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Like many bloggers, I occasionally receive emails from publicists hoping to get some coverage for a particular book, seminar or other product. I don’t usually pay much attention to them, but a couple of weeks ago I received some communication about a Hawaiian system of healing called Huna. This was a totally new concept to me, so I decided to look into it and found it quite interesting. I inquired about the possibility of doing an interview with Dr. Matthew B. James, an expert in Huna, and Dr. James kindly agreed to answer some of my (very simplistic) questions. I found his responses very interesting and think you will as well.

If you’re wondering, “What the heck is Huna?” keep reading. There is also a generous offer for more information at the end of this interview.

1. Thank you so much for doing this interview. I have to admit that I did not know about Huna before reading your website and I suspect most of my readers aren’t familiar with it either. Could you please share the “elevator pitch” version of what Huna is and where it comes from?

Huna is the modern label give to the ancient system of psychology and energy work that was present in the islands before western influence. Some of the first visitors wrote that they discovered a group of people almost completely devoid of mental and physiological disease. The teachings of Huna, in part, were helpful in maintaining the island paradise.

The major focus of the aspect of Huna that I teach deals with the psychology and energy work that was taught in ancient times. The word Huna means secret, but not in the sense of I have a secret that you don’t know. More accurately, Huna means obscure or just beneath the surface. So the secret that it refers to is the information that anyone can get into contact with that is just out of most people’s awareness. In ancient times an enlightened individual was said to be able to pierce the veil, and thus in Hawaii, they would have been able to know the Huna.

[Read more →]

This is a guest post by Jeniffer Karas. Jeniffer writes for www.thethirtydayyear.com, a site that documents many Thirty Day Trials with a goal of self improvement. She lives in Ontario, Canada with her family.

“I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.”-Winston Churchill

Are you a positive person?

Do you see light at the end of every tunnel, see the glass as always half full, and look to tomorrow with hope and optimism?

If so, you are among those who live longer, more productive lives, have lower risk of certain diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and even Alzheimer’s, and are likely to enjoy the company of others, attracted by your sunny side and smile.

If not, you can cultivate this tendency. It just takes a little work, some thought, self-monitoring, and practice.

And the practice, my friends, is actually fun!

Ready to begin bringing out your sunny side?

Cultivate An Attitude of Gratitude

One of the more prominent features of the perpetually positive, other than the huge grin on their face, is their ability to see and be grateful for what they have in their lives.

They are aware of sunrises, sunsets, breathing, even, as miracles and gifts, and see everyday things as treasures to cherish.

One good way to develop this same grateful attitude, is through keeping a journal of all that you have to be grateful for.

Write down in a notebook, a moleskin, or whatever kind of book happens to appeal to you, at least five things which you are grateful for, every single day.

No cheating–no sitting back and listing the first five things that pop into your mind.

Really consider all that you have, feel the power of the gratitude within, then write about it.

For me, keeping a gratitude journal was my first, and most beneficial, step in turning my attitude around.

It didn’t so much change my life, as it changed the way I looked upon it.

And that was priceless.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy!

Many people spend much of their time and energy focused on things that have not happened yet, worrying that something might occur.

Maybe I’ll gain five pounds.

Perhaps that new outfit will make me look fat.

I may lose my job.

My spouse might fool around on me.

Note that in the above examples, nothing has actually taken place–it’s just the monkey mind playing the same song over and over again.

It’s the song that says you’re not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, etc, and for some reason it is the tune that plays most often in many people’s heads.

Take the time to listen to your thoughts, to really pay attention to them, especially at times like this. Notice whether or not the thought has merit–is the thought based on something which is really going on, in which case it requires some action, or is it your own insecurities and F.E.A.R.-False Expectations Appearing Real?

If it’s all in your head, then you need to take the time to talk back to those thoughts–I am smart enough, attractive enough; my spouse loves me, etc.

Then carry on living, and if those thoughts recur, talk back to them again.

In time, the more positive thoughts will become automatic. As well, like a muscle, they grow more powerful with each use.

Practice positive thoughts, positive self talk, positive focus.

Squash those self doubts until they are so small you don’t hear them anymore. If ignored long enough, and repeatedly proven wrong by the results of your actions, they will go away.

One thing positive people know for certain is that focusing on positives naturally makes us notice other positives.

Practice Positive Actions

As well as being aware of your attitude toward your self, your life, and your future; beyond forcing your attention to focus on the positive, there comes the time to act.

That monkey mind may chime up again, telling you you cannot, you are not good enough, etc.

One good way to bolster your confidence in your abilities is to write out what you have already accomplished.

