Eat To Heal

It’s 31^st of December 2011 and it is New Year’s Eve again. Every year is always the same. People partying, people wishing for good luck next year, better financial condition, wishing to have a new home, hoping to get married soon, hope to get pregnant soon etc, etc and etc. The list will never end. We wish for something better for next year.

I do not have any particular new year’s wish. But I always have resolution for every New Year, and every New Year I will have some resolutions that I will do for that New Year. About 2 months ago I was thinking what I will do or what are my resolutions that I can share with you guys.

So here I will share with you some of my 5 resolution for next year, and it is always relevant for years to come. It does not matter what is your situation now, these resolution will be your best wish to make your condition better.

1. Stay healthy

If I say “stay healthy”, it means that you will do whatever it takes to make your body fit, not getting sick. Always stay up all night is not healthy. Watching TV too much is not healthy. Smoking is not healthy. You must know this already. And I believe that you get a lot of information how to stay and be healthy from books, magazines or TV programs. So now it is time to do it and do it now.

2. Pay yourself first.

I read Robert T. Kiyosaki’s famous best selling book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. In there he said about “pay yourself first”. What it means is that for every dollar you earn, you must put aside percentage of that dollar to be used by you FIRST. Not spend it or even worst, pay your debt. I know this is very hard for some people. But if you want to improve your financial situation, you must do this. Start with 3% of your earn income to be put aside as your saving, and then 3% for your investment strategy. That way, every month you will have some money for you only.

3. Go Green

When I say go green, it does not mean plant more tree or ride a bike instead of car. But “go green” can be anything that you do that DO NOT compromise our mother earth. For example: Have you ever used reusable bottle like Tupperware? If you use this refill and reusable bottle, you can always carry your own water with you without having to buy new one when you thirsty. This way, you reduce the use of plastic and you can always refill your bottle with new water when you get home. And you save money too….

4. Make donation

How many times a year we make donation? I don’t think we as human ever consciously and willingly to make donation on regular basis like once a year or once a month or once every 6 months without wanting something in return, right? So from now on, we make donation on regular basis. It does not matter if once a year as long as you make donation. You can donate your old clothes, old furniture, old jackets, unused tools and any other stuff that you have hanging around your house that you no longer have any use of it. Donate to your favorite church, your favorite non profit organization like Red Cross or Salvation Army, orphaned houses or other non profit organizations.

5. Gratitute

We live the world of greed. How do we protect ourselves from those greedy people? I am not saying that greed is bad. But I see people sometimes crush and burn because they do not feel satisfy within themselves. So I am suggesting be thankful for everything that you have already had. What you have accomplished already. Do not pursue something that is out of reach. Even though there is quote “Put your dream as high as the star”, but I believe if the time is not right, no matter how hard you try, you still have to wait. So from now on, do your best to achieve what you always wanted, to achieve your dream, but on the other hand, be thankful for what you have. Be thankful that you still have your family to support you. Be thankful that your situation is a lot better than most people. Be thankful that you still have 3 meals a day. Be thankful that you still can sleep on a nice comfy bed. Be thankful for everything around you. And yes… gratitude is the last word I like to share with you.

So… there you have my 5 resolutions for your New Year. I wish you all the best luck in the world. God Bless!

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Some of you might not know what guava fruit is, because it is not very common fruit for some countries in this world, especially countries with 4 seasons. But you can very easily find this fruit in the country like Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia. Guava (in Latin it is called “Psidium”) is tropical fruit. Like where I live, guava can be found almost everywhere. It’s a blessing that I have this magnificent fruit.

Guava is one of the super fruits. One of the amazing things about guava is that it contains Lycopene, antioxidant to fight cancer. Lycopene can keep our body healthy and keep it away from free radicals that can cause all kinds of damage, including blocked arteries, joint degeneration, nervous system problems, or even cancer. Guava also has high in vitamin C. You know what vitamin C can do to your body, don’t you?

When you look at the picture, you can see that guava has a lot seeds just down the centre of the fruit. And I am personally convinced that the centre is where all the nutrition is located. Because it is kind of hard to eat the centre of the fruit with all this seeds and you have to have your own way to separate the seeds and the fruit itself. So the philosophy here is that sometimes we have to go through hard times/hard work in order to get something worthy.

