Eye make up
Topic: Beauty

Four Tips for Reducing Stress
1. Laugh. When you laugh, you actually cause a pleasurable change in your body’s chemistry that lasts as long as 45 minutes. So take in a comedy at the movies, watch a funny television show, or invite friends over for a game of charades.

2. Pets. Physical contact with pets or even just their presence has been proved to be therapeutic for hospital patients. Play with your dog, hold your cat, or sing to your bird: all of these activities can help reduce blood pressure and bring a feeling of calm.

3. Nature. The soothing, stress-relieving power of nature has been recognized for centuries. Many hospitals and health centers now make “nature areas” a part of their therapeutic environment. And when properly tailored to the individual’s conditioning and enjoyment, physical exercise can help reduce stress and anxiety. Take a walk outside!

4. Music. Music’s calming effect has been proved during dental procedures, during labor, before and after surgery, and in emergency rooms. This effect is probably due to music’s ability to distract and soothe

Homemade Sugar Scrub
Sugar Scrub
Ingredients

50 percent white cane sugar (note that organic sucanat, while the best choice for food, doesn't work as well for this recipe)
50 percent vegetable glycerin to moisten the sugar (I used avocado oil since I was out of vegetable glycerin --as is my health food store-- and it proved to be a successful substitute)
small amounts of aloe vera gel, vitamin C crystals, or anything healing that dissolves in water
1 or two drops of essential oil if desired (Larry recommends combining orange and lavender)
enough ground hibiscus powder for pink color (if desired)
Combine the ingredients in a bowl. Scoop some of the scrub onto your hand and massage gently onto your skin for a minute (the scrub will actually tighten onto your skin like a masque). Leave on for 3 to 4 minutes before rinsing.

Soul reading is getting into the in-between, feeling the region in the text that is holy and that is at the same time completely human. The main work of soul reading is to refrain from three specific human tendencies that interfere with this deep way of reading:
Don’t restrict your reading to
1) “This is what I got out of the reading,” or

2) “This is what the author means,” or

3) “Let’s discuss the reading together.”

Try instead to re-say what the reading says, speaking now from the viewpoint of the soul. Take the text as a mystery – as something to enter into more and more deeply, not as something to master and take the living blood out of so that you can take the informational knowledge and pack it away somewhere.

In order to read this way, it is necessary to pause a lot in your reading. In the pauses, let what you just read sink down from the region of the head into the region of the heart. Then, listen within and try to be aware of the response you are hearing from within the region of the heart.

Try to hear, in an inner way, the soul’s repeating of what was read, of what was understood mentally when you read the text.

Here are the six concepts, or affirmations, for having more love in your life:
1. I give and receive love effortlessly.

2. Genuine love comes to me effortlessly.

3. I feel loved and loving all the time.

4. I release the pain of my unpleasant experiences in love.

5. I commit to loving and feeling loved all the time.

6. I live in expanding waves of love and creativity.

Mood:  special

The secret of this meditation is that all you have to do to feel its enlivening effects is read it to yourself. The words themselves will help to unlock and awaken your natural vitality, the life-force that often gets trapped inside us.

A powerful affirmation of life force, you may want to print this out to read and reread whenever you need a reminder of your own vitality:
Every being has the drive to survive and thrive. . . Every living cell composing all beings has the drive to thrive. Inborn in every being is the drive to reach to the sun. . . to drink the waters. . . to ride energy through time. . . to be alive! Feel the pulse of life. Feel it. . . Resilient, driven to prosper, to discover life, to express life, to be alive! . . . This drive resides in all that is alive. . . powerful life force energy. . . resilient . . . vital. Life recreates itself, replenishes itself, heals itself. Innate to cellular life is the intelligence to self-regulate, to heal, to regenerate, to perpetuate life. Feel the vitality of life moving through you . . . Witness the presence of intelligence intrinsic to life . . Mysterious. Miraculous . . .

Feel the blessing of being alive. Feel your own drive to thrive. . . Feel the healing powers that reside inside you. Your body is a self-cleansing, self-regenerating, life-perpetuating organism. Sometimes its energies move in subtle and steady ways, sometimes in dramatic and spontaneous ways. Appreciate the Mystery. . .Appreciate the blessing of being alive!. . . Remember times you have witnessed the miraculous regenerative power of life itself: from new life emerging every spring to the cells on torn skin knitting back together again. . . Life provides for life. Life gives life. Life protects life. Life sustains life. Life is sacred. . . Feel the life force pulsating through your body. . .Trust it. . .