Cupid strikes again! Valentine's Day is upon us and the frenzy over what to do, where to go, and what to get the love of your life is in full force! Feb 14 is a day set aside for you to show someone one how much you care; how do you do that in one day? Is buying chocolate or red roses enough? Or do we go for the big ones: jewelry, a night out in town and...you get the picture! What happens Feb 15, or Feb 12? Do we stop showing our love? For me Valentine's Day is just way too overrated! I celebrate love every day. I have to admit when I was in my early twenties I made a big deal over this special day, I expected the works! Some years I was pleasantly surprised, and most years I set myself up for big disappointment. The roller coaster of being loved was too much too handle! Whether you're in a relationship, married or single, this set holiday puts too much pressure on everybody. Don't cave in; this is another contrived day to make you buy stuff! But can you really buy love?

I was fortunate to find the love of my life, my soul-mate, at an early age. Being married for many years has thought me that spontaneity in a relationship is much more rewarding, fun and romantic than celebrating any set holiday. Romance is meeting an unspoken desire; it's about focusing on and studying one another. It means YOU are in my mind and heart and I am not distracted by other things.  It means that surprise kiss on the back of your neck when you are doing the dishes; it means a wink and a whisper of "I love you" when no one else is looking.

So go ahead, show your love; not only to your mate, but to everyone around you. Do it now! Tell your assistant how much you appreciate what she/he does for you; pick up the phone and call your mom; text you kids and tell them they mean the world to you; bring an apple pie to your neighbor. Give gratitude, be sensitive, listen empathically, communicate effectively, and love passionately. BE LOVE every day.

To LOVE, everyday!

The lazy, hazy and crazy summer is upon us again! For most of us summer is the time to relax, enjoy and be carefree. Summer reminds me of lazy afternoons in a hammock, the feeling of a warm gentle breeze of the evening, sight of a freshly cut grass, the sound of sprinkles in the early hour of morning, children riding their bikes, the smell of chlorine and bathing suites.  

Summer is the taste of hot dogs and hamburgers, fresh vegetables from the garden, lemonade and juicy watermelon slices. It is the feeling of a fresh cut flower, the smell of a bonfire, the pull of a ski rope and the sight of the car that is packed for a trip.

The sound, smell and the sight of summer is once again a reminder that life is seasonal. Summer gives us a mental pass to be spontaneous and free, to let go; to have fun without guilt, to enjoy without remorse, to get loose and forgive. We worry less, tend to take things less seriously, and allow life to just be...During summer, everything seems more vibrant, hopeful, and liberating.

As we welcome the season of sun, let us challenge ourselves! Write down a list of 50 things you like to do in summer and start doing one a day! Keep it simple and realistic. This is a fun project, don't stress yourself over it, your list could be as simple as this:

Watch the sunrise at the beach

Invite friends and family for a BBQ

Visit grandma

Catch up on your favorite book

Pack up a picnic basket and have a fun day at the park

And so on....

As hard as it might be for some, let us promise ourselves not to complain, whine and nag over the summer! This bright, sweet season has to outshine grumpiness. YES! With all its beauty, warmth and fun, summer does bring mosquitoes, sunburns and not so perfect bodies in shorts and tanks! Summer days are numbered. By the time you are done whining and complaining, summer is over! So, remember to see the sun, feel the warmth and be the light.

"Then followed that beautiful season...Summer...
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood."  

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I remember one summer afternoon when I was six years old I decided to take my cousin's bicycle for a ride. The thrill of the ride overshadowed logic; not realizing that the bicycle was way too big for my frame, I took on a task much bigger than my skinny legs could handle.

I remember the fall and the feelings afterward vividly. My knees were bruised, hands were cut, and the pain was unbearable. My pride was battered beyond recognition.  I felt ashamed; this was the very first time that I experienced failure. At that moment, I proclaimed through uncountable tears that giving up biking was the only way to stay safe, both physically and emotionally. My little six-year-old mind decided I would never ride that damn bike again! And for many years I held true to that promise. In envy I watched as other kids happily rode their bikes, fearless and in control. So many times I wanted to give it one more try and get back on that bike and become proficient at it, but reluctantly remembered my oath to myself: stay safe.

