Healthy Happy Loving Life: Election Day Gratitude

Tags

Dealing with stress, Election Day, freedom, Gratitude, Kebba Buckley Button, stress, The life you want, Vote

©2020 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

Photo by Tiffany Tertipe on Unsplash

Election Day in the US will be 4 days from now, Tuesday, November 3. Ours is a fairly young country of only 244 years. Although the country was founded on principles of freedom, of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” our election history has evolved in steps. Yesterday, I dropped off my ballot at a box at the Scottsdale City Hall before meeting a friend for lunch. I took photos in the garden-like landscaping along the Scottsdale Mall.  Today, we vote with relative ease and flexibility, but this wasn’t always so.

Much has changed in the World in the last few centuries. We have so much to be grateful for.  There are countries that have no open elections, or the ballot has only one candidate. Or the non-elected candidate refuses to accept the election results (search “Venezuelan presidential crisis”).

In the US, we have indigenous and immigrant populations. Some people were here already, some were dumped here before 1776 as British prisoners, some sailed here, and unfortunately some were brought as cargo.  African Americans were emancipated by the 13th amendment in 1863. But, in a lot of different steps, they finally got the national right to vote unimpeded, with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Yes, this was a big issue until 1965 (search “Martin Luther King”).  And, thanks to voter suppression (search “voter suppression”), not all Blacks who want to vote are yet getting to vote.  Currently, Blacks are 13.4% of the US population, and in 2008, the Black vote increased to a proportionate 13% of the total vote.

Women in the US got the right to vote with the ratifying of the 19^th Amendment in 1920 (search “women’s suffrage”).  This was hard-won, beginning with the efforts of Susan B. Anthony and others in the 1800’s.

Photo by element5 digital on Unsplash

Decades ago, voting was done on Election Day, at polling locations only. You needed a written excuse to get an absentee ballot you could mail in or provide to the Recorder’s office.  Only several excuses, like “employed in another country”, were acceptable.

Today, in Phoenix, we can get a mail-in ballot just by requesting it, which we can do conveniently online.  We are then able to consider our votes in the quiet of our own homes, studying at least 3 election information booklets that have arrived in the mail.  After marking our ballots, we can then mail them in by a clearly given deadline, or drop them off at clearly available locations. Partially due to long lines in recent elections, the hours and locations for voting have been greatly expanded in many areas.

Now people can find drop-off locations by checking links on their cel phone.  And that’s how I  ended up at the Scottsdale City Hall and followed the signs. And found an unattended box, with no line. And saw a steady trickle of people also dropping off green envelopes.  Monday, I’ll take advantage of ballot-tracking online, and see that my ballot has been counted.

As the commercial used to say, “you’ve come a long way, baby!”  And there is so much to be grateful for.  We are blessed to live in this country in this time.  And I am really feeling the sweet joy of Healthy Happy Loving Life^sm!  Are you in?

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Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She also has a longtime natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   To email us, kebba@kebba.com .

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

Healthy Happy Loving Life: 3 Top Tips for Closet and Cabinet Control

Tags

energy, fatigue, Feeling energized, happy, less stuff, Organizing, stuck, Stuff, unstuck

© 2020 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

What if you came home to a lovely, relaxing, energizing and refreshing space?  Wouldn’t your home life be more enjoyable?  Wouldn’t you relax, rest, and sleep better?  Wouldn’t you wake up faster in the morning?  What if your office looked clean, neat, modern, and airy?  What if all your closets and cabinets looked organized and sharp, and worked that well?  As part of getting control of your Stuff, here are easy tips for conquering crowded closets and cabinets.  Take it one step at a time, and you’ll be amazed at how good you feel at each stage.

First, decide what really belongs in your closets and cabinets.  Files go in file cabinets.  Office supplies need their own area.  Clothing goes in clothing closets and drawers.  And indoor home improvement tools go in hallway closets and usually one kitchen drawer.  If you are storing lawn tools or potting soil inside, move them to an outside storage space.  If you are storing paint, properly dispose of any paint more than 3 years old, or dried-up paints.  Donate old linens to an animal shelter.  Cluster all the lightbulbs together.  Donate duplicate tools and discard dry glue and old tape of all types.  Put batteries in a cool cabinet or in clear plastic bags in the refrigerator.  Get clear plastic boxes the same width as your closet shelves, and store and label everything that can fit into the boxes.   The clear boxes speed up finding anything.  Get a $20 office labelmaker that makes white labels; you’ll be surprised at how readable the labels are.  Now you have retrievability.

