Big Picture

"Joy is a return to the deep harmony of body, mind, and spirit that was yours at birth and that can be yours again. That openness to love, that capacity for wholeness with the world around you, is still within you."

- Deepak Chopra

"The wholeness and freedom we seek is our true nature, who we really are."

- Jack Kornfield

Bird's Eye View to Wholeness

bird's eye view of the larger perspective

What follows below is the 10,000-foot view of many of the subjects discussed in much greater detail throughout this website.

Don't pay attention to the order they are presented.

All are important and all should be practiced in ways that makes the most sense to you and your life situation.

For more details on any of the items below, click on the appropriate petals of the flower

1. Protect Your Physical Health

Your physical health is a very precious thing that cannot be bought with money or any other material possessions. When your body no longer works as the highly efficient and harmonious system it was meant to be, all the wealth in the world cannot fix it.

Take care of your body
Exercise regularly
Reduce stress
Eat a healthy diet
Get enough sleep
Avoid environmental toxicities
Seek professional help when necessary

If you’re not healthy you can’t enjoy life. A healthy physical body requires a healthy lifestyle, there are no quick fixes.

A quick note: be aware that the medical “standards of care” for many chronic illnesses that focus on treating symptoms and not the underlying causes. Treatment protocols may often be the same for everyone no matter your individual circumstance. Look for holistic practitioners that treat the whole body / mind, your mind and your body.

2. Guard Your Mental Health

We all carry around beliefs and habits that were programmed into our subconscious mind at an early age, mostly without our conscious knowing or even agreeing to carry them. If your mind triggers a though or emotion that is uncomfortable or painful, you are probably triggering one or more of those long held beliefs or habits. When this occurs, explore these feelings and try to figure where they came from. Recognition that you have an old habit that is no longer appropriate is the first step to resolving them.

Appreciate what you have
Focus on the simple things for happiness
Practice forgiveness
Learn to meditate
Live in gratitude
Be authentic
Don’t try to control the uncontrollable
Seek professional help when necessary

3. Treat Happiness as a Process not a Goal

True happiness comes from experiencing the simple things in life. Everything changes in life, people come and go, jobs change, material wealth changes, and your physical or mental health may change. Don’t worry about what you may have lost, enjoy everything that you have at the present moment.

Happiness is not about the major events in our life but all the many small moments that make up our daily activities: having a nice conversation with a loved one or close friend, enjoying a hot cup of coffee, feeling the sunlight on your body, experiencing the beauty of a sunrise. These are the things that really matter.

When you stop searching for happiness outside of yourself, you will realize that it is always the simplest things that make us truly happy.

4. Practice Forgiveness

Practicing true forgiveness always brings peace to oneself. Carrying grudges only hurts the person who holds them and not the person who is the target of it; not family, not friends, not co-workers, not anybody. Not even those who are no longer with us. People who have too much pride or too high in self-assurance or those who carry bitterness or hatred in their hearts are the ones who suffer the most.

Forgive not because other people deserve it, but because you deserve peace. Letting go of bitterness and hatred will give you a sense of peace and equanimity that is hard to match in any other way. It will feel as though a heavy burden had been lifted off your shoulders that you may have felt that you have been carrying around for years.

5. Cherish Every Day

Every day is precious; treasure each day as if it was the last day of your life. One day you will not wake up and nobody knows in advance when that day will arrive. Life is fragile, even if we are in perfect health, or are financially secure, accidents happen and events take place beyond our control that we have no way of anticipating in advance. More time is one of the few things that all the money in the world can’t buy.

We often spend too much time regretting past actions that can never be changed or we worry about future events that will probably never materialize. Stay focused in the now, live fully, love fully and take in all the precious moments that life has to offer us. Never put off anything that is truly important that can be done in the present. Never wait for the perfect moment to enjoy your life. That moment may never come and probably will never even exist.

6. Develop Empathy and Compassion

Always treat others with empathy and compassion. We never can truly know the physical or emotional trauma, pain, anguish, or suffering that others are experiencing. Compassion for others stimulates a hormonal response in our bodies that promotes our own healing and growth. Helping others in need not only helps them but also invokes wonderful and rewarding feelings within us as well.

7. Reduce Emphasis on Material Goals and Possessions

The pursuit of material possessions will never lead to long term happiness. Soon after you reach one goal to obtain something new you will quickly grow tired of it and you will restart the race to the next thing on your list. This is a never-ending cycle that will keep repeating and one that will never lead to ultimate satisfaction or happiness.

