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Eleanor Roosevelt on Dreams

eleanor_roosevelt2“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Throughout our lives we dream of a future we would like to design. From childhood dreams of a world filled with lollipops and cotton candy, available to us every moment, our dreams change to what life would be “if only.”  In time, our dreams mature apace with our lives and we dream of a future more beautiful, more compelling and more perfect than the reality of life at the moment.

The true beauty of a dream is its power to transform the present into a future that is better in some meaningful way. A dream might promise something better only for the dreamer or it might aspire to something greater for society. Often what begins as the former will find fulfillment as the latter.

One of the most magical things about dreams pursued is the power of the pursuit to transform the dream itself and make it something more worthy of pursuit and more beautiful to all who are touched by its achievement.

Get your FREE Special Report on the 7 Secrets of Highly Successful Big Dreamers and also receive the bi-weekly Dream Big Booster at www.drcynthiabarnett.com

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Victor Hugo on Dreams

Victor_Hugo“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”
– Victor Hugo

Human history glows with the truth of Hugo’s words. Human civilization has progressed through every age because courageous people dared to dream a better future and then dared to make it true. If you doubt it, pick up any novel by Victor Hugo and read the beautiful and transformative stories of those who dreamed and whose dreams shaped the future.

It makes no difference how big a dream might be. Every dream has the power to evoke our greatest strength, our most compelling determination, and our most luminous success. Only those who dream will ever know how big the dream or what effort was required to make it real. But a dream fulfilled will stand alone as a measure of achievement and, hopefully, as a measure of lives improved.

No matter how expansive or how personal you believe your dream to be, it is the sharing of it and the achievement of it that will reveal its true power to create a better future.

Get your FREE Special Report on the 7 Secrets of Highly Successful Big Dreamers and also receive the bi-weekly Dream Big Booster at www.drcynthiabarnett.com

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Read A Minute and Be Inspired

good-readIn this culture of cut-throat competition and fast-paced living, taking a minute would not likely matter to anyone. For some, it’s just a moment of mum. You can achieve the most coveted calmness, peace of mind, and inner serenity on your own. In other words you can find your own inspiration through reading an inspirational article or book chapter in a minute.

What are some examples of readings that can inspire you? It merely depends on the reader’s personality. There are many self-help books, as well as inspirational material written by religious writers that can uplift your spirit. Here are some books that you can choose from:

Chicken Soup for the Soul: This book contains chapter-based anecdotes and short stories of real-life experiences, mostly about survival and little victories. There are also many specialized editions that comprise a vast series of Chicken Soup books.

John Maxwell’s books: Known as one of the most prolific writers of all time, Maxwell has written a lot of inspirational, leadership and self-enhancement books that help you to gain a better perspective in business and life.

Robin Sharma: Widely considered one of the most influential leadership mentors, Sharma will always have a principle or two to inspire and teach valuable leadership lessons.

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne: The idea of wealth and prosperity is merely secondary to its positive effect on the human chakra or center of energy. This book has a strong effect on readers who want to deepen their spirituality and belief in the good.

These are just a few of the many inspirational books available. Stop in at your local bookstore and browse the shelves and pick some books which you think can inspire you. You don’t even have to look farther. Right on your laptop, you can search for books and web sites where some of the world’s greatest inspirational speakers and leaders have their own blogs and forum sites. These sites allow you to participate in a community of optimistic people.

Check out www.freestyleretreats.com for more resources

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Take a Minute to listen to Music

listen-to-musicYou can be a mom, a WHO doctor on mission, or an Internet marketer, but at one point in your busy schedule, you need a 1-minute breathing space. This minute may mean just a couple of tick tocks on your wall clock but taking a breather has long-term benefits.

What can you do for a 1 minute break? The reason why sales for MP3 players and iPods don’t go down is that people love music. It has become as valuable as food. Listening to music is one good way of spending a minute to break away from what you are doing. Tune in to your favorite station on your iPod and close your eyes for maximum effect. You will notice how it lulls you and makes you think of images and scenes that can relax your nerves after the frenzy caused by deadlines, rush hour traffic, and scheduled appointments.

