Letting Go

What is "letting go"?

“Letting go” literally means releasing your close or tight fist in order to abandon or give up something that you are holding in your hand. If you are close- or tight- fisted, you also cannot receive anything. “Letting go” is detachment.

The opposite of “letting go” is “attaching to” something that you are stubbornly holding on to.

To live well, you need to ask yourself many self-probing questions as you continue to age in order to find out who you really are, and not who you wish you were, what you really need, and not what you want from life, and why certain desirable things did not happen to you.

Without knowing the answers to those questions asked, you can never be genuinely happy because you will always be looking for the unreal and the unattainable, just like the carrot-and-stick mule forever reaching out for the unreachable carrot in front.

In many ways the human mind is like a computer program. Your whole being is like the computer hardware with the apparatus of a mind, a body, and its five senses. The lens through which you see yourself, as well as others and the world around you, are the software that has been pre-programmed by your thoughts, your past and present experiences, as well  as  your own desires and expectations. In other words, you mind has become "pre-programmed" and "pre-conditioned."

By asking relevant questions, you may have the human wisdom to "change" your pre-conditioned mindset, and thus enabling you to separate the truths, from the half-truths, or even the myths that you may have voluntarily or involuntarily created over the past years.

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What Are Attachments?

An attachment is basically your own emotional dependence on things and people that define your identity, around which you wrap your so-called “happiness”, and even your own survival. Attachment is holding on to anything that you are unwilling to let go of, whether it is something positive or even negative.

An attachment is no more than a safety blanket to overcome your fear—fear of change and fear of the unknown from that change. To cope with that fear, all your attachments become your distractions.

We are living in a world with many problems that confront us in our everyday life, especially when we are aging, and many of them are not only unavoidable but also insoluble. To overcome these daily challenges, many of us just turn to attachments as a means of distracting ourselves from facing our problems head on, or adapting and changing ourselves in an ever-changing environment.

All our struggles in life, from anxiety to frustration, from anger to sadness, from grief to worry—they all stem from the same thing: our attachment to how we want things to be, rather than relaxing into accepting and embracing whatever that might happen after we have put forth our best efforts.

Given that attachment is closely related to the thinking mind: how it processes life experiences, it is therefore important to know and to understand the different phases of life, such as the development phase, the transitional phase, the consolidation phase, and the letting-go phase.

The Letting-Go Phase

With advancement in age, and as age begins to take its toll on the body and the mind, most of the life habits that control how they should live have become well established. Their thoughts, based on decades of their past experiences, now dominate their thinking, and hence control how they live the rest of their lives. At this point, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to alter the way they process their experiences and perceptions—just as the saying goes: “It is difficult to teach an old dog new tricks.”

In this final phase in their lives, unfortunately, they have to learn letting go, whether they like it or not. Everything begins to slip away from their lives: their youth, their health, and inevitably their minds too.

All in all, how the mind processes experiences and perceptions determines the type of person you are and will become. The happenings in your life are real, but the way you process and perceive them may positively or negatively affect your life because they are stored in your subconscious mind, which may either give you valuable life lessons, or create delusions and self-deceptions that may not only confuse you but also lead you astray. True human wisdom, therefore, plays a pivotal role in how the thinking mind processes all life experiences and their respective expectations.

It is in this final phase that you must learn how to let go of anything and everything in order to live the rest of your life as if everything is a miracle.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Oneness with All Life

 THE ONENESS WITH ALL LIFE

In this day and age, to live well is not easy. Contemporary wisdom may provide a blueprint for living, but that may be too inhibiting without giving you true freedom to live the life you want to live. You are not free so long as you indulge indiscriminately in your inclinations to succeed in your life at any cost. You must understand Nature's natural laws and abide by them in order to attain true freedom. Ancient wisdom in the oneness of all life was founded on basic realities of human nature itself. To pursue these realities is the essence in the art of living well.

 

Contemporary wisdom is exclusive—even to the extent of wishing others fail so that one may succeed in life. In addition, it states that one must do this or do that in order to succeed and live well. Ancient wisdom, on the other hand, focuses on doing whatever one has to do but with a sense of true freedom—the recognition and realization of the wisdom in the oneness with all life.

 

Wisdom in the oneness with all life is based on one of the basic laws of Nature: that is, we are all inter-connected, just as the famous poet John Donne says: "No man is an island." .This universal moral principle leads us to true and lasting freedom and wisdom in living. Once we understand that the life flowing in our veins is the same as that flowing in the veins of others, we will learn how to show love and compassion towards others. After all, we are all created in the image of God, and we are no more than expressions of God.

