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We all love to feel full inside, which is one of the reasons why eating too much is such a challenge for a lot of people. Yet, as soon as the food digests, many people go back to feeling empty, searching around for more food or something else to fill them up again. Feeling empty feels so awful and alone that most people find numerous addictions to fill that empty aloneness. They scramble around to find substances, processes, or people to fill the empty and alone place within.

Yet no matter how much food you eat, or alcohol you drink, or things you buy, or sex you have, or attention and approval you get from others, the emptiness and aloneness keep returning. You need more food, more alcohol, more things, or more sex, more attention and approval in the never-ending cycle of addiction. This is what life is like when you believe that you need to fill your emptiness externally.

The underlying problem is the belief that you will get filled from GETTING something. While you can feel momentarily filled through getting something, you will never feel the full feeling of love and joy that comes from GIVING something.

There is a wonderful thing that happens when your desire is to give something, whether it is time, caring, support, kindness, attention, approval, or money. The desire to give opens the heart, which allows LOVE to fill your being. Love is not something that is generated from within. Love is the energy field in which we live. It is always there to fill and sustain us, but it cannot enter a closed heart. When you open your heart through your desire to give - both to yourself and to others - love naturally flows into your heart and fills you up.

For example, Tommy often felt empty and alone inside. As a result, he drank too much and was overweight. In addition, he would attempt to fill his emptiness through porno and Internet sex. He was always hoping some attractive woman would give him the attention he believed he needed to feel okay.

Tommy consulted with me because nothing was working to fill his emptiness, and he was tired of feeling this way. As we worked together, it became apparent that Tommy was raised to believe that getting something - money, sex, attention, approval - would make him feel lovable and worthy. Yet no matter how much he got, he never felt worthy or lovable enough. In addition, Tommy had no spiritual belief system, no sense of anything greater than himself. He did not experience the energy of love that he lived in. He made people, things and substances his Source because he did not believe in a spiritual Source of love.

I asked Tommy to start to notice what made him feel good inside. He reported to me that he felt good when he played with his nieces and nephews, and when he was supportive of his employees at work. Tommy then made the connection between giving something and his good, full feeling. I asked Tommy to begin to focus on giving kindness, time, and attention to himself and to others.

As Tommy practiced focusing on giving instead of getting, he discovered that his addictions to food, alcohol and porno were diminishing. He noticed that whenever he reverted to his old devotion to getting, he would find himself right back in his addictions, but when he focused on giving, he would feel fulfilled. He realized that whenever he focused on getting something externally, he was abandoning himself and he felt empty and alone inside. He saw that when he attended to giving to himself and others, he no longer felt alone and empty inside. Tommy experienced that there is a spiritual Source of love here for him when he opens his heart to himself and others.

Next time you feel empty and alone inside, focus on what you can give to yourself and to others and notice how quickly the empty place within becomes filled with the peace, love and joy that is always here for us.

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including “Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?” and “Healing Your Aloneness.” She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding

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There are no two greater ironic comparisons than that of a biscuit and life. For over two decades, I’d feverishly tried to bake biscuits. Being a baking ‘connoisseur,’ I was quite disheartened that I could easily knead & bake home-made yeast, cinnamon rolls and croissants - but try as I did, I could never grasp the technique of making southern-baked biscuits. Regardless whether I used the quick mix or home-made recipe kind, somehow my biscuits either came out of the oven with the texture of mortar, fell apart like charcoal briquettes or tasted like salty play-doh. In any event, it was my solemn quest to bake these tasty breakfast breads some time before I die.

It was almost embarrassing whenever I would makes the Shoney’s type breakfasts without the biscuits. While my kids were small, they pined for the buttery taste of home-baked biscuits…of course that never happened. I did attempt to make them countless times, but each time I retrieved them from the oven, they got harder and harder. At one point, I even thought about marketing them as indestructible bricks for housing contractors. But my family was fairly nice to me. They would ‘try’ them from time to time, and in most cases, nearly chipped their teeth.

I would excuse myself for the poorly-made biscuits by stating, “…I simply don’t have enough Southern blood in me…” And that was that. But, I still had this innate and sick compelling drive to create the ultimate biscuit. I could do everything else, why the heck couldn’t I bake a silly biscuit??? It was then that I went to visit my Aunt in Tennessee who baked the most wonderful, breathtaking, mouthwatering biscuits. And she did it so easily. I was silently amazed by the ease of her fascinating maneuvers. My kids, hubby and I sat down to eat her fabulous biscuits and gravy - and they were better than good. Then my son piped up, “…why can’t you make these biscuits, Mom?” And as usual, I told him that I just wasn’t ’southern’ enough.

