Money! That's what I want!
Perhaps an age old question: Does more wealth bring you happiness? The billions who play the lottery world wide certainly think so. I confess, come a roll over - even though my chances are now more remote than ever - I buy into the fantasy and before I know it I'm handing over real money to that horrid company called Camelot. I fall foul to the little voice in my head whispering "someone has to win it".
Studies have been going on to examine whether or not money can make you happy and if so at what level.
When economists were asked to find an answer they concluded that if you have more money then you will have more choice and more choice should mean greater happiness as you can afford more of the finer things in life.
However, Daniel Gilbert a Harvard University psychologist wrote in his book 'Stumbling on Happiness' that "Psychologists have spent decades studying the relation between wealth and happiness and they have generally concluded that wealth increases human happiness when it lifts people out of abject poverty and into the middle class but that it does little to increase happiness thereafter."
In a global survey, people were asked to describe their level of happiness on a scale of 1 to 7. 1 was "not at all satisfied with my life" and 7 meant "completely satisfied." The average score for the American multimillionaires who filled in the questionnaire was 5.8. The average for the homeless in Calcutta, India was 2.9. However, those who were just above the 'homeless' band, the slum dwellers in Calcutta scored 4.6. Additionally the Greenland natives, the Inuit and from Kenya the Masai who herd cattle, scored around 5.8.
These results confirmed what the psychologists had thought, that happiness increases significantly only when a person is raised out of abject poverty to a reasonable level but does not increase further from there.
Now, if only someone could explain what "happiness" really means. Right, over to the Dalai Lama ................
A Raisin Short Of A Fruitcake
My partner Anthony has baked precisely one item in his life. He got inspired by watching "Nigella's Christmas" last year [what man doesn't find Nigella attractive?] and proceeded to bake Nigella's Chocolate Fruitcake. It was divine! He's already planning his next foray into the kitchen - apron and all!
I thought I'd share this momentous recipe with you:
Chocolate Fruitcake
It's dead easy to make, looks mighty impressive and would even get the nod from Gran.
Like all fruitcakes with booze in them, they do improve with age - so do make it soon.
Massage Yourself Better - At Your Desk
Ever found yourself slumped over your computer at lunchtime, aimlessly surfing the web? Tsk, Tsk! you should be getting up from your desk and going for a walk in the fresh air and natural light. However, should it be raining or snowing or you're bored senseless with the streets around you office, you could do a lot worse than give yourself a 5 minute massage.
I've found this great 5 minute video which is easy to do:
Self-massage at your desk.
I've found this great 5 minute video which is easy to do:
Self-massage at your desk.
Gratitude Diary
I was rather remiss last week not to include a gratitude post but to be frank I wasn't feeling grateful for anything. I was having a bad week! Typically, this was counter-productive. As contemplating on "whats good" was the very thing I should have been doing.
Anyway........ I'm now grateful that I feel prompted to include one this week.
What's good at the moment:
- I've found a Bodypump class close by.
- I'm going to South Africa for 24 days in January - YAY!!!!
- A friend has offered to give me a Reiki treatment.
- Re-discovering a back massage technique that feels very good.
- Scraping ice off my windscreen in the morning ..... ok this is a lie :-)
How Massage Works - Part 3.
This article concludes the three part series on "How Massage Works" by Gerry Pyves, the founder of No Hands Massage.
"Thanks to getting regular massage your body is beginning to remember the power of touch from when you were a baby and your life revolved around simple touch. You have established that primal connection with yourself – a connection that will reawaken every time you get on the Massage table.
All your sessions after this have the potential to be as significant as anything else you have ever experienced in your life. Providing you do not let that gap go longer than 2 weeks. Each time you receive a Massage you start the session where you left off. With all the knowledge and memory of every session etched into your
psyche and tissues. This is because the experiences are so profound that your body now has no problem remembering.
It is as thrilling and as exciting as meeting your lover, only without all the difficult bits! It is not the Massage therapist you are falling in love with – it is your connection to your wisdom that you are falling in love with. Something is blossoming within you – something that every single human being has. Your truth!