 

Wisdom in the oneness with all life frees you from the bondage of anger, competitiveness, disrespect, discrimination, envy, ridicule, and many other negative attitudes of the mind, which adversely influence how you live your life. Jesus' saying of "Love thy neighbor as thyself" and Mahatma Gandhi's advocacy of non-violence must be understood in subtle ways. If you "kill" the enthusiasm of someone, you are "harming" that individual because you are in fact taking away the life within that individual. Remember, love and compassion are expressions of the oneness with all life—a mental attitude that liberates human bondage from self-centeredness and gives freedom in the art of living well.

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1727767608

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Health Awareness and Health Decision

 “All men by nature desire knowledge.” Aristotle

When it comes to erasing age, very often you are your own worst enemy.

 Health Awareness

To become younger and healthier for longer, you must be aware of your own health conditions, whatever they may be at this moment

Do you have high blood pressure?

Are your blood cholesterol levels normal?

Do you experience regular physical pain, or frequent headaches?

Do you have difficulty going to sleep?

Do you have insatiable cravings for certain unhealthy foods?

Do you have anxiety or mental depression?

Is everyday life stressful to you?

Are you overweight?

Do you have any degenerative disease or chronic illness?

It is useless to deny the presence of any health problems you may have. Your awareness of your present health conditions is the first step towards erasing your age.

 Health decision

Once you become aware of your own conditions, make a decision to bring about the necessary changes—a change in your attitude, and a change in your diet and lifestyle.

Adopt the right attitudes towards aging and wellness. The right attitudes include your quest for health information. According to a research study at Purdue University by Mohan J. Dutta-Bergman, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, “individuals who searched for health information on the Internet were indeed more likely to be health-oriented than those who did not. Consumers who sought out medical information on the Internet reported higher levels of health-information orientation and healthy activities, as well as stronger health beliefs than those who did not search for medical news on the Internet.”

Knowledge is power. Knowledge not only gives you more options in life, but also enables you to make your own health decisions, instead of replying on others to make them for you.

Empower yourself with health information. Do not reply solely on doctors or pharmaceutical drugs to make you younger and healthier for longer. They offer no miracle cures.

Nowadays, many doctors may find themselves unable to keep themselves abreast of the new knowledge of medicine in spite of their continuing education. In addition, many doctors may become so preoccupied with the ever-increasing paper work required by the health care machinery that they simply do not have adequate time for their patients. If doctors cannot devote their full attention to treating you, it just makes good sense that you should be more reliant on yourself to keep yourself younger and healthier for longer.

The pharmaceutical companies and the FDA have convinced not only the medical establishment but also the gullible public that costly drugs are the answer to all their health problems, despite their dubious track records and often-deadly side effects.

The use, misuse, and abuse of drugs account for 250,000 to 500,000 deaths each year in the United States. And do you still believe that pharmaceutical drugs provide all the answers to your health problems?  Dr. O. W. Holmes, Professor of Medicine, Harvard University, had this to say regarding pharmaceuticals putting you in harm’s way: “If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity.” Dr. Holmes’ statement speaks volumes of the potential harm of pharmaceuticals.

This is not to say that doctors and pharmaceutical drugs have no place in modern medicine—far from it. But you must equip yourself with knowledge to understand what your doctors are telling you, and why you should be taking certain medications, if need be. More importantly, become your own physician, and, indeed, the best you could ever have, because no man can be a perfect physician to you than yourself, and no one can tell you what your body needs other than yourself.

So, without the right attitude, it is difficult to initiate any meaningful change in your life. Let your mind control your body, and not the other way around. Therefore, what you feed you mind is as important as what you feed your body. A toxic mind is worse than a toxic body. Remember, your mind is most powerful if you harness its energies to create the reality for you.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

 

Revelation of Living Your Life

                     In your life, there're different ways of living, and here're two          examples:

      Living by Wants

      Many live according to what they want in life. Wants can come from basic needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter, or from other things desired in life, such as comfort, health, love, pleasures, success, wealth, and many other things in daily life.

