Love, Life and Everything

  Dictionary.com defines serendipity as this: " noun,plural ser·en·dip·i·ties. an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident "  Most people say that it's a series of happy events that lead to an unexpected, but desirable outcome.  But, as I've become more observant of the events taking place in my life, I don't agree with that.  I think that sometimes events, good or bad, take place to prevent something bad, or to give you something good. On Thursday, my husband and I drove down to Espanola to get more conduit for our plumbing project.  We were also supposed to get 2ft rebar.  I managed to forget the rebar, which meant we either needed to drive back down to Espanola, or get the local hardware store to cut 2 long bars in half, but, the next day, we were supposed to meet a friend for lunch.  Friday morning, he had something come up, and had to cancel.  We decided to drive to Questa, get the longer rebar cut in half and take it to the property and if the w

      After finishing one month of a very intense gratitude challenge, I can definitively tell you that gratitude is so much more than the definition above because the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual response it elicits is undefinable.  It really is.  I generally considered myself a pretty chill person, but I knew that I carried a lot of inward stress.  Most people never realized that about me, saying I was pretty laid-back and easygoing.  But, the way I carried myself and the amount of tension in my muscles was a strong indicator of how much stress I was carrying.       I have a condition called polycystic ovary syndrome, which of course, is systemic, and not just in the ovaries.  As a result of this condition, my body naturally creates more cortisol than other women without this syndrome.  I've had this all my life, and I've learned to carry my stress well.  But that doesn't mean it's easy.  I also had a very hard time determining what was my body's nor

  Wow!  That's about all I can say.  Just wow.  This really has changed my life.  All those things I mentioned before are still true.  I'm still experiencing more confidence, less reactivity, less stress.  But, I'm also experiencing faster healing times, better sleep, more vivid dreams, and my husband says when I nap, I'm not completely scrunched up.  Things seem to flow better in my life.  Even on the difficult days, things just seem a lot easier.  I'm less frustrated, less quick to temper, and just overall happier. Seriously, you all need to try this, and bring it into your lives daily.  You won't regret it, I promise. You certainly don't have to make it as hard as I have, even just one daily gratitude - for anything, will give you results you'll start to notice if you do it consistently. 

  This has been absolutely amazing and very hard at the same time.  In addition to the benefits I listed last week, I'm also much more relaxed and at ease with myself and the world.  I'm also seeing more "magic" in the world - in nature, and in my immediate surroundings. But, this week was hard for me, especially the last few days.  I wasn't feeling well with some sort of low grade cold that's going around my school, and it was making me feel blah and down in the dumps.  The good news is, that I wasn't as grumpy, moody, and on edge as I normally am when I'm a tiny bit sick.  But, I also learned some sad news about someone I know, and that tried very hard to pull me down.  It almost felt as if the universe was testing me, to see if I would give up.  I didn't, and I won't.  And although I'm still feeling a bit down, it somehow doesn't seem so bad, because I know it will get better.  I am still encouraging people to try this challenge, mod

  This inspirational quote is not wrong.  But here are some other things I've noticed so far in just one week of doing this challenge.  My recovery rate from stress is a lot faster, which surprised me.  I've been laughing a lot more.  I'm experiencing less reactivity to difficult conversations.  Instead, I'm learning to really listen to what the other person is saying, instead of negatively reacting to it and having an unwarranted emotional response. This has helped things a lot.  And, I'm noticing a boost in confidence.  I'm less likely to avoid doing something important because my confidence is higher and I'm not as worried about a negative response from doing whatever thing it was I would've tried to avoid in the past.  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately depending on how you view it, with the confidence, a bit of arrogance tried to creep in there.  I'm realizing this is because it was something I had suppressed and didn't integrate into my ps

Gratitude has the power to change the world.   This is something we've probably all heard, but have blown off as "foofoo."  But there's tons of evidence on the power of gratitude and other "positive" emotions on how it changes our DNA and also how DNA affects the physical matter of our world.  This youtube video by Gregg Braden showcases some of the scientific research done on this subject.  This research was conducted in a lab by scientists trying to better understand how human DNA and photons interact.  And another was done to find the effect of emotions on human DNA.  The results were surprising, but to summarize, our DNA "relaxes" and begins to heal and replicate when exposed to "positive emotions." (Stressed or supercoiled DNA does not heal or replicate well, causing DNA malfunctions and genetic health issues) Human DNA also causes photons to arrange themselves in the shape of our double helix when exposed to it in a vacuum.  The vid