The Moment of Peace, 8pm, Saturday 10th March 2012

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Founder, Dean 'Jagaro' Crabb
Described by one participant as “Earth Hour for the Soul”, The Moment of Peace is a free, non-profit, annual international event to promote more peace and happiness in our modern busy lives by sitting silently for one hour.  People of all backgrounds, faiths, beliefs, races and religions are invited to celebrate this moment together.  It is an ambitious project to get everyone in the world to just stop and be at peace once a year together.

Diskin Life
Buddhist Trends
Do As One & The Moment of Peace
The Moment of Peace on Bondi Beach – Meditate with us at Sunset!
Dr Rick Hanson
King David Peace Drummers
Ripple Kindness Project
MedMob: Inquire Within
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So The Moment of Peace just around the corner!

I made a video presentation today for The Moment of Peace that I'd love for you to share with others. There is still time to get more people involved.  Please share it as much as you can.
Find an Event Near You - I'm excited about teaming up with MedMob.org and DoAsOne.com this year to bring you all a truly global experience in 2012. It is now occurring in 300+ cities worldwide! Check out our map or MedMob's map to find an event in your city.  Or get online and synchonise your breathing with others from around the world on the Do As One website.
Send Photos and Video - To document the event I'd love you to take photos and share videos from the event.  Please post onto our Facebook page or email us info@themomentofpeace.com
Lastly, I'd like to thank all our Major Supporters and the tireless efforts of strangers from around the world who give their time and dedication to make this possible. The world is better because of what you do.

I hope you enjoy participating in The Moment of Peace for 2012 and the expereince of peace within and with others.
This is the People's Movement for Peace!

In Peace & Kindness,

Dean 'Jagaro' Crabb

@dean (on the site)

info@themomentofpeace.com

The Moment of Peace 2012

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Feature Article

Be Open to Receive by Andrew Jobling

07 Mar 2012 12:49 am
Tags: Newsletter Featured, The Moment of Peace, andrew jobling, authors, giving

While promoting The Moment of Peace last year I was fortunate enough to meet a lovely man and author by the name of Andrew Jobling.  Here is an inspiring article by him.  You can read more about him here and subscribe to his weekly newsletter if you like. http://www.andrewjobling.com.au/

Keep on giving but …

Be Open to ReceiveWow! I am learning some amazing stuff every single day, and I am loving what it is doing for me in my life. I can’t wait to share this week’s article with you! I have just finishing reading this book and, in fact, as it is so amazing I have started reading it again. It is called ‘The Go-Giver’ (as you can plainly see) and is a parable or story with the message highlighting and re-inforcing a concept we already know … the power of giving. It is an engaging story which highlights ‘The Five Laws of Stratospheric Success’. All five of the laws are invaluable and the book had me all the way through – but it wasn’t until the last law, in the last few pages of the book, that the penny really dropped for me. The last law is; the key to effective giving is to stay open to receive…I think we all know why giving is so important, don’t we? Nevertheless, my strongest recommendation is to get and read this book – because from what I have just read and after some self reflection & observation of others I now understand why many people don’t get the full value from their giving. What most people don’t do is … be open to receive.‘Open to receive’ or ‘only to receive’?This is subtle and there is a big difference between being open to receive and only giving in order that you will receive. The mistake I have made, and that many people may have made, is when the only reason I have given something whether it be; time, a compliment, money, a gift or something else is to get something in return. I remember as teenager helping my grandmother move boxes simply so that she would give me some of her amazing chocolate cake – by the way, she did! More recently, I have offered my time, help or services with the intention of getting something in return.

This strategy may work short term and people may be embarrassed into giving what it is you are after, but according to ‘The Go-Giver’, long term stratospheric success will only come when you give without the expectation of receiving, yet staying open to receive. It is confusing isn’t it? It just means give, give, give because you care about people and you want to see them happy and successful – NOT because you want something in return. But also know that when you give, someone else receives and so when others give you will also receive! This is how the universe works – everything is in balance. I hope this makes sense.

There is another thing that holds people back from ‘stratospheric’ success and it is certainly not that they don’t give. In fact many people give far and beyond what others would think necessary, yet they are not open to receive because they don’t feel they deserve to receive. My mum is a perfect example of this …Deserving to receive …

In my book Dance Until It Rains I talk about my mum’s life and her 15 year battle with cancer that ultimately took her life. As a child she was raised in trying times and had to help out with the family & business duties. From a young age she developed the belief that she was not loved unconditionally and had to work to earn her parents love. She was conditioned to just keep giving and to not expect anything in return – she never felt worthy of receiving, until much later in her life. She would often not accept kindness, gestures or help from others as she didn’t feel that she was deserving of it.

