Life happens. Take time to live it.

...that when you focus on problems, you will get more problems. When you focus on possibilities, you will have more opportunities.


I love that Craig is friends with Joel! Why am I not surprised?


Here's another fave of mine.


Love this song. I don't understand the video, but it's lovely to see Alan Rickman.

I re-watched Saving Grace because of my ongoing obsession with Craig Ferguson. Here's the video of the beautiful song Accidental Angel by Sherena Dugani.

that you learn what you do. If you worry a lot, then day after day you are learning how to worry even better. If you think about doing something a lot, then you are learning how to think about doing. Every moment you are happy, you are learning how to be even happier. Every time you act, you are learning how to take an action even better. What is it that you've been learning today? What is it that you want to learn tomorrow?

The Universe likes to give us a nudge every once in a while. Today I heard what I needed to hear. Yesterday, I had a great day with my sister, brother-in-law and doggie nephew. I had skimmed through her copy of The Secret while waiting during my bro in law's dental appointment. On the way home last night, I was staying on the left lane. It was late and there were few cars on the road. Then there was an SUV right on my tail for quite a while, even flashing his or her lights at me to get out of the way. The right lane was free for them to change lanes in, and the fact that the driver thought I'd move out of their way just because he/she said so annoyed the heck out of me. So I stayed in my lane at my speed of 70 miles an hour. The tailgater finally got annoyed, moved in front of me, and began driving at 60 mph, stepping on his brakes once in a while. I just stayed right on his tail. How dare they! I can do this all night. Then another driver comes behind me and flashes his light. So now there's 3 of us locked in a battle of wills. Thankfully the new participant decided not to prolong this silliness and drove off. Finally, the driver in front of me had had enough fun and sped away. I was so furious. I caught myself starting to wish he'd get stopped for speeding. There goes my happy thoughts.

I was so disappointed at myself for this behavior. Anyway, today's first reading in church was don't bear hatred towards your brothers or sisters. And what hit home the hardest, don't incur sin because of them. Then the Gospel was Jesus' lesson about loving thy neighbor. Once again, I'd been served.

Oh my gosh!I was crying laughing hysterically at this. Craig Ferguson with his younger (adopted) brother Ewan McGregor. Lovely to see Ewan cracking up. When will we see him in a comedy?


The past 2 weeks, I've been feeling out of sorts. Cranky at work, tired, occasionally with discomfort in my neck, shoulders and forearms. I just thought I was getting tendinitis in my arms from doing too many manual therapies on the job. Out of curiosity, I decided to try Reiki. I had my first (and probably not the last) Reiki session last night. The practitioner was a nurse, and from the looks of it, possibly a Wiccan. I didn't know what to expect, because I had heard that some practitioners don't even touch you. My practical side thought why pay someone if they're not even going to touch you. Someone I knew said she didn't really feel anything except being relaxed after.

Before we started, Jodi spent a lot of time explaining what Reiki is and isn't. Turns out she does laying of the hands, if you give your permission. And that she works with crystals, either having me hold them or her placing them on some body part. During a session, some people feel warmth, some a cold breeze. Some people even fall asleep. Some burst out crying. What she wanted me to get out of the experience was to spend some time taking care of myself. And that while it may not be a healing session, it will at least balance the chakras. Any imbalance in our energies can cause disease and other physical problems. The technique uses the practitioner to channel energy from the Source (or God) through her hands to wherever she feels compelled to direct this energy to.

One stays fully clothed except for shoes. I laid down on my back on a heated massage table. She laid a chakra blanket over me. She said a prayer,and asked me to also say a prayer to God, or angels, or any other spirits that I pray to in my spiritual practice. She warned me that she usually starts with the eyes. From the moment she touched my eyes, I felt as if I was moving side to side. I felt warmth and tingling in my hands. She stayed on my head and shoulders for a bit, especially my third eye. I continued to feel like the table was moving. Once in a while I'd hear her blow a breath out, or whisper something, or she'd wave or brush her hands away, as if discarding any energies in her hands.

Jodi told me that when she lays hands, it's only light pressure. But her hands felt heavier in certain areas. What was even more interesting, she'd be on my left, yet it felt like she was also touching me on the right. Sometimes I don't think she was even touching me but it felt like she was. It was relaxing, but half of me wanted to sleep while the other half wanted to stay present and feel all the sensations. What was weirdest was when she came to my chest, she didn't touch me at all, her hands just hovered. But I felt like I couldn't catch my breath. She spent some time there. Before moving on to my lower half, she put crystals on my chest and around my head and neck. She also spent some time on my abdomen, particularly where my fibroids are. Again, I noticed some shortness of breath. Which to me made sense, because in Eastern medicine, fibroids are a sign of stagnant or excess energy. By the time she got to my feet, my toes and feet were warm and tingly. I didn't want the session to end. She slowly brought me back to my physical body. I dangled at the edge of the table, gave me some water, and told me her impressions.

She asked me if I had had any neck surgery because my throat chakra felt cold. I told her I had a craniotomy, but she said it was in my neck and throat area. And it was the same sensation she would get working on people who had plates or any other hardware in their necks. She also said my heart chakra was so chaotic, that she became dizzy. She had to tell herself that this wasn't hers. I told her how I felt out of breath when she was there. She asked if any of this was resonating with me. I could understand the heart chakra since I know I'm angry at certain people. I'm irritated with patients and co-workers, even friends. And of course my dear old dad. The coldness in the throat I thought would explain the post nasal drip, the sore throat, the history of gingivitis. Psychologically, maybe my guilt for the whole brouhaha, or the lack of closure?

