Here’s how it happened. I combed the Internet until I found one with the background I was looking for and I thought we might have the chemistry I wanted so I set up a call to explore working with him.

What I didn’t realize was that his primary method of solving problems was through meditation.

When we got on the call and he asked me to explain what I wanted. I ran through the main points of my situation and then he stopped me. It went something like this.

Him: Eliot?
Me: Yes?
Him: Are you listening?
Me: Yes
Him: Take three deep breaths.
Me: [belly laughing] Thats hilarious.
Him: I am serious. Take three deep breaths.
Me: OK [I take three long breaths]

We ended up working together and he taught me about Bhastrika meditation techniques for which I am grateful and as it turns out he did help me out with my business challenge although not at all how I expected.

Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and everything becomes clear.

An event is only good or bad once we assign to it a positive or negative emotion and furthermore every event can be both good and bad at the same time so it follows that every event is neither good nor bad.

Consider the dog that gets into the pantry and breaks into boxes of food they are not supposed to eat. The owner is frustrated by the mess they have to clean up while the dog sits content with the big feast he just enjoyed.

Our whole life experience is literally a figment of our imagination.

Maybe, maybe not
In this clip from film The Ripple Effect, Forest Whitaker explains this much better than I can.

Lists are a powerful tool for getting things done and I confess that I have always been a bit of an obsessive list maker. I have to do lists, not to do lists, and tracking lists. I have so many lists I sometimes feel like I should make lists to track my lists. I admit I have a bad memory and I am not one of the blessed people who are able to store everything important in their heads (or at least I haven’t yet mastered that skill).

Besides all of this, even tiny check marks on my list put a smile on my face and give me a dose of accomplishment.

When we write things down, it helps us visualize a desired outcome along with any steps required to get there. The decision to act and the visualization process are critically important, particularly for large and potentially overwhelming goals.

Written goals are also more likely to be etched in our minds, so if we set goals, or make plans, we are more likely to reach them simply because they are top of mind.

Lists are also good for tracking things.
Sports for instance. I like to record all my workouts in a log partly so I can remember what I did yesterday or last week, and partly so I can see how my workouts and energy levels progress over time.

People respect what you inspect

There is a reason why successful businesses publish goals. Documenting targets puts a stake in the ground, gets people to focus their collective energies on specific outcomes and provides a benchmark to measure progress.

The same rules apply to us personally when we want to achieve any goal or effect change in our lives. We are more likely to stay focussed, hold ourselves accountable and get to where we want to be.

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals ~ Zig Ziglar

Life is good.
Eliot.

Try adding one or two to your daily routine or let me know in the comments section below if you have any of your own happiness habits. I’d love to hear about them.

