Giving is the Best Gift: A Servant's Heart

When we do for others and give of ourselves it is rewarding for both parties...Having the heart of a servant is a beautiful gift to share....When we become consumed in our own lives and forget that we share our world with so many that are in need whether it be within our own family or reaching out beyond our boundaries it is important to share what we have whether it be time, money or gifts....Cooking a meal for others, sharing your home and your hospitality with another family or with friends is an important and enriching part of our lives that we should not neglect...and when we give our time and efforts to others it plants a seed to come back to us when we are in need....it is the beautiful cycle of life! Smile, think positive thoughts, share your talents and gifts with others, open your heart to love and be a servant to someone in need!

Don't Live in Chains When You Hold the Key to Set Yourself Free

I think that many times we imprison ourselves due to our own thoughts or perceptions about things that have happened to us or because we are punishing ourselves due to poor choices that we have made....Why should we live a life of guilt and/or suffering? Is something good going to come out of this punishing behavior? Some freedom or revelation or epiphany? I will answer this with a resounding NO.....There is no reason that any human being should live their life in bondage of any kind and many times this bondage is self-imposed....Whether we are beating ourselves down for poor choices or because we have been deceived into faulty thinking that we are not deserving due to others mistreating us, let me urge you to set yourself free!!!! We need not live under the roof of someone else's mental constructs that create condemnation and boundaries to where we can go and what we can think.....Cut the chains whether you have put them on yourself or whether you have allowed someone else to create a cage for you, life is meant to be lived with joy in our hearts and minds, having hopes and dreams to look forward to and work towards....You hold the key to your own freedom, it begins in your own mind and with the thoughts that you think.....so think positive thoughts, don't punish yourself, let go of the past and start walking into your new future....start over from this moment....surround yourself with love and support and love and support yourself :-) Wishing you hope, love, joy and freedom!

Don't Look Back!

In order to continue our forward progression in life creating growth and success through positive thoughts and positive actions we must ensure that we are always looking forward and not looking back! When we drive we must look forward to drive to reach our destination, we never "arrive" anywhere looking backward in reverse....Revisiting old pain, old frustrations and wishing we had done things differently in the past will not take us anywhere, we will just stagnate right where we are, growing roots fixing us in one location unable to break free and move forward in life.....So we need to cut the roots that tie us to our past, work through the pain and frustration if that is what needs to be done in order to set us free so that we can begin to grow and move in a forward and upright position so that we can experience life in the present and enjoy what we have now, not grieving over what was or what should have been or how terrible people or circumstances were to us, don't live life as a victim of your past, become a victor in your present.....Love yourself and give yourself permission to be set free from your past, stop looking back because you will surely wreck your present if you are not looking forward to see where you are going! Live in freedom, with joy and a positive purpose....look forward and embrace the good things coming into your life, let go of your past and don't look back! Smile and think positive thoughts!

Living the Good Life: Food for Thought

The following food for thought gives us reminders about how important our thoughts are and how they are instrumental in bringing about success and the good life for us: please enjoy! References follow each section...
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

Living in the Moment Everyday

We can become so distracted in life by our circumstances, by people, opportunities to become frustrated due to our circumstances or people whether it be friends, family or co-workers, neighbors or strangers....I need to remind myself that I am in charge of how I react to my external world and the people in it.....I truly want to enjoy my life to the fullest extent and in order to do this I believe that it is imperative to live in the moment everyday! By living in the moment we can allow the past to stay in the past and the future to take care of itself as it comes.....it frees us up to just BE ourselves and BE in each moment of each day....I want to be able to fully appreciate the blessings in my life which are my children, my family, the outdoors, cool breezes, sunny days, delicious food, music, playing and laughing, reading and learning, meeting new people and just expanding my horizons and enjoying the horizons I have already created! So each morning I want to start with a clean and clear mental slate and be able to take each moment as it comes and experience the joy therein....The simple things in life are almost always the most valuable and they are almost always free!

Intentions: The Undercurrents of Our Lives

With everything that we do in life there are a myriad of reasons as to why we do what we do and how we go about doing it......the way in which we speak to people, the way we treat others, the way we raise our children, the way we react with strangers, the things we say, the words we choose, the relationships we establish and maintain, and on and on and on.....so in saying this, I think that it is important to think about and examine our intentions to determine whether what we are saying and what we are doing is lining up with a positive purpose in our lives.....I can look back and see why particular doors in my life closed because my intentions in going through those doors was wrong, perhaps selfish and I do believe that rejection is protection......protecting us from others and quite possibly from ourselves....We are not always aware of our intentions but in retrospect we can see more clearly why something did not work out and it may have been that our intentions were not in line with where they should have been.....the undercurrents in our lives can sometimes move us toward better shores or they can become the undertow that drags us under....I want to make sure that I examine my intentions with my words and actions to uplift myself and others in a positive way so that the undercurrent in my life is something that if brought above the surface I have nothing to hide or feel shameful or selfish but that I have made choices with good and healthy intentions....I want to move toward sunny, blissful shores with crystal waters and sparkling sands! So with the best intentions I want to move through life creating progress and not regress.