Second, for your file cabinets, keep it simple.  Remember that most of your bank account records and charge account records are now online.  You do not have to keep paper copies of many things you had to keep years ago!  Forget color coding and simply label each file.  Make a file for “Taxes 2020”, for any records that may bear on this year’s taxes.  Have a file for “to be filed”, and go through it every few days.  Shred anything you no longer need.  If you teach and have class notes printed out, scan them and store the pdf versions on your computer.  A $30 software program can turn pdf files back into Word files later, so don’t keep your class records in file cabinets.

Third, for your clothing closets, pause and  imagine you could quickly glance over your collection and select an outfit.  Wow!  Now imagine all the pieces and accessories were clean, in good repair, a great fit, and easy to retrieve.  You can get to that stage in about one afternoon!  Ready to play?  Good! Then pull out every item in the closet, one at a time.  Each piece has to go in one of 3 piles:  “Love it”, “would love it if cleaned/repaired”, or “don’t love it”.  All the “don’t love it” clothes, shoes, and accessories now go into bags and directly to your car for donating.  For the “would love if…” group, use your labeler or masking tape and marking pen to label each piece with what it needs.  If you can hand wash it or repair it, set it in an area of the laundry room to be done in the next two days.  If it needs dry cleaning or a tailor’s attention, bag it and take it directly to your car to go to the dry cleaner/tailor today.  If some shoes need repair, are they really too old now?  If not… straight to the car and to your shoe repair shop today.  The “love it” items can now go back in the closet, unless you want to quickly use some of that extra paint to do the inside of the closet.

Now decide if your hats need to be on hooks on the wall, or in hat boxes on the upper shelf.  Purse collections can go in larger clear plastic boxes (visibility of contents saves time) on an upper shelf, and shoes in clear plastic shoe boxes, stacked as high as you like.  If you only have a few pairs of shoes, you may want to keep the clear shoe boxes on the floor of the closet, or use a floor shoe rack big enough for all of the shoes.  Shoe lovers can find over-the-door hanging shoe caddies or vertical caddies that hang from the closet rod.  Scarf lovers, get a special hanger that has a dozen holes in it, and thread the scarves through it.  No more hunting for the right scarf, now.

At last, your closets and cabinets are much easier to navigate.  File access, home repairs or getting dressed should now be far easier and take less time.  You’ve just eliminated a lot of stress and given yourself some time and freedom, which means more energy!  How can you take these tips and techniques into your workplace?  Are you closer to the life you want?  Post your results and comments!

In these strange times, just do your best to stay in your best, in Healthy Happy Loving Life^sm!  Are you in?

---

Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She also has a longtime natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   To email us, kebba@kebba.com .

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

Healthy Happy Loving Life: Freedom to be Different

Tags

at choice, Billie Eilish, Billy Porter, Dealing with stress, Feeling energized, freedom, Freedom to be different, Kebba Buckley Button, stress, The life you want

©2020 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

Do you ever think about your freedom to be different?  We in the USA celebrate our broadest freedom:  people’s right to live as they choose. Most Americans want people to live entirely as they choose.  Each American can choose how to express himself/herself.  Yet how much do we exercise this vital freedom?

Can others tell you what is right to wear?  Each year, the fashion world changes the colors and shapes of fashion that are “in”.  Some people like to play the game and buy new colors and styles, mixing up their wardrobe collection to have fresh looks.  But there are extremes of cultural ideas about what fashions are important to match.  in 2009, I saw a video scene that still burns in my memory.  In a Taliban-ruled community, girls at age 11 were expected to start wearing a light blue burka with an open-weave eye opening.  One day, twenty girls looked at each other and asked, “[W]hat would happen if we took these off?”  They took them off and joyfully ran down a hill, together, celebrating their humanity, not their sameness.