Some benefits of guava are:
1. Lower the cholesterol level in our blood.
2. Reducing triglycerides.
3. Lowering blood pressure.
4. Smoothing the circulation of our blood and digestion system.
5. And some benefits I have mentioned above …

So now you know some benefits of guava, I recommend you to have it everyday. Buy them whenever you see them on the stores or your local supermarkets. Daily consume is much recommended for you. But do not consume guava juice in the package, the ones that you also find on the stores, as it contains sweetened and the nutrition is not equivalent to the whole fruit itself.

And a little tip from me, pick up the red-fleshed ones as it contains more nutrition and have more antioxidants.

So guys, if you like what you read here, please do share with friends and family members who can benefit from this little article. And you’re welcomed to tweet this or share with others on Facebook. Thank you very much…

So, you have a cold or the flu? Feeling pretty down, right? Ready to run to the doctor and get a flu shot or other drug to ‘cure’ your illness? Bad idea! Why? First, let’s discuss what a cold or the flu or any other acute disease is. Acute disease is an illness that runs its course within a certain time frame. It is a ‘constructive’ disease as it removes toxins from your body. Let’s see why and how that’s possible.

The human body is perfectly designed to keep itself in tip top health. To do so it must release built up toxins in the body. Toxins are disease producing. The body cannot function properly with toxins. Built up toxins can come from any number of sources such as poor food selection, contaminated air or water, smoking, drinking alcoholic beverages, lack of exercise, overeating, stress, lack of sleep, etc. When the body collects too much in the way of toxins from these sources, it starts an internal ‘house cleaning’ by eliminating these excess toxins. Toxin release often creates symptoms such as found in the cold or flu or other acute disease. Fevers, chills, mucus, diarrhea, throwing up, are all symptoms proving that the body is trying to rid itself of these built up toxins. This is what you need the body to do to stay healthy!

Now, what do the drugs do to the body to ‘fight’ the illness? In simple terms, they suppress the symptoms by stopping the body from releasing the toxins. They do not, however, remove the cause of the illness. Only YOU can do that!

In summary, if you take drugs to suppress the symptoms of a cold or flu, you are setting yourself up for a worse illness later on, maybe years later, but it will be far worse than your initial cold or flu. Stopping the body from eliminating the toxins is cause for serious destructive disease later on in life. The body can only deal with so much in the way of toxicity. So what’s the answer to dealing with acute disease? Very simply, stop causing your body to accumulate toxins. How? By removing the causes that build up toxicity in the body. Check your diet, stop bad habits such as smoking or drinking, eliminate stress in your life, get more exercise, go outside for fresh air and sunshine as much as possible. These will go a long way to prevent accumulated toxins in the body and you will live a much longer life without the body instituted acute diseases such as the cold or flu, which prevent you from having serious destructive type diseases in later life.

Ok, here’s the list of my 7 activities that keep me ‘boost up’ every single day. It might be too easy for you or you may know it already, but if you do it regularly on a daily basis, it will make a different.

1. Drink water right after you wake up.
Wake up at 6.30 am in the morning. I know you will say ‘what? Isn’t that too early?” But I have my own reason why you should wake up that early every day. Drink 2 cups of water after you wake up. The water should have room temperature. Not cold water or hot water. It will help you ‘clean’ up your body after detoxification that happen the night before. Some of us can not drink that much at the beginning. Start with ½ cup of water and increase it gradually.

2. Breathing exercise and sunshine.
We do not get fresh air easily these days. The only way to get it is to wake up early enough. That is why I said wake up at 6.30 am because this is the time when we can still easily get fresh air. The way to do it is, inhale slowly for about 10 seconds, then hold it in for about 20 to 30 seconds depending on your ability, then exhale it for again another 10 seconds. This way you let fresh oxygen inside your body for awhile. As you know, our body needs a good amount of oxygen to ‘moisturize’ itself. Oxygen helps ‘feeding’ our body’s cells and helps them to recover the broken cells inside our body. Also when you do the breathing exercise, do it outdoor so you get the morning sunshine. Sunshine is important to us because without it, everything would die eventually. It provides us with the vitamin D which is used in combination with calcium to create strong bones. Do the morning sun-bath approximately 10 minutes at least everyday. Try to get the whole exposable part of our body like arms, face, hands and legs.

3. Exercise
Do a little exercise in the morning just after you do the inhale-exhale activities and sun-bathing. You can either do the walking or jogging or even running or whatever you like. Just get your body moves.

