This story gives new meaning to women reaching new heights…quite literally!

Congress is awarding the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor, to members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, a civilian branch of the Army Air Force. Fewer than 300 of the 1,100 survive. Relatives of those who have died or could not attend will also get medals.

When Jean Springer (above) joined, “it was kind of a lark,” she says. She had been taking flying lessons. “It was patriotic. And boring at home. I loved flying.”

The WASP was created to allow more male pilots to go to the war front.

Prohibited from flying in combat, the female pilots transported military personnel, towed targets for gunnery practice and shuttled planes from factories to bases.

They flew every military plane model flown in the war.

“Sometimes the guys who gave us weather predictions in the morning when we left weren’t particularly accurate,” Springer says. “In snowstorms, it was scary.”

Yet no military honors were granted to the 38 women who were killed during service to the program.

In December 1944, as the war was ending and male pilots were coming home, the program was disbanded.

“One day I came back from a flight,” says Doris Nathan, 93, of Kalamazoo, Mich. “And the commanding officer said, ‘I just got orders to tell you to get off the base by tomorrow morning.’ ”

Some of the women kept flying as instructors in Florida or bush pilots in Alaska, says Albert “Chig” Lewis, a Washington lawyer and founding member of Wingtip to Wingtip, an association that promotes the fliers’ legacy. His mother was a WASP. Others raised families and accepted that most of the nation didn’t know what they’d done.

The fliers were already trying to gain recognition as military veterans in 1976 when the Air Force announced that “for the first time ever” it would teach women to fly military airplanes, says Kate Landdeck, an associate professor of history at Texas Woman’s University who is writing a book about WASPs and their lives after the war.

“They realized their Air Force had forgotten about them,” Landdeck says.

In 1977, after a “huge effort in Congress” and with the help of Sen. Barry Goldwater, who had flown with WASPs during the war, the women were recognized as military personnel and given partial veterans benefits.

“They get to go to VA hospitals, and they get that flag on the coffin,” she says. “That’s the most important thing to them.” Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, co-sponsored the bill to honor the women with the medal.

“These women have yet to receive the recognition they deserve,” Hutchison says.

Source: USA Today

That’s right - after years of debating and in-house feuding, the United States of America has passed a healthcare reform:

The US House of Representatives has narrowly voted to pass a landmark healthcare reform bill at the heart of President Barack Obama’s agenda.

Under the legislation, health insurance will be extended to nearly all Americans, imposes new taxes on the wealthy and bars restrictive insurance practices such as refusing to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions.

They represent the biggest change in the US healthcare system since the creation in the 1960s of Medicare, the government-run scheme for Americans aged 65 or over.

President Barack Obama:

“It’s a victory for the American people.”

Damn straight.

President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and senior staff, react in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, as the House passes the health care reform bill, March 21, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Source: BBC News

With Spring right around the corner (insert huge sigh of relief), it’s time to “green” your life. This could mean many things: a good spring cleaning, planting your garden, some new clothes, an exercise plan - anything that brings you back to life after a long winter!

Here’s a few Spring suggestions you may want to take into consideration:

Check out these tips from a Gimundo article:

1. This year I’m eliminating any chemicals from my garden and planting all organic plants. It’s a little more expensive and a little harder to find, but it’s a lot healthier for your kids if they play in your yard to get rid of those awful fertilizers full of chemicals.

2. My spring cleaning will be done with lots of vinegar, baking soda and plant derived cleaners. Get rid of those old cleaners that are made with petrochemicals, unnatural fragrances and use products that bring a healthier environment to your home. Did you know that your indoor air could be causing health issues to you and your family?

3. Open your windows and let the fresh air in. Wash your windows with a mixture of half vinegar and half water, usually this will improve your indoor air quality and leave your windows spotless.

4. Is it time to clean out a few clogged drains? Here are some helpful tips for a more natural way to clean drains. Throw away those chemicals; they go straight to our water supply.

5. Time to go green with your hot water heater; your water heater uses a lot of energy to keep water hot 24/7. Check out tankless water heaters or called hot water on demand systems.

Source: Gimundo

Here are a few others I came up with:

6. If you’re in need of new clothes for the Spring, check out your local second-hand store or Salvation Army first. Not only are you saving money, you’re “precycling.”

7. Fix up your bike. A bike that’s had a little tune-up is more likely to be used. Put it in an easy, accessible place. Remind yourself that it’s time to get on the bike and not hop in the car. Put a basket on your bike for even more flexibility.

8. Back to the washing machine: most clothing does not need tons of detergent or hot water. Move over to eco-friendly detergent, use less of it and use cold water.