In the 1930’s, in the US, a woman could be arrested for wearing pants in public.  From the 1990’s, comedienne Ellen Degeneres has always performed in pants outfits.  For several decades, flamboyant pianist Liberace wore some of the most dramatic and much-discussed caped, bejeweled outfits.  For centuries, some people have been “cross-dressers” and in recent decades, some have even changed their bodies to fit a gender they prefer.  In personal expression, today, we have fashion groundbreakers such as Billy Porter, who wore a tuxedo dress to the Oscars.  Unheard of 50 years ago, people now sport blue, red, purple, or green hair; singer Billy Eilish has made green-layered hair part of her trademark look.

Being different isn’t a bad thing.  It means you are brave enough to be yourself.

~Unknown

Some of our differences are aspects we are born with.  I was born with white-blonde hair, 10 fingers and 10 toes.  My sisters were all born with rich red hair, each with 10 fingers and 10 toes.  We were often called “cotton top” and “carrot top”.  Riding a train one day, leaving New York City, I helped a woman with a beautiful baby in a carrier.  I had never before seen a baby with 6 perfect toes on each gorgeous little foot. So where is it written that 10 is the correct number of toes?  These were perfect.  My ideas of what is normal, same, and usual expanded that day.

A priest friend of mine has a son, Christopher.  When he was about 6, my friend shared this story, which I am sharing with her generous permission:  “Christopher came home from his 2 nights at church camp raving about the ‘coolest man who was born with only one hand!’ The fact that he was born this way delighted the child and clearly expanded his worldview immensely, because it hadn’t occurred to him this was a possibility before. We may get nervous when our kids stare at someone who looks different than them, but Christopher made it clear that differences are marvelous, exciting, and inspiring. Children are curious about people and want to celebrate the uniqueness of others which then, I imagine, makes the other not quite so other. And I am pretty sure that’s what the world needs. Thanks, Christopher!”

How much do we believe everyone is or should be the same? When we take delight in our originality and our differences, we are free.  In what ways would you like to be or act your differentness?  Celebrate your freedom and feel the joy. As you are able, exercise your freedom to be different.  Truly, we are In/Joy/Meant.  And that’s being: Healthy Happy Loving Life^sm!  Are you in?

———————————————

Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She also has a longtime natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   To email us, kebba@kebba.com .

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

UpBeat Living: Heaven’s Thoughts on Landscaping

Tags

God, Kebba Buckley Button, resource use, St. Francis of Assisi, stress, UpBeat Living

© 2016 Kebba Buckley Button, M.S., O.M.  World Rights Reserved.

What does Heaven think of the way we use our gifts?  What are Heaven’s Thoughts on how we use the incredible array of resources we have been blessed with? Here’s a light look at how the conversation might go, if God and a couple of saints were talking about it.   And you don’t have to be a person of faith to enjoy it.  I found this piece circulating the Internet, Author Unknown.  Enjoy!

GOD (to St. Francis of Assisi):
Frank, you know all about gardens and  nature. What in the world is going on down there on the planet? What happened to the dandelions, violets, milkweeds and stuff I  started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But, all I see are these green rectangles.

ST.  FRANCIS:
It’s  the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers ‘weeds’ and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

GOD:
Grass? But, it’s so boring. It’s not colorful. It doesn’t attract butterflies, birds and bees; only grubs and sod worms. It’s sensitive to temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?

ST.  FRANCIS:
Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the  lawn.

GOD:
The  spring rains and warm weather probably make  grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

ST.  FRANCIS:
Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it– sometimes twice a week.

GOD:
They cut it? Do they then bale it like hay?

ST.  FRANCIS:
Not  exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.

GOD:
They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

ST.  FRANCIS:
No, Sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

GOD:
Now,  let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow. And, when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

ST.  FRANCIS:   Yes, Sir.

GOD:
These Suburbanites must be relieved in the  summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up  the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

FRANCIS:You  aren’t going to believe this, Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it, so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

GOD:
What  nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees.  That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn, they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. It’s a natural cycle of life.

ST.  FRANCIS:
You  better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

GOD:
No!?  What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?

ST.  FRANCIS:
After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch.  They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

GOD:
And where do they get this mulch?

ST.  FRANCIS:
They cut down trees and grind them up to make the  mulch.

