Tag Archive for "happiness" | The Organic Beauty

10 Rules of Longevity and Agelessness

By: Natasha Uspensky, CHHC Saturday, April 6, 2013 Exercise, Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, Lifestyle, Organic Beauty, Wellness anti-aging, Deepak Chopra, happiness, health, healthy lifestyle Permalink 0

Dr. Deepak Chopra, one of our favorite healthy living gurus, prescribes 10 simple rules for aging gracefully and beautifully in his book Ageless Body, Timeless Mind – A Quantum alternative to growing old. We absolutely love the simplicity of these rules… So spot-on, so intuitive, and so vital for staying young, healthy, beautiful and happy.

1. Intake fresh food, eat frugally, drink wholesome liquids, abstain from stimulants and sedatives, and have a bowel movement at least once a day.

2. Maintain a high level of personal hygiene, get plenty of fresh air, sunlight and rest, have enjoyable leisure time, and satisfying hobbies.

3. Exercise, meditate, practice balanced refined breathing (pranayam) and yoga, listen to the body’s signals of comfort and discomfort.

4. Work for a happy marriage, long-term relationships, cultivate the ability to laugh easily, to make friends and keep close friends.

5. Choose a congenial occupation, go on vacation every year, be optimistic about the future, feel financially secure and live within your means.

6. Develop an easygoing personality, cultivate nonviolent behavior, and have reverence for life.

7. Live in temperate climate, enjoy a reasonable sex life, and get proper medical attention in case of illness.

8. Live in the present – accept what comes your way, appreciate it, learn from it and let go. Resisting the natural flow of things causes negative emotions.

9. Relinquish external approval, avoid being judgmental, replace fear-motivated behaviors with love-motivated ones, nurture positive emotions and express them freely.

10. Always know the world outside is a reflection of your deeper intelligence – the real “you” is within.

Photo: DeepakChopra.com

15 Ways To Find Happiness, Health and Abundance

By: Natasha Uspensky, CHHC Wednesday, March 27, 2013 Exercise, Healthy Baby, Healthy Home, Holistic Health, Lifestyle, Nutrition, Organic Beauty, Wellness abundance, boost self confidence, forgiveness, gratitude, happiness Permalink 0

By: Stephanie Heino

Are you facing difficulty with knowing what to do in order to embrace and love yourself? It’s a hard one, we know. Many people feel like they don’t know where to start when feeling the need to love themselves first, prior to developing any meaningful relationships with others. We all spend so much time looking for the best romantic partner, so we should all be experts, right? What we soon realize is that our external search was meant to fill the void or emptiness we have inside, that often is created during childhood when there is a lack of love, or traumatic experiences. Finding a good relationship with ourselves can seem like an even harder task! But if not done properly, we will all finding ourselves failing miserably in relationships because of insufficient or little self-love. Do you recognize yourself in this? Self-esteem and self-love are issues that are often related, so if you suffer from low self-esteem, it is possible that the root cause is a case of insufficient self-love.

Sometimes, loving yourself feels unnatural because your mind has been trained to have sabotaging thoughts about yourself for the longest time. However, nothing is going to change if you do not make a conscious decision. When you don’t love yourself, you are basically telling the universe (and those around you) that you are unworthy or undeserving of love and positive outcomes in life. Learning to love yourself starts with making a very basic conscious decision: an intention to be happy and lead a fulfilled life. You can do it! When you make a decision to love yourself, you are really saying that you want to live your life to its fullest. You can accept that you are responsible for the all the outcomes in your life and can work towards letting yourself shine, living a fulfilling and loving life.

“Love yourself first and everything falls into line.”-Lucille Ball

So if you’ve decided on loving yourself but are confused on how to love yourself here are 15 ways which can be helpful:

1. Fall in love with yourself. Think about what makes you You, be happy and proud of it, and nurture yourself in every way. Love yourself for all the good things that you see, accept your flaws and the fact that you are imperfect and unique. This does not mean that you do not learn to change from your shortcomings, but instead, you are being gentle and kind to yourself despite all your “flaws”. Look in the mirror and fall in love with the reflection that is You.

“To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.” -Oscar Wilde

2. Eliminate Self Criticism. Do you often beat yourself up over the tiniest thing? Is there a little voice inside your head that often tells you that you are no good because you are stupid or make mistakes? If you find that you often judge yourself, make an effort to stop the self criticism by going inside! Going to see a therapist or counselor might be very effective too!

3. Be Kind And Positive. When you start to think kindly and positively about yourself, the love you have for yourself just grows and keeps reflecting on the outside world. Make it a habit to praise yourself everyday, while in the front of the mirror. You will naturally undertake more empowering actions that support your development.

4. Acknowledge Your Effort. It is not always about winning or coming in first in everything that you do. Many times, it is the effort that counts! Acknowledge that you have done your best, even if you have failed to produce tangible results.

