Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Failure is our most Important Product
Everyone can be Successful
Saturday, October 4, 2008
The Forgotten
I was out walking as I did every evening and if I was tired I took a short-cut home through the woods. I lived in a rural area so when darkness falls, is falls quickly and hard. Everything is covered with a blanket of darkness, and you can only see the stars and the moon. One night when taking my short-cut I noticed a big dark structure through a patch of trees heavily draped in moss. I only had a small bit of light left in the sky illuminating my way home so I didn’t want to explore the abandoned house tonight. I would come back tomorrow when I had plenty of light.
I thought of the old house all night wondering why I had never seen it before and who may have lived there, why it was left to dilapidate into the ground. Funny how buildings seem to just fall apart when humanity has left; nobody running in and out the doors, no windows opening and closing, no breeze flowing through, no chatter among the walls, no electricity crawling through the wires.
The next day came and I was anxious to go back and discover what lay in the woods. I set out my front door and down my short-cut path to explore the old house. I walked back to the very spot on the path where I could look back through the patch of trees with the moss dripping from the limbs and I did not see a structure, no house, no building, nothing. I was puzzled, flabbergasted, and speechless. I spun around looking in all directions to see if I was in the wrong spot. I began to run up and down the path going back and forth looking everywhere and saw nothing. The morning was stretching into lunch time and I was hungry and returned home. I thought to myself, well, I’ll get some lunch, go into town to run some errands and go out on my walk tonight to see if I see things differently.
While in town I ran into an old man that might just be our oldest inhabitant. He has seen the growth and changes of our town and everyone in it over his eighty years of life. I asked him if he knew of an old house in the woods out past the edge of town and down the dirt road where I lived. He said that he did remember there used to be a house there when he was a child but that it was torn down about twenty years ago or so because the word was that it was haunted and nobody wanted to buy the place.
This new information really sent chills down my spine and made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The old man didn’t ask me why I was asking about this old structure but gave me a sly grin that just added to my uneasiness.
When I went back home that afternoon I made a plan to return to the spot in the woods where I saw the house. I waited until dusk and I gathered up a flashlight, a camera, and leashed up my dog. We took the short-cut path to the patch of trees and the moss now looked spooky blowing in the wind, the daylight dwindled down and I started to take some photographs. My dog started to whimper. I tried to speak to him calmly but there was a quiver in my voice and I had a sick feeling come over me. There were noises coming from where the structure had been and it was now pitch dark. I clumsily snapped shot after shot after shot. The noises grew louder as if they were getting closer. I shone my flashlight out into the woods and the structure I had seen the night before loomed there before my eyes. I was frozen with fear. As I flashed my light back and forth I could see the porch, the door, the windows and ghostly apparitions glowing from inside the house. The noises seemed to shrill and scream and I dropped my flashlight, pulled my dog and ran the race of my life back out of the woods and toward my home. My heart was beating so fast I could feel it thumping inside my head, deafening my ears. I got back to my door and began to flip on every light in my house as if that was going to somehow calm me down and keep the spirits from following me home and entering my house. I didn’t sleep all night.
The next morning, I was exhausted and anxious। I drove into town to have my film developed. I was absolutely terrified about what might turn up in the photographs. I waited in agony as the camera shop carefully developed my film. When they were done the clerk had a funny look on his face and asked exactly what I had been photographing. I asked why and could I see the photos. He said that nothing really turned out; they seemed to be overexposed quite a bit but each photo had the same word scrawled across the grayish photo as if scratched by a fingernail. The word on each photo simply read “forgotten”.
http://www.scribbit.blogspot.com/
Friday, October 3, 2008
Overcoming Failure in Life
Reference:
Latumahina, D. (2007). 7 Powerful Tips to Overcome Failure. Retrieved October 3, 2008 from http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2007/11/07/7-powerful-tips-to-overcome-failure/
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Relationships are What Life is All About
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Colors of Life: God's Painting - For Scribbit's Write Away Contest
Full moon, starry night, through the sky they drip and shed their glowing light. To the corners of the earth from whence the darkness gave birth, casting shadows on earth’s floor, through depths of ocean and miles of shore. The crickets chirp, the frogs sing and a gentle breeze makes the wind chimes ring. Slowly, silently the night is still, its beauty and mysticism are at planetary will. Colors!
http://www.scribbit.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
See it in Your Mind's Eye; See it with Your Natural Eye
Friday, August 22, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
It is Always Darkest Before the Dawn
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Flexibility is the Key to Sanity
Sunday, August 3, 2008
First Kiss for Scribbit's Write Away Contest
http://www.scribbit.blogspot.com/
Friday, August 1, 2008
Luxury and the Art of Living
Abraham Maslow determined that self-actualization is the highest point to which people strive....to be mentally and psychologically healthy and able to experience life to the fullest without hesitation and hang-ups....and that we as human beings have an internal, natural, drive to become the best possible people that we can be.....