Let me tell what I now know. If this is you, and you have a hard time opening yourself to receive from others, understand that you are denying those people the joy that comes from giving! Remember this is how the universe works and stays in balance. If you give then you deserve to receive – make no mistake about it! You must be open to receive.

Enjoy giving and the receiving will take care of itself …

I actually saw a simple example of this in my life just this week. I have a client who buys organic vitamins from me and she makes one small order every month or two. I know she doesn’t have heaps of money and I really like her and so I sell them to her at my cost price, in fact a bit below my cost price. They cost me $51, but I say to her $50 because it is a round number. I pick up the vitamins, I drop them off to her in the city and so it is neither a profitable nor a smart business activity – but I have never really stopped to think about this, because I like helping her out.

During the week I had an appointment in the city and so I stopped to drop the vitamins off on the way. I went to put money in the meter and fortunately it already had enough time on it, so it saved me a massive $1! I then had to drive to get to my next appointment, parked and again there was money and time already on the meter – I saved another $2!! “Big deal” I here you saying … It is a big deal, a huge deal in fact, if you understand and believe what is happening!  I wasn’t giving to my client expecting to receive, but I was open to receive free parking. Perhaps I wasn’t open enough or I would have received more than $3!

Are you ready to receive?

Start giving more than you have ever given before. Give from your heart, with a heart for people and with no ulterior motive – do it because it is a great thing to do and really enjoy the feeling you get as a result. Then open your heart and your mind to receive in abundance and receive you will. Have an amazing week!

http://www.andrewjobling.com.au/

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FW: How to stay young

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctor worry about them. That is why you pay him/her.

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. " An idle mind is the devil's workshop," And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is God. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, to the next county, to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

FW: Too much sitting is bad for your health

Hours of uninterrupted sitting can be bad for your health, according to a growing body of medical research.

● A recent study from the American Cancer Society reported that the more leisure time people spent sitting was associated with a higher risk of death. Women who reported sitting for more than six hours per day were about 40% more likely to die during the course of the 14-year study than those who sat for fewer than three hours per day. Men were about 20% more likely to die.

● A study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology showed that sitting for long stretches, more than six hours a day, can make someone at least 18% more likely to die from diabetes, heart disease and obesity than those sitting less than three hours a day.

Even if you exercise for 30 minutes a day, five days per week, it may not be enough to counteract the effects of too much sitting during the rest of the day. If you exercise for 30 minutes and sleep for eight hours, that still leaves 15.5 hours in the day. If you have a sedentary job and engage in sedentary activities after work, you are sitting a lot more than moving.

Health experts say the key to staying healthier is to integrate movement into your day as much as possible. The human body is made to move. When you sit for an extended period of time, your body starts to shut down at the metabolic level, negatively influencing things like triglycerides, high density lipoprotein, cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose, resting blood pressure, and leptin, all of which are biomarkers of obesity, cardiovascular disease and other diseases.

How to sit less and move more at work

If you find yourself sitting for hours on end, interrupt your patterns. Stand up, move around and get your blood flowing for at least a few minutes every hour. Other suggestions:

● Stand or move around when talking on the phone ● Walk to a colleague to talk rather than sending an email ● Hold a walking meeting with a colleague ● Take the stairs instead of the elevator ● Use the restroom or water fountain on a different floor
● Move your trash can or printer further away from your desk so you need to get off your chair to access them
● Increase your walking. Buy a pedometer and build up to 10,000 steps per day

4 Bad Habits that Are Making You Sick

What happens when you don't sleep enough, skip breakfast, don't exercise, or hold grudges? Find out how these behaviors are harming your health.

What happens when I only sleep five hours?

The inside story: No one knows for sure why sleep is necessary, but there's no doubt that getting too little throws a wrench into your body's works. For example, studies show that a sleep debt lowers levels of the hormone leptin, which helps keep your appetite under control. Implication: Sleep too little, and there's a good chance you'll be soon overeating. Sleep deprivation also boosts levels of stress hormones, which prompt your body to send more glucose into your bloodstream. Too little sleep also makes your body less sensitive to insulin.

But that's just the beginning. Research shows that sleeping too little shuts down production of certain chemicals in the immune system that defend your body against germs. Shortchange yourself on shut-eye and you may want to have a box of tissues and cough medicine handy: A 2009 study found that people who sleep less than seven hours a night are up to three times more likely to develop a cold.