It seems like a strange and counter-intuitive concept but research concludes that a healthy, attractive avatar representing you online could actually motivate you to make improvements to your non-virtual self!

Read on:

Jesse Fox, a researcher at Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, discovered that when subjects created computerized avatars based on their own appearances, watching these avatars model good behaviors could help the subjects overcome their own weaknesses.

For example, when subjects saw images of their digital doppelgangers running on treadmills, they were motivated to exercise after leaving the lab. On average, they did one more full hour of exercise than subjects who had been shown lazy lookalike avatars or non-lookalike exercising avatars.

“If they saw a person they didn’t know, they weren’t motivated to exercise. But if they saw themselves, they exercised significantly more,” said Fox.

In addition to guiding participants to make better nutritional and exercise choices, Fox believes that the avatar program could also be used to help people with self-esteem issues, such as anorexic women. These women could be paired with a healthy-figured avatar, and learn to become comfortable in this body in the virtual world while recovering from their disease. We can see a whole range of other possibilities, from quitting smoking to adapting to better work habits.

Source: Gimundo

This is a bit of a long shot, but the underlying premise remains rich: sometimes changes in your life can be made by using an “outside-in” approach and role modeling. In other words, this doesn’t give you an excuse to spend more time on the computer. You could also draw a healthier, happier you and hang it above your desk!

It’s easy to feel daunted by the idea of forgiveness. We all have people or situations we’ve needed to forgive and sometimes, it can feel next to impossible. It can seem to take years sometimes - even a lifetime.

Radical forgiveness is an idea developed by author Collin Toppin. It doesn’t take a lifetime. As a matter of fact, it can take minutes. One premise? That we simply entertain the idea that the problematic person or situation entered into our life for a reason. We don’t even have to believe it. This alone starts a ripple effect that breaks the hold of hurt and anger.
Here’s a little more about radical forgiveness:

Radical Forgiveness is easy and instantaneous because it is a shift in perception that allows you to understand that, in truth, looked at from the perspective of the spiritual ‘big picture,’ nothing wrong ever happened.

What brings about such a radical shift in perception - especially in situations where one feels very vicitimized and hurt? Surprisingly, it requires only a willingness to accept the possibility that life is not simply a series of random and haphazard events but is, in fact, the unfoldment of a Divine plan that is unfolding for us exactly how it needs to unfold for our spiritual growth.

In other words, every event, however pleasant or unpleasant, has been called forth by a Higher Aspect of ourselves that knows exactly what we need for our own healing. When we live more out of that idea than the victim story, life begins to work perfectly.

So how do we get there? Well, lack of forgiveness is nothing more than stuck energy, caused by past judgments, criticisms, blame and resentments. The way forward is use tools or processes that help us release that stuck energy, raise our vibration and become the loving beings we have the potential to be.

THE PROCESS OF RADICAL FORGIVENESS

In my workshops, I help people to shift the energy and move into Radical Forgiveness by basically following these five steps:

1. Tell the Story: You must begin from where you are. You are a spiritual being having a human experience that involves emotional experiences. We make it up that emotions are undesirable and wrong, so when we get upset about something we make up a ‘victim’s story’ and blame others for our unhappiness. Having that story heard and witnessed is the first step to letting it go. Likewise, the first step in releasing victimhood is to own it fully. So, in this step, you tell your story, and it is honored as your truth in the moment.

2. Feel the Feelings: Here you are encouraged to feel the feelings. It is the vital step that many so-called spiritual people want to leave out thinking that they shouldn’t have ‘negative’ feelings. That’s denial and misses the crucial point that the feelings is where the authentic power is and that our strength, in fact, lies in our vulnerability and our willingness to show up as fully human. You cannot heal what you don’t feel. When people access their pain, this is the beginning of their healing.

But this is not necessarily digging up the past. In fact, doing so is not necessary at all. Whatever is upsetting you now represents the past and following the feelings (the energy), as they are occurring while you tell your story, automatically heals the past pain. It is not even necessary to know what the original pain was. That’s why I say that Radical Forgiveness requires no therapy.

3. Collapse the Story: This takes the power out of the victim story you made up. The Navajo Indians had a ceremony for doing this. Anyone with a grievance could come to the circle three times to tell their story, and they would be heard. On the fourth occasion everyone would turn their backs. “Enough already! Your story is just a story. There’s no real truth to it - it is just an illusion. We have heard it three times and we no longer wish to give it power. Let it go and then let yourself move towards what is really true.”