GOD:
Enough! I don’t want to think about this anymore. St. Catherine, you’re in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

CATHERINE:

‘Dumb and Dumber’, Lord.  It’s a story about….

GOD:
Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis.

So: how are you using your gifts and resources?  Could you be doing more?  Recycling?  Growing veggies? Wrapping gifts with reuseable bags?  The list goes on, and so can you, in helping the Planet.  And that’s Upbeat Living!

——————————————————–

• If you enjoy this post, please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column. You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma! Due to a recent FB change, our “likes” look low.  Thanks for your help!

Energy – Peace – Meditation

• Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition(http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc ). Her newest book is Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine, available through her office.  Just email SacredMeditation@kebba.com. 
• For an appointment or to ask Kebba to speak for your group: bookings@kebba.com .

 

Different Stress: Freedom to be Different

Tags

at choice, Dealing with stress, Feeling energized, freedom, Freedom to be different, Kebba Buckley Button, stress, The life you want

©2016  Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

Do you ever think about your freedom to be different?  Each July 4^th, we in the USA celebrate our broadest freedom:  the founding of our country, on the basis of people’s right to live as they choose.  We rightly remind ourselves that, “[F]reedom isn’t free.”

Hundreds of thousands fought and even gave their lives, here and abroad, to establish and keep the freedom this country enjoys.  Most Americans want people to live entirely as they choose.  Each American can choose how to express himself/herself.  Yet how much do we exercise this vital freedom?

Can others tell you what is right to wear?  Each year, the fashion world changes the colors and shapes of fashion that are “in”.  Some  people like to play the game and buy new colors and styles, mixing up their wardrobe collection to have fresh looks.  But there are extremes of cultural ideas about what fashions are important to match.  Last year I saw a video scene that still burns in my memory.  In a Taliban-ruled community, girls at age 11 were expected to start wearing a light blue burka with an open-weave eye opening.  One day, twenty girls looked at each other and asked, “[W]hat would happen if we took these off?”  They took them off and joyfully ran down a hill, together, celebrating their humanity, not their sameness.

Being different isn’t a bad thing.  It means you are brave enough to be yourself.

~Unknown

Some of our differences are aspects we are born with.  I was born with white-blonde hair, 10 fingers and 10 toes.  My sisters were all born with dark red hair, each with 10 fingers and 10 toes.  We were often called “cotton top” and “carrot top”.  Riding a train one day, leaving New York City, I helped a woman with a beautiful baby in a carrier.  I had never before seen a baby with 6 perfect toes on each gorgeous little foot. So where is it written that 10 is the correct number of toes?  These were perfect.  My ideas of what is normal, same, and usual expanded that day.

A priest friend of mine has a son, Christopher, who is now 7.  When he was about 6, my friend shared this story, which I am sharing with her generous permission:  “Christopher came home from his 2 nights at church camp raving about the ‘coolest man who was born with only one hand!’ The fact that he was born this way delighted him and clearly expanded his worldview immensely, because it hadn’t occurred to him this was a possibility before. We may get nervous when our kids stare at someone who looks different than them, but C made it clear that differences are marvelous, exciting, and inspiring. Children are curious about people and want to celebrate the uniqueness of others which then, I imagine, makes the other not quite so other. And I am pretty sure that’s what the world needs. Thanks, Christopher.”

How much do we believe everyone is or should be the same? When we take delight in our originality and our differences, we are free.  Celebrate your freedom and feel the joy. As you are able, exercise your freedom to be different.  Truly, we are In/Joy/Meant.  And that’s Upbeat Living!

_____________________________________________________________

Energy – Peace – Meditation

• Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You
• (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition. Her newest book is Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine. Both that book and Peace Within are available through her office.  Just email books@kebba.com. 
• For an appointment or to ask Kebba to speak for your group: calendar@kebba.com.

 

Celebrating Freedom – From Sameness

Tags

freedom, freedom from sameness, in/joy/meant, stress

©2015  Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

Today is the ultimate freedom day. 

 

Each July 4^th, we in the USA celebrate our broadest freedom:  the founding of our country, on the basis of people’s right to live as they choose.  We rightly remind ourselves that, “[F]reedom isn’t free.”  Hundreds of thousands fought and even gave their lives, here and abroad, to establish and keep the freedom this country enjoys.  Most Americans want people to live entirely as they choose.  Each American chooses how much to be the same as, or different from, other people.

