Award-winning political journalist Candy Crowley discusses recent positive changes in her life. Transcendental Meditation has been the most significantly transforming, she says. It is a joy for Global Good News service to feature this news, which indicates the success of the life-supporting programs Maharishi has designed to bring fulfillment to the field of health.

The Los Angeles Times reports that ‘CNN’s senior political correspondent’ is renowned for her ‘career of sophisticated political observation, graceful writing and determined fairness’. She is highly esteemed among her peers in the news media.

The article reports that fans and colleagues noticed that Ms Crowley, ‘one of the top political reporters on television looks slimmer, healthier, even a little more serene’.

‘I feel great physically. I feel really good. I’m lighter now in a lot of ways,’ The Los Angeles Times quotes Ms Crowley as saying.

After the all-consuming 2008 presidential campaign, she adopted a new focus on her health and well-being, including diet and exercise, the article reports.

‘And, in a change she thinks has made the biggest difference, she has taken up Transcendental Meditation,’ The Los Angeles Times reports. ‘A couple of times a day, Crowley escapes her break-neck schedule to settle into what the TM website describes as a ”natural state of restful alertness.” ‘

‘Operating in a world of furious motion, Crowley had the sense to seek out stillness,’ the article reports.

‘Meditation has meant greater equanimity and health gains’ for Ms Crowley, The Los Angeles Times reports. These benefits ‘have held together in a way they haven’t held together before,’ the article quotes her as saying.

Source: GlobalGoodNews

How you drive is a reflection of your attitude. This means your outlook can actually affect the safety of you and others, making the stakes a little higher.

As we hit the road for the holidays, let’s take a moment to evaluate our attitude when it comes to our driving. First off, take a moment when you get in your car to breathe and focus. Driving is important. Your attention is needed. Put down the phone, stop looking for things and FOCUS. It’s DRIVING time!

Here are some other pointers:

How you drive is a reflection of your attitude. A good driving attitude is the result of constantly practising the three C’s: courtesy, caution and common sense.

Did you know…

• Drivers who continuously cut you off, make unsafe lane changes, speed, follow too close and disobey traffic signs and signals are displaying aggressive driving behaviour.
• As a driver, you have to share the road to keep traffic moving safely. You must be predictable and do what other road users expect you to do.
• You must be courteous and you must be able to see dangerous situations before they happen and to respond quickly and effectively to prevent them.
• Being a safe and responsible driver takes a combination of knowledge, skill and attitude.
• Aggressive driving is often the result of drivers taking anger, resentment and frustration with them when they get behind the wheel. These attitudes are not conducive to safe driving.
• An aggressive state of mind shows in your driving behaviour and affects your safety and the safety of others.
• Give angry and aggressive drivers lots of space. Remember, it “takes two to tango.” One angry driver can’t start a fight unless another is willing to join in.

Follow these rules to stay safe and “cool” on the road:

• Don’t take traffic problems or any road user’s behaviour personally.
• Don’t make obscene gestures.
• Don’t tailgate or follow too close.
• Use your horn sparingly (a polite honk can be misinterpreted).
• Avoid eye contact with an aggressive driver.
• Don’t block the passing lane or turning lane.
• When you merge, make sure you have plenty of room and watch the people behind you.
• If someone cuts you off, slow down and give them room to merge into your lane.
• Allow at least a two-second space between your vehicle and the car ahead. Drivers may get nervous or angry when they are followed too closely.
• If you feel the driver behind you is following you too closely, pull over when safe and allow the other driver to pass.

Reduce your risks. Safe driving starts with a good attitude.

Here come the holidays, like a giant tidal wave. You can run but you cannot hide! Is there a way to navigate these life landmarks without feeling bowled over?

Sure. It requires simplifying. A few posts ago, we discussed the idea of not overdoing it with gifts this year and figuring out some alternative ways to give.

Since Thanksgiving is a few days away, what can you do to simplify?

1. Be genuinely thankful. Wake up in the morning and spend ten quiet minutes giving thanks for all that is going well in your life. Even if you’re experiencing an extremely challenging time, there are always things for which to give thanks. Think small. Be thankful for a good cup of coffee. A hot shower. A good, old movie that made you cry, The clean, crisp air.

2. Don’t overdo it. It’s become almost tradition to overdo it on the holidays - eating until we’re ready to burst. For the sake of others on this planet who have none, try not to stuff yourself to the gills. Respect your body’s limit. Take a break. Drink water. And wrap up every leftover. Give it to friends or charities who may need some extra. (I have some young college guys who live down the street - they’ll love the extra turkey this Friday!)

3. Make genuine connections. This one may be the hardest. Some of us don’t have “perfect” relations with our families so holidays can be trying and draining. This year, try to move past some of your internal walls. Listen to people with a little more care, extend yourself, be warm, be kind, be grateful for the ways they’ve contributed to your life. In short, give back!

