How to hoover in 2010

Buddha wearing Sennheiser PMX80 Sport II headphonesRecently I was practicing some active Feng Shui, also known as hoovering. Suddenly the doorbell rang, I paused the iPod, opened the door and looked into the surprised eyes of my neighbor (Hi Bettina!).
She: “What are you doing? Listening to music while hoovering?”
Me: “Yep.”
She: “Now that’s a cool idea!”
Me: 🙂

For me the sound of a vacuum cleaner sounds stressy but with fine music and great equipment you can turn the hoover act into a hovering performance. With the Sennheiser PMX 80 Sport Series II headphones I finally found for me the perfect companion. A full sound, very convenient to wear and a fancy design!

Very practical for hoovering, perfect for sport like trail running, elevating during a walk into nature (especially with ZEN-MEN music 😉 ). Happy hoovering!

Amazon.com Sennheiser PMX80 Sport Series II

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Nick Vujicic

Nick Vujicic in his wheelchair Nick Vujicic – maybe his soul was traveling faster than light on his way to Earth, making sure he arrives in time. He reminds me of a bright comet, who had a hard landing but the waves of his impact still extend to these days…

Next time you feel stressed or grumpy, invest a thought or two and think about, how it would be for Nick. Being born without arms and legs, well, maybe you know the dilemma, when you cut yourself accidentally into your thumb. Nick Vujicic reminds me of the relativity of stress and what it means to be independent. At the end, we are all inter-dependent, I even can’t think of a way how you could be *really* isolated in your life.

And finally, I pondered for a long time about the importance of a hug. Hug more, hugs! 🙂

Watch a 4 minutes video of him on YouTube

Pre-order his book coming October 26, 2010
Amazon.com Life Without Limits: Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good Life

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Cheng Hsin and how to relax under fire

book cover of "Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power" by Peter RalstonEffortless power – what would you do with it? Spice up your cooking skills, strengthen your conversation methods, boost your office work, enlighten your education or build a foundation for martial arts?

A while back I wrote about the book Zen Body-Being by Peter Ralston. By Peter’s suggestion, I red Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power. So what is Cheng Hsin?

The Chinese characters cheng and hsin (pronounced “cheng shin”) offer us images which communicate the nature of “truth” and “being” — an appropriate title for a body of work that involves increasing consciousness on all levels of “being.”

Human beings tend to see and feel things separate of each other. Let’s do a short recall: where do we physically come from, who delivers our food, where does gravity pull us to – you might have guessed it, the Earth. It would be even logical to Mr. Spock to increase the focus on our connection between our body center and the Earth. If we allow our body position/ our spine to “fall” properly along gravity, we save energy and reduce stress.

A relaxed body and mind will give suitable answers to situations, while a uptight body and disturbed mind can only react.  The book will help you to find and keep your balance, to explore the core of your center and to encourage you to empty yourself. Imagine – an empty you, a relaxed mind, an open and free heart – suddenly, there’s nothing to protect… So if you are in danger or under fire, move! (… and get the book)

Amazon.com Cheng Hsin: Principles of Effortless Power

UPDATE: I wrote Peter Ralston an email about this blog post and asked him to optimize the content if needed. Here”™s another friendly reply of him:

Chris,

Thanks for the mention. Looks fine. It occurs to me from what you say and looking at your blog that you might be interested in what I consider my real work (what allowed the body-being and effortless power to emerge as they did) and that’s to be found in The Book of Not Knowing. I didn’t know you were interested in Zen and such, but it figures. This book is a big undertaking, and represents my life-work, but you can get a lot from simply the first few chapters. I think you might find it beneficial.
Be well,
Peter

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Reduce stress and read faster

You know the situation: a day has 24 hours and there are those books and texts you want and have to read. Do you know, that you most probably have not (yet) improved your reading skills since you were 12 years young? Would you like to gain free time and reduce stress for you, just by simply reading faster?

I was recently starting to gather information about Speed Reading. Luckily Richard Darell (@minervity) wrote a blog post over at bit rebels just in time. Thanks again Richard!

