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Change how much you maintain
through moderation and calmness.
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Originally Published July 15, 2004 -- Your Wellness
Guide
Unpack Your Life,
Enjoy Simple Luxuries and Less Stress
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When
Dan Ho was nine years old, he experienced the Supertyphoon Pamela
that destroyed nearly one-third of Guam’s civilian housing in 1976.
Unfortunately, Ho’s family home was among the destruction, and his
family of eight were left without running water or electricity for
six months.
Fast
forward to 1992, Ho and his wife Jenny had become successful
entrepreneurs -- owners of a top Chicago restaurant. They lived a
fast and luxurious lifestyle, including a custom designed home in an
affluent lakefront community with a three-acre garden. |
“We had a
4000-square-foot home, six sofas, three lawnmowers. It was full of
seating and reading areas and built to entertain,” says Ho. Then his life
changed. At the age of 32, he suffered a violent seizure that rendered
him unconscious for 20 minutes. As he tried to recuperate at home, he
saw everything different. Suddenly he realized how much it took to
maintain the house and garden.
In a
watershed moment, Ho and his wife sold the restaurant and house and moved
to a 1300-square-foot Maine home that is downtown and across from a
community park. “There is no reason to have three sets of dishes. Our
sizing down involved getting rid of the 2000 chairs. My yard is now a 4 x
12 patch of grass with gardening limited to pots -- and I don’t feel like
I’m missing anything.”
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Since
Ho doesn’t have to spend all his time making money to pay for a big
house and all its overflowing opulence, he says he has more time now
to visit his new neighborhood and walk the dogs in the park “instead
of worrying the dogs will ruin the garden,” says Ho, who now is the
founder of a new periodical about downsizing and enjoying simple
luxuries in the here and now --
Rescue Magazine.
Unpacking our lives, prioritizing what matters, and really being
happy with less are all goals that sound good but can be more
difficult in practice. Life Coach Natalie Gahrmann has made lots
of little choices that have helped her to downshift her life and be
less stressed because of it. She has…
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Rescue Magazine Founder Dan Ho |
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Limited
her children’s activities to two per season
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Begun
attending fewer meetings
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Done more
business by phone and e-mail instead of in person
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Decreased
her work hours, especially during the summer months
when the kids are home
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Minimized
kid camp enrollments
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Cut back
on spending and vacations so she could be home more
with the children and only work part-time |
For Blended
Family Expert Elaine Fantle Shimberg and author of
Blending Families, she has found that
volunteer time was cluttering her life. She went through her many donated
time responsibilities and asked herself if the reason she was serving was
still valid. If not, she resigned. She says “Now I am Chairman of the
Board of a hospital and work for their foundation, so I am more focused
and less frazzled.”
If you need
a reason to motivate you toward changing how much you maintain, consider
this: if you don’t slow down and reduce your lifestyle tempo and needs,
sleep enough, learn stress reduction techniques, enjoy sufficient
sunshine, and develop good eating and sleeping habits, then you might…
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Be a
candidate for a heart attack.
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Live
shorter.
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Have less
energy.
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Be prone
to drug and substance abuse, which can include
prescription drugs and too much coffee.
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Decrease
your immune system strength and be more susceptible
to disease.
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Condense
your family and friend relationships into less than the ideal.
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Not be
able to save for retirement because you are spending too much
on material things. |
The Authors
Peter Axt and Michaela Axt-Gadermann of
The Joy of Laziness say that two key
words for downsizing and taking control of your life are moderation
and calmness. They advocate relearning how to enjoy relaxation
time as a good step for being better able to moderate and calm your life.
Says Axt,
“Because of our present lifestyle, we run on adrenaline so much that we
are not able to enjoy resting phases and even cram our free time full to
the brim with dates. Initially you might find it difficult to sit on a
park bench and do nothing for only 10 minutes. So start with five minutes
and increase your resting phases by one minute every day.”
Sounds like
good advice, except leave your watch at home.
Terra
Wellington
is a
national authority on creating a wellness lifestyle.
www.terrawellington.com
© Copyright Terra
Wellington
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