Vida Guide to Successful Living

"Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the Man"  Aristotle I have always known but mostly in a back-burner type of way that my life work, my true contribution to the world would someday revolve around teaching youth about the importance of sex education and family planning and as a result of having a healthy acceptance and understanding of these two very important practices, they would someday practice conscious parenting and as a result of that, the world would become a different place, a better place. As every child born into this world would be truly wanted, truly loved, cared for by its' parent or parents during the most important years of its' life, provided with all of the resources needed to nurture each child's true potential and natural tendency towards wholeness, love, brilliance, kindness and compassion. Of course at age 17 when I made this commitment I didn't know the term Conscious Parenting but I do remember saying to myself, ...

The bad news:Your subconscious mind does not know the difference between something real (outside of you) and something you imagine. It also accepts everything you think about yourself and the world as true (even if it's just a thought and has no actual basis). When we are angry, judging, blaming or hating others our subconscious believes the thoughts we are having are about us (and not about the person we are actually having the thoughts about). Now that's a scary thought and one we rarely give much thought to. Not only that, the chemicals our strong emotions produce are generated within us and stay in us, in our bodies. Neither our thoughts nor emotions (which produce chemicals) go anywhere! This is one of the reasons, for our own health and well-being, we need to be able to get to the place where we can forgive others no matter what they have done because we are doing it for our sake and not theirs. I do understand that it can be a very difficult process because some act...

"You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are" Yogi Bahaman. I started a new morning practice, ritual of sorts at the end of January. It's focused on identifying and feeling (not processing or trying to figure out where they come from) ALL my emotional triggers. I LOVE it! I am a life-long learner and usually apply or do the exercises I learn from the plethora of personal development books I read. However, this by far, has been one of my favorite books/exercises. Perhaps it's the timing of it given the circumstances of my life in this past year and or that everything else I have read and learned helped me to understand the concepts and theories it posits.  It is time consuming however. That's what makes it so powerful, it's not a quick fix to the new and improved you, as many books seem to promise. I actually put my TM (Transcendental Meditation) practice aside to complete this 10 week practice. That's quite a commitment for me as I...

“Life's challenges can either make you or break you. Let them make you ". Billy Cox I wrote in a prior blog post that enjoying the journey of Life entails several things including, "...dealing with obstacles, struggles, challenges, losses and curve balls as they come but not letting them keep us down..."  Back in April of 2018, when I started my blog post and wrote those words, when I was getting my new business project Vida805 off the ground and was getting ready to self-publish my book, my Life changed drastically. That's an understatement, it was more like a major curve ball came my way. I was truly blindsided by Life's circumstances. I am not sure if I am ready to process all of what happened and how it has affected my life and the lives of so many other people. Not because I am not ready to disclose the details, I have been open about it (there was no way not to be) with family, friends and acquaintances but more so because I am still processing i...

" ...walking gets too boring when you learn how to fly..."  I LOVE these lyrics from Shakira's song Gypsy. They describe how I feel about my Life journey since 2014. I feel like I have learned how to fly! I am not soaring yet and actually I probably am still learning to fly but I am definitely not walking anymore. And let me tell you, walking IS boring when you learn how to fly. Let me explain and by the way, WELCOME to my blog and my website  Vida805.com My name is Maria Guadalupe Hernandez (I know double/triple whammy with the name...I'll share the story about my name on another post someday) but I prefer to go by my nickname  Mari . I like Mari better and it helps to differentiate myself from the thousands, if not millions, of Maria Hernandez's out there. I bought the domain ( Vida805.com ) in 2016 knowing that one day I would get around to sharing with others, especially Latinos in the 805 area code (Santa Barbara and Ventura peeps), about the "sec...

"Don't Die With Your Music Still In You" is a quote by Wayne Dyer and it's a quote I think everyone should have somewhere, where it can be seen every day. There's another similar quote which I really like by Norman Cousins it says "Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live" . I believe both these quotes are great reminders to all of us that we all have innate gifts, desires and passions that need to be given full expression. This is what gives our lives joy and fulfillment. What would it take for you to really believe that your heart's desires, your dreams, your passions, your longings, could actually happen? You, not some person you read about or hear of. The you who reads the quote and feels the sad truth behind them. Are you brave enough to admit that you are one of so many people who might die with your dreams, passions and/or desires lying dormant, perhaps unrecognized or repressed? ...