - Senator Obama introduced an energy and climate plan in 2007. He calls for improving energy efficiency in the U.S. by 50 percent by 2030, and all new buildings in the US to be carbon neutral by 2030. He supports a phase-out of incandescent light bulbs by 2014. He proposes investing $150 billion over 10 years in research and development for biofuels, renewable energy, and other clean technologies. He supports raising fuel-economy standards for automobiles to 40 mpg and light trucks to 32 mpg by 2020. He was a co-sponsor of the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, and he calls for cutting U.S. carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. He hopes to accomplish this through a cap-and-trade system that would auction off 100 percent of emissions permits, making polluters pay for the CO2 they emit.

Hillary Clinton- Senator Clinton’s campaign has been carbon neutral! She supports a goal of the U.S. getting 25 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. She supports raising fuel-economy standards to 40 mpg by 2020 and 55 mpg by 2030. She wants the US to cut its consumption of foreign oil by two-thirds of projected levels by 2030. She also proposes a cap and trade system similar to Senator Obama’s; to reduce U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 and would auction off 100 percent of the emission permits as well as other measures. Senator Clinton has been a huge advocate for energy independence throughout her campaign.

The Republicans:

John McCain - Senator McCain has been a leader on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and is probably the greenest Republican candidate of the group! He too supports a cap and trade system for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and opposes the carbon tax. He’s against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He supports the use of nuclear power as an alternative energy source and a way to reduce carbon emissions and he wants to find a way to use our coal resources without emitting more greenhouse gases. Global warming would be a top issue for his presidency. He spoke out against the current administrations lack of action on the climate change issue!

Certified Green Building Professional

Goode News Everyone!  It is official, earlier today I recieved news that I passed my exam (a very rigourous one at that) and I am a Certified Green Building Professional (CGBP), which means you must now respect my au-thor-rity on green building advice! 

I was certified through the Build It Green non-profit organization, whose mission is to promote healthy, energy - and resource efficient building practices in California.  They are the best and work in tandem with LEED (ask more about this later if interested)!

~Arcadia, the Green Building Guru

                                                      

Goode Green News Roundup

This week Springwise is giving you one more green thing to do (as if we don't do enough already)!  Their latest newsletter tells you about a new site called Green Thing (a UK site), that gives it's user one green thing to do a month.[Springwise]

Springwise is also alerting us to this great site called Bord Bar (a German site) that re-purposes airplane trolleys into compact rolling cabinets for offices and homes, very industrial chic![Springwise]

Wasn't it in the book the Grapes of Wrath were too much sun killed the harvest?  Well times have changed, it seems it's the sun that's keeping the grapes on the vines in the wine country of California.  It's often assumed that Silicon Valley is the leader in solar power, not so says the San Francisco Business Times.[SF Business Times]

Even the Wall Street Journal is reporting there is only so much GREEN a person can take.  They report that people are willing to go green if it doesn't impede on their current lifestyle!  That's what I've been saying since the inception of this blog, but believe me people the green life is The Goode Life![Wall Street Journal]

Eco-millionaires

Gone are the heydays of the Oil Barons.  Get ready to meet the Green Barons.  Here's an interesting article which interviews four entrepreneurs who are already seeing gr$$n.  Looks like green is the new gold.