If you're new here, check out the Best of Balanced Life Center and be sure to subscribe to receive the latest updates via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” The scorpion says, “Because if I do, I will die too.”

The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp “Why?”

Replies the scorpion: “It’s my nature…”

When you forgive you don’t forget that the other person is a scorpion, nor do you pretend that they aren’t. They are who they are. When you forgive, you are releasing yourself from whatever anger, resentment, hurt, or pain you have wrapped up in the situation and the person so that you can move on with your life.

Today, give yourself and 2 other people the gift of forgiveness.

In Spirit,
Nneka

From the Harvard University Gazette:

Hugs are as vital to the health and development of infants as food and water.

According to Virginia Satir, people need 4 hugs a day to survive, 8 hugs a day for maintenance, and 12 to grow. How are you living?

Hugs are crucial to developing a sense of community. They help you to connect on a visceral level with the people in your life. Touch communicates deep emotions that often cannot be captured with words or other actions. In addition to all that touchy feely stuff (pun intended) hugs help to lower your blood pressure, reduce stress, increase your pain threshold, and help to heal wounds faster by increasing the levels of oxytocin in your body. So says the National Institutes of Health.

Now there are many ways to hug. There’s the popular man hug that starts off with a handshake and ends with a quick pat on the back. I guess that’s as mushy as you guys want to get. Then there’s the close cousin to the man hug, the quick I’ve-met-you-for-the-first-time-but-everyone-seems-to-be-hugging where you embrace with just shoulders touching. There are hugs for friends, and hugs for parents, hugs for children, and hugs for your crush. There are bear hugs, pound hugs, and my all time favorite, cuddles. And, of course, there are the deep embraces that we reserve for lovers. These hugs last a while and sometimes we even dare to gaze into the person’s eyes.

For the second gift of Christmas, give 2 full contact, long lasting hugs. The best part is that you give yourself the gift of better health and human contact.

In Spirit,
Nneka