1. Breathe – breathing is our life force, so catch yourself often and remind yourself to take deep breaths
2. Show up and do your best – positive results will follow.
3. Love – love your life partner, your family, your friends, and everyone around you. It is contagious.
4. Forgive – grudges don’t really make you feel better.
5. Get rid of junk – less clutter and useless possessions in your life means more mental peace.
6. Eat clean – less processed food, less toxins, more whole foods, more nutrition.
7. Eat less – the only factor proven to prolong life is a calorie restricted diet – and we all want to live longer right?
8. Early to bed – Go to be a little earlier and get more rest, your body will thank you
9. Early to rise – Get up a little earlier, collect your thoughts, organize your day and start each day ahead of the curve
10. Give people the benefit of the doubt – they are all doing just about the best they can.
11. See the best in everything – You can choose to see the best or see the worst, but only the latter will put you in a good mood
12. Live in the present – Life is short, so put aside worries and enjoy every moment
13. Expect good things – We tend to see what we want to see, so if we expect to see good things, we likely will
14. Enjoy what you have – It will make you happier than pining over things you don’t have.
15. Accept – Life is imperfect and that’s what makes it perfect
16. Baby Steps – If you lack motivation or are overwhelmed by a big task, just get started and a snowball effect will follow
17. Embrace Change – Every party ends and every toothache passes, so don’t get too attached to anything. It too shall pass
18. Don’t “should” on yourself – There is no rulebook for life so don’t beat yourself up about what you shoulda or coulda done
19. Avoid complaining for 30 days – More difficult than it sounds, but you will find it puts you in a more positive frame of mind
20. Respect different viewpoints – Each of us has a unique perspective. Be open minded. Listening and understanding brings us together
21. Reduce Reuse Recycle – Be kind to mother earth and she will kind to us
22. Pay it Forward – Give something to everyone you meet. A smile, an idea, a compliment, a hand, your time. It will make two people feel good.
23. Don’t compare yourself to others – you really have no idea whether someone else is happy or not, focus on living your own life
24. Choose experiences over possessions – on our deathbeds we probably won’t wish he had more stuff, but we will reminisce about things we did
25. Smile – A lot.
26. Persevere – that which doesn’t kill you definitely makes you stronger.
27. Keep a journal – writing is cathartic and will help you organize your thoughts
28. YOLO – my rule is that if something isn’t going to shorten my life, I can indulge
29. Consume less
    animal-based products (or none at all) – There is no such thing as cruelty free, humane livestock farming and the environmental impact is devastating
30. Gratitude – Every day you wake up, its a good day. You are blessed. Say thanks. A lot.
31. Meditate – there are many scientifically proven benefits, but even if none existed, it is a peaceful to get grounded
32. Move – Stretch. Jump. Lift. Sweat. Every day.
33. Get outside – Enjoy more fresh air and more sunlight (and wear sunscreen)
34. Say yes – a positive attitude is huge. Say yes you can and you will.
35. Stop searching – you already have everything you could ever want and all the big answers you could ever need.
36. Don’t take yourself too seriously – you are the only one paying that much attention to yourself.
37. Don’t try to win every argument – no one is keeping score. Seriously.
38. Build your work around your life – Most of us get this backwards. We are not our work.
39. Patience – we are so used to hurrying and stressing about time, when it usually doesn’t matter.
40. Never stop learning – life is school and learning enriches you
41. Habits beat discipline – Maintaining will power is hard work. Habits are easier, so set up your life so meeting your commitments is habitual.
42. Info Diet – from time to time, turn everything off to give your brain a rest
43. Turn off the TV – there is very little on TV that will make your life better
44. Play Games – keeps the brain active and can be very social if you are playing with others
45. Monotask – do one thing at a time and you will get more done and enjoy each thing more in the process
46. Tackle your bucket list – make your list and knock things off one thing at a time. The more outrageous the better.
47. Be Good – Do good deeds and treat others with respect. People will likely do the same to you.
48. Drink lots of water – Its about as important ad eating the right foods for overall health and energy.
49. Surrender – it is your life but you are not really in control of it, only how you react to it. Let it flow. Drink it in.

Life is good.

Eliot

Here are the other posts in the top 10 for 2012:

1. A Vegan Take on the Paleo Diet and My Latest Experiment in Clean Living
2. Five Tenets of High Energy
3. Three Great iPhone Apps for Meditation
4. Grains Free Diet Day 29
5. Developing Your Self Discipline
6. Things I Quit – Antiperspirant and Deodorant
7. How to Do Yoga Every Day
8. My Morning Success Routine
9. 365 Days of Meditation
10. How to Get Going When You Are Feeling Dead and Tired

Thanks for the kind words, support, and feedback from friends and people that dropped by. I will continue to add more (hopefully interesting) posts about life balance and living well in 2013. All the best!

Eliot

For anyone who has tried any activity such as working, reading, talking in the phone or exercising with young kids around, you know how tough it is. Kids want attention and they want to be involved. Many times, I have practiced yoga at home with my kids climbing on my back or crawling over or under me while I complete the poses.

Now try quieting the mind to meditate while children poke you or try to talk to you. Not so easy for most of us. During my early morning meditation our kids are still asleep so interruptions are not an issue, but when I meditate in the evenings, my kids are usually nearby, and don’t understand the concept of leaving daddy alone, at least not yet.

If you have young ones at home and can’t seem to get your meditation going because they won’t leave you in silence, don’t despair. Here are some ideas that have worked for me.

Ask for a break – Let your kids know you want a few moments of silence. You are setting a good example and over time they will notice and appreciate your discipline.

Be present – The kids may interrupt you, so smile and don’t worry about it. Life isn’t perfect ad neither is meditation.

Ask them to join - I often ask my kids to meditate with me. They do it for a few moments and then get bored, but I like to think that even in that short amount of time, they are learning to be more present and aware.

A little daily meditation is better than none at all, so roll with the punches and don’t try and escape to silence when your young kids are around.

Life is good

Many of us are seekers, looking for answers, searching for the truth, trying to understand why things happen and what is our purpose.

We struggle with these questions sometimes becoming frustrated and unhappy in the process.