Here are some sources for you to find your own music genre to help you keep your calm:

Radio stations: Radio is everywhere. You can tune in to any radio station right on your computer by going to iTunes or your Yahoo Launchcast radio. You have all the options from classical music to hard rock songs. You can even browse for songs listed according to decade.

Portable devices: You can store some of your most favorite songs in your MP3 player or iPod. Anytime you want to break away from the chaos, you can just press the Play button and listen to your favorite Beethoven symphony or Britney Spears’ latest pop hit.

YouTube is also a good place to listen and watch music videos. If you are more comfortable about listening than watching a video then just minimize the video, lean back, and let it all go. Think instead of anything that can make you happy. A baby’s photo may be a good example.

Music is the ultimate source of strength and inspiration for many people. It can add meaning into just a minute of living.

Check out www.freestyleretreats.com for more resources

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Get Happy with a Visual Stimulus for a Minute Break

get-visualWhat’s in store for you in a 1 minute break? More focus, more ideas and imagination, and a more personable attitude are just a few things you can gain from taking a minute from work.

How can you manage to acquire all these in a minute? Surprisingly, you can do this when you allow yourself to do something that makes you happy. Who wouldn’t feel better by looking at a happy picture? A happy picture is any visual representation that can inspire, motivate, or simply make you happy. Once you try this, you’ll see how this can make a difference in your mood.

Visual stimuli are good mood enhancers, especially during tough times. That’s why vision boards are quite popular among those who are in therapy. What are vision boards? It’s either a cork board or simply a mounted collage which has all the things you intend to achieve. It may be a house, lot, business, person, or a family. Every time you feel your drive slipping away, you can look at your vision board and be reoriented with your vision, your inner core.

Here are a few tips that will help you have easier access to your visual stimulus or visual mood enhancer.

First is to place a photo or a token of something that can make you happy on your office table, kitchen table, or wherever you frequently sit to relax. For most it’s their loved ones’ photos for others it’s their dream place.

Second you can pick a certain corner where all your favorite items are found. You can call this your happy corner. Every bad day you have, you can go to your happy corner for a minute or two and focus on the items found there.

Third is to save a happy wallpaper on your desktop when you’re working in an office. In this manner, every time you get a chance to glance at your wallpaper, you’re happier than ever.

Fourth would be for anyone who has inclination to the arts. You can get a step by step guide for creating your own portrait and start doing it. You are on your way to building your ultimate happiness.

Check out www.freestyleretreats.com for more resources

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Take 1 Minute Meditations for Life

daydreaming-womanWhen you’re a top executive in a Fortune 500 company, the last thing you have on your mind during working hours is a retreat. It’s even likely that you haven’t the faintest idea what a retreat might look like, since all you know is consistent hard work. Finding time to look out the window for a minute to break away from the daily barrage of meetings and phone or conference calls might be like a retreat to you.

The good news is that you don’t have to take three days out of your busy schedule to get some “me time” and, you don’t even need to think of going to the gym or cafeteria if you just want a peaceful 5 minutes away from the daily routine and clutter.

Just by closing your eyes and sitting down in your office, you can meditate for one minute to regain calm, peace of mind, and self-control. During this minute, try being like a child … swivel that chair! You’ll be amazed that what you intended just to be one minute will become five and your mind will ready to take on the next task of the day, stress free.

If you’re not sure what to mediate on, you could simply think about some of the happy times you’ve had, remember the things you’ve enjoyed doing the most – especially hobbies. If you’re a parent, one of the best ways to clear the clutter from your mind is to think about the joy your children give you. In fact, why not keep a photograph of your child on your desk (especially as a toddler) and just reminisce about some of the things the child has done to make you laugh, the funny things they’ve said, or the times they’ve said something so sweet it brought tears to your eyes.

Remember a retreat isn’t just all about clearing the mind of clutter. It’s also about filling the mind with those things that bring joy to your heart.

