involved with taking control of my health, I became a little too passionate about it, it was almost overbearing.  Yet, I in order to have a more dramatic effect on the people around me, I wanted to drop everything and get a holistic medicine practitioners license so people would truly actually listen to me!  Haha...

Well, that phase is at a low tide.
I never did earn that license.  However, I still have EarthClinic's "treasure chest of home remedies" to thank and turn to whenever I have an ill ailment rear it's ugly head.

My favorites are Epsom Salts for tired feet after a long day standing at work, Cayenne Pepper for sore throats, and the hundreds of uses of raw eggs (like getting rid of a sunburn!).
www.earthclinic.com

4.  All forms of violence begin within the mind.
This is the first lesson I learned from my weathered Yoga teacher.  She was quite the traditionalist.  She taught me about Ahimsa, which is one of the first yoga teachings written. Written in Sanskrit, Ahimsa means non-violence.  This non-violence stems not only from abstaining from harming others and also one-self, but it goes as far as non-violence in thought, word and deed.

This web link doesn't focus only on this aspect, but brings a calming spiritual practice of taking every moment in to the fullest.  To avoid letting our thoughts rule our reactions to different things.
Eckhart Tolle is a spiritual teacher who wrote the books "A New Earth"  and "The Power of Now."  These books primarily focus on the nature of mind.  Eckhart's vision is to help his students shift thier focus on what they are thinking rather than letting their thinking control their actions.  To my surprise, after I read some of Eckhart's books and saw a couple of videos, my favorite childhood actor, Jim Carrey, spoke of how Eckhart showed him a piece of enlightenment.

Try not to take everything about it too seriously, just take with you what is meaningful to you.  I hope you gain a taste of the stillness Eckhart speaks of, it feels great!

You can jump around Eckhart Tolle's teachings, but I find this video a great start: Your Pain Body is very Seductive.  You will like it--trust me, it's a great watch.

5.  A dose of fun when I was in a long distance relationship.
My girlfriend and I would play Dino Run, a fun online game, where a dinosaur has to "escape extinction" by running away from an imminent meteor explosion. We would play the free online multiplayer, and we always had a blast racing each-other and picking up eggs, eating little critters, and riding on pterodactyls.  This always filled the loneliness with great fun.

I hope you enjoy this last link.  I'm glad I decided to make dino run an honorable mention here, since it suits 8BitGate with it's heavy 8-bit classy style!
www.pixeljam.com/dinorun/
I thinkI'm going to make a pixel dino from here--since I'm such a fan!

Thank you.
Thank you for listening and checking out some great links that have held importance in my life.  I didn't want to make an extensive list, I wanted to throw some great resources your way, and I hope you make most out of them!

In the Face of Negativity
When we see negative things or have negative depressing things around us or watch disturbing news stories. It makes us negative too.  Can you think of anything in your house that makes you feel negatively?  Is it too cluttered in your house?  Are there things strewn about and you have trouble navigating around-perhaps stepping on things, can't find the things you need quickly, and doors don't open all the way?  Are there chores you have yet to do?  Do you have a bunch of junk that seems to get jammed into the nooks and cranny's of your house or room?  Anything broken that doesn't work that you haven't got around to fixing or replacing?

Can you think of any pictures or objects that even slightly urk you? You may not have noticed it-but of course there are some things lying around your house that you don't enjoy looking at, it's easy to admit.  As humans we don't necessarily think about it consciously, but we turn away from these negative things subconsciously -- we either mentally don't think about, or we physically avert our eyes.  These things bring down your attitude and your vibration into a more negative state.  It can be very taxing on our energy.  When we replace these things with more positive imagery we can begin to alter our negative states by starting to first clearing out the negative house.
   
I'm sure you have felt this before:
Can you remember the last time you had a big house cleaning?  All fresh clothes-plenty to choose from.  The trash can was just taken out-clean and empty now, clean dishes, clean room-all of those college papers neatly packed away, and your folders cleaned out for the new semester too.  While you walk around the doors open all the way freely and there is nothing blocking your way.  You see tranquil pictures of the favorite places you want to visit, misty mountains, deep rainforest, roaring city, or unperturbed icy mountaintops-which ever makes you the most at ease.  And also, to inspire you-you decorate your house with your favorite heroes and role models on your recently cleared immaculate fridge to regularly remind you of your passions in life.
   
When you are surrounded with positivity, you bring positivity to the table.  The end result of cleaning your house is a positive one, it can create a tangible positive change within yourself.  This has to be true-I'm sure it's not your imagination when you feel cleansed after cleansing your surroundings. 