Other studies show that even modest sleep deprivation - cutting back from your usual eight hours a night to six hours, for instance - can turn up levels of chronic inflammation, which increases the risk for many conditions, including heart attacks, strokes, and osteoporosis.

PLUS: 8 Things That Are Making You Fat

Then, there are the immediate effects. When the alarm clock blares you out of a deep sleep, you're apt to start the day in a sour mood. As the day passes, you're also likely to feel dull witted and foggy. Some neurologists believe that one purpose of sleep is to give your brain a chance to build and strengthen the wiring between neurons. Studies show that well-rested people learn new information faster and have sharper memories. Short sleep reduces your reaction time, too, making you at risk for car accidents and other mishaps.

BOTTOM LINE: While some people can get by on relatively little sleep, most of us need seven to eight hours a night. Experts say one sign that you're getting adequate sleep is that you can wake up on time every day without using an alarm clock.

What happens when I skip breakfast?

The inside story: When you wake up after a long night's rest, your body has gone as much as 12 hours without a meal. That means one thing: You need fuel. More precisely, it means there's probably a shortage of glucose in your bloodstream. If you don't eat breakfast and head out the door with low blood sugar, one organ in particular won't be operating at full speed: your brain, which requires a steady flow of blood sugar to run effectively. And even a mild case of low blood sugar can leave you queasy and jittery. You may also feel less sharp-witted. Studies of school children have shown repeatedly that kids who eat breakfast have better memories and learn more than their classmates who don't.

What's more, blowing off breakfast is a set-up for pigging out later on. "Breakfast is important for keeping your appetite under control the rest of the day," says endocrinologist Suma Dronavalli, MD, of the University of Chicago Medical Center. In other words, skip breakfast and by noontime your groaning stomach will convince you to skip the salad and order a Dagwood-size sandwich, instead. Most people more than compensate for the calories they miss at breakfast by overeating at lunch and dinner - especially foods high in saturated fat, the kind that plugs arteries.

PLUS: Lose Weight Around the Clock

Meanwhile, breakfast skippers are also more likely to snack on junk food between meals. One study found that women who usually nixed breakfast were able to take off four pounds - simply by adding a nutritious meal in the morning. Eat breakfast regularly and you'll not only lose weight, but your blood sugar should shape up, too.

BOTTOM LINE: More than three quarters of people who lose weight and keep it off eat breakfast. Sitting down for the morning meal may also make you up to 50 percent less likely to develop insulin resistance, the problem that causes type 2 diabetes.

What happens when I spend the day sitting around?

The inside story: Remember that old saying "the devil finds work for idle hands"? Spending a lazy day on the sofa may not seem evil to you, but your body finds plenty of ways to make trouble with the sugar, or glucose idling in your bloodstream. Taking a walk or getting any other type of physical activity forces muscle cells to soak up glucose, which it uses to produce energy. On a day when you don't give your muscles enough work to do, glucose goes unused. Over time, a sit-around lifestyle encourages two major problems:

* Your body converts some unused sugar to fat. Build up too much and your butt, thighs, and belly will expand. The latter flab depository is the most worrisome; research shows that fat cells around the waistline produce chemicals that cause insulin resistance and low-grade inflammation, which promotes heart disease and other conditions.

* Having lots of glucose lingering in the blood increases levels of dangerous compounds called AGEs that damage nerves and blood cells. That's why high blood sugar causes diabetes complications such as blindness and kidney disease.

Getting up off the sofa and heading out the door for a walk can help you to avoid these fates, of course. Exercise is a reliable fat burner and research shows that physical activity lowers levels of AGEs, too - among many other benefits.

BOTTOM LINE: Sitting around all day may help you get caught up on your favorite cable shows, but it is also a set-up for bad blood sugar, weight gain, and all the problems they can cause.

PLUS: 13 Ways to Have More Energy at Work

What happens when I spend the day really angry?

The inside story: There's nothing wrong with getting angry - it's perfectly natural and healthy to get ticked off now and then. Staying angry is another matter altogether: It's terrible for you. Apart from wrecking your mood and alienating others, fuming all day can make it much harder to manage diabetes. Anger is a form of emotional stress, which causes your body to release adrenaline and other related hormones. One effect of these "stress" hormones is to raise blood sugar. Also, stress may make you indulge in bad habits, such as eating junk food, which can make matters worse.