4. Have breakfast
It is not ‘break-fast’ meal. Get good breakfast for your morning meal. Do not do it in a rush. Take your time. If you wake up early enough (6.30 am) you will have plenty of time to make 1 decent breakfast. Even if you do not have enough time, you can prepare 1 bowl of hot oat meal. It is enough. Or you can have a banana with Soya juice. Or you can have melon juice which can keep you up to 3 hours to your next meal. Keep your breakfast light. Do not get too full for your breakfast.

5. Have your lunch before 12 pm.
Because you have light breakfast before, try to get your lunch before 12 pm. It is good for your stomach. If you pass 12 pm, I am afraid you will starve and it’s not good for your stomach. You can eat everything you like for your lunch. My recommendation is try to eat 30% raw food and the rest can be anything you like. Try to be ¾ full.

6. Have your diner before 6.30 pm.
For diner, try to be 1/3 full. Do not get too full for diner. Just like breakfast.

7. Brush your teeth and tongue
Most of us do not understand the importance of brushing our tongue. We know why we brush our teeth but forget to brush our tongue. I can say that brushing your tongue is just as important as brushing your teeth. When we digest our food inside our mouth, tongue is doing some hard work too. Not just our teeth. Also, whatever we eat, it will leave us something on our tongue. Have you ever notice if you drink soda and we could have some colors on our tongue? So try to brush your tongue the same time after you brush your teeth and feel the different.

Ok guys, those are my 7 tips to get your body in better shape everyday. If you like what I write up there, please do share by tweeting it to your friends and family members or on Facebook. Also please leave comment down here. I would love to hear from you.

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This article is the continuous of my previous article “What is the purpose of your marriage?” Marriage is a big part of our adult life. I will talk in detail the very base of happy and successful marriage.

Love is not all around anymore, is it?

Nowadays we do not see many people have the happy marriage. They thought they will be happy once they got married. But the reality is, they found sadness, sorrow, frustration and depression in their marriage life. Actually, 65% of the world’s news is marriage news if I might say. If we have to put them all in every media, we will not have other news, except news about marriage and its problems. That’s why they don’t put them all. We more interested in politics, sports, government, health, entertainment and maybe a few about marriage too. But the fact is, 9 out of 10 marriages are in trouble. That’s why we see the number of divorce is increasing every single day. So, my question is, is marriage happiness or is marriage sadness? Please think this question carefully. Think it through. See it in your own life marriage experiences. Is it happiness or is it sadness?

Can I count on you?

I can say that if you say marriage is happiness, it is not quite right. If you say sadness, it is also not quite right. The correct answer is,

Marriage is a struggle, striving, working hard to correct the construction of marriage so in the end happiness might be achieved eventually.

So the key is that marriage itself neither happiness nor sadness. Marriage is a process to establish, to create happiness. So when you are married, you need more than love to make your marriage works. So when 2 people wanted to get marriage and they say after marriage they will be happy, they are wrong. They are not ready to be married. They should know that marriage is about duties and responsibilities.

Marriage is about giving, not taking.

Life is about giving. So is marriage. A lot of couples always say “He doesn’t love me anymore” or “He doesn’t understand me” or “She has changed a lot”. Well, I can say that this statement is selfish. You know why? Because this person doesn’t understand that marriage is about giving. Many women always wonder why we don’t count star anymore after got married or why he is not as romantic as when we were dating.

Marriage is a whole new game. There are rules to follow in order for marriage to last as long as “till death do us part” when you took a vow. Please stop asking what your spouse should do to you and start asking yourself what you can do to your spouse so you can have what you want for your marriage.

Many books talk about how we can have happy marriage, how to light up your marriage, how to make your partner love you even more and dozens of other how we can encounter.

But all these books do not talk about the main problem of the marriage. The core of the problem is seldom discussed. To me, most of them are just like tips and tricks. I will not talk about tips or tricks to help you get successful and happy marriage. I am sure you know more than I do. I am just going to discuss the very core of marriage. What do we need to achieve happy and successful marriage.

You need more than just love.

Marriage has to be built on something called “conscience”. How many times do we hear this word? We often hear something like love, care, take care, etc, but not this. I am sure you understand the meaning of this word. The main concern here is that the 4 pillars I am going to discuss is the manifestation of conscience.

Pillar # 1: Affection

Affection is one form of love, but not the normal love we know. The love we know is selfish love. Affection is the genuine true love. We often hear people say something like “He doesn’t love me anymore” or “Do you love me anymore?” or even worse “Why can’t you love me more than I do”. Selfish love is taking, always expecting your spouse to do something for you. You still think about yourself, not your spouse or your family. You are always the center.

