The Secret of Life

I find it is important for my inner woman to make quiet time for myself.  The inner woman is all about achieving personal peace and developing emotional resilience.

For me, the road to personal peace is found when I seek to quiet my mind and spirit.  Usually ten to fifteen minutes every day is enough for me to gather my thoughts and try to figure out  my daily goal; or at least try and figure out what direction I think I would like for my day to take.  Sometimes my goal is serious, such as finishing a project at work, and sometimes my goal is silly, such as trying to see if I can go without cursing for one hour.  You may think I'm kidding but I'm not!

Every day we are bombarded with different messages from the internet, television, radio and the telephone and our brains are basically tied up being information traffic cops telling us what to pay attention to and what to ignore.  You can't go from one activity to the next or try to do multiple activies and not begin to feel the effects of that constant switching.

No wonder we feel stressed.  We need to take a break.  We need to take out regular time during the day to soothe our minds.  There's nothing wrong with doing something mindless once in a while, right?  Isn't that what Star and People magazine are for?

Seriously, our inner voices are trying to tell us what we need to do to refresh and restore our inner selves but we need to create quiet to hear it.  How do you tune in to your inner self?

The Secret of Life

Author Unknown

As the Lord God was creating the world

he called upon his archangels.

The Lord asked his archangels to help

him decide where to put the Secret of Life.

"Bury it in the ground," one angel replied.

"Put it on the bottom of the sea," said another.

"Hide it in the mountains," another suggested.

The Lord replied, "If I see to do any of those

only a few will find the Secret of Life.

The Secret of Life must be accessible to

EVERYONE!"

One angel replied, "I know: put it in each

man's heart.

Nobody will think to look there."

"Yes!" said the Lord.  "Within each man's heart."

And so it was --

The SECRET TO LIFE lies within all of us.

Gaining Personal Power

One of the many trees that uprooted after Washington, DC storms

Over the past several weeks, my neighborhood has lost electrical power several times for varying periods of time.

Maybe you've read about the very sudden and very strong storms that recently have hit the Washington, DC area.  It's been very scary and frustrating.  We are still recovering from the last storm that hit over a week ago: some people in Bethesda and Rockville, Maryland are still without power and have been without power for over a week.  Pretty unbelievable right? 

You should read the news stories and tweets about PEPCO, the area's local utility.  PEPCO was recently listed by Business Insider as the number one "most hated company in America."  Oh yeah, by the way, PEPCO has proposed a 5% rate increase for the District of Columbia and a 4% increase for the state of Maryland.  Definitely no love there!

It's a funny thing about losing power in your house.  For some reason it doesn't really hit you at first what you can and can't do.  For example, when I first lost power, my thoughts immediately went to this: "I should go on the computer and report this to PEPCO."  And then I thought about cooking something in the microwave.  DUH!! How can I go on the computer or use the microwave when I don't have any electricity?

The first storm was so powerful it blew my cable box out.  I didn't have television for 7 days.  I missed watching TV mostly in the morning when I wanted information about traffic jams and the weather before I went out the door to work.  But I also found that when I didn't have TV, that I spent my evenings more productively. 

I admit there are times when I just automatically turn on the TV.  It's just a bad habit.  The power outage made me rethink what I was doing.  No power, no TV.

Instead of mindlessly lounging in front of the TV after work, I was doing a lot more reading, organizing around the house, talking to my neighbors and yardwork that I had put off.  I listened to the radio for news but only when I needed to.  It wasn't blabbling for hours at a time.

I recentered myself and I felt I was more engaged with my daily routine.  I found I had more creative and had quiet time.  Quiet time is so important because it allows you to untangle your thoughts. A frantic mind is what causes stress.

Watching television is passive and I think I was turning on the TV after working all day because I didn't want to think anymore.  Does that make sense?  I thought TV was helping me relax but it really wasn't. 

The heat wave in DC is going to continue for awhile this summer and I do expect to lose power again because that's the nature of the service we get from PEPCO.  But the next time the lights go out and I grab the rechargable flashlight and candles, I won't worry about what program I'm missing on TV because I wasn't watching it.