Many times in my adult life I followed the same path and let go of opportunities only because it was the safe thing to do. It took many years of self-discovery and breakthroughs to be able to move through my fears. Along the rocky road a few things helped me learn how to ride the bike of life:

• Set goals that are realistic and attainable.
• Have determination and the resolve to go beyond fears.
• Maintain balance and momentum.

Although these are all important to getting you to where you want to be in life, balance and momentum have a significant importance.  You could have all the determination in the world, but if you don't have balance and can't keep your momentum up, you are inevitably going to fall again and again and success becomes a distant reality. By keeping your balance mentally, emotionally and physically you can build on your efforts over time. Success cannot be achieved all at once, we need to keep the momentum going and keep pedaling!

Even as adults, we can fall off that bike. Get back on, ride, and take that journey! Don't worry about the occasional bumps or the bruises. Don't watch with envy as other bicyclist pass you by.

Enjoy the ride! 

Bonnie Sadigh

Wheel of Wellbeing Co-Founder

How can we define love? Is it the affection of a mother for her child? Is it the desire of embracing a romantic partner, forever? Is it the fascination of a butterfly attracted to a flame? Is it the loyalty of a dog to its master? Or, is it just feeling the enthusiasm of moving on with joy?

In Rumi’s words, “when we enthusiastically bank on the wealth of love, the dead will arise, tears transform into laughter, and we become an everlasting entity”. Rumi places love at the core of every human ability and considers it as the catalyst in every phenomena.  Hafiz, another mystic poet from Iran, agrees with Rumi when he suggests: “collecting the mud off the floor of a winery by the lover of wine is an act of alchemy; a beggar who begs for what he loves becomes a rich man”. What is in common in the words of these two spiritual poets is the transformational power of love. They see love as the motivational element that creates the possibilities of a dead man becoming alive and for a poor man becoming rich. Do you believe them?

A 1998 study done by the University of Maryland found love to be an adaptive process in mammals, organized by their Autonomic Nervous System, to provide for courting, sexual arousal, copulation, and the establishment of enduring social bonds. The neurological explanations discussed by this study pointed out that intimacy and loving relationships are tied into engagements and disengagements coordinated by the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous . It also showed the social engagements’ linkage to facial expressions and vocalizations that may result in communication’s failure or success. The study further addressed how having or not having love can have physiological and perceptual consequences and concluded that “deprivation of love may generate endogenous, compensatory sensory stimulation that manifests itself as psychosomatic illness”.

By considering the twelfth century’s Eastern mystical understanding of love and the twentieth century’s Western scientific components of it, we can easily realize how powerful love is. But, why sometimes it is so difficult to find love? The celebrated day of love is arriving soon, are you truly in love?   I will let you be the judge of that by answering one question:

If you are among those who are critical of yourself, have low self-confidence, do not feel valuable enough or good enough, the chances are that you either do not love who you are or have not found your values yet. Do not wait to be loved and stop searching or yearning for that special love. The empty feeling of loneliness and the expectation to find someone to fill you up the vacuum in you does not work in the long run. What you believe you are worth is what you will get and if that does not add up to much, guess what you will receive? It will be something that will not add much to your life. When you expect a source that is outside of you to fulfill your void, you are setting yourself up for disappointments.

Remember, we are talking about loving yourself and not self adoring which leads to selfishness. Once you love yourself you can be in love with everyone and everything; but when you are selfish, you are in love with yourself and no one else. The least that we can learn from the University of Maryland’s study is that love starts within us. It is an internal flow of energy which in balance can resonate and transform us and others. Of course your environment and childhood experiences affect the ability of loving yourself, but if you want to live in love you are the only person who can make that CHOICE.

These are some suggestions to build more love within you:

•    Find a good quality that you recognize in yourself, no matter how insignificant you think it is.  For example, if you cook something good and you enjoy it, pay attention to that ability and the joy that you may feel. Pay attention to all the little things that you can appreciate in yourself.  Every little success is a huge accomplishment.

•    Make a conscious choice to do things that bring value to you and others. For example, volunteer some time for a cause that is important to you.

•    Take care of your physical needs. Regular exercise, developing healthy eating habits, medical maintenance, massages, and other tuning up activities are the paths of self-love.

•    Learn more about yourself and your uniqueness. Gain more knowledge about your society and its conditions. More options create more chances to act in your own best interest and avoid reluctance. Your freedom to make choices gives you power and results in self-esteem.