But what if there were no answers? What if our whole life was one big image perceived by our eyes and then minds? What if all our questions and all our thoughts were just projections and opinions of our mind?

If that were true then there are no answers. There are no meanings. Things just happen because they do and we exist because we do. Everything just is.

If we accept this, there is no struggle and we can accept all of life’s greatness as it is.

The oak tree doesn’t question why it exists. It stands tall and sways with the wind. Natural in its surroundings

We take a stack of coins and create a series of math challenges for each of our girls to figure out.

For example, I might put 7 pennies in one pile and 2 nickels in another pile and ask which one is worth more money. Or I might make a pile with 8 nickels and place a quarter on its own and then ask how many coins are required in the nickel pile so that it equals the quarter. For another question we take a group of mixed coins and ask for them to be placed in order from smallest value to highest (which really challenges younger players since size does not always equal value).

For every time a question is answered correctly, the kids get to keep the coins used in the question. For an incorrect answer we keep the money. Since our girls are different ages, each question is presented to one daughter at a time and we make the challenges slightly easier for our younger daughter. We play 5 or 10 rounds.

The girls high five each other when they get to keep the money. We have a lot of laughs and we are teaching our kids math skills, the monetary value of money and the importance of saving all at the same time. Learning is easiest when it is fun.

This past spring we cut our cable TV service, like many people have, to avoid paying the high cost of service plus equipment rental, but it has turned out to be a great decision for so many other reasons beside costs savings. Here’s why.

Less Couch Potato-ing. – Studies have shown that when we watch TV our brains exhibit Alpha waves, which are associated with relaxation, sleep or light hypnosis. While rest is good, brains are a muscle that need exercise just like the rest of our body. With cable TV streaming into your house, it is easy to get sucked into watching one show after another and “veg out” on the couch for hours. Without TV you are more likely to use your time in physically or mentally active and productive pursuits. When the TV is off in our house, we start reading and the kids run around and play. Even with Netflix (which we currently have), shows come to an end and you have to actively select another show which breaks the trance and often leads us to other activities.

Less Garbage – When you watch broadcast TV service you tend to consume what is thrown at you. And lets face it – with the exception of a few channels, most of it is mindless stuff. Escaping from life is great, but probably not something you want to do with the majority of your time. By the same token we probably don’t want mindless slush dominating our life and thoughts. This is especially true considering that when our brain is in an Alpha state we are highly open to suggestion so we can easily be influenced by TV more than we think. And I am not even talking about commercials. Advertisers know this about the brain and are experts at exploiting our emotions by planting desires in our heads.

Less Buying – One of the most surprising things that happened for us after we nuked cable was at Christmas time. After watching tons of commercials our kids would normally ask for a mountain of gifts at Christmas time. This year they only asked for one thing each!

Less Noise – When the TV goes on it tends to stay on even when people drift off into other activities which makes the TV background noise throughout the house. Without cable service the TV is on less and the house is quieter. Even if you watch DVD’s or Netflix, the TV goes silent when shows end unless someone actively picks the next show.

Less cable TV equals more living. We are so glad we got rid of our cable.

Last spring we embarked on ambitious mission to grow a ton of food in our backyard. We wanted to produce clean, pesticide-free, organic, healthy food and also get the kids involved so they learn about where our food comes from and the difference between whole food and processed “food” that comes from stores.

Our First Vegetable Garden

My parents had backyard gardens in UK and later Canada when I was younger, so home grown food was not new to me, and we have been growing sprouts in our kitchen for a few years now and tomatoes on our deck, but we had never considered a full blown veggie patch outside.

In spite of a lack of experience, we figured that growing our own veggies would require several things to work: land, soil, organization, irrigation, critter control, farming and of course the plants themselves. I will go through how we tackled each one in roughly chronological order.

Land

We live about 45 minutes south west of Ottawa and just over 3 acres of land so space is not really an issue, however much of our property is overgrown with thick brush year round. In early April when all the snow had melted, the kids and I staked out a patch of 20′ x 40′ land in the back corner of our property, squeezed in between a line of trees and an easement. The spot we choose faced south and was clear of trees on three sides so it received sunshine from morning to evening.

As you can see from the pic below it was covered in brambly type brush, logs and dead trees which hadn’t been cleared since our neighborhood was built about 20 years ago, so we had a great deal to cleanup.

It took a fair bit of time and effort, but working over the next few weekends we eventually hacked everything down, burned it all in a big bonfire and then turned the ground over and over, eventually leaving us with a course base of dirt to work wit that was pretty much free of old roots.