Write everything you have ever accomplished down, from learning how to talk, to learning how to walk, ride a bike, skate, print, write, read–write down every single thing you have ever accomplished in your life.

Allow yourself plenty of time to do this, because there will be lots that you have done.

Until we see evidence in writing, many of us give little thought to how much we actually have done.

Once you are finished your list, read it over, and keep it where you can read it again when self-doubt starts to creep in.

This exercise reaffirms for you that you are capable of doing things, that for everything you have done in your life, there was a first time, a time of awkwardness and learning.

There was always that opportunity to grow.

Start Your Day In A Positive Way

As you get ready to get out of bed in the morning, greet the first person you see (even if it is just yourself in a mirror) with a cheerful “Good morning!”.

Then focus on what a great day you have ahead of you.

Picture how great you will feel when you have accomplished all that you want to achieve that day, even if that is just going away on a holiday. Feel that accomplishment, take the time to clearly view your day in your mind.

You’ll be jazzed up for it, eager and ready to bring the day on.

The (Feeling) Good Samaritan

Helping others helps you.

It increases your connection to the world, makes you feel better about yourself, more useful, and grateful for the chance to serve.

Open doors for others when their arms are full, hold elevator doors open for those who may be slower getting into them than you are, smile, really SMILE at people, even just wishing them a heart-felt “Good day!” and watch that sunny disposition light up the day for those who cross your path.

Try it! You’d be amazed how much good it does you, to be doing good for others.

Photo by Alexander Rist.

I’m grateful to Lexi Sundell for including my post, How to Cross the Gap From Knowing to Doing in the Carnival of Creative Growth. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Lexi’s work, she is not only a talented painter and blogger, but is also a Senior Thought Leader at Personal Development Partners. In that role Lexi contributes tremendous insight and advice to people seeking to improve their lives through personal development tools and techniques.

Normally, a membership at Personal Development Partners costs $19.95 a month, but for a very limited time, you can purchase a lifetime membership for $57! If you aren’t familiar with PDP at all, it is a community of people who have come together to take the information they have gathered from years of study and support each other in applying it to actually improve their lives. In short, it is part group therapy, part peer coaching, and part butt-kicking!

I’ve been active at PDP for about 6 months now and I can definitely say that it is the nicest, most helpful, most success-oriented community I’ve ever participated in. Because there is a cost involved in being a member, the people who are active on the message boards are all committed to gaining positive results as well as offering genuinely useful advice.

I am certainly going to take advantage of this steal of an offer, and I hope you will too!

Other Resources
I would be a very bad blogger if I mentioned a carnival appearance and didn’t highlight some of the other outstanding posts. My personal favorites from this carnival are:

• 24 Weekly Actions for Creating Lasting Success from The Next 45 Years. Alex Blackwell gives you some very concrete steps to set up your week for serious achievement.
• Overwhelm: How to Break Your Life Down into Manageable Parts from Slow Down Fast! David B. Bohl has been putting out great posts for many months now, and this one is no exception. In this post he explains how to do some charting and time auditing to get a handle on your multitude of roles in life.
• How to Get Rid of Excuses NOW and Start Living the Kind of Life You’ve Always Wanted is from the new-to-me blog Super State. Discovering unfamiliar blogs is a great reason to peruse carnivals, by the way. Arin Vahanian encourages us to practice some mindfulness to catch ourselves in the act of making excuses and finding ways to reframe them as choices. It’s a helpful practice that I’m going to work with.

SmallChange is a weekly feature at Never the Same River Twice. This category features quick and easy activities you can do on a lazy Sunday morning to learn a new skill and feel better. If you have any suggestions for this series, tell us your idea in the comments.

Ed. Note: Sorry about the lack of an audio post this week. I recorded one, but I’m having some technical problems getting it titled, tagged and cross-posted from Utterz. If you’d like to listen to it, click over and look up NSRT. You’ll have access to my complete audio archives. If I can get the tech issues worked out, I’ll add it to this post. Here’s the main idea of what I said:

Hey, it’s the weekend. Take your watch off!!

I used to be addicted to wearing a watch. A few years ago I accidentally washed - and dried - my watch and I absolutely panicked. I had to rush out right then and buy a new one. I felt naked walking around without one.

To me, the downside to wearing a watch is that it acts as an enabler keeping me from being present in the moment. I’ll find myself in a meeting - which I can’t leave until it’s over - and I’ll keep glancing at my watch and thinking about what I have to do next. Same thing when I’m talking to someone. It’s really annoying to me when someone is glancing at their watch when I’m trying to talk to them, but I was doing that all the time.