     Yes, in life and living, there’re many wants, including the following: wanting alcohol may result in AUD (Alcohol Use Disorder); wanting gambling can happen to anyone from any walk of life, due to the fun that often turns into an unhealthy obsession with many serious financial and relationship consequences; wanting sex can lead to pornography, adultery, infidelity, and extra-marital affairs; wanting money can cause greed and attachments to material things; wanting hobbies can make life more interesting, such as dancing, drawing, and singing; wanting sports can increase physical and mental skills in competitive sports, such as football and soccer, while wanting non-competitive sports, such as running and swimming, can be exercises for physical health; wanting success in any endeavor, such as careers and businesses, love and relationships, health and healing, can set goals and objectives in life and living.

     But living by wants requires the means, that is, the money or the earnings to make a living, without which it’s impossible to get the wants. Unfortunately, many even without their means yet demand their wants, and thus ending up in crimes, such as stealing and robbing.

 

Living by Personality

 

     An ego is self-identity. Many may have an inflated ego that gives them a distinguished personality to live by. They believe they’re not only much better but also totally different from others. Accordingly, others must succumb to their demands and desires. They’ve become so self-centered that they’ll continuously inflate their own ego with higher expectations while controlling and demanding others to do what they want them to do for them.

 

An Illustration

 

     Donald Trump, with little discipline in childhood and adolescence, came from a wealthy family with high expectations. He began his own business in hotels and casinos. Unfortunately, he was labeled “public laughingstock” due to his repeated business failures in several of his different tumultuous business careers. But, with his self-inflated egoistic personality, Donald Trump was still able to give the public “delusional” perception of his high-flying success in real estate. He even started the Trump University, but that only ended up in many lawsuits. The bankruptcy protection in the United States saved Donald Trump from his own bankruptcy caused by all his business failures.

      Donald Trump’s ego-self turned around sharply and suddenly when he was elected the 45^th President of the United States. With that great boost to his already self-inflated ego, he thought he could do just about anything to control everyone and everything around him. But his inflated ego was severely compromised when he “unexpectedly” lost his second-term presidency that led to many allegations of his conspiracy, insurrection, and plot to illegally hold onto power to sustain his inflated ego.

 

     On the other side of those with an inflated ego are those living with a deflated ego. They often feel inadequate, incompetent, insecure, and even unloved. Their perceived low self-esteem often originates from an unhappy childhood with extremely critical and demanding parents, as well as from their own ongoing life events, such as career and relationship failures and problems.

 

An illustration

 

     Paris Hilton is the great-granddaughter of the founder of the famous Hilton Hotels. Being given the nickname of “Star” by her mother and grandmother, and growing up in fame and prestige, she began her modeling career at any early age. Due to her own demand for celebrity status and media attention, Paris also began her other careers in books, music, and screen appearances. Her book “Confessions of An Heiress” was on the New York Times’s bestseller list; her role in the film “The House of Wax” earned her The Teen Choices Award.

     But Paris Hilton always thought that she was “less successful” than others. Her “deflated ego” and her envy of those who were “more successful” than she was led to her continual pursuit in music and television shows, such as “The World According to Paris,” and “Hollywood Love Story.” Feeling being a mediocre, she was always envious of those who she thought were more successful than herself. Throughout her different careers, she was haunted by the sin of pride and the sin of envy. The Guinness World Record in 2007 named Paris Hilton “the most overrated celebrity.” According to the media, she was “the worst actress of the decade.”

 

The Bottom Line

 

     Living by faith, you live with humility and not pride if you’ve an inflated ego; you live with simplicity to give you confidence, hope, and strength if you’ve a deflated ego.

     Living by faith, you believe that God has given you your true self destined by Him to live a life of humility and simplicity.

 

Living By Faith shows you how to live your life in this material world with real-life examples.

 

Stephen Lau

        

 

Be Your True Self

 Be Your True Self

As you continue your life journey, always look forward, instead of looking backward with regret and remorse. Don’t ever wish you were someone else; always be your true self.

Life is about experiences, which are composed of thoughts of those experiences. According to James Allen, author of As A Man Thinketh, men are “makers of themselves” and the human mind is the “master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance.” Accordingly, you have become who you are and what you have by way of your own thinking over the years; in short, you are the sum of your own thoughts.

So, life is about mind over matter. To fully harness your mind power, first of all, you need to fully understand the role of the mind and how your mind works, so that it may work for you, instead of against you; and then learn the strategies to fully utilize your mind power.

The brain is composed of grey matters and neurons or nerve cells that transmit information and messages; they are the building blocks of the brain for brain fitness to be receptive of the wisdom in the art of living well.