Organization

Having seen some good looking plant boxes, we decided we would build six 4′ x 10′ planters using raw cedar planks that my brother-in-law kindly gave us. Plant boxes would contain our plants, make it easier to weed and allow us to move freely between the boxes.

The planks formed a 12″ deep box and I fastened them together with 2″ x 2″ wood blocks in each corner that were about 18″ long so they dug into the ground below the box edge and help secure the box along with the dirt when filled.

I’m no carpenter, but once the boxes were put together, they looked alright and were certainly functional.

Soil
While this is our first garden, common sense told me that we would need blacker soil than the sandyish soil that we had in our plot. I figured if the soil was too sandy, it wouldn’t hold water and dry out too fast in the summer heat.

We could have augmented the soil in our garden with the good black soil we had elsewhere on our lot, but that was located amongst the trees and virtually impossible to extract, so I had to order soil and in so doing learned my first two important lessons about soil.

Firstly I learned about amounts. On a Friday morning I called a couple of places to get a quotes for topsoil. The second place offered a much better price and could deliver that evening which meant we could work on the garden over the weekend. Without thinking too much about quantity I ordered a yard, which doesn’t sound like much until the dump truck showed up and left a mountain of dirt on my front lawn. I only needed about 30 wheelbarrows of soil, but in the end I must have moved more than 200 loads from the front of our house.

The company offered me a yard because I asked for topsoil, which leads to my second important lesson about soil. Topsoil and garden soil are two different things. Topsoil is usually used to prepare a lawn for seed or under sod and is usually soil mixed with sand (in fact, mixing in sand is a common trick vendors use to be able to sell more “soil” at a cheaper price). Garden soil, on the other hand, has plenty of organic matter and is exactly what I should have ordered if I was paying attention.

In any event, we used what we had and filled our boxes. I also worked in several bales of peat moss and some bags of potting soil with a small tiller I borrowed from my father-in-law. With a bit of work the soil looked decent and was good and loose.

Critter Control

In our neighborhood there are cats, raccoons, rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, other rodents, lots of birds and snakes, all of which would pose various threats to the livelihood of our crop unless we had some sort of system to keep them out. I looked on youtube and saw various contraptions and fenced in gardens. I also talked to some experienced gardeners that suggested simply using bone meal around the plants, but I decided to fence the whole area with chicken wire about three feet high. We sunk the chicken wire under the ground level about 6″-8″ to prevent critters from digging under the fence. I assumed some animals would be able to climb over the top, so to discourage this we perched a plastic owl on a post.

Irrigation

It gets hot in the summer here, so we knew irrigation would be critical. I ran a hose from the house to the garden (about 100′ away) and set up a circular lawn sprinkler, but couldn’t get it to cover the whole patch, so I had to set one in both halves of the patch. There wasn’t enough pressure to run them both at the same time, so I set up a switch whereby I could water  half the garden at a time. After the plants started to grow the leaves blocked the water from the sprinklers, so I had to move the sprinklers up to clear the plant tops. I duct taped the sprinklers to old hockey sticks I jammed in the ground, which raised the sprinkler heads about 4 feet which was perfect again for covering the whole patch.

The summer was super hot and we ended up watering pretty much every day, usually in the early evening.

The Wonder Garden

In the spring we set up seed trays using peat pellets which expand into little soil balls when wet and are great for nurturing seedlings. We planted about 200+ seeds of different varieties including:

• Swiss Chard
• Kale
• Spinach
• Lettuce – several diff types
• Tomatoes – different types
• Green and Red Peppers
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Snow peas
• Beans
• Squash
• Cucumber
• Pumpkin
• Zucchini
• Basil
• Parsley
• Mint
• Sage
• Coriander
• Chamomile
• Oregano
• Dill
• Sunflowers

I painstakingly mapped out what was in the seed trays because it is easy to lose track and hard to recognize the tiny plants while they were still small. This was a critical step as I had mapped out how I would like to have the plants arranged in the garden.

For the garden plan, I grouped plants in my box as follows:

• herbs
• greens – lettuce, chard, kale, spinach
• tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage
• tomatoes and marrows (squash)
• marrows (pumpkins and cucumbers)
• peppers, beans and peas

Around this time, our eldest daughter decided to give our garden a name, the Wonder Garden, which was great because the more they kids got involved, the more they learned.

