The medicinal effects of laughter....

Today's topic is the medicinal effects of laughter. After having a great conversation on Google + with someone who I feel will become a great friend of mine Rosaura Torres. I came up with the topic of today's blog. Being that sometimes the only other conversations around this time besides Christmas and the holidays are about the depression and suicide rate, I'm going to be pro active and talk about the things that make people happy. It's to easy to focus on everything we don't have don't you agree? I think sometimes we almost enjoy being angry and depressed. There's to much to laugh about out there not to get caught up in a wave. Besides a sore tummy and the occasional indiscriminate spurt of gas there are virtually no consequences of laughing your butt off!!... Lol  Thanks to care2.com I have 8 benefits of laughter for you this holiday season....   

What can laughter do?:

• Lower blood pressure
• Increase vascular blood flow and oxygenation of the blood
• Give a workout to the diaphragm and abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg, and back muscles
• Reduce certain stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline
• Increase the response of tumor- and disease-killing cells such as Gamma-interferon and T-cells
• Defend against respiratory infections–even reducing the frequency of colds–by immunoglobulon in saliva.
• Increase memory and learning; in a study at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, humor during instruction led to increased test scores

• Improve alertness, creativity, and memory

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/8-health-benefits-of-laughter.html#ixzz2GCLJrCm4

But besides all of these cool and healthy facts, laughter is good for the soul. Life is too short. So enjoy your holiday and soak it up for all its worth. You can search the web, watch a comedy, call an old friend, or even revisit a time in your past that made you smile.... but what ever you do, keep smiling and past the laughter along.....

Have a very Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Enjoy the next few days the best way you can.... With family, with friends or even alone. But however you choose to spend it, make sure you focus on those things that are most important....

                                          I love you the  best way that I know how......

Last nigh at around 1:00am me and my wife were talking and when we finished I told her that I loved her. She replied to me that she loved me also. But it was the way that she responded to me that caught me by surprise.  I asked her why she sounded the way she did when she told me that she loved me and she said that she loves me so deeply and that she's sure that she loves me in a deeper way than I love her. My response was not a harsh one at all... I responded to her statement with understanding. I told her that I am in love with her and that I love her the best way that I know how. That statement is what brought me to the topic of this blog.

 As I reflect on my life I regret to say that I've never had the example of a real man showing a woman that he loves her. I've seen movies and read about it but never witnessed it first hand or had a discussion about it. Love is talked about in almost every religion and every culture. Love is the most fulfilling and confusing feeling in the world. There are many copycats when it comes to love.... true love. The way that I love my wife comes from a multitude of influences. A little bit from the way that I love my mother, a little bit from the the movies I mentioned earlier, and a whole lot of raw emotion. It's crazy because at the beginning of our relationship, once I knew that I was actually coming to love this beautiful, intelligent, independent  and awesome woman I actually began to subconsciously sabotage our relationship. It's like I did everything I could do to push her away. That little boy inside of me couldn't believe that there was someone who would love him so hard and unconditionally. My wife saw a potential inside of my that I could never see, not in a thousand years. I say all of that to say this.... On what scale can we measure love? Do we love from experience? Do we love from influence? Is it possible to love with an understanding or stipulations.  Well whatever the answeres are... My love will forever be a love of progress and understanding. A love of experience and influence. A love that is willing to sacrifice and display a loyalty that is unmatched. I hope you, the reader, can take all of this into consideration and leave a comment because I'm interested to here your feedback... Until next time..See ya

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

Good evening. Today I was able to witness a breakthrough first hand of a woman about 54 years of age who has definitely had her share of troubled times. Not only was she a rape victim but she was also sexually molested by her own brother at a young age. That alone is enough to drive anyone over the edge... This woman is 54 years old and she has been carrying these secrets around like baggage her whole life. She expressed at the beginning or our conversation that she has never learned how to truly cope with her emotions. She also went on to tell me that she often has these dreams where she is all alone and the loneliness is so overwhelming that it will effect her long after the dream has finished. She stated that sometimes she will get a flash of a suppressed memory and get so caught up with emotion over something she cant even remember that she wouldn't be able to breath or swallow. I remember the moment when the breakthrough was coming because she suddenly started describing what the man looked like, out of nowhere, as this look came into her eyes as if she was gazing into her past. Tears began to stream down her face. Tears racing away from their internal chambers in her heart awaiting this very moment to be free and make way for a healing that's long overdue and a new beginning. Then a slow transformation to resolve had taken over in her expression. This woman who sat in front of me at this moment was no longer the same woman who sat in front of me a minute ago. I now saw an inner strength welling up. She displayed a courage and willingness to overcome that anyone would admire. She made a choice not to be afraid...She made a choice to come Face To Face......

FEAR...... Fear can cause trauma long after the actual experience. Fear can hold us behind an obstacle that nothing can penetrate. This woman experienced a fear so strong and so deep within that she actually forgot the very thing she was afraid of. Her fear overflowed into different situations and relationships in her life and had an impact on their quality. Today I was blessed to see a woman overcome that fear today. To see her take a stand and sort through her emotions and understand that she was a victim and it wasn't her fault. That what happened to her was wrong and evil and it doesn't make her the woman that she is today. She has been an inspiration to me as I hope her story is an inspiration to you also........