Curiosity got the best of me though, as I pulled my aunt aside and asked her, “How did you get those biscuits to turn out so good?” She explained that all she used was butter-flavored Crisco, some milk, salt, baking powder and flour. “Huh?” That just could not be. These were the exact same ingredients I had been using for over two decades. This was just not possible. Then she filled me in on a little secret: “It’s the flour sifter. I have to use a flour sifter to get the flour to be lighter.” Filled with the new information, I was devastated. A stupid flour sifter did all that??

So what did I do? I continued at my attempts at making biscuits my conventional way…which always ended in complete disaster. Finally, the other day, I broke down and bought a flour sifter. A small, can-shaped mechanism that turned flour through a sieve. I used all the same ingredients once again. This time I was smarter though - I only made half a batch just in case they didn’t turn out. No need to waste good ingredients, I thought. Funny thing was that when I patted down the dough, it felt lighter, silkier and bigger. Okay, it’s just a glitch, I thought again, there was no way on earth that these biscuits would turn out right.

Next, I cut them into rounded shapes (like before) and placed them on an ungreased baking sheet. Whew! I felt like a school girl taking her final exam to pass class. Setting the timer for 10 minutes, I constantly went back and forth to check these obviously mal-attempted biscuits. When the buzzer beeped, I retrieved the baked goods. They had actually risen… and they didn’t weigh a ton either. Something had to be wrong with them though…afterall, I had baked them. Now came the taste test…fluffy, flaky, tasty. Viola! I had baked a batch of biscuits that were actually edible. I couldn’t believe it myself.

It was then that I had a sudden realization. All the years I had tried to bake the perfect biscuit, I had all the right ingredients, but I didn’t have the right tool to accommodate the final product. The sad part was that the tool was there all along, I just had to go out, get it and use it. And it was that enlightening moment that I also realized that biscuits can teach a person about life. We all have the right ingredients to achieve our goals in life, but sometimes if we aren’t using the appropriate tools, we set ourselves up for failure. Thus, when we utilize tools that are virtually always with us - such as logic, faith, commitment, hope and so much more, then we ultimately can attain our life’s fulfillment. Is life like baking a biscuit? Maybe not exactly, but it surely can make one see the sweet irony of this simple metaphor.

© How a Biscuit Taught Me a Priceless Lesson in Life

About the Author:
C. Bailey-Lloyd - Author of “Somewhere Along the Beaten Path”

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Bar stools are as important as the best wine in your bar. It is said that if you don’t get a good stool to sit on, you won’t enjoy the drink. By a good seat it means that not only it should be comfortable it should be attractive too besides having other minor and major specifications. Nowadays, there are lots and lots of options available, may be the number match to that of the number of the brands of beer available in the whole world. But the irony is that not many match all the required specifications. The options available in the material that we can use are metal, wood, bamboo, iron, etc. The styles available are retro, swivel, whether it has back or not, different metal colors, different designer fabrics, whether it is meant for indoors or outdoors and so on and so forth. We as the owner of our bar, we are the best judge of our bar and hence we are the only one who can decide, which is the best for ourselves. At times we want to make our own bar stools to cater our need. Here are some tips to make one yourself.

First of all you have to decide between the material and that in turn will also decide about the portability. Obviously the wood ones offer easy portability. Similarly if you think that children would be using that too often then bamboo ones would be better. You might also want to consider wood ones in that case. If you are an art lover and want to have some carvings and designs, then we would recommend you wood ones. If your house is of ethnic style then it is the wrought iron that will suit your need the most.

Then we think the height is the most important that you should consider. Although people have their own standards but it all depends on the height of the counter. Remember that calculating wrong seat heights is one of the most important reasons why people are unsatisfied with their stools. You should leave anywhere between 9 to 13 inches from the top of the seat to the counter.

The next is the style and color. If you want to choose from the innumerable designs or you want to give stress on comfort or you want something to write on the back then the swivel is the best for you. You can carve anything from the name of the basketball team you support to your wife’s name. The color-coding will depend on the amount of light available in the bar and the color of your walls although black can suit every background.

Now let us talk about blend. The best among the blend is the wood and the metal. In this category some people make a metal frame with a wooden seat. In some others, the metal seat on the metal frame is carved and painted in such a way that it gives an impression of wooden seat, which means a durability of, wooden with a visual picture of wood.

Pankaj andy writes bar stool topics. Learn more at http://www.qualitybarstools.com.

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