We put our seed trays in the window at first and then on our screen porch covering them with the clear plastic lids to keep them warm. The seedlings sprouted quickly and by the end of May it was consistently warm enough outside to transfer our seedlings to the ground.

I was worried about the quality of our soil for growing, but that was put to rest when everything shot up quickly (including the weeds around our boxes).

Farming

The leaf plants and herbs were the first to mature enough to harvest. Chard, kale, lettuce, basil, parsley and more. All delicious.

Although the kids were not as enthusiastic about eating green foods as my wife and I were, they were pretty amazed that you can just go out back and get food. My eldest daughter liked to join me and help me choose stuff to bring in. And bring in we did – by the bushel.

At first getting to all the plants was easy and the boxes made it simple to  pull weeds both inside the growing areas and in between, but my mid summer I realized I had made a mistake by putting the marrows in the middle of the patch and next to the tomatoes. Both the marrows and tomatoes went wild and spread amongst each other, outside their respective boxes and in the case of the squash, ran vines to all corners of the garden. If I was to do it again, I’d put the these two groups of plants at the edges of the garden and clip the squash plants to keep them contained. I will also set up trellis for the squash since it can grow upwards and still produce marrows.

Lettuce was the first to harvest and also the first to pass its due date. While plants like chard, kale and parsley, are low maintenance because you just harvest leaves, the lettuce bolts (goes to seed) quickly and takes on a bitter taste at which point, it is time to plant a second crop. Basil tries to go to seed as well, but it doesn’t change taste and will continue producing leaves if you nip the flowers as they grow.

By late summer tomatoes were coming in and we ended up bringing in buckets of tiny tomatoes at a time. In the fall the squash and pumpkins harvested and we are still eating those. Deelish.

Surprisingly the lettuce, chard and kale were still growing late in the fall even after a couple of frost. Very hardy.

Composting

In the past we had composted off and on, but now we had a real purpose and  had immense amounts of chemical free bio waste that would be very useful in improving our soil quality so I set up a composting area with several big bins. We kept a collector in our kitchen and every couple of days I would take it out back to the composting area. Periodically I would mix in soil and turn the compost and before soon we had a mountain of good quality black organic matter that we can turn into the soil next spring.

What Worked

Most of what we planted worked really well. Particularly good were the herbs, lettuce, chard, kale and the tomatoes. Salads are out of the world when they use greens that were picked from garden minutes before dinner.

The green peppers were so sweet and watery I ate them like apples and the squash, pumpkin and zucchini all contributed to countless yummy meals. We felt pretty blessed while the crops were pouring into the house.

Irrigating with the two sprinklers was a little inconvenient, because I had to remember to run out and switch the tap from one side to the other, but worked well to keep the plants well watered.

Our critter control system worked flawlessly and with the exception of one garter snake that got in early and then grew too large to escape through the holes in the chicken wire, there was no evidence of any animals in the garden.

What Didn’t Work

There were a few plants that didn’t seem to work well for us. For instance, our spinach bolted quickly and didn’t yield much food, our carrots got lost under the creeping squash and our cucumbers,  cabbage and cauliflowers all stunted. I wondered if it was our soil, but a couple of farmers at the local Farmer’s Market told me that this summer’s unusually high temperatures prevented a lot of crops from maturing properly. Our peas yielded only some peas but I didn’t set up the trellis properly and the plants soon after stopped producing peas.

I hadn’t expected my zucchinis to produce so quickly and didn’t there were some that had grown quite large by the time I had found them. At this point they were tougher than the zucchini’s you would find in a store, but still good for stews so we used them in any event.

End of Summer and What Next

In the end we had tons of great fresh food and it was great to get the kids involved in learning about food. In early October we brought in the last of the food, including tons of green tomatoes and we made some salsa’s and sauces from the red tomatoes as you can see in the pictures below.

Now that the garden is closed, we really miss all the fresh produce. During the summer, homegrown food made up about 60% of what we are eating and although I sprout various greens in the kitchen year round, sprouts don’t have the volume to replace the home grown veggies.

We are contemplating trying to grow food indoors this winter with lamps, but I haven’t yet tackled that project so it may not happen until next winter.

In the meantime, we are thinking about what we will grow next year. Growing some of the plants upwards will create new space so we can look at adding some new foods like onions and garlic and maybe sweet potatoes. Plus composting the soil should make things even tastier, if that’s even possible.

The Wonder Garden was a fun project, great learning for the kids, healthy and best of all, super tasty. I can’t wait to do it all again next spring.

Life is Good.

Eliot