In peace ministry, I saw a video scene that became indelibly imprinted in my mind.  In a community ruled by the Taliban, girls at age 11 were expected to start wearing a light blue burka with an open-weave eye opening.  One day, twenty girls looked at each other and asked, “[W]hat would happen if we took these off?”  They took them off and joyfully ran down a hill, together, celebrating their humanity, not their sameness.

Riding a train one day, leaving New York City, I helped a woman with a beautiful baby, when we were asked to change cars.  I had never before seen a baby with 6 perfect toes on each gorgeous little foot. My ideas of what is normal, same, and usual expanded that day. My mind was more free.

A priest friend of mine has a son, Christopher, who is 6 years old. Recently, she recounted this story, which I am using with her kind permission:  “Christopher came home from his 2 nights at church camp raving about the ‘coolest man who was born with only one hand!’ The fact that he was born this way delighted him and clearly expanded his worldview immensely, because it hadn’t occurred to him this was a possibility before. We may get nervous when our kids stare at someone who looks different than them, but C made it clear that differences are marvelous, exciting, and inspiring. Children are curious about people and want to celebrate the uniqueness of others which then, I imagine, makes the other not quite so other. And I am pretty sure that’s what the world needs. Thanks, Christopher.”

This great vignette illustrates freedom from sameness, freedom from believing everyone is or should be the same. When we take delight in our originality and our differences, we are free.  Celebrate your freedom, give thanks often, and let that lead your joy.  And you will easily remember that we are In/Joy/Meant.

_____________________________________________________________

• Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition. Her newest book is Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine. Both that book and Peace Within are available through her office.  Just email books@kebba.com. 
• For an appointment or to ask Kebba to speak for your group: calendar@kebba.com.

How Stressed Are We?

Tags

Kebba Buckley Button, meditation, peace within, Sacred Meditation, stress, Stress Management, The life you want

© 2015 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM. World Rights Reserved.

© HaywireMedia-Fotolia

 

 

 

As a professional stress management speaker and coach, my passion is to share stress information, to help people develop better stress coping, in specific, and often easy, ways. And this month is National Stress Awareness Month! So please jot down any stress questions that come to mind as I share today. And then either email me or pop the questions into the comment section, below.

You probably know very well when you are stressed. There are lots of symptoms that tell us we are stressed: fatigue, irritability, forgetfulness, high blood pressure, high heart rate, digestive tightness, overreacting, headaches, back pain, insomnia, and even a weakened immune system. In Japan, there is even a word for death from overwork. That’s really bad stress! Short of killing yourself with commitments, what symptoms do you experience? What stress reactions would you like to be done with?

The American Psychological Association has been taking an annual survey of how stressed we are in the U.S. They call it “Stress In America: Paying With Our Health”. People were asked to rate their stress on a scale of 1 to 10. Since 2007, when the APA began the Stress In America survey, money has consistently been the top source of stress. For 2014, APA found:

• More women than men say that their stress has increased in the past year (32 percent vs. 25 percent).

• Far more women than men say they have lain awake at night in the past month due to stress (51 percent vs. 32 percent of men).

• Women are more likely than men to say they felt a sense of loneliness or isolation in the past month due to stress (29 percent vs. 19 percent of men).

• Millennials are more likely than other generations to say their stress has increased in the past year (36 percent vs. 24 percent of boomers and 19 percent of matures).

• Millennials are more likely than any other generation to say they have felt a sense of loneliness or isolation due to stress in the past month (34 percent vs. 24 percent of Gen Xers, 21 percent of boomers and 12 percent of matures).

• More parents than nonparents say they are not doing enough to manage their stress (31 percent vs. 20 percent).

• Parents are more likely than nonparents to report engaging in unhealthy stress management techniques, such as drinking alcohol (18 percent vs. 12 percent) and smoking (17 percent vs. 10 percent).

So on a scale of 1 to 10, how stressed would you say you are? Do you think you’re doing enough about it? Would you like to know more about stress and how to handle it differently?

———————————————————–

 

• If you enjoy this post, please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column! You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma! Due to a recent FB change, our “likes” look low. Thanks for your help!