Sure, material possessions may give you more choices and more opportunities in the short term but, in the long term, they will always lose their significance. All the material possessions accumulated over a lifetime always lose their value to you and become meaningless as you age. We come into this world with nothing but our bodies and we leave with nothing but the memories of a lifetime. In the end, what matters most are the memories we made, the moments we cherished, and the people who have been in our lives.

8. Develop Habits Conducive to Continuous Learning and Growing

After all, isn’t this one of the reasons we are here? Novelty keeps us young; just watch children and the sheer joy they experience in exploring or investigating something new. We all know what it feels like to be stuck in a rut – its not very pleasant to say the least. Humans are meaning seeking and purpose seeking animals. Our curiosity and zest for meaning and purpose in life only comes about by being open to growth and by becoming aware of our old habits and beliefs.

9. Don’t Try to Control the Uncontrollable

Don’t try to change what is beyond your control. To do so is nothing more than an exercise in futility and frustration at best and a danger to your wellbeing at worst. We are brought into this world only with agency for ourselves, not for others and certainly not for Nature. Sure, teaching others or trying to influence them is fine as long as they are willing or motivated to do so. For someone who is resistant to your efforts, trying to influence or teach them anything is like hitting your head against the wall over and over and wondering why it still keeps hurting.

10. Seek Meaningful Relationships

Meaningful relationships are what makes life fulfilling and worthwhile. We have evolved as social animals over millennia. This socialization was necessary for our survival and our wellbeing; it still is. People can, and do die of loneliness. Sure, children get busy but find a way to stay in touch with them anyways. Friends move away, come into or go out of our lives, or even pass away. With today’s technologies you can still stay in touch, at least with the ones that are still living. Also, it is never too late to make new friends. Join a social club, take a class, go to church, synagogue or mosque, join an organization, join a cause or help out with your favorite charity. Find people that share the same interests or hobbies that you enjoy. You never know when or where you will make a new friend.

11. Cherish Freedom and Independence

Imagine a life where you always made your own decisions and one day you are no longer able to do so. You are either told what to do or you have to depend upon others because you no long have the health or resources to be independent.

Freedom and health are such precious commodities. Have you ever watched a wild animal locked up in a cage for the first time after living its life in the wild where it was free to do whatever it chose? It will try to do everything possible, including harming itself to seek freedom. In the end, if it cannot recover its lost freedom, it will wither and die. The same can happen to humans.

12. Watch Out for Pain and Suffering

Occasional pain is a given in life. It is a physical manifestation that something is out of balance or not functioning as it is supposed to. Pain is nature’s way of telling us to pay attention and that we probably need to take some corrective actions or make some changes. Never ignore pain, it is trying to get your attention, to tell you something. Don’t forget to check out your environment, the cause may not be within your body / mind.

Suffering or mental anguish on how we feel about pain is a mental construct that we create with our minds. It is a point of view of our situation based on our attitude or beliefs about life. Two people can experience the same physical pain; one may suffer, one may not. Make sure you know which it is when you are thinking about something uncomfortable. Pain is trying to tell you something; suffering leads to misery if it is not addressed.

13. Protect Our Planetary Ecosystem

We are products of Nature. Our ancestors evolved in a planetary ecosystem; they didn’t drop in from somewhere else. Throughout much of the history of the planet, everything lived in harmony within that larger system. As we continue to disrupt earth’s environment, we not only threaten our own lives, but that of all plant and animal life on the planet. There is one guiding principle we can all follow with respect to the impact we have on this beautiful garden we call earth: What would Nature do or want us to do?

14. Be Authentic

We all have flaws or imperfections in our personality, in our external appearance, in our thinking, in our financial situation or material possessions, and even in our health that we don’t want anyone to know about. We may be embarrassed, introverted, or just afraid people may not like us if we expose any of our flaws. Protecting ourselves can even include doing so in our most intimate relationships. It is also something we may even be doing unconsciously from conditioning earlier in life.

Consequently, many people often present themselves to the world has how they wish they were and not how they really are. What some people don’t realize is that not to be perfect is just a part of the human condition. None of us is or ever will be – at least not in this life.

Wearing a mask or acting in a way that is not authentic to who and what we really are takes a lot of energy. Not only that, the stress of acting to hide a flaw over a long period of time can lead to chronic illness in our bodies and / or mental trauma. For the sake of your health, it is always best to be authentic!

If someone doesn’t like the way you really are, you have two choices: You can consciously choose to change (if you can and want to) or perhaps it’s time to find and choose a new relationship.