When you feel this you are scoring 100 units on the Massage scale! Only now, you are becoming so used to such powerful experiences it only feels like a one or two! It is rather like this: having accelerated to a thousand miles an hour you are travelling so fast there is no sense of acceleration at all!
When touch is transforming your life so much, it is not possible to increase it much more than this. Massage cannot have much more of an impact on your life than this - unless you begin to levitate, perhaps!
The transformation that you experience after every session confirms the wisdom of choosing such a deep and natural therapy as opposed to those quick fixes people rave about. You also notice that all of the niggling little health problems you used to have are disappearing. Actually they have just fallen away so naturally and so quietly you probably haven’t even realised it.
You now know that what works is actually oh so simple… The more you let go each session, the more benefits you feel in your whole life, not just your body. The more you release, the more you discover there is to release. You are like a traveller who has been carrying so many bags of tension and disease for so long that it just seemed normal to walk around with so many bags of luggage under your arms and on your shoulders.
Each time you have a Massage you let go of another bag and as it slides to the floor you say “Damn! I had no idea I had been carrying that one for so long….” And when you get off the table and walk around the room you feel lighter and younger than you ever believed possible. You begin to expect the miracles that touch can provide...touch has become as much a staple diet for you as your food, and all your friends are remarking how well you look and ask incredulously “what are you on?"
Remember, total health and well being probably requires TRANSFORMATION at every level of your being, physical, emotional, energetic, mental and spiritual. If you wish to change anything, it takes commitment and persistence.
Real and lasting change is only achieved GRADUALLY, OVER TIME, WITH SUPPORT AND THROUGH REPETITION.
This is the ancient 'cumulative principle' on which the touch therapy of Massage is based. Massage practitioners who promote this free book on their web sites understand and honour this principle. They probably have some favourable pricing structures that reward your commitment to this 'cumulative principle'. They also have a commitment and dedication to the simplicity of healing touch.
.........Uncomplicated. Persistent. Powerful...........
All you have to do is keep turning up, and doing the work of BREATHING, FEELING AND RELEASING. Your Massage therapist will do the rest.
An ancient healing formula: The cumulative principle."
How Massage Works - Part 2
Following on from my previous post here's an opportunity to learn more about how massage works, based on cumulative touch. Written by Gerry Pyves the founder of No Hands Massage
"If you were wise, you booked this second session for just 1 week after your first, so you could get all the touch benefits properly locked into your body before it 'forgets'. This time, you know the answers to all of the initial questions and you already feel more relaxed about this second visit.
Within 5 minutes of this second Massage session, you are already achieving a higher level of relaxation than you did at the end of your first session! Because only a week has passed, your body instantly remembers the level of relaxation you achieved last time and you now become much more open to the full power of touch.
If we give this second session a unit score, it would probably be much nearer 10 units. This might be comparable to spending aday in a health spa or walking on the hills for a day.
Then you come for your third session...
If you are wise, you have booked this session for just one week after your second… Why? Because this means that your body remembers the effects of your last 2 Massages much more easily and by now you are feeling the effects from your previous session even as you travel to your appointment!
You get on the table already releasing tension you have accumulated over the last week, out of your whole being and you are already looking forward to what is becoming the most important hour of your week. You are beginning to understand that even with the best practitioner, it is up to you to let go of tension and your body is ‘remembering’ something you knew as a child.
Touch and healing is natural and normal and you are wise enough to know exactly how to release any tension you have accumulated. At the end of this session you have experienced amazing depth of touch and in terms of units are probably scoring 20 or 30 units. That is like being away on holiday for a week and it is ten times the power of your first Massage!!!
When you get onto the Massage table for your fourth session (still booked for 1 week after your last session!), within 5 minutes you have reached the level of release and rebalance that you ended the last session with…and the touch just pours into your life and you now understand how to focus your mind during the Massage on the 3 golden rules of Massage: BREATHE, FEEL and RELEASE!
You do this like you have been doing this all your life...
You are already becoming a Massage expert...You know how to get the most out of your session...you focus your mind on your breath, on the touch and on letting go....It is like a meditation...a meditation of touch...it is the place of healing, the place of your own personal journey.
