Create More Peace and Beauty, Inside and Out

As women, it is crucial to be surrounded by beauty. It's also a sign of auspiciousness. Your environment 'talks' to you on a daily basis and women are more sensitive to their environments whether they're conscious of it or not. Therefore, it is mandatory for you to program your environment to tell you the truth about who you are instead of allowing it to repeat negative habits or patterns.

We are all a work in progress. And as long as we strive to maintain balance in our body, mind and emotions, as well as within our individual lifestyle and household, we can be open to improvements and measure our progress on a daily basis. It is important to do something every day to nourish ourselves, and also our environment so we don't feel rundown or overwhelmed. Naturally, your environment either fuels or drains you. In order to feel good, comfortable and at peace, it is imperative to create a space that radiates positivity, organization and supports your goals.

What we surround ourselves with is a direct reflection of how we feel about ourselves, as well as being an indicator of where we are in our life, how confident we feel, and how much we value our health, relationships and our life's passions. It does not matter how expensive your house is or what kind of car you drive. Nor it is about how nice your furniture or décor is. Rather it is the energetic relationship to your surroundings and how you feel about each chosen item in its placement. If it brings you joy either with functionality, aesthetics or nostalgic value, then it is supporting your highest good. But if the mere sight of it brings you down such as a pile of clutter, dirty laundry or old worn down chair - then DO something about it!

It is the same with people. If there are those in your life that tend to bring you down by complaining all the time, criticizing others, being negative and pessimistic, then you are better off limiting your time with them. If they happen to be family and you have to interact with them often; gently redirect their attention to more positive conversation rather than participate in their misery. Surround yourself with people who make you laugh, offer genuine support and embody qualities you admire and appreciate. That also applies to the books you read, shows and movies you choose to watch and the types of places you frequent. It is all a reflection of who you are now and what you are becoming in each unfolding moment.

One of the best ways to create and emanate beauty from the inside out is to simply smile and to be loving and compassionate toward others. When we can truly accept others for who they are and how they choose to live their lives, appreciating their good qualities and pure humanness, then we can better accept ourselves and feel good about who we are.

"Want a great complexion and a face that attracts others? Genuinely wish others well ALL the time." - Srikumar Rao

Practice smiling more - at everyone! Make direct eye contact, breathe in deep, pull your shoulders back to open your heart and smile from deep within. No words are needed to create an intimate moment, even with a complete stranger. The more you do this, the more you will notice the universe smiling back at you through others - opening yourself up to new opportunities for growth, healing and meaningful relationships. Even if you are already in a long-term partnership, you can greatly improve it by simply smiling into their eyes and connecting on a deeper level.

Be conscious of your thoughts, words and actions, and how they affect those around you. Make it a daily goad to exude truth, beauty and love as much as possible and notice how every aspect of your life will improve just by adjusting your attitude and how you perceive the world around you.

Allura Joy works with women of all ages and diverse backgrounds offering various holistic therapies and relationship advice, as well as sharing valuable resources in the areas of women's health and sexual wellness. Allura has facilitated various groups, retreats, conferences and special events for women to come together in community to share, connect and support one another.

Allura also works with women individually to help resolve personal issues around relationships and intimacy, specializing in helping women who may have emotional and/or physical concerns with healthy sexual expression and satisfaction. She enjoys helping others explore their passions in manifesting their greatest dreams and deepest desires. Allura is a certified Hypnotherapist, Life Coach, NLP Master Practitioner, Licensed Massage Therapist and Yoga Instructor.

As a writer/blogger, Allura enjoys contributing insightful articles to help women become more sensually empowered and enjoy healthy fulfilling sex lives - with or without a partner! Enjoy valuable information and candid discussions about women's health & sexual wellness. Check out Allura's blog at: http://www.oceanusnaturals.com/blog/

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Musings on the Ugly Beauty of the World Trade Center

Let's face it, the World Trade Center, actually a complex of seven buildings with the centerpieces the towers which once stood majestically in Lower Manhattan, wasn't exactly an architectural beauty.

