Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra MD (official)
Founder, Chopra Foundation
One Need No One Can Afford to Ignore
February 18, 2014

What do you really need if you want to lead a successful life? It seems odd in hindsight, but for a very long time no one seriously asked this question. Life was divided into traditional compartments – work, family, religion – that hadn’t changed for centuries. A breakthrough came when the psychologist Abraham Maslow offered a new model that put basic needs first and worked up the ladder toward higher needs. Thus feeling safe and secure was a basic need, while art, imagination, and God came later.

This “hierarchy of needs” has had a huge impact, and it suits common sense. A successful life requires a solid foundation to be secure. Yet life keeps changing, and I think there is now one need that supersedes all others. Without it, money and family won’t make up for the lack. A prominent career and professional status will be undermined. The very possibility of leading a happy life is jeopardized.

This one need is the need for self-care.

The accumulated knowledge of medicine, psychology, and longevity studies agree about this. Each of us has the potential to avoid disease, retard aging, and achieve a higher state of well-being if we pay attention to self-care. A new horizon has opened that millions of people aren’t fully aware of. They continue to hold on to old worn out notions that deprive them of power over their futures. These notions include the following:

1. Doctors exist to keep you well.

2. Old age is a state of decline.

3. Money solves most problems, and the more, the better.

4. Everyone has inner demons. It’s better to keep quiet about them.

5. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.

6. Life is unfair and bad things happen randomly.

7. Genes cause everything, and there’s nothing you can do about your genes.

Without examining these notions in detail, they are all contradicted by self-care.

1. Wellness is each person’s responsibility.

2. Old age reflects your beliefs about it. Positive beliefs lead to a positive old age.

3. Money provides for basic needs. After that, there’s no correlation between more money and happiness.

4. Facing your personal issues has a huge impact on how healthy you will be in the future.

5. What you don’t know gets repressed and creates emotional and physical difficulties. Your cells metabolize everything that happens to you.

6. Life matches your conception of it. The mind shapes how events turn out, not vice versa.

7. Genes are fluid and dynamic, responding at every moment to your inner and outer world.

The import of this list is that you have the power to create your personal reality, which is what self-care is ultimately about. We are badly in need of a new model for well-being. Decades of public information about prevention has made headway, but the whole subject feels less than urgent to most people. Whatever they think is good for them, most people segment their lives into work, leisure, and family. Little time is left for self-care. Yet caring for yourself today is exactly what determines your life for decades to come.

A new model of self-care would include the following:

– Making happiness a high priority.

– Making sure your life has purpose and meaning.

– Living according to a higher vision.

– Expanding your awareness in every decade of life.

– Devoting time and attention to personal growth.

– Paying attention to the fate of the planet.

– Following at least the minimal regimen of good diet and physical activity.

– Allowing the brain to reset by introducing down time several times a day.

– Getting to know your inner world through meditation, contemplation, and self-reflection.

– Practicing gratitude and appreciation.

– Learning how to love and be loved.

As you can see, self-care goes far beyond eating our vegetables and signing up for the gym. It amounts to a new model for success and happiness, a model that abundant evidence supports. Right now, the existing models feel very dead end. Consumerism is a ticking time bomb; “work hard and play hard” leads to exhaustion and eventual physical debility. Postponing happiness until you retire wastes decades of life. “Looking out for number one” deadens the soul.

Courtesy of YouTube/ChopraWell

The Meaning of Happiness | Spiritual Solutions

So give a thought to self-care as the one need you can’t afford to ignore. It’s a simple concept that can change how you live tomorrow and every day after that.

Deepak Chopra, MD, Founder of The Chopra Foundation, Co-Founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, coauthor of Super Brain with Rudolph Tanzi and for more information visit The Universe Within.

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Getting Better Every Day!!

Thank you for your kind thoughts, acts and deeds!
Your healing energies are heartfelt as I recover.
I am having little victories daily and loving every one of them!
Our bodies are incredible!!!!
Take the time to listen to your body, quiet your mind, you will be simply amazed!
Shanti.
With Respect,
Mike Z

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Poem

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind by William Shakespeare

Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most freindship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As a friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most freindship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

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Yoga Pose

Wild Thing
Camatkarasana

Step by Step

Start in Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog).

Bring your weight into your right hand and roll onto the outer edge of your right foot like Vasisthasana (Side Plank Pose).

On an inhalation, lift your hips with buoyancy. Stay strong in your right hand making a clawing action with the fingers. Keep the head of the right arm bone back. On an exhalations, step your left foot back and place your toes on the floor with your knee partially bent.

Curl back through your upper back to create a sweeping action of the shoulder blades into the back of the rib cage.

On an inhalation lift your hips higher until you curl more into a backbend with your right foot solid on the ground.

Keep breathing and curl your head back, extending your left arm from your heart and expressing your power and freedom.

Hold for 5-10 breaths breaths, return to Down Dog and repeat on the other sid

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Post Surgery Update

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers regarding my back operation. It turned out to be much worse than anticipated. As a result of a Dura tear I had to lay flat on my back for 48 hours. Surgery wss January 15th and I got home Saturday the 18th. It was a success! Now for recovery!
Namaste’

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