The cumulative effect of 4 weekly Massage sessions means that you are probably getting 40 - 50 units of value from this one session, just like going on holiday for 3 months – still in just one hour, still just for a few quid!"
How Massage Works - Part 1
In our current social climate geared towards quick fixes and instant gratification it's good to take a step back and realise that there's hardly ever such a thing. Unless you're talking about mending your broken glasses with some sticky tape.
I'd like to quote from Gerry Pyves - the founder of No Hands Massage, he says it so well!
"Massage is a natural therapy that works on the ancient 'cumulative principle'. This ancient healing principle has almost been forgotten in our modern age of 'quick fix' and instant gratification.
Yet Massage was being used thousands of years ago – in a time when there was a greater understanding of the natural rhythms of the world, the psyche and the human body.
Massage works because you literally accumulate touch. Touch is the missing link in health. There are libraries of research papers documenting the phenomenal power of touch to heal disease and illness as well as prevent innumerable conditions from ever developing. Of course they don’t earn drug companies any money so we don’t hear about them, do we? Only Massage therapists seem to take action on this research.
The loss of touch in our families and communities, in the workplace, in schools and would you believe, in our hospitals is a subject that has occupied this author for his whole life. Massage redresses this in the simplest and most direct way imaginable. It does it through this ancient principle of accumulation. What this means is that your first Massage session is probably your least effective! That is why the really deep power of Massage still remains a very well kept secret – even some Massage therapists have not yet discovered it!
You see, the real power of touch happens at a deeply subconscious level and this takes time and repetition to truly embed. Most people do not realise this and only go for an occasional Massage. The secret remains safe…
All ancient healing disciplines that have remained unpolluted by our very modern need for everything to happen in a rush work to this tried and tested formula:
HEALING = SLOW + REPETITION + SUPPORT
The human psyche is a profound and complex mechanism and does not respond well to ‘quick fixes’. Even the most profound and dramatic changes in our lives only have a permanent effect if reinforced by this formula. Healing is like a good marriage. It often takes time and persistent work to last beyond the first dramatic and exciting whirlwind of the romance and falling in love. The only real change is change that lasts.
Here is how Massage actually works for you as the client:
You come for your first session and you are a little apprehensive of the unknown. If you are wise, and follow the advice of this book, then once you find a therapist you feel safe with, you will book yourself a series of 10 Massages over a period of approximately 10-20 weeks. It works even better if you have managed to find a regular slot (not always possible) and a regular day. This regularity also helps your subconscious to programme you for the very best results.
At this first session, you probably ask yourself "Is this practitioner a good Massage therapist? Will I feel comfortable and safe? Will this person pry into my personal life? Will the practitioner respect my privacy? Will the practitioner be sensitive to my needs? Have I made the right decision coming for a Massage? Will they give me the Massage I want?"
During this, your first Massage session with a new practitioner, everything is new: the room, the decor, the smell, the oils, the system (where do I get changed? do I have to take all my clothes off? Where will they start? How will I know when they have finished?
It is not so easy to completely let go fully in this new setting because it is such a new experience. Your Body and Mind have no reference points, so they stay alert and in a learning mode and in a protective mode. This is natural and instinctual. During this session, these fears should be assuaged and your body will let go. But it is still only the first session. You are still just a Massage Baby! (If your fears are not assuaged, cancel all future sessions and look for another therapist!)
So how do you measure the effects of this first session? If it has been a good first session, then you have only experienced the smallest nibble of the hors d’oeuvres of the full menu that touch actually has to offer you!
If we could give the impact and effectiveness of Massage in unit values, let us say this first Massage scored a 2 or 3. Let us say that a single unit is like a great cup of coffee or glass of wine, or a blueberry muffin . . . .and the most powerful experience you have ever had in your life scores 100."
Next week you can find out what happens in session two ...... it just gets better!
Gratitude Diary
This week I'm grateful for:
- Will and Grace Series 5 boxset
- my former Sports Massage tutor for giving me fantastic advice
- realising that mistakes are opportunities to learn
- living in a privileged and safe country
- having the freedom to make choices