A minute of meditation can be done any time you want and although today it’s in your office, tomorrow it could be when you arrive home — the house is empty and you just sit on the sofa and close your eyes for a few minutes.

It may seem as thought it’s just a few minutes of stress release, but the benefits outlast the focused time and brings with it many health benefits. Take note the next time you stop to meditate, how much more productive you become afterwards and just how much more relaxed you feel. It will encourage you to take more time out during the day for that one minute of meditation.

A Note From Doctor Cynthia

Hope you have been enjoying these one minute retreats.

If you feeling stressed out, overwhelmed and out of steam running through life at breakneck speed, unable to even take a breath? Consider my upcoming three day retreat to rediscover, rejuvenate, recharge Your Life

This retreat is the perfect opportunity to remove yourself from the stresses of life, to renew energy and gain clarity about the things you really want.
During the course of this one day retreat, you will learn how to:

  • Relax
  • Put yourself first
  • Do what matters most to you
  • Make self-care your top priority
  • Sign up here http://www.freestyleretreats.com/retreat-rejuvenate-getaway.html

    Bookmark and Share

    Creating Opportunities for Serenity

    tranquil-womanSilence, calmness, tranquility, peace – they’re all synonymous to serenity. It’s the absence of sensory distractions, allowing calmness to rule over. And surely you have a minute to spare for it in a day.

    That’s not difficult to achieve in your waking hours. There are opportunities for it at home, even in a quiet room in your workplace.

    The best way to achieve serenity is through meditation but you can have your own one-minute version of it. The meditative discipline has several techniques practiced and ‘perfected’ by gurus but if these feel like an added ‘workload’ for you, just find your own quiet breathing space. You don’t have to trade one regimen with another.

    Sit comfortably, don’t say a word, don’t think, don’t move. Let your mind open up an awareness of beauty evolved from memory.

    It could be a beautiful campsite you went to as a child, a quiet tropical island you’ve spent a few days on, a blissful moment you’ve spent on a hilltop or a mountain peak, a light drizzle or a thin fog veiling the greenery, sunrise or sunset like a warm hand touching your face.

    Meditation is known to relieve stress, anxiety, pain, depression, and even help alleviate heart ailments. Your one-minute meditation can’t hope to achieve these benefits in an instant. But stress relief and putting a little sanity into your blurry routine are enough reason to make it a habit.

    Some workplaces have prayer or meditation rooms, even gardens. They are perfect places for your one-minute habit. If your workplace doesn’t have one, management won’t take against you if you suggest they put up one. A company becomes more productive if it gives its employees a time and a place to catch their breath.

    Your one-minute meditation should also help simplify and organize your thoughts. It refreshes your mind so you can see clearly that happiness can be had by doing everything in moderation, not by indulging your desires and having the best of everything.

    A deeper understanding of the essence of everything opens up the gate for the organization of the person’s thoughts. It is important to keep things organized to avoid too much physical activities that could restrain the improvement of one’s mental, physical and spiritual health.

    Lastly, your one-minute habit should help you realize your imperfection, and you’re all the wiser for it. That you are vulnerable to mistakes should not make you feel inferior; it should be an impetus for you to do better at things you’re more likely to excel in and to be careful where you’re likely to not do well.

    It’s a matter of affirmative thinking. The one-minute meditation is a step towards the positive light, like the luminescence of early morning light punctuated by the flutter of a dove’s wings.

    A Note From Doctor Cynthia

    Hope you have been enjoying these one minute retreats.

    If you feeling stressed out, overwhelmed and out of steam running through life at breakneck speed, unable to even take a breath? Consider my upcoming three day retreat to rediscover, rejuvenate, recharge Your Life

    This retreat is the perfect opportunity to remove yourself from the stresses of life, to renew energy and gain clarity about the things you really want.
    During the course of this one day retreat, you will learn how to:

  • Relax
  • Put yourself first
  • Do what matters most to you
  • Make self-care your top priority
  • Sign up here http://www.freestyleretreats.com/retreat-rejuvenate-getaway.html

    Bookmark and Share

    Take Time to Meditate

    take-time-to-meditateRush. This is the byword of the new generation. Time speeds up and people keep up.