EIGHT WAYS TO SELF ACTUALIZE (cite reference below)
Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something: concentrate on it fully, let it totally absorb you.
Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.
Let the self emerge. Try to shut out the external clues as to what you should think, feel, say, and so on, and let your experience enable you to say what you truly feel.
When in doubt, be honest. If you look into yourself and are honest, you will also take responsibility. Taking responsibility is self-actualizing.
Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular.
Use your intelligence, work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem to be.
Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and what your potentialities are not.
Find out who you are, what you are, what you like and don't like, what is good and what is bad for you, where you are going, what your mission is। Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means identifying defenses--and then finding the courage to give them up.
(http://psikoloji.fisek.com.tr/maslow/self.htm)
Please take time to explore the above site as it contains a wealth of wonderful information that leads us to ponder the quality of our lives and I would like to continue to evolve in my mental and psychological life to extinguish neurosis, hang-ups, and negativity that keeps me from my own luxury and artful living! Staying positive, one thought at a time!
Thursday, July 31, 2008
You Get Out What You Put In
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
The Mental Diet
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Reduce Your Expectations, Reduce Your Stress
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Never Burn Your Bridges
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Letting It All Roll Off
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Blessings in Life
http://www.bettertobless.com/movie1.html
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Feeling Overwhelmed and Letting Go
Friday, June 27, 2008
Giving is the Best Gift: A Servant's Heart
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Don't Live in Chains When You Hold the Key to Set Yourself Free
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Don't Look Back!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Living the Good Life: Food for Thought
Creating SuccessHow To Be A Magnet To Success
In this issue I'm going to talk a little bit about creating success and how your own thoughts create an energy - which either attracts success or attracts failure. Most people aren't even aware that their thoughts are energy, and very few are aware of how they're own thoughts can create the failure they have in life when the really want success.
Whether you send out an energy that attracts success or failure really depends on the kind of thoughts that you have. Those who focus their attention on the good qualities that they have and take time to relish in their achievements, no matter how small they are - will inevitably attract success to them. They'll send out a positive success energy that in turn will attract more and more success.
One fact is clear - in life we will fail more often than we succeed। But those who continue to enjoy success - never give up and they always focus on their success - no matter how small that success is - they focus on it. And in so doing they don't look at the failures - thus creating a positive energy for them.
http://www.affirmationsforpositivethinking.com/creating-success.htm
"I never saw a pessimistic general win a battle." – Guiseppe Borghese
"The world is like a mirror; frown at it, and it frowns at you. Smile and it smiles, too." – Herbert Samuels
"There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have grown hopeless about them." – Clare Boothe Luce
A Positive Mental Attitude is indispensable to your success. You can be as positive as you want to be if you will simply think about the future, focus on the solution and look for the good. If you do what other successful people do, if you use your mind to exert mental control over the situation, you will be positive and cheerful most of the time. And you will reap the benefits enjoyed by all successful people.2
Become A Positive Person
To empower and motivate your employees, customers, your suppliers, your bankers and so on, you simply need to be a genuine, positive and cheerful person। You develop a positive mental attitude. You be the kind of person from whom, “never is heard a discouraging word.” You are easygoing, genial, friendly, patient, tolerant and open minded. You make people feel comfortable being around you.
Creating Inevitable Success: 5 Steps
Set your brain on the path toward achieving your goal so that it's working on it all day long – traveling the actual path will then become much easier... More
Choose To Be Happy
The only source of happiness – and unhappiness – comes from inside yourself.
Happiness is not something that comes to you. It is something you create now, today. Waiting for something to change in order to be happy is waiting to live your life. It is not what happens to you that counts. It is how you react to what happens to you. It is your attitude. When you adopt a positive attitude, life becomes a rewarding adventure instead of something to get through... More
Happiness Quotes
"Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." – Nathaniel Hawthorne... More
Positive Emotions Are the Key To Life
Positive emotional energy is the key to health, happiness and wellbeing. The more positive you are, the better your life will be in every area... More
A Leader's Mood: The Dimmer Switch of Performance
Take a hard look at your behavior in meetings, which are often "cauldrons of emotion." Do you model the way by setting a positive tone right from the start? Or do you impose your own "pace" based on how you feel at the moment? Aim for a calm, relaxed mood and a consistent, positive approach... More
Don't Focus on the Problem, Focus on Solution
You can become a positive thinker simply by focusing on solutions, not the problems।
Just remind yourself that "there are no problems – only opportunities."
