A very funny video went viral this past week. A Mom from Texas posted a video of what happens when you are busy getting ready for work and you forget to hide the dog shears.Her five year old son used the clippers to give his younger sister and brother haircuts. You have to see the video for yourself to believe it! My sister and I had a similar incident when we were toddlers...fortunately for us you can’t do as much damage with kindergarten scissors as you can with electric hair clippers. The toddlers’ video has received over 5 million views and their Mom Stephanie has received praise for the calm way she handled the ‘Edward Scissorhands’ hacking of her kids’ golden locks.bad hair day”, you will think differently about your own hair after having seen the new look of Stephanie’s kids. For me, the incident brought to my mind a song called “I Am Not My Hair” that was written and recorded almost 15 years ago by the singer-songwriter India Arie. The song was written after India watched Melissa Etheridge’s performance at the 2005 Grammy Awards where she appeared bald after having undergone chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer. The lyrics go like this:   “I am not my hair I am not this skin I am not your expectations no no I am not my hair I am not this skin I am a soul that lives within...”   Read More

There are times in your life when you accomplish something so monumental and important that you want to make sure you have a WITNESS! When you catch the big fish, make a basketball shot from half-court, or reach the top of the rock wall, it sure feels better knowing someone is there to capture that moment and corroborate your story. Former President George W. Bush had one of those moments recently...he got his first-ever hole-in-one while playing golf...and fortunately the three other guys in his foursome were there to witness it! I loved what he said that day: “Next golf goal: live to 100 so I can shoot my age!”My golf score is much higher than that, so I would have to live to 120!   Wanting to live to 100 is no longer an unreachable goal. Believe it or not, as we often hear about other things, “there’s an APP for that.”"Living To 100" is an app that you can put on your smart phone or your tablet and is based on the popular book with the same name - Living to 100. The app provides you with a Life Expectancy Calculator which uses the most current and carefully researched medical and scientific data in order to estimate how old you will live to be. You are asked 40 questions about a variety of important topics including your family medical history, lifestyle, nutrition and how you handle stress. It did not surprise me that the life expectancy calculator includes so many questions on stress. Doctors routinely report that over 80% of their patients’ office visits are due to medical conditions related to stress. April is Stress Awareness Month so there is no better time than now to address this topic. Many of the health issues that we all regularly deal with (headaches, digestive distress, neck and back pain, blood sugar imbalances) are due to what Time Magazine called America’s # 1 Health Problem - the stress epidemic.   Read More

This past weekend, an historic event took place at the Augusta National Golf Club...and I am not talking about the annual Masters Tournament. The very 1st ever women’s event took place there - the Inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship. The event was established to increase the interest and participation in women’s golf and to inspire younger female golfers to take up the sport. The winner of the tournament was Jennifer Kupcho, the world's top-ranked amateur, who is a 21 year old senior at Wake Forest College. Everyone is talking about how well Jennifer golfed, particularly the fact that she played her final six holes in five under par, including an eagle on the par-five 13th hole and birdies on the 15th, 16th and 18th holes.   As impressive as those playing statistics are, what blew me away was when I found out that during the tournament, Jennifer was suffering from such a severe migraine headache that her vision was completely blurred and she could not see her own golf ball! In a recent interview, when Jennifer was asked how she could have played golf so well with impaired vision, she said that it was possible because she frequently practiced with her eyes closed. I find this astounding! I should not be surprised by this concept....after all, I remember when decades ago Michael Jordan famously shot a free throw with his eyes closed and my high school typing teacher blindfolded us so we would be forced to memorize the key positions. Additionally, my eldest son regularly plays the piano with his eyes closed and I often encourage my Qi Gong students to “go with the flow” by shutting their eyes as we practice the movements. The part I never contemplated about this “eyes closed” practice was just how helpful this technique can be to your brain. Closing your eyes prompts your brain to engage in a higher degree of activity since you are forced to use your other senses and pay more attention to what you are doing instead of relying on your eyesight to do the job for you.   What if we tried this technique with other aspects of our lives? Read More