Energy – Peace – Meditation

 

 

• Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert and award-winning author.  She also is an ordained minister and has a natural healing practice. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br),and Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition. Her newest book is Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  Sacred Meditation and Peace Within are available through her office. Just email SacredMeditation@kebba.com.  
• For an appointment or to ask Kebba to speak for your group: calendar@kebba.com .

 

Forget Age Stress: 70 is the New 40

Tags

age stress, aging, Barbara Penn-Atklins, heatlh age, Kebba Buckley Button, lifestyle, peace within, stress

© 2015 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM. World Rights Reserved.

 

© stokkete – Fotolia

When I was in my twenties, for a while, I worked for a State agency. At that time, all Arizona State agencies offered employees a wellness screening. One of the big benefits of the health screening, done from a questionnaire, was that each person got a wellness score, their “health age”. I had never heard of “health age” before. As they defined it at the time, it was a measure of your actual age worked together with factors such as weight, exercise, length of commute, and whether you smoked. I was so pleased: my health age came in 5 years younger than my actual age.

 

I think of health age again every time I hear someone proclaim, “I’m old!” When I hear that, I wonder what rights or social rights they are claiming for themselves.  Also, some people talk about how old they feel at tired times, such as when they’re waking up.

 

Age is just a number, and mine is unlisted.

~ Unknown

We have many ideas about what age means. Age is a condition that supposedly moves in one direction and increases, independent of your choices. However, nothing can be further from the truth! I think youth is all about how you feel.  And we have many choices we can make to feel great.  If you feel young, energetic, flexible, and generally healthy, and you have peace within, then you are young. If you feel old, tired, stiff, achy, stressed, and generally unhealthy, then your health age is getting older–sorry! In an example from my own life, when I was 26 to 33, I had horrible, burning, crippling arthritis and felt very old. I moved stiffly, and other than my face, I probably looked old. But, I beat the condition in 8 years, and I began to feel very young and healthy. Read some of my adventure with that condition at http://wp.me/pw4HM-lB.

 

My husband recounts a story of an amazing woman he met while hiking the Grand Canyon one year. The Grand Canyon trails are long, and some are steep. If you go down into the Canyon, you also have to take one or another of the trails back out, no matter how much work it is. My husband used to go hike the Canyon yearly with some very fit middle-aged male friends. They would all work up to their Canyon trek, practicing on local Phoenix mountain trails, of which there are many. They would even wear loaded packs on these practice hikes, to be sure they were really fit for the Canyon.

 

Once on the Canyon trail, my husband’s group was puffing along, finding the hiking to be strenuous. A very petite, senior-looking woman with blunt-cut white hair came by, moving rapidly along the same trail, but coming out of the Canyon. My husband, who was then in his sixties, expressed his admiration to her, for her vitality and speed. She pulled her chin up and stood straight and tall at her possible five full feet of height. She gave my husband a stern look and said, “[Y]oung man, obviously you don’t know who I am! I lead walks like this [13 miles round trip] a few times a month for the Sierra Club!” Let’s say this woman’s health age was rather young, and she was very vital.

 

So are you ready now to challenge your age numbers? Consultant Bara Penn-Atkins (www.sunrisebeginnings.com) is an expert in leadership, retirement readiness, life options, and how to build a life of significance. Atkins has written a book, rightly called 70 is the New 40. In her chapter called Discover Your Power!, Atkins describes a transition all people go through:

Photo courtesy of Barbara Penn-Atkins

 

As a person celebrates age forty and beyond, something mystical and magical happens. How we feel life should be measured begins to take a different form. There is an awakening of the self, and our individual independence becomes profoundly important. …Internally, the psyche takes on a new maturity, and it only gets better and more positive with age.

~ Barbara Penn-Atkins

 

In Atkins’s book, she offers us exercises to write out our challenges, opportunities, and meanings. She shows us ways to transform the 3 D’s of aging– disease, disability, and depression—into 3 new D’s: discovery, discipline, and dedication. So how do you feel: fit, healthy, vivid, contributing? A person who is 70 now can feel the way a 40-year-old used to feel. Abraham Lincoln famously said,

 

In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.