Optimistic Thinking
Changing your perspective is the key to finding success in seeming failure. "Optimistic thinking has sometimes gotten a bad rap as being unrealistic, but research has found that we can indeed live happier, healthier, and more successful lives if we can learn to discover opportunities in problems."3 Due to optimistic positive thinking, problems will become merely challenging opportunities that you can turn to your advantage. They provide opportunities for personal growth and can stimulate your creativity for finding better ways to live.
Can you become more optimistic? Can you simply “choose” to think more positively? Yes, you can. The simplest way is to empty your mind, clear it of all fears and anxieties while replacing them with positive thoughts. Declare independence from negative thinking.7 Surround yourself with optimistic people because optimism is contagious. So is pessimism. Studies find that people who live with depressed people tend to become depressed themselves. Surrounding yourself with optimistic, supportive people will help you turn occasional optimistic thoughts into a habitual way of thinking.
Another powerful tool for optimism is "2P & 3P thinking."6 When good things happen to you, and when you accomplish your goals, try to understand why those events occurred in Personal, Permanent and Pervasive terms. If you manage a successful project at work, take credit for that success. Attributing it to your intelligence, for example, offers an explanation that is personal (you are intelligent), permanent (you’ll always be intelligent) and pervasive (your intelligence will help on other projects as well).
Living a Healthy and Successful Life
Researchers of two American Universities found that a positive thinking and attitude improved a persons health because it made it more likely that they would succeed in life.4 So not only will a positive attitude help you be healthy and live longer – but it also increases the likelihood that you will succeed.
Lead researcher Dr. Glenn Ostir explained it this way: "I believe that there is a connection between mind and body – and that our thoughts and attitudes/emotions affect physical functioning, and over all health, whether through direct mechanisms, such as immune function, or indirect mechanisms, such as social support networks." ... More
The Law of Expectations
Whatever you expect with confidence, positive or negative, becomes your reality. If you confidently expect to succeed, if you confidently expect to learn something from every experience, if you confidently expect to become wealthy as a result of applying your talents and abilities to your opportunities and you maintain that attitude of confident expectations long enough, it will become your reality. It will give you a positive optimistic cheerful attitude that will cause people to want to help you, and will cause things to happen the way you want them to happen... More
http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/thinking_positive.html
Monday, June 16, 2008
Living in the Moment Everyday
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Intentions: The Undercurrents of Our Lives
Friday, June 13, 2008
Kicking Worry to the Curb
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
The Simple Things in Life
http://www.findingjoymovie.com/
have a beautiful, joyful day!
Monday, June 9, 2008
Creating and Maintaining Balance in Our Lives
The following article provides excellent examples on how to create and maintain healthy, positive balance in our lives! Please enjoy! This article is sourced from the following website: http://www.naturalhealthbenefits.com/health-and-mind.html
The Spiritual Health Journey
Health Topics on this page
Time Out and StressHow can we get more Self belief?How do our emotions affect us? How does Anger affect our wellbeing?The Power of MeditationReligious Belief
There has been since the beginning of this century, a shift in health consciousness in the West. A growing number of people are beginning to see and treat their lives as, above all else, a spiritual journey.
These people are not particularly religious, hold down regular jobs, and probably don’t attend church, but they probably know instinctively there is something more to life.
Connecting back to nature can be a very uplifting thing to find meaning in life. There is nothing like the peace and quiet of a garden, the new leaves on a tree in spring, the sound of the sea, the sight of a carpet of bluebells in a wood.
It is also very reassuring and spiritually rejuvenating to realise that nature carries on with her cycles regardless of what we do or what is happening to us.
Making time for reflection in a garden or other kind of quiet place can help to root us in a very literal way-and for people who live in the city who may see nothing but concrete, a park or garden in some peace and quiet can provide real spiritual health and rejuvenation.
Time out is a much used phrase. We all know what it means, but not many of us take it seriously enough to make a space for it in our lives. This is a shame as you can only make real changes and progress in your inner life when you step out of ordinary life long enough to figure out where you want to go, and how you are going to get there.
By reflecting on a regular basis you will get the chance to imagine that maybe you COULD do something about what is troubling you – or maybe that you CAN follow your dreams. Sometimes it helps to look at problems in a different way by turning them on their head or looking at them from a different angle.
Time out and Stress
The most precious commodity we have now is time. It’s a fact that workers of this generation have less free time than any other time in history. The reason is the communications revolution. The speeding up of communications like emails mobile phones and faxes has given less spare time to workers – and a more unhealthy stressful working environment.