Then she gave me her explanation. She said I need to speak my truth. Since my surgeries, I've been more impatient and a little more vocal. But I never thought it was productive so sometimes, I'll just keep quiet because nothing changes anyway. But she said I should always say and ask what would be best for me, what would be for my highest good.

And as far as the heart chakra, it is the bridge between the lower and upper chakras. She said that for most people in health care or healing/helping professions, their heart chakras are all over the place. It is too open, because one wants to help people. But one has to find the balance between being too open, or just closed off. She suggested that I take more time for myself (which I think I do enough of, or too much of as it is). She even mentioned that old saying about the shoemaker's kids having no shoes.

By the time I left, most of my aches and pains were gone (until I went back to work today), but the heaviness in my chest remained. I know I've got a lot of work to do.

These 2 Scotsmen are hysterical!



I do not condone stoning and found this disturbing but funny. I'm almost ashamed to say that I was totally amused by this. Happy Valentine's Day!


Annual Valentine's Day Stoning Of Happy Couple Held (Airdate 2/4/11)

I love these two guys!

So friggin' funny!



...all emotions grow in size when practiced regularly. Practice love to have more love, practice hate to have more hate. Practice kindness to have more kindness, practice depression to have more depression. The choice is yours as always.


News of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepping down brought back memories of the EDSA Revolution. I still get moved by the thought of soldiers refusing to fire upon their fellow citizens. Nuns, ordinary folk holding flowers. It was a defining moment that set the stage for countless other nearly-bloodless regime changes worldwide. Maybe I'm naive. Or I'm idealizing it. But I say it's the Filipinos' gift to the world. What came next? The Velvet Revolution, Tiananmen Square, the Berlin Wall coming down, the birth of new democracies.

For all his faults, Marcos resigning to prevent bloodshed was the best thing he ever did. For all their faults, the U.S. government making him leave was one of the better things they've ever done.

They're also calling the events in Egypt people power. Good luck to the Egyptian people. May their future be bright.


"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."---Jala ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

I've been so annoyed with most of my co-workers this week. I've been having trouble sleeping at night. I'm just in a complaining, whiny mood, impatient with incompetence and stupid decisions they've been making. Of course, here's my God wants me to Know from FB:

"Your kindness makes a difference. Even if it is a very tiny act of goodness and you think no one notices, God notices. Always remember that one little act of kindness can tilt the balance of an entire situation. One little act of kindness can ripple out in countless ways that you may never know about."

I've been served.

I am thankful for this The Onion article today :D

My co-worker H loves Chris Noth. She is married, has 4 kids, and has joked in the past that the only guy she would ever leave her husband for, is Mr. Noth. I texted her tonight that Mr. Noth is in a Broadway play and that previews start 09 February. Here was the exchange that followed:

H: I will have to look into that and the possibility of running away with him.

Me: If you say I'm your accomplice I'll deny everything. Deleting all our texts regarding this matter.

H: I still have the texts in my phone. You will need to steal it Wednesday and delete them.

Me: Darn! It's a downward spiral into a life of crime.

H: Little did you know the path you would be setting yourself on by sending a simple text about Chris Noth.

"As she has planted, so does she harvest; such is the field of karma."---Sri Guru Granth Sahib

"Love: You're not meant to wait for it. You're not meant to search for it. You're meant to generate it."---Michael Beckwith

that circumstances don't make you. They reveal you. How you respond to the life God offers you is what makes you.


"The heart has an electromagnetic field that is thousands of times stronger than that of the brain. Which means that a joyful heart really DOES have the ability to heal the world."---Dr. Christiane Northrup.

I guess the Care Bears had the right idea after all. And whoever thought of the video for Katy Perry's Firework.



that one good deed can change the balance of the whole world. Never underestimate the power of your goodness and kindness.


I've been reading Rafe Bartholomew's book, Pacific Rims, and it made me reminisce about Crispa vs. Toyota, Billy Ray Bates vs. Norman Black, Alvin Patrimonio, Jojo Lastimosa, Benji Paras, Atoy Co, Arnaiz, Jaworski, Mon Fernandez, Philip Cezar. But more importantly, seeing the PBA team names like Purefoods, Alaska, brought back memories about something unexpected, but more important: the Filipino breakfast.

I'm nostalgic for Mommy's garlic fried rice, sizzling bacon, tuyo or tinapa, tocino, corned beef, longganisa, tapa, vienna sausage, and of course, those ridiculously red tender-juicy-tasty hot dogs "just right to the bite". I remember Mother making pancakes, which we called hot cakes. They tasted so good and nothing like the pancakes here, that to this day, I don't even like eating any other kind of pancake. Wash it all down with Magnolia Chocolait, or some Ovaltine (my sister Lourdes was the Milo girl).

The Filipino hot chocolate deserves special mention. During my last year in PT school, we had to stay in Montalban, Rizal to do our 2 month Community Based Rehabilitation affiliation. Every Monday, my fellow interns and I would meet at a jeepney stop by a mall. Across the street, there was a Jollibee. I'd give in to the urge to buy hot chocolate and inevitably burn the roof of my mouth. So I'd have a whole week to recuperate from my first degree burn because we'd go back home on Thursdays. Come Monday, I'd do it all over again.

When I was young, I didn't like garlic so much, so Mom would make a special batch of not garlicky fried rice for me. I can still taste it now. Thanks Mom! We also had Spam that came in a round can. We'd have it fried so it was crispy. And the eggs, what can I say about the delicious eggs? I told Lynn that organic eggs taste like the eggs we used to eat back home.

I miss the Philippines.


 

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