~ Abraham Lincoln

 

I’m not saying our age numbers are entirely bogus.  However, age and aging do not have to stress us. Does your life fit you? How old do you feel? And what’s in your years? I would love to hear your thoughts.

 

 

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• Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition(http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc ). Her newest book is Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine, available through her office. Just email SacredMeditation@kebba.com.
• For an appointment or to ask Kebba to speak for your group: bookings@kebba.com .

Upbeat Living: Home is where?

Tags

Candy Spelling, home, house, Kebba Buckley Button, LeBron James, stress, UpBeat Living

© 2014 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.  www.kebba.com

© RFsole – Fotolia

Life is very busy, noisy, and fluid today.  People relocate a lot.  For some people, the idea of “home” is a very comforting and stabilizing essence, a community or a house to return to for peace and warmth.  What makes us attached to one place as “home”?  From time to time, let’s ask ourselves, “[D]o I really want to be holding onto this place?  Or do I want to simply be satisfied with my great memories?”  In our culture, we have many layers of meaning when we talk about “home”.

In baseball, there is a “home base”.  You can “get a home run” or “slide into home”.  In basketball, Miami Heat star LeBron James has decided to “go home” to Cleveland, to play for the Cavaliers again, after 4 seasons with the Miami Heat.  Cleveland media refer to his “coming home”.   We talk about “homing in” on a target or goal.  A “homing pigeon” is one that flies out and about, then returns to its starting point.  Some say they feel “really at home” in their new school or job.  People who travel a lot on business may refer to their “home city” or that city as their “home base”.

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. 

~ Maya Angelou

My parents had a house in the town where I spent my public school years.  They lived in the house for 40 years.  When they sold it, the new owners re-cut some of the windows and walls and changed most of the landscaping.  Some of my relatives felt violated by the changes, as though some immutable law had been broken.  What was their attachment?   I thought the changes were great, redeeming and refreshing the house, and bringing in a lot of sunlight.  I hoped, and still do, that the new young family would have many years of joy in that house—that it would serve them well.  When we saw the construction, I felt relief, not regret.  I thanked the house for the good times.

I have seen a number of women, when going through a divorce, decide they absolutely must keep the house of their marriage years. Their attachment to the house as “home” is something they are committed to, as if their emotional life depended on it.  Then one divorced woman with little income is living in a house with a few more bedrooms than she can sleep in, but where she has many memories.  What is that attachment?  Can you live in the past, feeding on your memories?

Candy Spelling, widow of famed producer Aaron Spelling, had a 150-room home to deal with when her husband died in 2006.  One week, he had a stroke, and five days later, he died.  Candy had absolutely loved the 56,500 square foot home, nicknamed “Spelling Manor”.  But she reorganized her life and purchased a bilevel penthouse in Century City, downsizing to 18,000 square feet.  She sold Spelling Manor.  Then she spent several years on the condo buildout and the warehousing/sorting of her Spelling Manor belongings.  Bringing some of her memories with her, Candy Spelling recovered some favorite chairs and decorated with treasures from her decades of collecting.  She celebrated her previous chapters and brought the best into her new chapter.  The penthouse is truly her new home.

My husband and I have realized that neither of us is very sentimental about the house in which we live.  We are in a charming house currently.  It is our home for now.  We greatly enjoy our home and community. But one day we may decide to move to another house, and then that will be our home.  We have very low house-attachment!  But that is because we have each other.  We have an intense relationship that gets richer all the time.  We know that relationships transcend structures.  Who hasn’t heard this timeless quote:

Home is where the heart is. 

~Pliny The Elder

Whether you’re LeBron James, Candy Spelling, or simply yourself, what makes your house your home is up to you and your heart.  You call it, and do it your way.  Now that’s Upbeat Living!

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● Liked this article?  You can buy Kebba’s books:  just click the links!

• Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br). 
• Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (Second Edition) (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc)             

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UpBeat Living: Ripplespillers Reblog on Living a Resurrection Life

Tags

Kebba Buckley Button, Resurrection Living, Ripplespillers, Susan Wilson, The life you want, The secret energized you, UpBeat Living

© 2013 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

For many years, I have been teaching people how to trade in their stress for energy and positive, forward-motion living.  I published a book, Discover The Secret Energized You, about how to understand life differently and get completely different results than most people get.  Most people are skilled at embracing stress, storing it in their hearts, minds, and bodies, and creating fatigue, illness and aging with it.  In fact, a great deal of what passes for aging—isn’t!