We are all very busy, on a tight schedule and stuck in more traffic jams than ever, but on the upside, our standard of living has become much better than it ever was years ago. Throughout your journey through life, stress cannot be avoided –all you need to do is change the way in which you deal with it.
Stress happens within us when our perceived demands threaten to outweigh our perceived resources. It is simply a reaction to a perceived inability to cope. I use the word perceived with an emphasis because that is a clue about the nature of stress; as no amount of rationalizing on my part will do anything - your stress is personal to you.
Stress is something that is highly subjective – what YOU may find stressful someone else will cope with, for instance. Stress can work for us or against us and we all have the power to determine the balance.
Anxiety stress before a job interview can go in one of two ways: it could motivate you into a shining performance or it could make you too nervous to show your best side. Therefore the answer is getting increased self belief in your abilities.Top of Page
How can we get more self belief?
We as a society are losing our sense of self-belief. A form of spiritual stress occurs with a lack of purpose and direction which drains our self confidence and hence our ability to cope with things. How can we increase our confidence?
Stress boils down to fear that we can’t cope with certain conditions. The stress we feel is not so much caused by the event as the feelings you’ve associated with it. When you repress feelings you may have felt at a stressful time and never work through them, they’ll eat away at you long after and cause more stress on an ongoing basis.
A classic scenario is someone who was hurt once in a relationship and refuses to get involved ever again. After a time, the problem now is not so much the breakdown of the relationship but the feelings that are associated with it.
At the end of a hard day, or before you go to sleep, give yourself a bit of space and quiet to just hear yourself deep down and re-contact the real you. Be in harmony with yourself. Through knowledge of ourselves and how we tick, and doing things that make us feel happy on a regular basis, we will all be much calmer, more healthy and able to cope.
Another very good reason to spend some time in reflection is that it does wonders for your health. Stressful situations can be managed better and this leads to a healthy mind. And a healthy mind leads to a healthy body. Our mind and body through our emotions and spiritual health are more closely linked than anyone may realise.
Whenever you feel stressed a good solution is to write things down! Get a diary or notebook and write down your feelings. Write out what you see the problem to be in a logical way and then what you can do about it.
Stress can so often be a case of making mountains out of molehills. The very essence of taming stress is to live a happier life.
Keep a focus on the big picture. Whatever happens in life, you will deal with it. You’ll adapt and prevail just like always, and problems often have a way of becoming opportunities.
If you are threatened with redundancy for instance, you may decide to do something that you’ve always wanted to do, like start a business instead of trying to find another job.
Whenever there is a big decision to be made ask yourself “Will this make me truly happy?” If you let this be your guiding light through the hard times and keep a clear procedure about how to go through life, stress will be in retreat.Top of Page
How do our emotions affect our health?
The simple act of smiling or laughing triggers the release of chemical messages that travel to the brain and promotes a sense of health and wellbeing.
Smiling also maintains harmony within oneself. Heart rate and breathing also come under the influence of our emotions. Laughter is a positive healthy and vital part of our inner lives and people who smile and laugh a lot often experience better health.
The reason for this is because the immune system is boosted by a positive and coping attitude. (And in reverse can be suppressed by stress and unhappiness). Therefore a person who is happy or elated can greatly increase the amount of NK (natural killer) cells into a healthy immune system to help fight infection.
The immune system “communicates” by hormone amd chemical messages to and from the brain. This can enhance or suppress the immune system according to a person’s mood state and are transferred by chemicals called endorphins. This “messenger service” is used by the immune system to communicate with the mind, so emotions are closely linked.
Learning how to breathe properly is a definite step to controlling stress. Many of us breathe either too much or too little. Tests show that people who have changed the way they breathe become much more at ease on a regular basis.
The correct way to breathe is long slow and deep. Picture and hear a clock pendulum and try to breathe along with it. When you inhale and exhale, let it be your stomach that expands and contracts. Do this first thing in the morning for five minutes in peace with your eyes closed.Top of page
Anger - How can it affect our health?
Anger is another emotion that affects us. There’s nothing wrong with being angry – it can be very healthy and therapeutic. What is a problem is denial about anger and this is what many people suffer from. I mean, you seem to take your life in your hands driving on the roads these days!
We need to get to the root of the problem in the first place, and expose anger for what it is – so when it affects you - you can cope with it better.
When you become angry, vengeful or say nasty things you don’t mean, you are seeing your "dark side". Recognising it when you see it is a way to diffuse anger. If you don’t, it is likely to leap out when you least expect it, jeopardizing home and work life, and stop you realizing your full potential.