5. Let Go Of Worry. Loving yourself requires you to let go of your worry. It is horrible to live a life filled with constant worrying. I can attest to that! Worry does not help in any way. It cannot, on its own, make things happen. Only wise actions can! So instead of worrying, spend time thinking about what you can do to help in the situation. If the situation is beyond your control, then make a clear mental request or set an intention about what you want. Next, surrender your outcome.

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” — Epictetus

6. Trust Yourself. Have confidence in your abilities. Know that you have the ability to make important changes for yourself, as long as you put your heart to it. You can also support yourself by clearly visualizing desired outcomes.

7. Forgive Yourself. If you have made mistakes in the past that caused you to feel less worthy, then you need to forgive yourself. All of us make mistakes; so there really is no need to beat yourself up over them. Also, if you have been carrying around some emotional baggage because of a childhood trauma or a specific occurrence in your life, learn to forgive yourself.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” — Lewis B. Smedes

8. Be Truthful To Yourself. Loving yourself requires you to be truthful about your own feelings. If you are happy, acknowledge the joy. If you are sad, acknowledge the sorrow. When you are truthful about your feelings, you do not try to lie to yourself or seek to bury your negative emotions. Instead, acknowledging what you feel provides a good guide to what your thoughts are. And as we all know, thoughts can be changed, so healing and growth can take place.

9. Make Positive Affirmations Everyday. Retrain your mind to think differently with positive affirmations. One good affirmation that I repeat every morning is “I love and accept myself completely and unconditionally.” Keep reading your affirmations out loud several times a day. It will help you, I promise!

10. Express Gratitude. Express gratitude for the person that you are. For instance, cultivate an appreciation for your strengths and gifts. Also, feel a sense of gratitude that you are alive and well, and fully capable of making a difference in your life.

11. Boost Your Self Confidence. Make a deliberate attempt to look for opportunities that can help improve your confidence. For instance, if you are particularly good at doing something, set aside more time to indulge and improve your skills on it. Knowing that you have particular gifts can boost your self-esteem.

12. Relax. Give yourself space to take breaks every now and then. If you spend all your time working, without paying attention to your health, you’re showing yourself that you do not love You enough to take care of your own body. Fill your time with silence, soothing music and visions of beauty to soothe your soul and you will become more peaceful, connected, kind, loving and compassionate as a result of this.

13. Enjoy Life. Life is meant to be an enjoyable, so have fun people! Don’t take life or yourself too seriously. If you can think of life in that way you will automatically relax and quit worrying over things that do not matter.

14. Take Care Of Your Body. It is important that you strengthen yourself with proper nutrition and regular exercise. Your body is a temple and you should treat it with respect, love and care. It has been found that lack of self-love is often the root causes of conditions like eating disorders, obesity or even some terminal diseases.

15. Learn To See Beauty Around You. When you learn to see beauty in everything, you will also see beauty in yourself. So take some time to stop and smell the flowers. Try to notice things you haven’t noticed before, and feel it. How about the amazing yellow color on that flower in your garden, or the whisper of the gentle wind, or the endless hues of an evening sky. Watch the sunset tonight and pay attention to the beauty of it!

Choose to be happy, and make it happen!

8 Ways to Simplify and De-Stress Your Life

By: Natasha Uspensky, CHHC Monday, November 12, 2012 Holistic Health, Lifestyle, Wellness de-stress, environment, happiness, health, healthy living Permalink 0

By: Natasha Uspensky, CHHC

It is virtually impossible to prioritize your health, wellbeing, and happiness when your days are filled to the brim with excessive clutter, both physical and emotional. Taking some steps to simplify your life will do wonders for your state of mind, productivity, and balance, and will allow you to better fill your plate (so to speak) with things that make you happy, healthy, and taken care of!

1. Say NO! The biggest mistake overworked, overburdened people make is saying yes to too many things. Social engagements, play dates, work assignments, favors, the list goes on and on. We’re all afraid that if we admit that our plate might be a little full, it makes us some sort of colossal failure. Well, newsflash! Taking on too much means the things you are doing aren’t getting your full attention, which significantly lowers the quality of your engagement — with your friends, your family, your work, everything! So stop being afraid to say no. Pick what really matters to say yes to, and get a raincheck on the rest!

2. Make your bed. Guess what? Momma was right on that one (I know, it kills to admit it!)… The simple step of making yourbed every morning starts your day off with a little more order, a little less clutter, and a little more mental space for productivity. Our physical environment is a reflection of our mental and emotional environment, a phenomenon that goes both ways. Having just a little more neatness in your physical space will contribute to more calm and balance everywhere else… And it literally takes but a minute!