So, I stopped wearing a watch, as you can see from my high quality photo of my own wrist. It’s been very freeing. I find myself much more in the moment. If I’m stuck in a meeting, it’s much easier for me to accept that I’m stuck and I might as well listen instead of planning what I need to do the second I leave. If I’m talking to someone, I can pay attention and listen to what they’re saying.

Now, the simple act of removing my watch didn’t magically cause these changes. Rather, it was a physical way of reinforcing a change in mindset, a lot like the magic hair tie trick.

At first I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep track of time enough to make all my hard calendar commitments. The good (and bad) thing is that in the developed world, clocks are EVERYWHERE. Chances are, you have a cell phone in your pocket or purse right now, which has a clock built into it. You probably also have a clock in your car, on your computer display, on the wall in your building, and blinking away on several electronic devices in your home. In a pinch, you can always ask someone else for the time.

So, just for the weekend, give it a try. Take your watch off and see how it works. And, as always, share your experiences in the comments.

Coin photo by novitas. Photo of my attractive wrist and high-priced hair tie is mine. Feel free to use it with a link back to this site.

During the height of the New Year’s resolution season, I explained that I don’t think traditional goal setting is the most effective way to get where you want to go in life. In my view, traditional goal setting is like using a map to plan your route, and never heading off that route. This can work really well when the road to your destination is straightforward and you don’t have many choices of how to get there.

The problem is that life doesn’t usually work like this. We rarely encounter roads that are free from detours and traffic jams. At certain points, it may be more efficient to detour from your planned route. Maybe you’d find it interesting to take your time on secondary roads rather than speeding by on the Interstate. You may have an opportunity to take a short cut, or you may even decide that you don’t want to go to that destination anymore.

This is why I advocate using a compass, instead of a map. By knowing the general direction you want to go in but not the exact route, you have more flexibility to take those faster or more interesting routes. You may consciously decide to veer off course a little bit, but you’re not lost and you can head back in your desired direction at any time.

Okay, enough with the analogies…

How Does This “Compass” Thing Actually Work?

In a word… theme. Instead of creating painstakingly planned out goals with specific actions, measurable results and hard deadlines, choose one word or short phrase that embodies the theme of what you want to accomplish. As I explained, in relation to my blogging for 2008, I want to focus on Adding Value to people interested in personal and organizational change. There are many ways to do this, but there are also many ways to dink around and not accomplish much of anything as a blogger! Fortunately, because I have my compass point set to “Adding Value” I can ask myself the guiding question, “Does this blogging related activity add value for my audience?” I have done this frequently during the past three months.

Now, to be honest, not everything I’ve done has added value. Sometimes when I asked my guiding question the honest answer was, “No, but it’s fun!” That’s fine with me, so I kept at those things. The good thing is, having the compass to guide me keeps me from getting too far off course. The result is that I’ve done a lot of things that are both fun AND add value, but I didn’t know I was going to do all of these things on January 1. For example, I discovered Utterz and started recording podcasts a few weeks ago. This format makes my site accessible to a wider audience and provides variety to my regular readers. I also had the opportunity to participate in the March 2008 Bloghology group Ebook, which gave me the opportunity to interact with other bloggers and spread my message to a wider audience.

What are the Results? 

Oh, you want numbers? You want proof that this stuff actually works?! Well, okay.

According to Google Analytics, from October 1 through December 31, 2007 this site had 3,202 visits. This number nearly tripled to 8,714 visits from January 1 through March 31, 2008. Somebody (actually a lot of somebodies) took some time out of their lives to pop by humble blog. That’s pretty good growth and I’m happy with it. What makes me even happier is that the traffic came from lots of sources and was spread around to lots of posts.

Here are my top 5 most read posts:

1. Having Goals Will Make You Blind!
2. What Is Adaptive Capacity?
3. How to Do Scenario Planning
4. 7 Things to NOT Do If You Have Seasonal Affective Disorder
5. My 4 Hour Workweek: I Get My VAs For Free (actually the whole series did really well)

I also got a good amount of traffic through my forum and blog commenting participation. For example, I got over 500 visitors from Zen Habits, a blog that I comment on frequently. This shows me that I’m adding value in those communities and drawing visitors to my own blog community. That makes me happy

I hope this post has persuaded you to give the Compass method of goal setting a try in your life. Just start with a small area where you want to accomplish something in the near future and see what happens. And as always, if you’ve had experiences with this method, please share them in the comments.

Photo by… Oh dear, I don’t remember where I got this one. If this photo is yours, please email maria (at) neverthesamerivertwice (dot) com and I will give you due credit!