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MSWA Bulletin Summer 16

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ATTITUDINAL HEALING:

ATTITUDINAL HEALING: SOME NEW-YEAR RESOLUTIONS DR ANDREW E ONG Improve your health by healing your attitude is a New Year resolution you can add to your list of promises, by learning how to meditate. Begin by fixing your thoughts on what is true, good and right. Think about things which are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Listen to your inner self because the outer world of circumstances shapes itself to the inner world of your thoughts. Meditation can heal your body. Sometimes it pays to take the long way instead of the quick and easy. If you have limited movement but can transfer safely, set your workstation up so that you must transfer in and out of your chair each day. Talk this over with your occupational therapist and settle on a routine which becomes part of your exercise program. If it is possible to sit less, then stretch more. If it is not possible, ask the physiotherapist for a wheelchair-friendly exercise program. Sometimes you just need to hear the right words said in a different way to adjust your attitude. Set up a whiteboard where you can write something meaningful to help you get up and going in the right direction of a morning. Quotes you have enjoyed don’t always have to be deep and inspirational, just meaningful to you. If you get easily frustrated, you might write “patience is a virtue”. Google it and you will find William Langland told us that little gem way back in 1360. It has withstood the test of time. These quotes are still meaningful to us today because they inherently make sense to us, but are so easily forgotten. Here is another. “If you think you are beaten, then you already are. If you think you dare not, then you will not. If you think you’ll lose, then you’ve already lost. If you think you are outclassed, then you are.” Google this and you will find that these are the immortal words of the poet Walter Wintle, from his book SILENCE BERYL MARKHAM There are all kinds of silences and each of them means a different thing. There is the silence that comes with morning in a forest, and this is different from the silence of a sleeping city. There is silence after a rainstorm, and before a rainstorm, and these are not the same. There is the silence of emptiness, the silence of fear, the silence of doubt. Thinking, published in 1905 when Germany and Britain were in the middle of a naval-building race. The quote has an underlying cause, but also contains something of substance for your whiteboard. Success therefore begins as a state of mind, and you have to be sure of yourself before you can ever win a prize. “Sooner or later the person who wins is the one who thinks they can”, and we can thank Walter Wintle once again for another little gem. But you also have powers you never dreamt of and do things you never thought you could, because there are no limitations to what you can expect. It is all in your own mind. Channelling Walter Wintle is another successful man of his time, Henry Ford, who said “If you think you can do something, you are right. If you think you cannot, you are also right.” According to Ford, all limitations are ultimately self-imposed. The consolation prize however, Leo Burnett tells us, is that “When you reach for the stars you may not get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.” Google is an unlimited source of quotes and it can be not only uplifting, but fun finding them. Finally make the decision to frown less and smile more. As part of your daily exercise routine take five big breaths and smile. Then think of six good things in your life. Don’t be afraid to give someone a compliment, or send a loving thought to that special someone. Spread the beauty. Of all the things we wear, a smile and good humour are the most precious. Resolve to live in such a manner that when people speak ill of you, no one will believe them (Plato). Remember, one of the greatest discoveries of our generation is that we human beings can alter our lives by altering our attitude of mind. Some people make the world special just by being in it. With the right attitude, you can be such a person. There is a certain silence that can emanate from a lifeless object as from a chair lately used, or from a piano with old dust upon its keys, or from anything that has answered to the need of a man or a woman, for pleasure or for work. This kind of silence can speak. Its voice may be melancholy, but it is not always so; for the chair may have been left by a laughing child or the last notes of the piano may have been raucous and gay. Whatever the mood or the circumstance, the essence of its quality may linger in the silence that follows. It is a soundless echo. 26 | MSWA BULLETIN SUMMER 2016

FUNDRAISING ROUNDUP BIG RETURNS FOR MR BIGGINS! A 0-dollar ticket in MSWA’s Mega Home Lottery has turned Neville Biggins into a big winner! After having bought tickets for the past six years, Neville won the coveted first prize, a stunning .7 million, fully-furnished, luxury home in Hillarys and 0,000 cash. “I’m in a state of shock. I’d been out with my friends and we were watching the prize draw on the TV and my name came up and I just sat there and said, I don’t believe it, I’m sure that’s me. Then my little God-daughter, she flew through the door and did about six cartwheels and she said, it’s you, it’s you,” said Neville. “Even when I was driving down the road afterwards, I remember my Dad used to say to me, don’t count on it lad, don’t count on it. But it’s now been confirmed that this is what has happened and my life has changed.” As well as getting used to being the proud owner of a stunning home, Neville has the wonderful dilemma of deciding what to do with half a million dollars. Together with the .2 million first prize, MSWA’s Mega Home Lottery also gave away 8,350 prizes worth more than .1 million, including luxury cars, overseas holidays, TV’s and laptops. CEO Marcus Stafford said, “The MSWA Mega Home Lottery is a win-win situation. It’s great to see someone like Neville have his life changed forever. And we invest the proceeds from the Lottery in helping make the lives of people with MS and other neurological conditions better. “It’s the generosity of the people of Western Australia that let us carry out the work we do. So I’d like to personally thank everyone who bought a ticket. Whether you won a prize or you didn’t, you are helping to make a difference to the lives of people with MS and other neurological conditions.” MSWA OCEAN RIDE 2016 The seventh annual MSWA Ocean Ride took place on October 4 and close to 1,400 participants turned up ready to ride for people living with MS and other neurological conditions. Participants were in high spirits as they enjoyed a scenic coast ride from Fremantle to Hillarys in either the 10km, 30km, 50km, 70km or 90km rides. The event was a huge success, raising an impressive 0,000+ for MSWA, at the time of going to print! This year saw our highest fundraiser in Ocean Ride history return to put pedal to the metal once again. 25-year-old Michael Luca was diagnosed with MS in 2014 and first cycled in MSWA Ocean Ride that year raising ,000 on his own. This year, Michael cycled in the 90km category and together with his family members and teammates, ‘No MSing Around’ raised an amazing ,165. Team BGC and Team Troppo followed closely behind on ,945 and ,643 respectively. Michael said: “Mum and Dad are pretty much cycling novices; this was their first Ocean Ride. Mum fell down a few times during training but they had fun and there was a little bit of healthy competition between us, but it’s all in good fun.” The festivities continued after the race with plenty of activities and entertainment to keep the fun going. Riders enjoyed much needed leg massages while kids enjoyed the games, face painting and free fairy floss. Thanks go to our Events Team, our many volunteers and event sponsors for continuing to make the MSWA Ocean Ride a success. MSWA BULLETIN SUMMER 2016 | 27

Bulletin