4. Do a Radical Forgiveness Reframe: Here we replace the ‘illusionary’ story with another story - the Radical Forgiveness ‘story.’ This one says that what appeared to have happened, far from being a tragedy, was in fact exactly what we wanted to experience and was in that sense, absolutely perfect.

This is often very difficult to accept, but the good thing is it does not require you see WHY it is perfect, or that you must GET the lesson involved. It is nearly always beyond our ability to comprehend anyway, so it’s a waste of time trying to figure it out.

Willingness is all that is required You just have to be willing to open to the idea that there is a gift in it somewhere, and then choose peace. It really is that simple. When we get used to thinking this way, it’s amazing how simple and easy life becomes. It’s so freeing to stop resisting (judging) life and surrender to what wants to naturally occur. Life with Radical Forgiveness can be very sweet.

5. Integration: After you have allowed yourself to be willing to see the perfection in the situation, it is necessary to integrate that change at the cellular level. That means integrating it into the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual bodies so it becomes a part of who you are. It’s like saving what you have done on the computer to the hard drive. Only then will it become permanent. I find that breathwork is the best way to integrate this work and I seldom ever do a Radical Forgiveness workshop without what I call a ‘Satori’ breath session. Other ways to integrate is through speaking affirmations, walking, doing forgiveness worksheets, ritual and ceremony.

The Olympics have been going on a long, LONG time. Our collection of quotes includes the new and the very old!

“So you wish to conquer in the Olympic games, my friend? And I too, by the Gods, and a fine thing it would be! But first mark the conditions and the consequences, and then set to work. You will have to put yourself under discipline; to eat by rule, to avoid cakes and sweetmeats; to take exercise at the appointed hour whether you like it or no, in cold and heat; to abstain from cold drinks and from wine at your will; in a word, to give yourself over to the trainer as to a physician. Then in the conflict itself you are likely enough to dislocate your wrist or twist your ankle, to swallow a great deal of dust, or to be severely -thrashed, and, after all these things, to be defeated.”

~ Epictetus (Greek philosopher associated with the Stoics, AD 55-c.135)
The greatest memory for me of the 1984 Olympics was not the individual honors, but standing on the podium with my teammates to receive our team gold medal.

~ Mitch Gaylord (American gymnast, 1984 Summer Olympics)

The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.

~Pierre de Coubertin (founder of modern Olympic Games)

The Olympics have been with the world since 776 B.C., and have only been interrupted by war, especially in the modern era.

~ Bill Toomey (American decathlete, 1968 Summer Olympics)

Perhaps I don’t give the impression that I’m hurting on the track. But that is because I am animated by an interior force which covers my suffering.

~ Noureddine Morceli (Algerian athlete, 1996 Summer Olympics)

Maria Nafpliotou, in the role of an ancient Greek high priestess, lights a torch from the Olympic Flame during the handing over ceremony for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics at the Panathenian marble stadium in Athens on October 29, 2009. (ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images) #

Perspective is everything. It’s so easy to get spun out on our own endless, constant thoughts. Today, come up with some creative ways to be present, quickly and simply.

A friend of mine swears by this:

“When I feel like I’m stuck in my own head, I just look up at the sky for a minute. Well, more than look at it - I take it in. I realize the space, the openness. Sometimes just a few seconds is enough to derail the buzz going on in my head.”

What way can you become more present? Maybe it’s a bath, a breath, a song, a laugh, a stretch, a walk, a talk, a yell, a smell, a dog, a plunge into cold water…

Today I decided to pick positive quotes about a particular subject: healing. We’re in need of global healing, especially after the Haitian disaster. And personally, many of us harbor painful feelings for years, leading to partial state of being and a lack of wholeness.

May these quotes start the healing:

A lot of people say they want to get out of pain, and I’m sure that’s true, but they aren’t willing to make healing a high priority. They aren’t willing to look inside to see the source of their pain in order to deal with it.
Lindsay Wagner

A lot of victims, for example, have become addicted to alcohol and drugs. It seems to me that the church’s healing ministry is going to be enhanced through this in much broader strokes. That’s good, it’s all positive.
Roger Mahony

America’s present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.
Warren G. Harding

Any education that matters is liberal. All the saving truths, all the healing graces that distinguish a good education from a bad one or a full education from a half empty one are contained in that word.
Alan K. Simpson

Beauty saves. Beauty heals. Beauty motivates. Beauty unites. Beauty returns us to our origins, and here lies the ultimate act of saving, of healing, of overcoming dualism.
Matthew Fox

But I’m going to focus on salvation as well as physical healing.
Benny Hinn

Coming to terms with the fear of death is conducive to healing, positive personality transformation, and consciousness evolution.
Stanislav Grof