•    Care for your community. As a member of any community, showing up for yourself motivates others to show up and build a sense of belonging.

•     Work through painful experiences to make room for new found happier feelings. If your internal emotional space is taken by old traumas it will be very difficult to feel loved.

•    Search for the areas of lack or shortcomings and focus on finding solutions. If you do not know that you have a problem, then how would you resolve the problem?

•    Let go of the fear of failures and consider them as your steps to success. Every successful person has failed many times in order to be successful. Make adjustments and move forward.

Step One:

Embrace your individuality- you are unique and there is no one like you. Your genes and your DNA set you apart from any other specie, enjoy the difference. Many engage in comparing themselves with others and start a losing proposition since one can never match another's specifics. This kind of comparison brings about value judgments and fears. Feeling devalued or grandiosity shows lack of acceptance of self and others.

Step Two:

Access your inner wisdom- As fellow human beings we all share certain roots: NATURE. Regardless of our religious beliefs we all agree on a common source; being from such source indicates an internal and invisible connection through our needs for water, food, shelter, sleep, love, and more. Once these needs are gratified we find abilities to do anything that we can imagine. In the past century we have witnessed human's wisdom in many ways. Such wisdom is the essence of our mind, body and spirit. By noticing human's commonalities and its endless unique abilities one can witness the existence of a SYSTEM. The Nature's System rules over the universe and as a part of it we are bound to be systematically wise. Our minds' logic and our heart's feelings are connected through the chain of the Nature's system; thus to be in harmony with the system our logic and our feelings must be continuously supporting each other and be partners. Without such collaboration we are interfering with the flow of the system and the resulting obstruction becomes our pains and sufferings.

Step Three:

Mend & create lasting relationships- The unique power of each individual multiplies when joined by others. From day one it is the joint powers of two distinct genders that creates a new human life, and provides support. Thus, the new life is also systematically in search of another unit to enjoy the feeling of being supported and also to be of support to others. It takes an extra attention to relationships as a necessity for being present, since an individual's wisdom connected with others fast forwards to the wisdom in the eternal universe.

Step Four:

Enjoy a healthy sex life- A healthy sexual relationship is the power and natural wisdom of two individuals' minds, bodies, and spirits coming together. In non-sexual relationships the coming together of individual wisdom does not require physical intimacy, then through honest and loving sex one may rise to a spiritual path that lights up the mind-body connection. A person who has a healthy sex life generally is less frustrated and more content. Also, creativity can benefit from the light of a happy and healthy sex life; just like a child that is the fruit of the parent's love and joy. Remember, searching for the one that brings the joy of intimacy to your life gives you motivation for change, progress and desirability.

 Step Five:

Live in balance- To become present to your life you need balance, but who is there, inside of you, to tell you what is in excess and what is short? You are the only one who can say "I am good-enough" or "I am insufficient"; it is your personal choice. For those who are not feeling "good-enough", the measurements for their success, money, education, fame, and relationships are not acceptable. To find a well-balanced state of contentment the three aspects of mind, body and spirit need regular check up, maintenance and adjustment.

Step Six:

Discover wellbeing and reach JOY- A well maintained unique source of wisdom that is feeling good-enough, enjoys good relationships, content with a healthy sex life, and functions with balance is always present and has achieved WELLBEING. Such person is aware of his or her Mental, Emotional, Physical, Relational, Educational, Financial, Environmental, and Spiritual needs at all times. When you feel stressed, exhausted and out of joy you might notice one or more of these areas are out of balance.

The pleasure of breathing is taken for granted when the magnitude of its mechanism is overlooked. In every breath the divine manifestation of our lungs suck in the airy consistency of our earthly environment, filter through the polluted elements, break down to useful elements, coordinate millions of cells in a very complicated process, pump out the remaining fumes back into the environment, and finally sustain the huge mechanics of a human-kind system. Every time we inhale, there is a chance that something may go wrong and obstruct the intake, or stop the possibility of an exhale. Then, with every breath there are two blessings: that we are able to take in what we need and that we are able to give back what we do not need.  We do this between 41000 to 51000 times a day; are we grateful once a day for this many blessings?   