When you repress anger it is like energy building up that has to find somewhere to go. The place is usually spills out onto is other people in the form that’s called “projection”. We all tend to do this as some point in our lives. Anger is born out of fear. When you understand that we tend to project our worst qualities onto others, it’s easy to see just why it’s born out of fear – because we fear our "dark side".
We’re frightened by it, but instead of facing that fear, we’d rather live in denial by putting the blame on to others. If someone’s reaction to someone else or you are over the top, remember that it takes one to know one. Were you criticized all the time when you were a child? How much of that was your parent projecting their own dark side on to you? If you think back, you’ll realise that that person was just angry!
When someone is venting their anger on you, think of the pointed finger they’re effectively pointing at you. Raise your hand now and point at someone or something – you’re pointing a finger at someone else but there are three fingers pointing back at you!
Vented anger towards you is just someone saying “Look at me!” How to deal with it? Keep this knowledge with you. Arm yourself with it at times you incur anger. Pity the other party and smile, by doing that it shows they are the weaker ones, not you.
You spiritual health is found through your emotions, positive or negative. By realising what your feelings are telling you, and understanding them for what they are -this is the route to happiness in your inner life.
If you really are going through a very difficult time in your life right now then consider counseling. This is an excellent way to get your emotional health back on track. I can really recommend this approach - it helps you come to terms with what's going on in your life and helps you to get through it. Everyone needs a helping hand in life from time to time, so don't be afraid to ask for helpTop of Page
The Power of Meditation
There’s no mystery about the powers of meditation. Some may want to dress it up in set exercises but you can take a moment of quiet reflection and look within yourself for direction and focus at any time you have a quiet moment. It gives your mind a rest from all the hustle and bustle of life and can work wonders for your overall health.
You’ve done it before at moments of leisure, but please make time for meditation, on your own, quiet, and in a pleasant environment. Everything that surrounds us has an effect on our wellbeing and is constantly sending information to our all- powerful subconscious.
We are all much more than the sum of our parts. Physicians will tell you that you are indeed surrounded by energy; but whether that energy is a negative or a positive force is up to you and your surroundings.
If you find it hard to meditate on your own, joining a Yoga class can help you physically and spiritually. The vast majority of our muscles are hardly used, so yoga is a solution to this health problem and it doesn’t matter how old you are or what physique you have. I have heard great things from other people about it even though I haven’t got round to doing it myself yet – so give it a try.
You are Special! There never has been and never will be another one of you ever again and your gifts are just as unique. Once you identify your reason for being, you will quickly realise two things: Working towards your goals, whatever they may be, reinforces the best within yourself, and you will learn a lot about what satisfaction in life really means.Top of Page
Sunday, June 8, 2008
How Positive Thinking is Healthy and Beneficial for the Mind and the Body
Positive thinking is an effective way to achieve mastery of bio-energy healing। Maintenance of a positive energy level in a healer's own bio-energy field reduces stress and emotional tension in the healer and in others। Positive emotions and feelings and a positive mental attitude can improve the quality of people's lives and heal their bodies of illnesses and stresses। On the other hand, negative emotions and feelings bring poisoning toxins to the organism. Strong negative emotions such as anger, spite, envy, jealousy, and fear make the endocrine system accumulate poisons in the blood. Anxiety, depression, and doubt can also cause poisoning of the blood. Passive and lengthy negative emotions are even more dangerous for health than active, sudden and momentary negative emotions. Negative emotions shorten the span of life. Treatment of physical symptoms with positive thoughts and statements was popularized in France a century ago, and it still has the power to overcome unwanted states (stress, tension, and unhappiness). Thoughts and feelings make up reality and add color to it. So, unhappiness brings a gray world and reality. To change a gray world and to overcome the feeling of unhappiness, anxiety, or tension, one needs to refocus the mind on positive, healing thoughts. When people predict that something is going happen to them, it is more likely to happen because negative thoughts will be reflected in their unconscious. Moreover, there could be developed psychosomatic illnesses (about 70% of all illnesses are psychosomatic, or caused by mental stress). Psychosomatic illnesses worsen when given special attention. Instead of paying direct attention to pain or illness, every time a negative thought occurs, say something like, " It will be better than I think." When a wish of any desired condition is established in the mind, somehow the unconscious mind leads the wish to realization-not magically, but through mental programming. Besides healing illnesses, positive attitudes help one to withstand troubles and problems, make correct decisions, and overcome obstacles. Do not focus on negative events; try to discover a positive perspective. For example, individuals should understand that they need to read more or think more of others in order to find ways of perfect communication. Because the thoughts of individuals are either positive or negative, they are reflected in their social or asocial behaviors. People should observe and conceive the world around them, as well as their inner worlds, with positive perceptions. Healers should have "a positive mind state" before they begin practicing bio-energy healing. Healers communicate with other people giving them energy. "Negative" energy cannot bring healing, only damage, and it is destructive for both a healer and a healee. Healing energy is "a positive" energy sent by "a positive mind."