         There Is nothing Changing But The Weather

How many of us have heard this phrase before? It is such a little thing to say but its meaning is clear. So many of us accept what is and whats comfortable and become complacent because we are afraid of change. Often while blogging I try to use "I" and "me" statements. I often times dip in to the giant pool of memories I have stored somewhere in my history and pull out a situation I believe pertains to my topic of conversation. In this case my situation will be almost the polar opposite description of my feelings toward change than the majority of you... my readers. My mother actually had this defense mechanism that kicked in every time she felt things weren't going right or when she wasn't happy. Her immediate response to her problems were to run. Again... I don't knock my mother. I love my mother.( She did what she thought was best. She had the best of intentions). Well, this "defense" mechanism was her legacy to me as far as coping skills are concerned. I say that to say I learned over a large period of my life to embrace change. I began to love change. Change for me equaled adventure. What I didn't realize though was that my liberal feelings toward change would begin a cycle in my life where I no longer took responsibility for my actions and I eventually grew into a man who lacked even the basic fundamentals of coping with adverse situations. Now, there are those who stand on the other side of the spectrum. Those who avoid change at all costs. To them change is an unknown land that involves people of an unknown variety and things they could never expect. They have these comfortable lives and comfortable jobs. They've known the same people all of their life. Their career has been the same too. They have a constant routine which has very little room for flexibility. My response to this extreme would be that this group of people will never truly experience life. These people will never give themselves the opportunity to meet some of the greatest people they will never know. They will never give themselves the opportunity to travel to the most beautiful places they have never seen. Life consists of experiences. Experience is what breaks us and builds us back up. Experience is the catalyst of change in our everyday life. Now.. on both sides of the spectrum you can see maybe some of the positive and some of the negative affects of the ways we choose to react to change. I think we should aim for a more balanced approach to change. Not too liberal and not to conservative  There are moments when change is necessary in our lives and we must seize these moments and take action. We have but one life to live....so let us live......

Food For Thought: Is there anything that you fear about changing in your life? Is there anything that you feel needs to change in how you live? Are you willing to change???

Focusing on our Inner-child

I was responding to a post earlier from a community on Google+ I am following and the post was speaking about acceptance and peace in your past. I think that this action on our behalf is important when attempting a Face to Face with ourselves. Can I sit here and tell you that I know the exact process? Absolutely not! I was a very wounded boy. I was a man walking around with a scared and scarred little boy on the inside. What a dangerous combination. My past hurts to look into. It's almost as if trying to swim underwater in the ocean with your eyes open. At the very beginning of this "look into my past" I had to understand one fundamental truth before I could go any further... I could not change anything that happened already. The past only guarantees us one thing.... and that is that the past is the past. The next step for me was to identify the moments that hurt me the most and distinguish each feeling from each other that came to mind and heart. It was almost as if my inner broken little boy was fighting me back from this trip of internal exploration. As I relived these moments I felt anguish and betrayed. I felt a hate and a desire to numb myself of the pain. My questions always began with why? Why me? How? And how come nobody stepped in to stop it? I remember at the age of about seven sitting at the dinner table with my mother and letting her know that I was selling drugs for a gang on our street and the only response out of her was that if I had any extra money I had better make sure there was milk in the fridge. I also remember my mothers screaming and moaning as I sat in our kitchen with no choice but to listen to her and a man I never knew locked in my bedroom on my bed. All I felt then as hate and betrayal that left  the thick taste of disgust in my mouth for many years afterward. You see...if I allow just a couple of seconds for myself to see things from a different perspective with no emotions included then I might gain a little understanding about my mothers situation. She was a child when she had me. She knew nothing of being a mother or the responsibility of adulthood. She was part of a vicious cycle also. Does this take away from the way I felt? No. Does this mean that what she did was ok?  No. But understanding helps with the forgiveness process. Sometimes we can get a little selfish within our problems. We refuse to see things holistically and instead we see them selfishly....These were the beginning stages of coming Face To Face with myself. This is what is necessary to move forward. To only remember isn't enough though. The work is allowing yourself to forgive and move on. I don't think I could ever forget anything but I know forgiveness is needed to move on.  It has become known to me that those deep and hidden things in our hearts and minds like the comfort of darkness. They ferociously wrestle against us when we seek to bring light to them and awareness into our life. This battle is a battle waged alone within yourself. Yes, you can have support. You can have guidance. But at the end of that rode.. which is the beginning of yours.. you ultimately walk alone.......

Food For Thought:  Are there any things you need to deal with that may be affecting you through your inner child? Have you forgiven someone who may have hurt you in your past? What are some of the emotions that you are feeling when you think of these situations?

Recovery

You know...when I hear the word recovery alot of things come to mind.. I'm pretty sure all of us have at least a couple of meanings to the word but just for clarity I'm gonna give you the Google definitions:
1. A return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength.
2. The action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost.
Now for me this word has a profound meaning... both of these definitions sum up my continual recovery process(**notice i said "continual" recovery process.. Recovery never ends..)  Because of my past and alot of the things I was subject to as a child growing up, I was emotionally unstable and I had huge abandonment issues. I had absolutely no father in sight and I had a mother who was 15... Dysfunction was my middle name. I had no outlets for my feelings and never truly learned how to cope with my emotions. Because i was mentally effected by these events in my life those troubles began to trickle over into the physical.. before you know it I was an active member in a gang, ended up in prison, and for a way to escape my reality through drugs and alcohol. The abandonment issues shown themselves in my relationships with others. Until I was able to deal with my own issues and face them I basically sabotaged every worth while relationship that I was ever in. This not only including romantic relationships but friends and family also....

I believe that the true process of recovery begins with self-discovery. It begins when we look inside ourselves and take an account of our past and address whatever problems we have Face to Face and only then will our rode to recovery begin...

This first blog will basically contain information that will set the tone and overall enviorment for the purpose of my blog: Face To Face. See... we as people all have personal histories and experiences which define who we are today. Whether it is a memory or a situation that we are experiencing on a day to day basis we all have things that happened or are happening that we have to come to terms with in order to move forward in our lives. This blog will have an unlimited range of subjects to discuss and analyze that I hope will help you the reader and me as well to come Face To Face with some of our often hidden but very relevant issues as we journey along this bumpy rode we call life....