By Deane Alban

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

The proven benefits of learning a second language include improvements in intelligence, memory, and concentration and lowered risks of dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Understanding language is one of the hardest things your brain does. The benefits of learning a second language seem, in fact, to be proportional to the effort expended by the brain. Because language is complex, speaking or learning a foreign language gives your brain a good workout. It’s good brain exercise that makes the brain stronger.

It’s hard to believe now, but at one time raising children in a bilingual home was believed to stunt their intellectual growth. (1) Experts thought their brains would become confused and that it might even contribute to schizophrenia or split identities. But times have changed. We now understand that precisely the opposite is true...

Rhett A. Butler, Mongabay
Waking Times

Authorities in Brazil have arrested a man they claim to be the single biggest deforester in the Amazon, according to a statement issued by IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental protection agency.

Ezequiel Antônio Castanha was detained Saturday in Novo Progresso in the state of Par´ in a joint operation involving IBAMA, the Federal Public Ministry, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Police. Castanha is accused of running a ring that invaded public forests which were cleared and then sold on to speculators. The forests were located along the BR-163 highway between Altamira and Novo Progresso.

IBAMA says that Castanha’s gang was responsible for chopping down 15,000 hectares of forests over the past decade, causing $15 million in environmental damage and racking up another $30 million in fines. Castanha faces up to 46 years in prison for land grabbing, counterfeiting, illegal deforestation and money laundering.

You know that fear is the opposite of love. If you stand in your truth, sending love even to those who mean you harm, you have learned the first step to conquering fear. ~ Creator

You may love solitude because, with just you and Me, you have a break. With Me, you don’t have to talk. When you and I talk together, you know what you mean to say and become clearer. We just are. We speak in Oneness. You may love just to be, just to be One with Me, which is to say, One with your Self. It is simplicity itself, Our being together and out of the parade that passes by that you don’t always want to march in. With Me, you are in My Light, yet you are, so to speak, away from the betting tables.

There are some of My children who love the stimulus of the world, and they love to roam in it. They drink in every flavor of life in the world, and they excel in it all. They may be riotous in it. And, of course, there are many betwixts and betweens.

I say to enjoy all directions. Enjoy being quiet when you love quiet. Enjoy being the life of the party when you enjoy being the life of the party. You know what? Simply enjoy, and don’t bother yourself with self-itemization. Just be what you are at the moment you are. Let go of before and after. Enjoy the moments with Me, and enter into all the other moments when you think of Me and when you don’t, and enjoy them as well. Enjoy the plateaus and enjoy the wild rides. Enjoy whatever you enjoy, and be glad.

Enjoy being good to one another. Everyone knows what this means. Hearten one another with the life of your spirit. Be happy, and the world is a happy place.

Every now and then I have to push the pause button on life and took a good, hard look at my life and what surrounds me. I think about my belongings, the place I live, the friends in my life, the work that I do, the possessions that I own, and I fully consider what it is that makes me a happy person. This is what I’ve been able to find for myself, and you might be able to find some wisdom in it too. These are my 6 reasons to let go of things in your life that don’t make you happy.

1. You’ll be healthier for it.

HJ: A deep feeling of self-worth is one of the primary keys to a happy, healthy, successful and deeply fulfilled life.  In this great article Nanice shares many insights about how we fall into the trap of believing we don’t have a high self worth and how to ultimately pull ourselves out and accelerate our spiritual growth and evolution by understanding that we are instrinsicly worthy of all the abundance, happiness, love and joy we can handle.

- Truth

Worthiness – a Key to Emotional Healing

By Nanice Ellis | Wake Up World

Did you know that virtually every emotional wound is intertwined with issues of worthiness? In fact, feelings of unworthiness keep us from creating the lives we most desire. In order to heal our emotional wounds...

If you allow yourself to become blinded by your truth and unable to see another’s point of view, you will often miss the reality around you. ~ Creator