Even the people who come our way look upon us in amazement, that we run only for the healing of Mother Earth.
Dennis Banks

Evil is the shadow of angel. Just as there are angels of light, support, guidance, healing and defense, so we have experiences of shadow angels. And we have names for them: racism, sexism, homophobia are all demons - but they’re not out there.
Matthew Fox

For me, singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness.
Reba McEntire

For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word.
Catherine Drinker Bowen

Healing in a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.
Hippocrates

Healing is a moral thing to do.
Jay Inslee

Healing rain is a real touch from God. It could be physical healing or emotional or whatever.
Michael W. Smith

Healing yourself is connected with healing others.
Yoko Ono

“Healing,” Papa would tell me, “is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.”
W. H. Auden

Healthy people are those who live in healthy homes on a healthy diet; in an environment equally fit for birth, growth work, healing, and dying… Healthy people need no bureaucratic interference to mate, give birth, share the human condition and die.
Ivan Illich

Henceforth the leaves of the tree of knowledge were for women, and for the healing of the nations.
Lucy Stone

I actually think sadness and darkness can be very beautiful and healing.
Duncan Sheik

I love sharing my story. It’s endlessly healing.
Ben Vereen

Source: BrainyQuote.com

It seems that we all feel some pangs of the winter blues. But SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is an even more profound psychological condition that can really wreak havoc for some in the winter months. While this condition is not fully understood by doctors, it’s thought to be related to the amounts of melatonin and serotonin in your body.

If you feel like you’re feeling SAD or just seem to be in a bit of a cold weather funk, here are few practical steps you can take:

Phototherapy:

Research shows that more than 80 percent of those treated with bright light exposure experience relief from their SAD-related symptoms. People who were exposed to bright (10,000 lux) fluorescent light for at least 30 minutes per day showed improvement in two days to four weeks.

Recent studies suggest that SAD sufferers can receive the same benefits by walking outdoors for an hour a day. Even on overcast days, natural sunlight provides enough light to help alleviate symptoms.

Exercise:

Several studies at Duke University suggest that exercise plays a key role in recovery from depression as well as prevention of relapse. Since SAD responds to the same treatments that have been successful in relieving other types of depression, the results of these studies are relevant.

In one study, researchers found that patients who engaged in brisk exercise for 30 minutes three times weekly were just as likely to experience a decrease in their depressive symptoms as patients who were treated with medication only. Researchers then followed participants for another six months, and found that those who exercised were unlikely to experience a relapse. Only 8 percent of the exercisers became depressed again. Patients who exercised and took medication relapsed at the rate of 31 percent, and those who took medication had a 38 percent relapse rate.

If you don’t already exercise regularly, try incorporating a brisk 30-minute walk into your day three times each week. In addition to mitigating depressive symptoms, this level of activity contributes to overall physical well-being, especially cardiovascular health.

Sources of Steps: author Dawn Williams

We tend to think of careers in black or white. You’re either an accountant or a chef. Never the twain shall meet. One dream must make room for another. Not in this physicians case, who has figured out a way to conjoin a childhood dream with his medical profession:

Dr. Eric Roter has two personas: an emergency room doctor who tends to cardiac arrests and accident victims and a Juilliard-trained cellist who uses his instrument to help cure the medical conditions he treats. Dr. Eric Roter plays the cello to raise awareness about ankylosing spondylitis.

His usual introduction to patients at Ohio’s Kaiser Permanente’s Cleveland Heights Medical Center is, “Hi, I’m Dr. Roter, where does it hurt?”

But now, as holiday giving reaches its peak, Roter and his cello are featured in a series of YouTube videos — “Bach to Health” — designed to raise funds for some of the toughest diseases, from lupus to cancer.

Making his debut as a soloist at New York City’s Lincoln Center at age 17, Roter abandoned a promising music career to study medicine. While he was heartened by helping others, he also felt a “betrayal for leaving an art that was so near and dear to me.”

As a student in New York, he occasionally performed as a street musician and never forgot the charity of passersby who tossed donations in his cello case.

Today, at 46, he has perfected the solo suites by Johannes Sebastian Bach — “the heart of cello literature” — and dedicated each of the 36 movements to a national medical charity.

“People trust me with their lives in the ER,” said Roter. “Perhaps they would trust me if I taught them a bit about some of the medical conditions I treat. Perhaps I could inspire people to donate to some great health care charities.”

His medical colleague at the hospital, Dr. Aaron R. Smith, said Roter likes the flexibility of emergency room shift work so he can pursue his art.

Source: ABC News