Laying claim to charting the seasons of a woman’s life

Don't be afraid to be brilliant. Have the resilience to shine and follow your dreams. Walk the talk, own your skills, strengths and goals, commit to the change you want to see and build a network of people around you who want to see you succeed. Your network is your responsibility, not your organisation's. Sure, you may have a fantastic organisation that is willing to invest in you and your networking skills; Over the next couple of articles we'll look at some of the options you have for your own personal development. Tom Peters famously said . He was not talking about changing jobs or careers, but about the act of continuously adding and refreshing your skills and knowledge to keep ahead of the career curve or life curve, the ability to change before you need to or are made to change, to keep growing and evolving as you go through life. You and I cannot afford to stop learning, yet most people stopped learning when they left school or university. They had completed that learning process, which they saw simply as a means of acquiring a certain status, job or title. Or they just survived the ordeal of higher or tertiary education. The people who achieve the most are the people who become lifelong learners. They learn because they want to, not because they have to. They see the benefit and connection in learning both personally and professionally. Learning to live a better life and to become better as a person is as important as living itself. Even if I do temporarily get rid of it, the next day it's back again, in the same place. I've learnt to live with it, treating my pains like old friends. I wake up going, `Hello, there's the old knee pain. How ya doin'? Welcome back.

Just by accepting what's there without pushing it away, complaining about it or denying it, the feelings will transform in intensity, perception or location. When they become too acute, take the focus back to your breath or directly to the raw feelings. When you're ready, come back to the sense of breathing. Exercise: Mindful Emotions Practise for five to ten minutes. Use these truths to help take yourself beyond that unhappiness that comes with living from a nature that only knows about an imagined contentment to come. Start right now by knowing that the contentment your heart longs for already dwells in you and only waits for you to prepare a place for it by your remembrance of its peace. As we all know, there are trying times when states of discouragement literally dog us--following us around as if they're waiting for us to fall down, never to rise again. On these days, our own lackluster emotions are hounded by thoughts barking at us that nothing is right with our lives. Sound familiar? On these same days, even our smallest wish to part ways with these painful states gets pushed under by waves of doubt so that our resolve to not sink into a malaise feels like a futile struggle against the inevitable! When falling into deeper and deeper states of feeling discouraged, we can almost hear these unspoken words within, What's the point? Why bother? Then, as though we have heard from the Fates themselves, we accept the dreariness of some can't do negative state as our guide. Is this how it must be? I asked my PT. Try doing this, he said, as he pulled up his shirt and pulled his skin taut, so that his abs became visible. I did the same. He looked at me. Well, maybe.

You have to get rid of the fat now. I had found myself reading more and more men's magazines and blogs. Ripping was a central topic. They all gave the same advice: only eat protein. A fashion model on YouTube described how he did it before every photo shoot. Native American and Aboriginal cultures revere dreamtime over waking life, even basing tribal law on information obtained there. The Maoris believe that when we die, we return to the dream world. Kalahari Bushmen say, There is a dream and it is dreaming us. So as you pursue emotional freedom, remember that your dreams summon advice that goes beyond the Annals of Internal Medicine. Dreaming isn't just a sideline for me. It's been a link to my freedom since childhood. When I was growing up, my bedroom faced our backyard, which had one of those turquoise, kidney-shaped swimming pools popular in suburbia in the sixties. At night, hugging my floppy-eared stuffed bunny under the covers (who's still in my closet today), I'd crack open the blinds and watch the moon's reflection in the pool. It seemed enchanted, that white light on water. Gazing into it, I forgot about how different I felt--and how my classmate Monkey Myerhoff, the big cheese at the jungle gym, made shameless fun of my shyness. A small window in the metal door. A small amount of room to walk on the side of the bunk beds to the door or the toilet. There is nothing else. We are then brought to the library. A young man is in there, holding a article, getting ready to leave.

The officer taking us around introduces us to him. The young man greets us politely, then volunteers that he's spent four years here. It was my first offense, he says. First and only. I'm not coming back. This does not mean that you must discuss it, but if you want to work it out, you must talk about it. There are some mothers who simply do not understand feelings and how to be a friend in times of need. In those situations, relate to her in the degree that she can relate. You may want to say something like, You know, Mom, I'd like to tell you how I'm doing, or what I am going through from time to time, but when I've tried that in the past, it hasn't worked really well. In fact, I end up feeling further away from you than before I said anything. I wonder if you could just listen and be there for me when I share what I'm going through. You don't have to feel like a failure, and I don't expect you to fix anything. I just would like to share with you. And I would like for you to do the same with me. But I don't want you to feel threatened or responsible for my feelings. Clean environment: Plants such as tulsi (basil) and neem (Margosa) near the house keep the air around you clean and fresh. Happiness: A sad unhappy person may find it difficult to be healthy. So 'Be Happy! But you can at least repeat 'I am happy' which is easy said and easy done. Tulsi and Neem Purify the air

SOME HEALTHY HABITS Certain traditional practices promote good health. Try to include as many of them as possible. Rise as early in the morning as you can, preferably before sun rise. After sunrise the body starts secreting acid. Where they see value may not be where your value is. You must learn to stand on your own two feet, and often you'll need to make that stand away from the crowd. Sometimes this may also mean that you have to decide to make a financial investment. I witness too many corporate employees who would love to join certain networks but decide that unless their company pays for it it's a no-go. That is crazy logic! Building a network that works for you and your personal and professional growth matters. This fundamentally is an investment in your future. I'm an introvert I've lost count of how many times I'm told, `I can't network, I hate it, I'm just an introvert. That's an excuse you're using to keep you at the ineffective stage of the networking ladder. The key to learning is to put yourself in inspiring learning environments on a regular basis. These could be courses, programs, workshops or seminars that relate to your career development or your hobbies, interests or a particular skill or area in your life you want to work on, or just think would be fun to do. For myself, I want to place myself as a student in a learning environment every quarter. The best place to start is to define what you want to learn, then decide what is the best way to learn that skill or gain that knowledge, and then design a plan of action that best suits your needs and circumstances. There are so many learning options these days, from courses of different lengths to online webinars or face-to-face programs to following blog posts.