True love is giving. You have to put some efforts in building solid marriage. You need to make some sacrifices. Loving your spouse means you need to make him or her happy. Not expecting your spouse to make you happy. You need to serve your spouse. I know what you might think, boy this is too much. Too much for being married. I say yes. Again, marriage is not some boy falling in love with a girl in high school. It’s beyond that. You and your spouse need to help each other. So again, affection or I can say “true love” is about making sacrifice, put priority for your spouse,

Pillar # 2: Respect

The truth behind respect is that if we respect others, others will respect us. That’s the universal truth. Not many people can do this, especially in marriage life. Why do we have to respect our partner? That’s because no couple is perfect. We always have our differences. No families are the same. Therefore, if we have different opinions, different thoughts, different way of thinking, this will not be a problem if we respect each other.

I will not discuss in detail about respect. This is one topic in itself. But you get my point here. You can forget about the course you enroll about self development if you can not do this simple task, respect others. Many courses out there teach us how to communicate with others. But how can you expect to communicate better with your spouse if you can not even respect this person? That’s impossible. I guess the ability to respect others is built from childhood. That’s why it is very important for parents to understand the value of respect and teach it to their children when they are still young.

I give you 5 reasons why we should respect our spouse:

1. Equally noble

In God’s eyes, we are the same.

2. Our spouse IS NOT our servant.

3. Our spouse is the mother or father of our children.

This is probably the most important reason why you should respect your spouse. If you understand this, there is no way that you will ignore your spouse by not treating your wife or husband in the right way.

4. Our spouse will not be with us forever.

We are human. We will die eventually. So use the most of your time together by respecting each other. Cherish every moment together.

5. Our spouse is the son of God.

If we do not respect each other, I can say that we do not respect God. Because we are all the sons of God.

Pillar # 3: Forgiveness

We have to forgive each other, forgive your partner. Why? Because every family has its own problems. There are times when misunderstanding, disagreement and dispute must take place. Often marriage is right in the edge of divorce just because we can not forgive each other. Just for one mistake, divorce is the only option.

A classic example that often encountered in marriage live is cheating on your spouse. Do you think that you can forgive your husband or your wife if he or she cheated on you? Tough question right? Well, if he or she has cheated on you, the question you should ask yourself, why he or she cheated on me? We have to look inside ourselves what is wrong with ourselves. Not starting to blame our partner which is what would happen normally, right? Do we have the power to forgive our spouse if he or she cheated on us?

Please look at the situation very carefully. Because the power of forgiveness is the power we always ask God. Think about it. We always ‘beg’ God to forgive us. If we always ask God to forgive us so, why can’t we forgive our spouse? Because the way I see it, there is no mistake big enough that we do not deserve to be forgiven. If you have the power of forgiveness, this will give you the whole new life for you and your family. I am sure your feeling to your spouse will not be the same, but over time, you will over come this. If you spouse sincerely asking for your forgiveness and promise you or maybe even swear to you, you should forgive him or her. You should know that when you forgive your spouse, he or she will repent and will never do that same mistake again.

Pillar #4: Gratitude

Last but not least, gratitude is something we need to achieve successful and happy marriage. We have to thank our husband or our wife for something that you think he or she has done for us that make things better. Often in marriage life, husband is so arrogant that when his wife cooked very nice meal, he just keeps silent. No compliment coming from him. Saying like “Hmm.. today’s meal is so delicious. Thank you. What did you put in there?” This would make your wife feel that she is being treated like a queen. Don’t you think so?

We really have to thank our husband or wife. Sometimes ‘thank you’ does not have to be said. Just giving a smile to him or her, or just short saying ‘thank you’ will make big different in your marriage life.

Try to practice this in your daily life. Give compliment and see what happens.

Ok, that is it. Now you know the 4 pillars to successful and happy marriage. These are the foundations. No tricks no tips. As simple as it gets. These are the factors that we forget most of the times. But now you know what you should do to keep your marriage ever lasting.

I know this post might not be perfect. It maybe offends you in some way. So I need your contribution on this. Please give me your comments, critics, opinions or suggestions how I can improve my article in the future.

And if you like what you read here, please do share with your friends in Facebook or Twitter or any other social medias I have below. I would love to hear from you.

See you!