Gratitude is not the indebtedness or sense of obligation to repay for a service or an act of kindness. It is the opposite: the giving that allows more space for receiving.  Thanksgiving starts in every breath and with the conscious awareness of a repeated chance to sustain our life continuously, by letting go of what we are holding on to. Obviously, we cannot actually declare our gratitude in every second but our attitude shows our gratitude when we feel happy, content, and safe.

•     Acting with a deep inner feeling of stability, peace and calmness leaves behind a perfume like sense of awe, appreciation, and fascination as a breath is taken.

•      The perfume of gratitude is authentic and not artificially fragranced by satisfaction and happiness that result from dependence on material resources or anything that money can buy.

•      A true feeling of gratification and gratefulness happens only when our inside and outside actions are in harmony; just like a breath.

• What we take in as love or hate, security or fear, hope or despair, and acceptance or rejection act like the air that we take in and the Carbon dioxide that we send out.  

• According to what we take in, we send out waves of compassion and kindness or hostility and vengeance to those around us.

If the aggressiveness and roughness or assertive gentleness and thoughtfulness are the outcomes of our environment; then, how can we filter our environment?

The law of the pendulum holds true in every action. A pendulum swings back with an equal force that moves it to the right or the left. Our thoughts have energy and as they move us to one direction, they force us to react. Positive thoughts create positive action and vice-versa; then, it is imperative to examine each thought and anticipate the outcome. Many people perceive compassion and tolerance, thoughtfulness and gentleness as signs of weakness. They do not realize that these are the characteristics of strength and of vitality?

Happiness and gratitude require constructive actions without fear of judgment. One can never shy away from difficult situations, experiences or people. Welcome every situation, because they allow you to exercise your choices and teach you something about what you may need to change, fine tune, readjust or remove out of your life. Gratitude is the corner-stone of attitude, and attitude is something that you can change from negative to positive; thus, deeper gratitude produces more positive attributes. In a study concerning gratitude (Seligman et. all, 2005), writing a letter of gratitude every day for a week shows a 10% rise in happiness scores of the participants. Numerous studies suggest that grateful people are more likely to achieve the following attributes:

Problem Solving: People who are grateful experience more positive ways of coping with the difficult situations in their lives. They tend to seek more support from other people, do not panic or rush into reactions, find meaning in their experiences, and grow from the outcome of the problem.

Strength & Ability: Grateful people are less likely to try to avoid or deny their problems, blame themselves or others, or cope through substance abuse. They are generally happier, less depressed, less stressed, and more satisfied with their relationships.

Peace of Mind: Those who have a grateful attitude have higher levels of self-respect, more awareness of their environment, willingness for personal growth, clearer direction and purpose in life, and deeper self-esteem. They sleep better, possibly because they hold less negative and more positive thoughts during the day and process less painful feelings in their sleep.

Wellbeing & Vitality: Gratitude shows uniquely important evidence in wellbeing. Studies show that people who are more grateful cope better with life transitions. People who are more grateful before a transition are less stressed, less depressed, and more satisfied with their relationships after a life changing event. Studies also suggest that gratitude is the most common personality trait that induces an overall sense of wellness.

Giving & Generosity: Gratitude improves a person’s altruistic tendencies.  We exhale to allow fresh air into our lungs in the same manor that giving gratitude allows for more receiving. However, studies show that gratitude directly mediates increased monetary giving. This shows that gracious people are more likely to sacrifice individual gains for communal profit (DeSteno & Bartlett, 2010). Empathy, generosity, and helpfulness are more common among grateful people.

Psychological interventions are recently addressing the necessity of development and increase of gratitude. The experiences of positive emotions resulting from graciousness and noticing what can be deemed thankful in our lives are strong indications of increasing wellbeing through self-improvement therapies. Thanksgiving-Day is a celebration of our ability to be grateful. The joy that everyone shares on this day is the best proof of the powers in gratitude. Let’s mark this Thanksgiving as the pinnacle of our thankfulness for who we are right now and how we will not allow a breath taken without awareness and gratitude.

Dr. Sadigh’s expertise in Guided Imagery, Somatic Psychotherapy, EMDR, and Positive Affect Tolerance facilitate self-acceptance and affirmative regard for self and others. You are welcome to contact Dr. Sadigh for more information on how to cultivate a more abundant life-style.