Authors Bio,Michael Nudel and Eva Nudel, Ph।D।Energy Healing Specialists of Bio-energy System Services, Inc.Authors of how-to-do books "Health by Bio-Energy and Mind" and"21st Century's New Chakra Healing"Visit
Thursday, June 5, 2008
The Mind, Body, Spirit Connection
"Watch your thoughts; they become your words. Watch your words; they become your actions. Watch your actions: they become your habits. Watch your habits: they become your character. Watch your character for it, WILL... become your destiny."
Unknown
When the mind begins to spin, we are in control of where it goes so we must purposely set ourselves on a positive path so that our body and spirit will follow suit....Our spirit needs nourishment just like our mind and our body and it should be healthy, another quote that comes to mind here is "we are a spirit having a human experience, not a human having a spiritual experience", so in thinking about this it is our spirit that comes to and leaves this earth inhabiting a body that will eventually wither and die and I do not think of myself as being some sublimely spiritual creature but I do love God and I believe in the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ as God's Son and I think that we all as human beings try to fill that empty spiritual hole in our lives with everything except His love and forgiveness and this leads to a whole host of other ailments, problems, addictions and sicknesses both mental and physical....In saying this I believe strongly that the health or illness of one segment of our lives: mind, spirit, or body, is always interrelated and connected intricately so we must be careful about the food we feed our thoughts, our spirit, and our bodies....So I want to live with thoughtfullness and purpose and to guard my mind from negative thoughts and to feed my mind, spirit and body with healthy food and healthy thoughts...."whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy meditate on these things" Philippians chapter four, verse eight....Wishing you all happy, healthy thoughts which lead to higher roads with beautiful views!
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Don't Block Your Blessings
Monday, June 2, 2008
Anger: When You Raise Your Hands You Wound the Outside, When You Raise Your Words You Wound the Inside
There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all.He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, 'You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. But It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound will still be there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one. Remember that family and friends are very rare jewels, indeed. YOU ARE MY FAMILY & FRIEND AND I AM HONORED! Please forgive me if I have ever left a 'hole' in your fence.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
When You Reach Rock Bottom, You Can Only Go UP!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Forgiveness: The Gift We Give Ourselves
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Fake It Till You Make It
Monday, May 19, 2008
Mommy, are you famous?
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Walking the Walk: Short-Term Rewards vs. Long-Term Gains
Words for the Day
Esoteric - intended for or understood by only a few
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
The Refiner's Fire
In life we experience fire with our circumstances whether it be through "natural causes or arsenists" the results can be equally damaging but how we react to this is the only thing we have control over...Fire is a cleanser, a destroyer, and while it is painful and wreaks havoc on everything in its path, what comes afterward is new growth, fresh greenery and changed perspectives...I would like to take this opportunity as such and cleanse my thoughts, hence, my actions, and cut out the things that are unhealthy, unneccessary and stressful...and remember that mercy and grace is new every morning and I should also give that to myself and others...Fresh starts are difficult but what we can learn from them is that we can create new beauty in our lives and broaden our horizons as a result...I hope and pray for all those that no longer have a home to return to and I wish for them that their communities will open their arms and create a safe haven for them to re-build their homes and their lives...
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Attend to Your Thoughts or They Will Attend to You
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Weight Loss and Faulty Thinking
By: Dennis Brabham, Melissa Hantman, William Whitney
Page 1 of 3
Americans are highly motivated to lose weight—as a growing list of best-selling books and highly trafficked dieting Web sites attest. We're just not approaching it the right way. The pressure we put on ourselves to succeed—and the self-criticism we indulge in when we fall short of the mark—can have dire emotional and dietary repercussions.
Consider that pair of jeans hanging reproachfully in the closet. You realize they don't fit, and you feel unattractive and worthless. This tendency to evaluate yourself too harshly will only make you give up altogether. You want to head to the fridge for solace.
You need to identify the things you're telling yourself that cause you to feel discouraged and to throw in the towel. Don't beat yourself up when you overeat. Accept that you acted in a self-defeating way, then establish better methods to meet your goal. Review what you'd like to do and work toward that goal.
Perhaps you're not (yet) berating yourself for failures, but putting inordinate pressure on yourself to succeed. When you tell yourself, "I must lose 25 pounds by Valentine's Day, or I'll never get a date," you're setting yourself up for emotional turmoil, as well as weight-loss failure. Losing weight in a prescribed amount of time is a worthy goal, but the perfectionist premise that sneaks into your thinking may well interfere with sensible eating and exercise.