In short:

  • most of us are still on the same reading skill level as of the age of 12
  • our reading speed is linked to our talking speed
  • biggest brain-break is our auditory reassurance system

Integrating a few hints and dropping some old patterns did improve my reading speed already. I will dig deeper into this topic and write about my findings here in the future. Oh – and use your gained free time to relax… 😉

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Enjoy a mini break


OUT NOW! ZEN-MEN Medi-X videos are chillaxing for eyes and ears.
These modern short meditations help you to focus whilst you enjoy mini breaks during the day. Experience the here and now and create refreshing moments for your brain and your being.

All 12 full versions of vol.01 are in high quality and have a length of 5 minutes each. (Even higher than on YouTube!)
For example here: http://bit.ly/ZEN-MEN_iTunes
More information about the Medi-X project can be found here.
Audio from: Medi-X vol.001+101
Video locations: Mauritius, South of France, Finland

To celebrate the release, I am giving away 100 FULL videos for FREE! Just write me an E-mail, include your name and country and which one of the 12 videos you would like to get and I will send you an E-mail with your download link.

Thank you!

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How to meditate in 2010

ZEN-MEN artwork of the track I am homeMeditation can be helpful in reducing stress, making clearer decisions, staying healthy and  improving life quantity and quality. Meditation is an old and proven tool of mankind all over the planet, throughout all religions. The form and importance might vary but the core is the same: an orientation to the inner center.

Maybe there is a deeper connection between the words orient and orientation… I’m personally a fan of meditations in Buddhism and ZEN style. So why meditate? Let’s use a geeky example to explain: (de-)fragmentation

If the hard disc of your computer is too much fragmented it will slow down seek time to data access and affect your whole system performance. Basically it’s the same with us human beings. Most times we are fragmented in time and space. A part of our brain-body-soul system works in automatic mode, breathing, entry-(eyes/ ears/ mouth/ nose) and surface(skin) surveillance, food mode – beer mode. Other parts are split(or lost) in past, present and future happenings, hopes and fears. Meditation practice improves your focus, concentration and offers a better “overview”.  In many life situations you can be more relaxed, stay calmer, find solutions faster and finally be happier. How do you defrag your system?

One of the easiest version is:

  • make yourself a gift of 5 minutes of free time
  • sit upright(if possible) in a for you comfortable position – relax
  • breathe in slowly
  • breathe out slowly – count to 1
  • breathe in slowly
  • breathe out slowly – count to 2
  • repeat until you counted up to 10 – restart breathing and counting from number 1

That’s all. Try to do this for only these 5 minutes and only do this. No other thoughts, no traveling through time and space. Sit and stay in the Now, breathe – count. Easy, right? 😉

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Alltop and Opera Mini

and 
This is a good day, the best just got better! Alltop is a wonderful tool for me to read, organize and discover great content on the web. Most times I read MyAlltop page on the iPhone, it’s like my personalized newspaper. With the Opera Mini browser the reading experience just got a fun and quality kick! Switching between MyAlltop page and blogs, articles is really fast, tabbed browsing, zooming – just great!

Yes, it works also with Safari: click, browser window opens, click on an article, browser window minimizes, scrolling to a new browser window (if you have already a few open, enjoy the slideshow…), maximizing new browser window, opening URL, yawn…

So thanks Opera for making this mini browser with maxi value and thanks Apple for accepting it in the app store!

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Felicity with FeliciTEA meets Dragon Well

felicitea and dragon well
It’s teatime again! I got more tea from wearetea/ London, thanks Mikel!

Felicitea – the happiness tea

Fact; we can’t all be happy all the time. Whether the central heating system has decided to pack up, you’ve just become single again or you’re just down on your luck in general, we all need a pick me up from time to time to help us to remember how good life can be. Felicitea may not be able to fix the boiler, repair broken relationships or being good luck but it can provide a moment of happiness and we think that is priceless.