But my book is filled with strategies for reversing this process and ending up not taking in and storing stress, and getting more well and feeling younger. Also looking younger.  I write this series, UpBeat Living, for all audiences, and normally I don’t talk much about faith.  I have a separate blog for that, UpBeat Spiritual Living.  But my writer friend Susan Wilson, creator of the Ripplespillers concept, has been writing about what she calls “living a resurrection life”.  This is a spiritual framework for understanding and living out the kind of approach I have been inviting people of all faith backgrounds into.  And I couldn’t resist sharing her with you.

I hope you will enjoy this reblog of Susan’s article, “What is a Resurrection Life?”  Of course, check out her other articles at www.ripplespillers.com. 

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What is a Resurrection Life? Posted: 06 Apr 2013 05:36 AM PDT Some of you have been asking what exactly I mean by living a Resurrection Life, and I’m glad you’ve asked, because it gives me the opportunity to refine my own thinking on it as I’m working through it. (Thank you, Kebba.) First of all, I must confess that the phrase is not my own. I found it through Christine Valters Paintner (of Abbey of the Arts) in her post: Easter – Practicing Resurrection of the Body. But it seemed to encapsulate everything I was thinking myself about cleansing my spirit of those dull, lifeless thoughts and habits that crept in during the darkness of winter, replacing them with the fresh, vibrant, life-giving new ones … To me, there are two parts to living a Resurrection life. 1. We celebrate the joy of the Risen Lord and the new covenant with the Divine that the Cross has brought about, reuniting us with the Great Creator and living in relationship with God. 2. We ourselves commit to our own Resurrection life, the new creation we are becoming, being transformed by the renewing of our minds, living powerfully, peacefully, and on purpose. There’s a passage in Colossians that has really captured my heart. The complete passage is Colossians 1:1-17. But the verses that really stands out for me are 12-15: Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. This is the Resurrection life: love, peace, and thankfulness. There can be no peace, certainly not the powerful peace talked about here, while we’re struggling with fear, anger, discontent, etc. If we want the kind of life we were intended to live originally, then we have to rewire our thinking and our doing, with God’s help, and that’s what the purpose of this April series of ‘fresh-thinking’, ‘Resurrection Life’ articles are all about. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons I’m reminded of a picture in the illuminated manuscript, the Book of Kells. Ray Simpson, in his book Celtic Daily Light: A spiritual journey through the year, writes of it eloquently, saying: “In the Book of Kells there is no picture of the resurrection but only the word ‘Una’, in the centre of the page, to denote the first day of the week, the day of resurrection. George Otto Simms, ( Exploring the Book of Kells, Dublin, 1988) describes the resurrection page of that book as follows: ‘Angels are guarding the capital letter U, one at each of its four corners. It looks at first like a dark, dull page, but out of the dim gloom the feet, the hands and the faces of the four angels, painted with white lead, shine out gleaming and bright. These angels are looking up and out from the page… They are alive and alert, not asleep, nor downcast. Their message is ‘Christ is risen, he is not here. Why look for the living among the dead?’ We also observe, in the top right-hand corner, that the fierce monster is speeding away out of the picture. The power of this enemy has been overcome. The beast is on his way out, defeated… The capital U, with a tangle of graceful birds in the heart of the letter, and surrounded by guardian angels, helps us to have a picture in our minds of the empty tomb on the first Easter Day.” I’m starting a new page in my resurrection life, one in which the negative thoughts and debilitating habits that I’ve allowed to prosper in my heart will be ‘speeding away out of the picture’, and I’ll be able to respond positively to Paul’s words: ‘You have been raised to life with Christ, so set your hearts on the things that are of heaven.’ (Colossians 3:1) I can’t wait!

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● If  you enjoy this post, please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column.  You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma.

 

● Kebba Buckley Button is a Master’s Degree scientist, a minister, and the award-winning author of  the 2012 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (http://tinyurl.com/abd47jr), and also Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br).  She also has a natural healing and stress management practice and is a celebrated public speaker.

 

● Your comments are welcome!

 

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● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .