My Dad recently sent me this extraordinary PowerPoint presentation about the planet Earth and our surrounding neighbours and galaxies. Fascinating to see exactly how small our planet really is.
Enjoy!
Astronomy 101 Power Point:
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=6f92d055b2&view=att&th=1302f9373eb1849f&attid=0.1&disp=attd&zw
TORONTO, May 17, 2011 – Practicing small acts of kindness will make you a happier person, and the boost in mood stays with you for months, according to research out of York University.
More than 700 people took part in a study which charted the effects of being nice to others, in small doses, over the course of a week. Researchers asked participants to act compassionately towards someone for 5-15 minutes a day, by actively helping or interacting with them in a supportive and considerate manner. Six months later, participants reported increased happiness and self-esteem.
“The concept of compassion and kindness resonates with so many religious traditions, yet it has received little empirical evidence until recently,” says lead author Myriam Mongrain, associate professor of psychology in York’s Faculty of Health. “What’s amazing is that the time investment required for these changes to occur is so small. We’re talking about mere minutes a day,” she says.
Participants’ levels of depression, happiness, and self-esteem were assessed at the study’s onset, and at four subsequent points over the following six months; those in the compassionate condition reported significantly greater increases in self-esteem and happiness at six months compared to those in the control group.
So why does doing good for others make us feel good about ourselves?
“The simplest answer is that doing noble, charitable acts make us feel better about ourselves. We reaffirm that we are ‘good,’ which is a highly-valued trait in our society. It is also possible that being kind to others may help us be kind to ourselves,” Mongrain says. She notes that previous studies have demonstrated a causal relationship between compassionate behaviours and charitable self-evaluations.
“Compassion cuts both ways,” she says. “If you make a conscious decision to not be so hard on others, it becomes easier to not be so hard on yourself. Furthermore, providing support to others often means that we will get support back. That is why caring for and helping others may be the best possible thing we can do for ourselves. On a less selfish level, there is something intrinsically satisfying about helping others and witnessing their gratitude,” says Mongrain.
Not surprisingly, research has also shown that compassionate activities increase the level of meaning in one’s life, which in turn elevates levels of happiness.
Researchers expected that those with needy personalities would experience greater reductions in depressive symptoms and greater increases in happiness and self-esteem as a result of being kind to others.
“We hypothesized this would occur as a result of the reassurance [needy personalities] might extract from positive exchanges with others,” Mongrain says. “We did see some reduction in depressive symptoms for anxiously attached individuals, but further research is needed to see if there is any long-term benefit.”
The study, “Practicing Compassion Increases Happiness and Self-Esteem,” is forthcoming in the spring issue of the Journal of Happiness Studies. It is co-authored by York University researchers Jacqueline Chin and Leah Shapira. The research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Spring has sprung and the tulips are out in full bloom. It is time to learn new things and get out and get involved in y(our) community. There are some exciting events coming up in the next few weeks that I am participating in that I’d like to invite you to tag along:
Angels 101 - Angel Messages Night
Saturday, May 28th
6:30pm to 8:30pm
St. Elmo’s Fire Art Studio
1194 Carp Road, Stittsville, ON
$25
RSVP 613.836.4242
www.jenniferclark.ca or www.st-elmosfire.com
This is an outdoor event on how to connect and communicate with your angels and guides. Participants will be led through a guided meditation to meet their spiritual helpers. Participants will be able to ask a question and receive an answer from their guides and angels. Dress appropriately.
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HOLA - Healing Ottawa Live Auction
Saturday, June 4th
10:00am to 6:00pm
Crichton Cultural Community Centre
200 Crichton Street, 2nd floor
Free admission & parking
HOLA is an inspired fundraiser to help launch Ottawa’s first holistic counselling centre for teenagers and young adults. The event is organized into 7 healing modalities and you’ll be able to bid on practitioners like myself for their services and workshops. A great way to experience new services and help create positive change in our community. Winning bids will be automatically placed in a draw to win a free psychic reading with Sonia Choquette (www.soniachoquette.com) valued at $400. I’ll be interviewing found Daniel Mauro on The Namaste Show: Good News For A Change (www.ckcufm.com) on Tuesday, May 31st at 12:15pm EST. Check out Daniel on the A channel’s new hour news on Saturday, May 28th at 12:00pm. For a list of HOLA practitioners, visit www.thehola.ca
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Integrated Energy Therapy - IET - Healing With The Angels - BASIC WORKSHOP
Saturday, June 11th
12:00pm to 6:00pm
St. Elmo’s Fire Art Studio
1194 Carp Road, Stittsville, ON
$200 less $50 promotional discount = $150
Includes manual, certificate of completion and energy attunement to the angelic ray of compassion.