In a perfect universe, the sight of those jeans, or the knowledge that Valentine's Day is around the corner, would elicit rational thoughts like, "I'm going to look great soon, and I'm going to enjoy the challenge of eating sensibly and exercising along the way." But few of us think that.
PT spoke with Nando Pelusi and Mitchell Robin, clinical psychologists in New York City, about what we really tell ourselves, sabotaging our own best efforts to lose weight—or meet any goal.
· "I must be thin."
This creates desperation, which undermines a healthy long-range approach to sensible eating. Also, perfectionism pervades this thinking (I must not only be thin, but also perfect).
· "I must eat until sated."
Early humans lived in an environment in which food resources were scarce. While our ancestors had to hunt down squirrels and eat them, we can supersize a Whopper meal and skip the workout.
· "I need immediate results."
The demand for immediate improvement undermines commitment to a long-term goal. Quick fixes are hard to pass up: "This cupcake will make me feel good right now." We think, why bother eating healthfully, when the reward is far off? Dieting requires present-moment frustration and self-denial with little immediate reward.
· "I need comfort."
People eat to avoid feelings of loneliness, depression and anxiety. Fatty and sugary food provides immediate comfort and distraction from other issues. Resolving some of these problems may help you overcome poor eating habits.
· "I feel awful."
"It's terrible being heavy." For some, being overweight is the worst thing imaginable; it can immobilize you and leave you dumbstruck. That's a reaction more suited to tragedy. Weight loss is best achieved without that end-of-the-world outlook.
· "It's intolerable to stick to a diet."
"It's just too hard to diet." This thinking renders you helpless. People who are easily frustrated want easy solutions. We're seduced by fad diets because they appeal to that immediacy. Yet people who rely on fads suffer high failure rates. When you diet with the short term in mind, you don't learn strategies that require patience and persistence.
· "I am no good."
"Because I am having trouble in this one area I am worthless." Being overweight can be viewed as a sign of weakness or worthlessness, and most people aren't motivated when they feel that way. Another form of worthlessness: "My worth is dependent on my looks." This idea confuses beauty with thinness, a concept played out endlessly in the media.
Get Moving
Now that you've thrown out your irrational thinking, a little motivation is key to change. But how do you make that leap? Psychologist and marathon runner Michael Gilewski has found that the brain can achieve a state of habitual behavior through small successes—turning a once extraordinary effort into mere routine.
"Even when someone climbs Mount Everest, it's usually not his first time climbing," he points out. Perhaps motivation may simply be the product of positive reinforcement and repeated success.
Experts on Motivation
PT asked five expert motivators—including an active-duty drill sergeant and a rock-climbing instructor—how they rally everyone from first-time dieters to hard-core soldiers.
Inspiration From Within
Deborah Low is a certified weight management and lifestyle consultant in Vancouver, British Columbia.
"We have an all-or-nothing attitude: If we don't do our full hour at the gym, we may as well sit around and eat junk food. If you feel guilty and punish yourself, you may eat 10 cookies instead of 2. If you criticize yourself, you'll never change.
"Motivation is something we get from other people; but inspiration swells within us. Thinking 'I'll lose weight and then I'll be happy' is not enough. If we respect and love ourselves, independent of our weight, it's easier to make healthy choices.
"We struggle because we're fixated on the end result. We force ourselves to go to the gym, restrict food, measure and weigh ourselves. You let that number on the scale determine how your day's going to go. I ask clients to remember what it was like to play as a kid. You ran around, climbed on things—your goal was not to lose weight, it was to have fun. Being active gave you a sense of freedom, excitement and amazement. You have to reconnect with that emotion."
Being a Team Player
Chris Broadway instructs an Outward Bound outdoor classroom on Hurricane Island, off the coast of Maine.
"I set the tone of team spirit in the beginning; I teach one person a skill, and his or her responsibility is to teach everyone else. We let the students make their own mistakes. We expect students to have problems, as the activities we construct are a challenge. Discouragement can occur, but we celebrate accomplishments. Students set their own level of achievement. Some have a focus on the end result, but not everyone is results-oriented. Some want to measure success by relationships they form, by the process itself.
"Another motivating factor is how their experience here connects to their lives. We create situations where there are actual risks and perceived risks, as in sailing. We let the group navigate ahead of a storm, deciding when to pull back and when to move forward. We show them how to apply these situations to their own businesses or personal lives—calculate the risk, know when to take it or when to step back.