I did open it, the tea, the flowers, the colors – the perfume… instant happiness! 😀 I suddenly saw the tea scene of Alice in Wonderland before my eyes (the 2010 Tim Burton version), thought of pink Hubba Bubba chewing gums from my youth. The tea triggered funny memories in my brain and delivered a wonderful carpet with its taste to enjoy and dive into those precious emotions. Priceless!

Dragon well is one of the most sought after green teas in the world, notice the “great taste gold 09” award. There is not much to write about this tea. The leaves are perfect, the aroma is amazing and the taste is stunning. Immediate feng shui for your being!

Again, thank you Daren and Suzanne for making such great teas!

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Your Blood Type drives your Stress Type

eat right 4 your typeDo you know your blood type? In times of iPads and worldwide networks it still amazes me, that most people don’t know something so fundamental as their own blood type. In 2010 we are approx. 7 billion(!) humans on this tiny planet, maybe 7000 different languages and dialects worldwide, so many different types of individuals, but, only four blood types(0, A, B, AB). Does this ring a bell?

I was strict vegetarian for about 20 years in my life until one day I had the feeling, something is missing. What do you do when your body starts to send (pain) signals? You ignore or investigate – your choice. As always when I start digging, soon the right people, friends, books etc show up. In this case, a book from Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo – “Eat right for your type”.

In short: you don’t fill gasoline into your diesel car and vice versa. I am blood type 0+ and while reading the book I had fireworks of enlightenments! A few things I already found out myself over the years, like when I eat normal wheat pasta, I get sleepy after the meal and soon after I am hungry again. Why didn’t I get that book right at my birth? It would have saved me a lot of stress and would have told me earlier how I can cope best with my stress type. Blood type 0 reduces stress very good with active sport, in my case trail running or mountain biking. Blood type A would rather go to a Yoga class.

“We are what we eat.” You will find a wide range of recommendations for suitable or not-so-suitable food in the book(and MUCH more…!). Yes, as always there are exceptions to the rule, but those lists made me re-start eating fish and since then my body system is more balanced. Discover your blood type, then manage your stress type!

Amazon.com Eat Right 4 Your Type: The Individualized Diet Solution to Staying Healthy, Living Longer & Achieving Your Ideal Weight

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Stress and Sadness

How is stress related to sadness? A friend of mine sent me a text yesterday about her saddness(with double d). She offered me to publish her text on my blog, if I like. I do, thanks Myloh!

It also made me think about the joy of sadness. Some beings seem to be happy being sad. I nearly get the impression, they just pause their sadness with some happy breaks just to dive back into a deeper sadness… I remember a few years back, when somebody called me on the phone and asked: How’s life? I often answered: Oh, its very stressy! Being in stress was(is) socially accepted  as a normal state, if you are stressed you are OK. Are you?

I stopped telling me multiple times a day that I am stressed, it somehow developed to a social mantra. Imagine the comic in your brain: We received another stress command! Stress! We are stressed again! More stress hormones, quick!
From time to time look up and listen to how you program yourself, input – output. Do not enter what you don’t want – hack in what you REALLY want!

Something strange happens when a woman cries….

you can hear the slow breaking of her heart as if a solid strong rock suddenly becomes delicate hand-blown glass…

The silent rushing of a tiny stream is heard as she frees her tears and lets them fall like a gentle rain that cleanses her soul.

her pain is heard from the bottom of her tummy to the top of her throat as she moans in a devestating pain…. a pain that no one else knows, something so emotional, so deeply hidden has now manifested itself into the physical.

Her eyes tell of her silent agony, of a truth that was known but not yet realized… no… that has been denied.

saddness has it’s beauty…. for it cannot be truly hidden.

Oh sweet saddness, you who comforts me, who rocks me to sleep and revives me feeling refreshed and ready to start again…. embrace me now with your fullness…. let me crumble to your bidding yet again…. and let me once again be reborn like the Phoenix, who is stronger, wiser and more beautiful than before.

Until we meet once more…

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