3. Reclaim your inbox. Yes, I know it is super duper important that you not miss out on any of the eight billion flash sale sites that you’re signed up for, and that getting newsletters from every single store, travel site, or gallery you’ve ever visited is absolutely crucial to your feeling in-the-know in life, but all that is really just contributing to your feeling of overwhelm and stress. When you open your inbox every morning to a barrage of (let’s be honest) totally unnecessary crap that you need to sort through to get to the one email from your friend about her upcoming birthday party, your day is simply not getting off to a great start. Not only is this is an enormous waste of your precious time, but it also gives you the illusion that you are a lot more stressed/busy/overworked/overwhelmed than you really are! They’re just emails! They’re not even important! So go through your inbox and unsubscribe to absolutely everything but the most important, life-affirming, happiness-making content (like my newsletter! Which you can sign up for right over there —–>), or make good use of the Hotmail or Yahoo account from the 8th grade, and change all of your commercial correspondence to be delivered there. That way, you can check it once a week, or whenever you really feel like a Gilt sale will boost your spirits, and pretend that whole mess doesn’t even exist the rest of the time.

4. Quit multi-tasking! Ok, I could hear the collective gasp from everyone reading this. “But Natasha! I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life cultivating the skill of reading emails, listening to music, talking to my mother, eating lunch, and finishing my quarterly report all at once! It’s a defining aspect of my amazing character!” Yes, I say to you… But how well has that worked out for you so far? Do you feel like your work, your relationships, and your self-care are all getting the attention they deserve? Or is everything perpetually getting about 30% of your headspace? I’ve gotta say, multi-tasking is probably the most harmful and counterproductive trend of the last two decades, and it’s time we put it to rest. Truly successful, productive, balanced people do NOT multi-task! They dedicate themselves fully to one task at a time, whether than be work, talking to a friend, eating a meal, or watching The Big Bang Theory. This allows you to not only get more done (like, really done, not half-assed done), but it also allows to you enjoy what you are doing so much more. Work on chunking your time into specific task-oriented blocks. Carve out time for answering emails, calling your mom, eating lunch, relaxing, reading, and exercise and don’t let any of those activities overlap! I promise you, after a week or two of living this way, your cortisol levels will go down, and your seratonin levels will go up. Hell, you may even lose a pound or two, or get a promotion! Everything that you do will be done infinitely better, and more importantly, you’ll feel better doing it!

5. Write down the five things in the world that are most important to you. This simple step will allow you to refocus your time and energy on what really matters, and let what really isn’t worth your time fall by the wayside. Keep your list somewhere handy and read it at least once a day. Have you done something to benefit, support, or move towards a goal related to the things on your list that day? If not, schedule it in. It is way too easy to waste our lives focusing on the minutia of the day-to-day, while ignoring what matters most. But luckily, it is totally up to you whether or not you live this way! Take control of your life today.

6. Pencil yourself in. When you’re looking ahead at your calendar, make sure you have some you-time scheduled in every single day. This might mean a 1 hour yoga class, or a 10 minute walk in the sun, and anything in between. Whatever it is, make it something you enjoy that leaves you feeling more revitalized and happy. Every day. When you start making yourself a priority, even on such a small scale, it becomes a whole hell of a lot easier to stay in control on your time and your emotions!

7. Delegate. This one can be the hardest to do, but yields the highest pay off. Allow me to let you in on a little secret… You can’t do it all. This isn’t a criticism, it is simply a fact. You cannot stay on top of every single little detail in your life and the lives of your family members and expect to stay sane. It’s just not possible! So start delegating. Pick 3-5 of your least favorite tasks that you consistently need to accomplish and delegate them to someone else. Hate cleaning your house? Get a housecleaner! Even once every other week, for $75-$100, having someone get your home into sparkling clean condition is SO completely worth it! Can’t stand administrative tasks? Get an assistant, or better yet, hire an intern! There are so many smart young things out there just dying to get experience doing exactly what you do for very little money, and sometimes just the cost of lunch! Ask your spouse to wash the dishes or take care of laundry, ask your mom to take the kids to their dentist appointments. It’s so easy to forget that the people in your life love you and want to help you stay sane and happy! Whatever it is, figure out who can help you get it done.

8. Make smarter to-do lists. Once a week, write down everything you need to get done that week (of course, after having SAID NO, DELEGATED, and WRITTEN DOWN WHAT’S IMPORTANT). Assign yourself 3-5 specific tasks for each day of the week, no more. If you can’t fit all your weekly to-do’s into 3-5 tasks per day, you need to go back and read the list above again. Say no, delegate, write down what’s really important, and cross some stuff off that weekly list. 3-5 tasks per day is really all you can commit yourself to accomplishing well, while still leaving yourself plenty of time for penciling yourself in and taking care of what’s really important. I promise, this will change your life!