"It's so much more powerful when another student steps up to deliver the message of leadership. As instructors, we're always building their tool kit so they have the means to do that. With a group of 12, it's difficult to hide in the background. Even if someone's in a slump, he or she absolutely needs to fill a role."
Savor Every Mountain
John Joline is a climbing instructor at Dartmouth College.
"Certain kinds of teaching are done from below—telling people what to do but being removed from the activity. I try to teach from above—I climb with my students, participating fully in the activity. I make my enthusiasm infectious.
"Even a climb well within your physical limits—if you strive to climb it beautifully—can be challenging and rewarding. Our culture puts emphasis on goals, on absolutes. We're taught to believe competition should be ferocious. But if we lose that sense of fun, of delight, all the haranguing in the world from an instructor won't give a student lasting motivation. The bottom line is to savor the movement, the physical sensation of moving up the rock and over the stone. That itself becomes a reward compelling enough to keep one involved.
"For someone in his or her mid-30s or older, climbing is still seen as a potentially dangerous sport, daring and terrifying. It's a mental construct that can be inhibiting. Plus, for white-collar workers, running hands and fingers over rough rock could be shocking to the system."
Coming Home Alive
Billie Jo Miranda is a U.S. Army drill sergeant in Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
"The goal is being prepared for war and coming home alive. The [desire to] drop out occurs in the first few weeks. Once they learn they have a comfort zone, get along and trust people, we're pretty much over the hump. We motivate through example; we do it next to, in front of and behind them. We tailor training around the weakest soldier. It may not be beneficial for the soldier who was a college athlete, but everybody is part of a team, they push each other.
"There will be those who do the minimum. Today's youth are Nintendo children. Training requires them to get out of bed and walk an extra mile. The more rigor you put into training, the more a soldier knows what he can accomplish in combat. They shouldn't enjoy training. It should hurt physically and mentally. And they hate it. But we want them to enjoy the accomplishment.
"If you have heart, you have the motivation and the desire to get through anything. It's a patriotic thought process: What we're doing is for the betterment of America. When they say, 'I don't want to do this anymore,' just give me 10 minutes with a soldier and she'll do a 180. We use their being volunteers as a motivational tool: 'Soldier, I didn't ask you to come here. You obviously joined the military for a reason, you wanted to do something for your country.'"
Think Like a Thermostat
Peter Catina is a professor of exercise physiology at Pennsylvania State University.
"Most elite athletes are already at the top of their sport, and to reach the next level is a challenge. But it's difficult to sustain your level when you're at your pinnacle—novice or expert. Everyone must have both physical and mental discipline.
"Self-regulation is key; you can make it simple by being your own monitor. You have to think like a thermostat—be able to detect a discrepancy between the environment and your internal standard. It's the difference between your current state and where your mind and body would like to be. You can then adjust—raise your standards to meet your expectations—through strategy and action. Some of us are born with high self-regulatory skills, but I can identify clients who lack the know—how and I teach them. Awareness is the first step: noting how many calories you've consumed, how effective your exercise is, how frequently and intensely you've exercised.
"Aerobics is no longer the panacea for losing weight. It's the change in body composition that makes you look better, and for that, strength training is more effective. Don't constantly weigh yourself, since muscle weighs more than fat. Instead, measure your body mass index—or even your waist—and only once every four to six weeks. I've had many female clients gain five pounds but go down three dress sizes."
Psychology Today Magazine, Jan/Feb 2004Last Reviewed 14 Apr 2008Article ID: 3212
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-3212.html
Friday, May 9, 2008
Take a Walk In Our Shoes: A Mother's Day Tribute
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If you peruse our shoes
You’ll find red, white and blues
And every shape, size and color in between
We mothers fill them all
From morning till night fall
And at times without ever being seen
With all of our duties
Darling babies in booties
We are there for our family and friends
With the many shoes we wear
Every style and every pair
Our brand of reality never ends
From soft cozy slippers to sexy stilettos
From the concrete jungle to green grassy meadows
Some live in mansions and some live in ghettos
But for the caring of others we deserve our own treat
We deserve to kick off our shoes
Relax and put up our feet
Never losing our flair or missing a step
Our sanity is sacred so we have it well kept
We are always on call even if we’ve not slept
So sit on back and put on comfy socks
And slide on into some world famous Crocs
‘Cause let’s all face it….. being a Mom really rocks!
So to the precious Mother’s covering our globe
Grab a mug of hot chocolate
And put on your robe
Because we invite you to take a walk in our shoes
You’ll have everything to gain and nothing to lose
It’s a well balanced artistry with bright colored hues
And although the end is never in sight
We never give up, we fight the good fight
So, on this ending note it is time to take flight
Happy Mother’s Day to All and to all a good night!