Turn it Around, Go Positive.
We interact with life in so many ways, it isn't just your home, we can cleanse numerous parts of our lives.  One way is to cleanse our interaction with the media.  You can decide, right now, to remove negative news from your life-and invite positive news into your life.  Instead of being concerned about wars and horrible events and financial scarcity-FOCUS on fantastic discoveries and small miracles that actually do happen.  We hear about so many negative events we feel guilty for celebrating-yes celebrating-the positive ones.  When something good happens, just ride on it.  It won't do any good to be pessimistic about bad things-what are you actually going to do about it in that wallowing mood?  Nothing stems from negativity but more negativity.  If something bad happens, it's still important to be positive.  Only when your positive are you on the right frequency to turn a bad event around.

   
I surround myself with the people and interests I love.  One thing I have always loved is video games.  My classics are the ones I love to revisit.  I'm not as interested about actually playing games as much as I used to-but I revisit the positive feelings and the good times I have had with them when I think or talk about them.
   
We all have our own favorite times,
here are a few of mine:
Super Smash Bros. Melee.  Playing this game always took place among copious diverse sets of friends in many surroundings.  The thrill of competition, and the great fun with friends fills me with positivity and excitement.  Games can have a profound effect on people.  I remember playing the Super Nintendo game "Earthbound".  You start as a boy with a baseball cap and a bat being overly normal until a meteor strike threatens humanity-and you are the only one to stop the destruction of your planet. 

The game sends out numerous challenges that effect you on a personal level-far beyond the average game.  One part comes to mind -- in order to succeed and gain the power you need to defeat Gigas (the one who is trying to destroy humanity), you must meditate to continue on.  This evokes a situation where you are met by a spirit-and you must give away your ears and limbs and eventually all of yourself so you have nothing left.  Then you are left only with the silence and stillness of yourself.  After coming out of this experience, for your great sacrifice-you are bestowed with power to change the world. 

Later on I shared this game with my little sister.  She loved it! And I was there when she was fighting the last boss of the game.  When I played the game I discovered a part of myself within it -- and afterwards sharing that slice with my little sister was a truly uplifting time.
   

What keeps me going strong today is positivity I invite in my life.  I've always dreamed about spending my time writing and making my favorite video games.  And one day I just decided that's what I wanted to do.  For now I'm blogging and making these video game sprites and sharing them with people that also invite positivity into their life. 
 
Just decide to focus on the good stuff-
It doesn't have to be difficult-just whenever you can, decide to remove a negative entity from your life-and invite more positive things into your life.  You will feel more uplifted and be able to take action. It will be easier to follow the dreams that you know you have always had, without the negative to hold you back.

    When I see my writing I tend to edit it and decompose it, but this usually ruins my writing and makes it less along the lines of thoughts on paper, and more like soul-less lines of text.  What I've come to realize, is that the editing and identifying mind.  Can you remember the last time you wrote something down, and then you took another look and think it's foolish, then scribble it out or throw the paper away because it doesn't sound write or look proper?  This editing part of your mind is useful-but is a powerful hindrance to the creative spirit.
   
    I realize in order to be fully creative, I need to let my thoughts flow naturally.  That's where this technique comes into play: I type without looking-I close my eyes.  I close my eyes and perhaps lie my head on the desk.  This way, whatever I type is unedited by my eyes and I can continue to think and brainstorm about what my topic is.  When you nullify distractions you can concentrate fully on your great ideas, and fill your documents with a free, thoughtful essence.  You can always go back and edit it with that side of the mind later.  This comes easy for me as I've been an avid and efficient typist from a very young age.  As a child, I've played "Mario Teaches Typing" and another typing game "Mavis Beacon" that drilled the idea into my head that to type quickly one must keep eight fingers on the home row, the keys ASDF and JKL:. I've noticed many young avid Facebook users are lacking this trait.  Anyways, While I type with my eyes closed, my thoughts feel as if they are literally transmuted onto the computer screen.  It's as if I'm writing with my mind.  I always remember longing to perform telepathic feats.  Such as lifting objects across the room with my mind to many onlookers fright.  This is the closest I have come.  A psychic superpower controls my quill, and my thoughts fly onto the screen from my mind.
   
    To further aid this method, when I do happen to check my work or need a little re-cap when I'm writing.  All of my creativity seems to be blocked when I look at a Microsoft Word windows screen.  Maybe I'm reminded of all those sleepless nights where my 5-15 page paper was due the next day on either that mandatory short story assignment or on that mundane topic.  So to remedy this, and when I'm inspired to express my thoughts, I type using a blank grey screen with my written text neatly in the center of the screen.  Then I play meditation music with some nice quiet deep gongs with subtle wind chimes.  This sounds great, but it seems like too much trouble to set up.  But this all-in-one environment for writing is easily possible using the software "OmmWriter".  It's a mood word processor.  It's interface has a simple grey screen with ambient text and music.  I love it, and I still just use the free version (the paid version is just extra music and backgrounds).  So when I lift my head up after lots of thinking, my thoughts are nicely packed away in an unobtrusive manner for next time.