    Stopping often means losing in the business rat race. The goals are to do well, have more, and enjoy the best. But do these people really reach their goals, or do the goals just keep getting higher?

    You need to distinguish yourself from pumped-up lemmings. Take a pause. Sit awhile. Examine what you have and what you have been missing.

    How will you make most of your time when you are at ‘pause’? Consider meditating.

    Meditation is something that not only monks and mystics do. It is a spiritual and mental practice that aims to bring out your wellness from within.

    You don’t need to follow traditional rituals that include incense burning and chanting. Instead, you can do it in your chosen place and time.

    Any place will do: attic, basement, secluded garden, bedroom, living room, big closet. But chose the time when you’re comfortable and there is nothing or no one to distract you. What’s important in meditation is focus.

    You may ask: Why meditate? Simple. When you meditate, you give yourself a chance to seek yourself. The manner of clearing your mind and setting your focus is a brief demonstration of achieving high-level concentration.

    Deep concentration on things beyond normal will lead to the highest kind of awareness. The moment you reach that stage, you are on the verge of understanding what surrounds you, even when your eyes are shut.

    ‘Glitches’ are unavoidable in this fast-paced world. That’s normal. Life wouldn’t be meaningful if it were worry-free. But when you meditate, you are creating for yourself a temporary window that shows you a better view, and for a brief moment you’ll be an island of certitude in a sea of madness.

    That’s basically the purpose of meditation – to achieve inner peace of mind. You may be a wealthy person, but if you don’t have peace of mind, can you say you lead a good life?

    So stop for a while and meditate. It may not address your concerns instantaneously, but in due time it will. You’ll soon have things sorted out.

    Stopping is not a sign of surrender. Even computers need to reboot and cars need tune-ups once in a while. Meditation helps show you what things are important and what are not. Soon you’ll see.

    A Note From Doctor Cynthia

    Hope you have been enjoying these one minute retreats.

    If you feeling stressed out, overwhelmed and out of steam running through life at breakneck speed, unable to even take a breath? Consider my upcoming three day retreat to rediscover, rejuvenate, recharge Your Life

    This retreat is the perfect opportunity to remove yourself from the stresses of life, to renew energy and gain clarity about the things you really want.
    During the course of this one day retreat, you will learn how to:

  • Relax
  • Put yourself first
  • Do what matters most to you
  • Make self-care your top priority
  • Sign up here http://www.freestyleretreats.com/retreat-rejuvenate-getaway.html

    Bookmark and Share

    Try Your Hand at Creativity

    Creative Hands

    Creative Hands

    ‘Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled, to concentrate, to accept conflict and tension, to be born every day, to feel a sense of self,’ says the social psychologist Erich Fromm.

    ‘To be born every day’ means to be constantly amazed by the things life has to offer, to not tire of watching the sunset, the moon peeking from the fleeting clouds, the crowd of stars on a clear cool night, the sunlight on the breakfast table.

    Even the unpleasant twists and turns, the bad news and disappointments can become stimuli for better things, the way art also portrays the dark areas of the human psyche. Indeed, creativity’s best tool is its transformative quality.

    True, life is uncertain. We can’t expect everything to run smoothly according to our wishes and aspirations. No matter how well we plan our course, sometimes things don’t turn out the way we want them. Problems do arise, and we can’t stop them from coming. But creativity – the mother of resilience – helps us get by. It’s what allows us to turn lemons into, well, a lemon meringue pie.

    We don’t need to search for creativity. It’s not something we can only learn after a trip to Tibet or an apprenticeship with an acclaimed author. Human beings are born with creative qualities which just need to be nurtured.

    So how do you develop your creativity? Meditation, first of all, can help you discover your creative potential. You don’t need to sign up at any center that might give you a whole new vocabulary of philosophical and mystical ideas. The purpose of meditation is to keep things simple so you’ll see what’s important, to see through the blur and marvel at the fine picture hidden by your worries and excesses.