Kicking Worry to the Curb

I know that we are to live by faith and not by fear and for me, worry is just a form of fear, it is negative and breeds stress in our lives....I am just as guilty as then next person to indulge myself in worry but I think that I have made strides to reduce this horrible indulgance! I would like to eliminate this worthless emotional wrecking ball from operating in my life all together but everything happens in increments....So I want to just kick worry to the curb for good and remember that all things will take care of themselves and that I know that if God will take care of the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, even more so will He take care of me.....This is always the scripture that comes to my mind when I feel worry trying to grip my mind and take me down like a predator takes its prey, but I don't want to go down like that anymore! God has proven to me over and over that He is in control and I only need to place my faith and trust in Him and He handles all things for my best and highest good...So I will make yet another attempt to lean on God and not on myself because clearly I am not able to change or control the universe with my worrying ways and I can only change and control the way in which I react to my own universe or circumstances and situations in my own little world.....I will replace negativity with positivity and reject negative thoughts when they try to creep in and I will kick worry to the curb!

The Simple Things in Life

Please enjoy this amazing video about the simple things in life that bring us happiness and joy!
http://www.findingjoymovie.com/
have a beautiful, joyful day!

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

How Positive Thinking is Healthy and Beneficial for the Mind and the Body

The following is an article I found that directly lines up with how I believe we are affected by our own thoughts and how they in turn affect our bodies..The authors are listed at the end of the article...It is an excellent read!

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

The Mind, Body, Spirit Connection

Balance in our lives is reflected from the interior to the exterior...The battlefield of the mind is where it all begins so we must be diligent to guard our thoughts and quickly reject the negative and replace it with a positive immediately....Do not give negative thoughts a fleeting chance to take up root in your mental garden, pluck it out quickly like the weed that it is! The following quote is one of many of my favorites and the author is unknown but undoubtedly wise....
"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!

Don't Block Your Blessings

Focus on the positive and the good in life and it keeps these things flowing into our lives...When we become negative, complain, moan and groan, we set up road blocks where nothing gets through and more negativity ensues...In this day and age where adults and children alike are constantly bombarded with the "next best thing" that needs to be purchased and consumed it is difficult if you don't center yourself and know not to be ovewhelmed by such marketing strategies to stay in a state of peace and satisfaction, of gratitude and thankfulness for the things we have in life and not always material things but the truly important things in life like love and relationships, family and all basic provisions such as food and shelter.....I try to impart to my son, who is six (my daughter is yet to young but she will get the same lessons) that we should always be thankful for what we have because not all people with whom we share this globe are afforded the same luxuries as food, shelter, clothing and certainly not air conditioning, electricity, toys etc....and so the other day when my son seemed to be dissatisfied with what he had, I sat down with him and we made a list of all the things that he is thankful for and I explained to him that when he is ever feeling dissatisfied that we will refer to his list to see how truly blessed he is for the wonderful things that he has in his life....We adults can benefit from this very same exercise so that we are always reminding ourselves how blessed we really are and how we should not act like spoiled brats or petulant children in life and realize that what we have is much more than those in other parts of our city, our country, and around the globe....and that happiness comes from within and not from external things...I want my children to learn this early in life so they are not constantly seeking for the next external stimilus in attempt to create some temporary happiness that is sure to expire when the next best thing is advertised or the buzz of other children tout some new something that is sure to bring excitement and joy when in fact it is just a constant set-up for dissapointment because the fun is not long-lasting and the price paid will not be refunded when the excitement dies....I want to find my happiness from within and be thankful and grateful for what I have and not constantly long for things that I have not.....I want to focus on the positive things in my life for myself and to set the right example for my children....Live life like people are watching! Because people are watching, both big and little whether you know it or not, but live life in a real and authentic manner doing what you feel is right for you and do it with a smile on your face....it takes more energy to be miserable and unhappy than it does to be happy, blissful and joyful! Be thankful and be blessed!

Anger: When You Raise Your Hands You Wound the Outside, When You Raise Your Words You Wound the Inside

Anger is a very dangerous and powerful emotion that if not harnessed and controlled can destroy lives and relationships...We need to be able to have the proper tools in our emotional toolbox to be able to work on our anger and not explode on others or allow our anger to erupt on others like a volcano....The following is an e-mail that many of us may have read but it is the perfect analogy to the aftermath of anger and I think that if we become more aware of our emotions and begin to mentally reverse our thought patterns before they begin to take control of our tongue and/or our hands we can begin to create healing for ourselves and others in our lives....

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.

When You Reach Rock Bottom, You Can Only Go UP!

Life is like a beach.....there are always waves hitting our shores....some big, some small.....and a few tsunamis....We have peaks and valleys that give us contrast and flavor in life and sometimes the flavor is not so palettable but it is always part of the bigger picture and in some way, big or small, preparing us for our future and building in us the character and experience we need to deal with the adventures, good and bad, that lie ahead as our journey unfolds before us....There are times in life that we truly hit rock bottom and we fall to our knees and we think that we cannot possibly sink any lower and then before we know it, we are prostrate on the floor, it is at this very moment when we are forced to either accept our reality and make a change or just give up and give in to depression and failure....Complain and remain or praise and be raised! I believe that when we are thankful for everything in our lives that this positions us to continue to receive.....when we complain and grumble about life and our circumstances I believe that this squelches new growth and promotion in our lives....So the positive message about hitting rock bottom is that you can only go up from here! So make the changes that need to be made, lift your head, put a smile on your face and enjoy your ride as the views will just get better on your way back to health and success! Make the choice to move forward and be thankful for the lessons we learn in life because we may not understand the purpose for those lessons at this moment in time but it is true that hindsight is twenty-twenty and when we look back we will be able to see clearly how our life's lessons fit so perfectly into the fabric of our journey and purpose in life.