They were even called ugly.

The two primary towers, one rising to 1,368 feet, the other to 1,362 feet, dominated the landscape and were a source of boundless pride and tributes to the supremacy of American commerce for politicians and builders even as most New Yorkers regarded them as impressive but essentially unattractive oblong boxes reaching into the skies.

My family and I visited the World Trade Center in 1988 along with an aged uncle from Ireland. My uncle, terrified of heights, stood petrified against the back wall of the Top of the World observatory and understatedly remarked that the view was "very nice."

Soaring a full hundred feet above the Empire State Building, the WTC did indeed provide a "very nice" panorama, remarkable, breathtaking views for miles in every direction, in fact, even if the design of the towers was less than pleasing. Those vistas and the pride New Yorkers and all Americans felt for the World Trade Center fully compensated for the towers' stark severity, described by one architect as "glass-and-metal filing cabinets."

Despite all their architectural and aesthetic flaws, I still miss the strange, symmetrical elegance of those "filing cabinets" and, despite the passage of ten years, I freely admit that I still weep over the events of September 11th, 2001.

None of us could have anticipated the devastation wreaked on America on that brilliantly-bright morning.

What happened that day didn't simply involve the destruction of human life and of buildings. It didn't merely represent a shocking, unprovoked attack on our homeland. It involved much more than the resultant phenomenal costs, disruptions, and upheavals.

Obviously, the greatest loss was the 2,753 lives snuffed out but not to be forgotten either was the loss of Americans' illusory senses of invulnerability and indestructibility, the loss of our collective national innocence.

Those attributes were barely shaken by the failed attempt to knock down the towers in 1993 primarily because they failed. Eight years later they succeeded. What could never happen, happened.

The incomprehensibility of 9/11 was perhaps best illustrated in the reaction of a WTC survivor. Amid all the stories that flowed out of the horror of a decade ago, one was especially striking as emblematic of the end of American innocence.

As cited in "3 Retrospectives on the World Trade Center:" "An anonymous woman who had fled the burning but still standing towers had sought refuge in a local retail store a distance away from the infernos.

"Still in shock, seated on a dirty floor, she listened to the distant thunder and watched through the store windows as crazed people continued to race past. She buried her face in her hands until a stranger said to her, 'They're gone.'

"Confused and distraught, she was unable to make sense of the stranger's cryptic words, and asked in a shaky voice, 'What do you mean they're gone?' "

"The towers. They're gone."

"Still unable to fathom, or unwilling to accept the meaning of four simple words, she blinked and grimaced as she asked again, incredulously, 'What do you mean, they're gone?' "

They, the towers, were inexplicably "gone," collapsed in a fiery conflagration of smoke and ash, in the detritus of concrete and steel, in the residue of human remains.

No one knows the ultimate reaction of that survivor and no one knows what will be the ultimate reaction of our government. We have gone to war, suffered tens of thousands of casualties, and killed Osama bin laden. Yet, we are nowhere near eradicating the source of that woman's grief.

Purely by happenstance, I didn't lose any family members on 9/11 and I wasn't in New York to personally witness the horrors although my son was.

In disbelief, he watched the towers crumble from the safety of his office three miles uptown. He described the sight later as, "surreal," nightmarishly irrational. He couldn't see from that distance the worst nightmare of all, hundreds of people electing to leap to their deaths a thousand feet below instead of choosing their only other option of being incinerated.

In the apparent belief Americans are too squeamish to handle the truth, the media to this day refuses to show the pictures of those brave men and women, those "jumpers," as the media referred to them.

I have a message to the media: After September 11th, 2001, Americans can handle virtually anything. What we may not be equipped to deal with is a 9/11 redux, a scenario for which our president and other leaders seem to be preparing us, a repeat cataclysm that could very well dwarf the horrific events of ten years ago and render those bitter memories moot.

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