    As the actor Alan Alda puts it, ‘The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.’ Fromm calls it discovering a “sense of self.”

    You can find several venues for your creativity. You can try writing, painting, drawing, sculpting, graphic design, and the like. It doesn’t have to be art-related. You can also use your creativity in improving your finances through entrepreneurial pursuits or technological creations. It may not even be that ambitious. Homemaking, gardening, cooking, parenting or engaging in a hobby all require creativity, too.

    ll you need are some time to relax and to put things in order, some privacy to think things over, and the optimism and patience to carry on. You have to know, too, that you can’t reach your potential in a snap. But you have to pursue your creativity. Being creative means finding your true worth.

    A Note From Doctor Cynthia

    Hope you have been enjoying these one minute retreats.

    If you feeling stressed out, overwhelmed and out of steam running through life at breakneck speed, unable to even take a breath? Consider my upcoming three day retreat to rediscover, rejuvenate, recharge Your Life

    This retreat is the perfect opportunity to remove yourself from the stresses of life, to renew energy and gain clarity about the things you really want.
    During the course of this one day retreat, you will learn how to:

  • Relax
  • Put yourself first
  • Do what matters most to you
  • Make self-care your top priority
  • Sign up here http://www.freestyleretreats.com/retreat-rejuvenate-getaway.html

    Bookmark and Share

    The Morning Shower Meditation

    relaxing-shower1For every new day, nutritionists and exercise gurus can suggest several things for your health: eating a hearty, balanced breakfast and doing stretches, cardio exercises and strengthening routines. But what about your soul?

    Early morning must be a treat not only to the person’s ‘corpus’ but also to his ‘anima’ (call it inner self or soul). The Chinese usually go to the park or in their gardens to do tai-chi, which relaxes both body and mind. But you can do something simpler than that right inside your own home.

    While it’s fine to meditate during your leisure time, it’s even better to start your day meditating. Having a fresh mind for another day of work and keeping yourself attuned to life’s essentials will keep the negativity at bay. Thus, you are better able to handle stress after several hours at work or school.

    You may meditate right before, during, or after you take your shower. Nature and mankind are generally still, restful and peaceful at daybreak. Your mind is freshest at this moment, like a new canvas or a blank piece of paper waiting for the day’s masterpiece.

    Before your daily grind begins, think clearly about the things that matter and immunize your thoughts and feelings from the excesses of your desires. Take a warm shower. Let the soothing heat and calming flow of water ease your mind. Let your worries come later; for a couple of minutes, free yourself from them.

    Hindus call the hour before sunrise ‘Brahma muhurta’ (hour of ‘god’). Even devout Muslims, Christians and followers of other religions find morning prayers indispensable to their faith. Whatever your beliefs, the important thing is that you give yourself enough time to think positively about life before you step into life’s realities.

    Morning shower meditation may sound odd if you consider what meditation usually requires: peace, concentration and calming environment to help you go smoothly through the process. How could you ever meditate when you are ‘disturbed’ by the water?

    The proponents of this type of meditation believe that all of the worries, tensions, problems and any sort of bad thoughts retained in the mind can be washed away figuratively and even mystically by the flowing water. Such a notion somehow creates a great relevance of the natural healing and calming effects of water. Indeed, water’s characteristic as a ‘universal solvent’ extends beyond the laws of physics.

    A Note From Doctor Cynthia

    Hope you have been enjoying these one minute retreats.

    If you feeling stressed out, overwhelmed and out of steam running through life at breakneck speed, unable to even take a breath? Consider my upcoming three day retreat to rediscover, rejuvenate, recharge Your Life

    This retreat is the perfect opportunity to remove yourself from the stresses of life, to renew energy and gain clarity about the things you really want.
    During the course of this one day retreat, you will learn how to:

  • Relax
  • Put yourself first
  • Do what matters most to you
  • Make self-care your top priority
  • Sign up here http://www.freestyleretreats.com/retreat-rejuvenate-getaway.html

    Bookmark and Share

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