Like reiki, IET is a popular hands on healing energy modality focusing on the healing power of angels. Participants will learn how to remove emotional blockages and balance the energy fields of the human body using the help of 9 healing angels. No prior knowledge is necessary. To learn more about IET, visit www.LearnIET.com
I hope to see you at one of these angelic events!
Wishing you a wonder-filled week,
Jennifer
Join Jennifer Clark and St. Elmo’s Fire Art Studio in this engaging lecture all about angels, spirit guides and angelic communication. Participants will learn what angels really are, what they do, how to connect to them and how we can communicate with them. Jennifer will guide participants through a short guided meditation on connecting to their guardian angels. Jennifer will also answer audience questions and offer angelic messages to random participants.
Saturday, May 28th
6:30pm to 8:30pm
St. Elmo’s Fire Art Studio
1194 Carp Road
Stittsville, ON
Cost: $25 plus HST
RSVP in advance to 613-836-4242 www.st-elmosfire.com
**Note**This is an outdoor event weather permitting. Please dress appropriately. Questions will be drawn from a hat and answered publicly.
Wise words from Neale Donald Walsch…..
On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know…that the day of your birth was a wonder-filled day for all who now know you — and even for all of humanity.
Why? Because you are so incredibly special. Because you are Love personified; Wisdom expressed; Caring and Compassion demonstrated; and Courage revealed. Because You are Humanity at its best. They don’t get any better than you. Truly.
And, if you don’t know this yet, then you don’t know Who and What You Are.
So, today, create a way to know that.
Spring has finally sprung! What a happy Saturday to see the sun shining and then read the great article the Ottawa Citizen did on me and my work in the Life section. Check it out : http://bit.ly/cYfwql
Check out the interview a participant who has just attended my Angelspeake workshop gave to reporter from the Ottawa Citizen : http://bit.ly/lXXkc9
It is great to see the local media finally realizing what great talent we have in our backyards!
Angels are everywhere!
Jennifer
A very beautiful video about the magick and hope of 2012 and beyond:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_YOG3jMlV4
Keisha, Little Grandmother speaking about 2012, the pole shift and heaven on earth:
Here is God’s promise: Life proceeds, it never recedes. Life progresses, it never regresses. Not even death
ends anything, so how much can this particular event matter? It is true. When one door closes, another does open. The movement of life is ever upward. Six months from today you will know this. For now, trust it.
A teacher asked her students to say something very special to God or to ask God a question. If there is ever a time when God must smile, it’s when children talk to him/her from their hearts:
“Dear God: I bet it is hard for you to love everybody in the whole world. There are only four people in our family, and I can never do it.” –Nan
“Dear God: Please put another holiday between Christmas and Easter. There is nothing good in there now.” –Ginny
“Dear God: If you watch in church on Sunday, I will show you my new shoes.” –Mickey
“Dear God: Sometimes I think about you even when I’m not praying.” –Elliot
“Dear God: I am American. What are you?” –Robert
“Dear God: I think the stapler is one of your greatest inventions”–Ruth
“Dear God: In Bible times, did they really talk that fancy?” –Jennifer
“Dear God: If you did not let the dinosaurs die, we would not have a country. You did the right thing.” –Jonathan
“Dear God: Please send Dennis Clark to a different camp this year.” –Peter
“Dear God: Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had their own rooms. It works with my brother.” –Larry
“Dear God: If you give me a genie lamp like Aladdin, I will give you anything you want except my chess set.” –Raphael
“Dear God: We read that Edison made light. But in church they said you did it. So I bet he stole your idea.” –Donna
“Dear God: Thank you for my baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.” –Tommy
I can taste spring in the air and have a spring in my step because Victoria Day and May 2/4 weekend are just around the corner. That means that the chance to enjoy the great forest festival of awesomeness - NATUROPOLIS - is also coming up quickly on the calendar. With great people coming together last year to share so many wonderful experiences, there really wasn’t a choice to be made whether Naturopolis would happen again in 2011!
With another trip around the sun we’ve had more time to prepare for the festival including putting up the naturopolis.ca website. It’s got the registration form to reserve your tickets ($40 per person, kids free with adult) and is already filling up with event and music acts that will be happening all weekend long. There’s a photo gallery for 2010 - http://naturopolis.ca/photos/2010-gallery/