Give back to yourself as well. One technique I’ve mastered? The holiday break! Go for a walk after dinner alone. Go sit with yourself in an empty room and breathe. Take a few minutes to read a book. Break from the pack and reconnect with yourself, even if its for a short period. (This one makes a big difference - trust me!)

Listen - the holidays can be beautiful times but they’re no walk in the park. Its up to you to change the unspoken rules and make them work for you. And it doesn’t take much.

Yes, it’s true. The Christmas songs are already playing on the radio, decorations are dangling and the bombardment has begun, with one prominent message:

BUY BUY BUY!

This time of year can be one of the most stressful time for many of us. Maybe it’s time to give it a break and rethink the holidays - especially during a trying economy. Why not RESPECT your limited finances and think outside the media box that convinces us that we must buy until we’re literally and metaphorically “maxed out.”

• A friend of mine has vowed to bake all of her holiday presents this year. She makes a mean banana bread and great (okay, decent) oatmeal cookies.

• A colleague of mine is a masseuse. She’s offering 1/2 hour gift certificates to her friends and family.

• Another friend has notified everyone that she’s not receiving or giving presents this year. Instead she is volunteering her time at a local charity.

• I read about one person who is giving out houseplants. She makes decorative holders for them and she figures everyone “needs a little green” in their life.

So before you jump on the “buy it” bandwagon, stop and re-evaluate. Is there a creative way to give this year that doesn’t mean more debt and more “stuff” piled upon this fragile planet?

Take a step back. During a time when wars continue to take lives, our ecosystem is in serious jeopardy and our economy is precarious, you may need to see beyond the marketing scheme and do something spiritually correct this holiday. It’s the way it’s supposed to be anyway, isn’t it?

Holidays do NOT have to be all about the purchase.

What ideas can you share with the world? Send them our way!

“Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours”

~ Swedish Proverb quotes

“The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

“You’ve done it before and you can do it now. See the positive possibilities. Redirect the substantial energy of your frustration and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination.”

~Ralph Marston

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”

~ Carl Gustav Jung

“Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.”

~ Oprah Winfrey

“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”

~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

At the age of 97 years and 4 months, Shigeaki Hinohara is one of the world’s longest-serving physicians and educators. Since 1941 he has been healing patients at St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at St. Luke’s College of Nursing. He also serves as chairman of the board of trustees at both organizations.

Energy comes from feeling good, not from eating well or sleeping a lot. We all remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep. I believe that we can keep that attitude as adults, too. It’s best not to tire the body with too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime.

All people who live long - regardless of nationality, race or gender - share one thing in common: None are overweight. For breakfast I drink coffee, a glass of milk and some orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil in it. Olive oil is great for the arteries and keeps my skin healthy. Lunch is milk and a few cookies, or nothing when I am too busy to eat. I never get hungry because I focus on my work. Dinner is veggies, a bit of fish and rice, and, twice a week, 100 grams of lean meat.

Always plan ahead. My schedule book is already full until 2014, with lectures and my usual hospital work. In 2016 I’ll have some fun, though: I plan to attend the Tokyo Olympics!

There is no need to ever retire, but if one must, it should be a lot later than 65. The current retirement age was set at 65 half a century ago, when the average life-expectancy in Japan was 68 years and only 125 Japanese were over 100 years old. Today, Japanese women live to be around 86 and men 80, and we have 36,000 centenarians in our country. In 20 years we will have about 50,000 people over the age of 100.

Share what you know. I give 150 lectures a year, some for 100 elementary-school children, others for 4,500 business people. I usually speak for 60 to 90 minutes, standing, to stay strong.

When a doctor recommends you take a test or have some surgery, ask whether the doctor would suggest that his or her spouse or children go through such a procedure. Contrary to popular belief, doctors can’t cure everyone. So why cause unnecessary pain with surgery? I think music and animal therapy can help more than most doctors imagine.

To stay healthy, always take the stairs and carry your own stuff. I take two stairs at a time, to get my muscles moving.

My inspiration is Robert Browning’s poem “Abt Vogler.” My father used to read it to me. It encourages us to make big art, not small scribbles. It says to try to draw a circle so huge that there is no way we can finish it while we are alive. All we see is an arch; the rest is beyond our vision but it is there in the distance.

Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way to forget it. If a child has a toothache, and you start playing a game together, he or she immediately forgets the pain. Hospitals must cater to the basic need of patients: We all want to have fun. At St. Luke’s we have music and animal therapies, and art classes.

Don’t be crazy about amassing material things. Remember: You don’t know when your number is up, and you can’t take it with you to the next place.

Science alone can’t cure or help people. Science lumps us all together, but illness is individual. Each person is unique, and diseases are connected to their hearts. To know the illness and help people, we need liberal and visual arts, not just medical ones.

Life is filled with incidents. On March 31, 1970, when I was 59 years old, I boarded the Yodogo, a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and as Mount Fuji came into sight, the plane was hijacked by the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction. I spent the next four days handcuffed to my seat in 40-degree heat. As a doctor, I looked at it all as an experiment and was amazed at how the body slowed down in a crisis.