There's more. Letting your anger boil all day can damage your heart. Do you get irked and annoyed now and then, but you're able to shrug it off? No big deal. But scientists now know that clinging to anger raises blood pressure. While that's not a big surprise, a recent Yale study found that people who tend to let their anger stew also have high levels of a substance called endothelin, which is known to trigger heart attacks by causing plaques in the arteries (clumps of fat, cholesterol, and other gunk) to burst open and form blood clots. Other research has found that intense, sustained anger can actually cause an arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat, which can stop your ticker from ticking - permanently.

BOTTOM LINE: Day-long anger can be toxic, so find a way to let it go. Write down your rage in a journal. If a friend or family member made you mad, tell 'em. Or just go outside and scream - whatever helps you blow off steam.

http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/4-bad-habits-making-sick-151800574.html

Tofu stir-fried with lemon grass and chili paste

My co-author's husband from amthucchay.blogspot.com made this dish.  It is similar to a dish from a restaurant in South Philly.  It was very quick and easy to make but it turned out to be delicious.

Ingredients:

• 5 pieces of fried tofu, cut in half in triangle shape
• 1 red bell pepper, slice in any way you want
• 1 table spoon minced lemon grass
• 1/2 cup vegetable broth (or water)
• Canola oil

Spices: salt, soysauce, vegetarian oyster sauce, sugar, chili paste (available in Asian Market as in the picture below):

Methods:

1. The trick for this dish is the cooking heat has to be very high.
2. Add cooking oil, when the oil is hot, add lemon grass.  Stir fry until lemon grass turns golden brown and release fragrance
3. Add bell pepper, stir fry 1 minute.
4. Add tofu, mix well.
5. Add spices to taste, mix well.
6. Pour in broth, stir fry in high heat for a few minutes.
7. If you want your bell pepper cooked well then let it cooked until soft, I prefer it to be crunchy.

Happy cooking and eating:)
Phongloc (Translated by Mai)

How to Listen Well

Communicating properly has as much to do with listening as it does with talking to someone else. Learning how to be a good listener will help improve all of your relationships.

1.
When you are trying to talk to someone, it can be easy to tune out what they are saying and let your mind wander. Keeping your focus on the person talking, without interrupting them, has to be done on purpose. Looking at them will help you remember to listen and pay attention.

2.
When it's your turn to talk, repeat what you think they were saying. This is important, because sometimes in communication the meaning can get lost in our interpretation. Repeating it as you understood it, asking if you understand what they meant, will give them the opportunity to correct any misunderstanding by rephrasing what they said so the point is clear. It will also keep you from misunderstanding the meaning and getting angry or hurt over it.

3.
After you have the full meaning of what they said, you can respond to the points made. When you are done, make sure the proper understanding is there of what you meant, by carefully listening to them repeat what they heard. If they didn't understand correctly, repeat what you said by rephrasing it.


Tips & Warnings

Being a good listener is important in any relationship. If you communicate well with each other, you will have much less misunderstanding, hurt feelings and arguments.

When you are practicing listening well, it can be difficult to keep your attention focused. Try to make eye contact, and respond once in a while with nodding or in some other way letting the other person know you are listening. Keeping distractions to a minimum will help you focus on the conversation.

Read more: How to Listen Well | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_2303011_listen-well.html#ixzz1jFR1WKGD

Foods you should be eating to jump-start the new year

By Sarah Bernard

Sugary cakes. Glazed hams. Egg nog. That’s all behind you now. Wipe the slate clean and start the new year on a healthy note by focusing on vitamin-rich foods that you can incorporate into every meal going forward. “Today” show health expert Joy Bauer came by to talk about the superfoods we should all be eating. Thankfully, her picks are delicious and easy to find. From spicy veggies to protein powerhouses to sweet treats...

The best way to reset your eating habits after the holidays is to stock your fridge with fresh, nutrient-rich foods that give you energy and improve your mood.

LENTILS
These beans are filled with high-quality vegetarian protein and fiber, which boost energy and mood. They’re inexpensive and they cook up in 30 minutes or less. Joy suggests making large pots of lentil soup or lentil chili so you can freeze the leftovers.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS
Toss some Brussels sprouts on a baking sheet, add olive oil and salt, and then bake until they're crispy. We have no doubt they will become your favorite veggie. Added bonus: They're only 55 calories per cup and they help fight cancer and boost memory.

FROZEN BERRIES
Keeping bags of frozen raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and strawberries on hand is a perfect way to make sure you still get antioxidants, especially during the winter months when fresh fruit is hard to come by. Eat them right out of the bag, add them to cereal, or make delicious smoothies.

HOT PEPPERS
Hot peppers can suppress your appetite and rev up your metabolism.

http://shine.yahoo.com/the-thread/5-foods-you-should-be-eating-to-jumpstart-the-new-yea.html