Neurons are responsible for all human behaviors in the form of perceptions, which trigger a mental process that results in an action or an emotion. If the process becomes instinctive, then the output in the form of action or emotion is also automatic and predictable. That is how attitudes and habits are formed, including the fight-or-flight response to any situation. This automatic or spontaneous mental process is often not “by choice.” The bad news is that this “learned” mental process is responsible for the way we think and act, for our beliefs and emotions, for our actions or inactions, and for our behaviors—in other words, every aspect of our lives. The good news is that you can learn to recognize this instinctive or automatic mental process, challenge its reality or see through the deception, and then take appropriate actions to change the mental process accordingly. Wisdom is the ability to recognize the deception behind the quasi-truths acquired by the mind, that is, the ability to separate the sheep from the goats.

Experiences and the Mind

Your experiences in life are the byproducts of what happens to you throughout your life, which is determined by two pivotal players:

Circumstances

Circumstances are events that happen to you and around you, and they fall under two categories: self-inflicting internal circumstances, such as, procrastination affecting the turns of events in your life; uncontrollable external circumstances, such as, accidents due to no fault of your own.

 

Choices

Choices result in actions or inactions, which often bring about consequences as well as circumstances that affect your life in general and in specific.

All in all, you are who you think you are. But that is not the real you. To live your life as if everything is a miracle, you have to know your true self first and foremost. Get the blueprint to live your life in the art of living well, and be the maker of your true self.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Be Wise With A Good Memory

As you age, your memory may deteriorate. But it doesn't have to be that way. You can still have a sharp memory if you improve memory skills.

Memory has everything to do with brain health. If you don't have a healthy brain, how can you have a good memory? A good memory is an ingredient of wisdom. Therefore, if you want to be wise, have a good memory, But a good memory requires good basic memory skills. So, improving memory skills goes a long way to improving memory, despite the aging process.

Good memory skills are important to having a good memory, just as a good mechanic also needs good tools. Memory skills are your tools to enhance your brain processing, which is what memory is all about. Memory involves processing of information that you already have, and capability to recall it at will. Such processing requires utilization of your senses: sight, touch, smell, or a combination of some of these senses. The capability to utilize these senses means you are not only being aware of them, but also paying attention to them. As a result, they become memory tools for you, so that you can retrieve your information later without any problem.

All disciplines in the brain have some connection with memory, for example, music, writing, and art, among others.

(1) According to some scientific research, music has the capacity to change your neuron activity. Music therapists believe that different sounds from different instruments have different impact on different body organs in the physical body. Specifically, they are capable of breaking blockages in energy flow (the Chinese call it "qi"), which courses through the meridian channels in the body to bring oxygen and nutrients to different parts of your body. Nowadays, there is "psychoacoustics" which is the study of sound on the conscious mind through the use of music. Scientists have used MP3 music and subliminal messages for hypnosis to awaken the subconscious mind to improve memory, enhance learning, heal sleep problems, increase self-confidence, just to name a few possibilities. Music, of course, has to do with sound. Learn to play a musical instrument to boost your brain power, concentration, and to develop motor skills.

(2) Writing is another discipline which can improve memory skills, and hence memory. Writing a journal, a diary, or even writing a blog, can boost memory power, because in writing, or rather recollecting one thought at a time and word by word, may help you with organization and logic. In addition, as you are jotting down the words, the movements of your hands (as you type or write), as well as the sight of the words in front of you will reinforce your memory. Writing is a good example of using sight to improve memory skills.

(3) Art is another field which extensively uses your extraordinary senses, such as visual in drawing, or touch in sculpture.

As you get older, your brain shrinks a bit, and that is natural. The good news is that your can recoup your losses. As a matter of fact, you have about 100 billion brain cells, and you have used up only five percent of your brain cells. Tap into them to improve your memory. Use it or lose it!

Be wise with a good memory!

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

FREE BOOK: "Angry No More" 3/30 and 3/31

 

Angry No More

Aging begins as early as late twenties or early thirties, and accelerates as time progresses. Aging causes many problems leading to pain and suffering, and ultimately death. Successful aging requires living in reality.

Unfortunately, many are living in fancy and fantasy, but not in reality. Why not? It is because many commit sins and do evils, thinking they can get away without any accountability as long as they do not break the law and order of their countries. The book of Revelation provides spiritual wisdom for a non-believer to become a believer in order to cope and deal with all the problems of aging. Yes, aging brings about death, but the revelation of aging is eternal salvation.