Find a role model and aim to achieve even more than they could ever do. My father went to the United States in 1900 to study at Duke University in North Carolina. He was a pioneer and one of my heroes. Later I found a few more life guides, and when I am stuck, I ask myself how they would deal with the problem.

It’s wonderful to live long. Until one is 60 years old, it is easy to work for one’s family and to achieve one’s goals. But in our later years, we should strive to contribute to society. Since the age of 65, I have worked as a volunteer. I still put in 18 hours seven days a week and love every minute of it.

Source: Tips of All Sorts

In his 1996 New Year Message, then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong highlighted the need for Singapore to become a gracious society by the 21st century. Considerate social behaviour supported by a strong economy and good government will make Singapore the best home for its people. In line with Mr. Goh’s call to build a gracious society, the Singapore Kindness Movement (SKM) aims to encourage Singaporeans to make a positive commitment to gracious living through simple acts of kindness in their daily activities.

Interview with Dr Giorgio Aiassa from the Italian Kindness Movement in conjunction with World Kindness Day.

SKM: What is the significance of World Kindness Day for you and your organisation?
Giorgio Aiassa: It is a means for reminding all people, one day out of 365, that kindness is the best of all virtues making human beings the noblest creatures on earth.

SKM: How is your organisation celebrating WKD on 13 Nov?
Giorgio Aiassa: We shall distribute a large amount of flyers to be further relayed onwards to any person thankfully reacting to an act of kindness, thus generating a sort of ‘Kindness chain’.

SKM: What is your wish for kindness?
Giorgio Aiassa: We wish that Kindness becomes deeply and intimately part of all citizens spirit so that social rules and restrictions become redundant and meaningless.

SKM: What can we improve on so we can be kinder?
Giorgio Aiassa: The best way for being kind in a uniform and consistent way is to find a perfect, intimate balance between reason and feelings.

SKM: Can you share a saying or quote about kindness that you follow?
Giorgio Aiassa: Our motto is printed in our logo: ‘Kindness is a flower which brings sunshine to our lives. Let us nurture it!’.

SKM: What is one kind act that we can all do today?
Giorgio Aiassa: The whole world would perform an act of kindness in favour of future generations by promoting serious birth-control programs encouraging lower or higher birth rate in accordance with the different local situations.

The Singapore Kindness Movement Chairman Koh Poh

Tiong (above) remains optimistic that Singaporeans are

innately kind. –ST PHOTO: JOHARI RAHMAT

This is an older positive news story but bears repeating:

The giant lobster caught 100 miles off the Massachusetts coast spent last month in the lobster tank at Angelica’s Restaurant in Bethlehem. He recently was returned to the water, just off the southern tip of West Island, five miles from New Bedford, Mass.

Fred Cunha, the restaurant owner, bought the 37-inch Monstro with his 15-inch-long claws from a New Bedford fishing boat in mid-October. Cunha estimates Monstro is 50 years old.

Fifteen-pound lobsters are rare anywhere, but especially in the North Country. Half the customers who weighed in on the subject wanted to eat Monstro; the other half felt sorry for him.

After persistent lobbying from diners and his 7-year-old daughter, Angelica, Cunha decided to raffle off Monstro, with the winner deciding whether to send him to the ocean or the cooking pot.

So Monstro lounged in the restaurant’s tank with Mr. Crabby, Angelica’s pet 2-pound lobster, feasting on minced crab and scallops. Cunha sold chances at $1 apiece until he reached Monstro’s retail price of $150.

“She was really worried,” Cunha said of his daughter. “She really wanted him to go free.”

Last Friday, Angelica drew the winning ticket. The winner, Claire Lupton of Whitefield, doesn’t eat lobster. She said a lobster that big and that old shouldn’t end up on a dinner plate.

The Monstro raffle was so successful that Cunha extended it to another lobster, a 9-pounder who’d joined Monstro in the tank a couple of weeks ago. That lobster was set free, too.

Source: MSNBC

Lobsters - born to be free, too!

It often seems like you’re doing something wrong if you’re feeling poorly or thinking negatively. But if we don’t allow for that dark space, it can often cause us problems.

Nobody wants to feel badly (well, that’s up for debate, I suppose!) but there are times in life when its called for. If you are sick or someone you love is, the loss of a job, the stress and worry of rocky finances, loneliness, etc. - they create a heaviness that’s expected.

This is a controversial thought, but have you ever thought about celebrating your negativity? Wallowing in it for a while. Close the blinds, turn off the phone, hide under the blankets and allow yourself to feel the feelings you’ve been avoiding? Make yourself your favorite food, treat yourself to a gift, cry while watching your favorite tear-jerker movie, write an angry poem then burn it. Of course, you can’t live in this place forever…but an occasional visit may be needed.

“What you resist, persists.” - Carl Jung