Showing posts with label emotional. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emotional. Show all posts

Friday, April 3, 2009

Welcome to Your New Beginning! by Angie Sierra

Everything in your life happens for a reason, You didn't just so happen to subscribe to these emails and are now continuing to read each word. (Note: I discovered Angie's articles, subscribed and believe they're worthy of sharing)

This is not a coincidence, its all apart of YOUR Journey.

Maybe you're looking for answers or in need of encouraging words, maybe you're looking to change your present life, find balance and move forward.

Or maybe you're one of my supportive friends (which I welcome and
appreciate by the way)Whatever your reasons are, they've lead to this moment...

As you know, we don't live in a perfect world and things aren't always going to go as planned. Running into obstacles and always facing challenges are apart of our lives. The lessons we learn, the sacrifices we take, the emotional roller coaster we face and the negativity we live in, are there to help us Experience, Learn, and Evolve.

Some might ask, "Then how do I deal with it all, especially the stress, challenges and bad situations?"

Its very simple.

The answer:

By Never Giving Up and Thinking Positive No Matter What.

For example lets say you get hurt or were involved in some sort of accident and now your in the hospital. Its OK... Things aren't always what they seem. Maybe you needed to get some rest an take a break, maybe you were moving too fast and needed to slow down, maybe you were headed towards something worse and this had to happen to stop you from going any further. There's always a deeper meaning. You'll see & understand exactly why things happen but only after overcoming the emotional process.

Remember this: Your Greatest Learning Experiences always come from bad situations. let me repeat "Your Greatest Learning Experiences Always Come From Bad Situations".

Accept your problems and solve them as they come. Tell yourself your challenges are temporary and will pass. Ask "What is this experience trying to teach me" or "How can I grow from this setback?". This helps deal with the situation, finding ways to solve, accept and move forward...

You see you're a Powerful Person who can influence and attract more good then bad in your life by Feeding your Mind with Positive Thoughts no matter what. Overcoming our obstacles and gaining knowledge along the way is what its all about.

Take the First Breath, Welcome to Your New Beginning!

P.S I understand many of us have hectic life's but we need time off to work On Ourselves to Create a more Positive Outcome. Having a personal journal to write down any thoughts, dreams, goals, quotes, etc. is a great way to help develop your personal growth. It increases your self-awareness and helps keep you on track. By also writing the exact dates and time, will allow you to go back reflective and analyze where your state of mind was at that moment.

So everyday or at least 2×'s a week set a quiet time for yourself to relax, clear your mind, gather your thoughts and look over your journal. This is the time to Reevaluate your life, make changes and Improvements. To have awareness and clarity, to receive guidelines, hunches, and ideas. (with No distractions)

P.S.S Its also extremely important when receiving an email, you reread that particular email at least 2×'s that week.

A suggestion would be to place your emails in one folder for easy access, by clicking on Move...[New Folder]...then entering a name for your folder...and moving all your emails into that folder. Your new folder will be located on the left hand side underneath My Folders.

The Value Of Learning Is Truly Beyond Words
Have an Amazing Journey!
TrueHealthAndHappiness.com
© Copyright 2009 TrueHealthAndHappiness.com

Monday, March 23, 2009

Finding Joy In Gridlock Traffic

by Karen Krakower Kaplan


Gratitude is the gentle recognition, rediscovery or "re-remembering" of the simple abundance around you.

It is to be a child again, in awe of a purple crayon.

It is sprinting from your car to the office and stopping your jangled thoughts just long enough to savor the sight of someone holding the elevator door for you, someone you do not even know.

Gratitude is noticing the extraordinary in the ordinary. And then taking the nanosecond to feel it.

But in this adrenaline-driven, multi-tasking frenzy we call Life, how do we have time to stop and smell the roses when we don't even have time to stop for gas?

Easy...

1. Just stop.

To access a sense of wonder, every hour or so, just stop. Just for a moment. Take a breath, wherever you are, and step out of your raging river of thought and look around. Notice the photograph hanging in your cubicle that you put up months ago, but haven't noticed since. Look at each face and recall the one thing about them you couldn't live without. "Re-remember" why you hung the photo in the first place.

2. Freeze-frame it.
"Think about someone, something in your life you loved and freeze-frame the picture," says clinical psychologist Blair Justice, Ph.D., professor-emeritus of psychology at the UT School of Public Health at Houston . "The physical effect on the heart [when overlaid by the emotional heart of loving] is what's called cardiac-coherence."

Everything comes into balance when the physical heart and the emotional heart are, say, beating as one.

"A growing body of research supports the notion that rediscovering a sense of abundance by thinking about those people and things we love lowers the risks of coronary events," Justice offers.

3. Create a gratitude journal.
"The gratitude journal assigns us to look for and record the ordinary wonders that come across our paths," Justice explains.

It may take the form of a gratitude list:

an old friend called you today
your kids cleared the table without a fight
a co-worker walked you through a computer snag
At first you may find yourself listing the "at leasts"

at least my kids aren't starving
at least I have a roof over my head
at least I have two legs

Tapping into a sense of abundance doesn't mean that someone else must have it worse for you to feel better about your lot. Nor does it mean that you can't whine when you're stuck in gridlock traffic.

It simply means that since you are stuck in traffic, you might let your mind surrender to the idea of "found time" with yourself, instead of wasted time in traffic. Found time in a gratitude journal might read, "Someone let me into their lane in gridlock traffic. I waved a 'thank you.' They waved back. It felt good."

4. Replace the words 'at least' with 'even if'.
Feeling a sense of emotional wealth comes from a deep, abiding acknowledgement of the present moment. Let's face it: yesterday is gone. Tomorrow, or even tonight isn't here yet. All we have is right now.

In a gratitude journal you might write, " Even if I am stuck in traffic, I have a fabulous new CD, a half-tank of gas and a glorious sunset in my rearview mirror."

5. Change your lens.
Justice suggests that life can be viewed through a different lens, to gain a fresh perspective. First, try on the wide-angle lens: before you define a moment as bad, negative, hurtful, or simply boring, view the situation broadly, both literally and figuratively. Then flip it to the micro-lens to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, or "the sacred in the profane," says Justice.

Say you have an important meeting that you've just found out requires you to walk several buildings over because there's no parking. This is a surprise to you. Now you're crunched for time, not dressed for a hike, unsure how to get there on foot and worried how your laptop is going to make your bad back feel six blocks later..

Put on the macro lens: in the grand scheme

it doesn't really matter if you're five minutes late
the other attendees are walking, too
a comfortable amble will lower your heart rate before this big meeting
and this irritation will be lost to your memory by dinner tonight
and you'll know just how out of shape you've become
and this will be your wake-up call to start walking every day
Flip it to the micro lens: if you zoom up closely

the grounds to the building are stunning
there's a man feeding a squirrel right out of his hand
the sun on your face feels good
your shoes really were a steal, now that you think about it
You enter the meeting relaxed, refreshed and awake

6. The three questions
Justice practices a gentle daily examination. "At the end of the day, I ask myself three questions."

What has surprised me?
What has touched me?
What has inspired me?


He says that "hard-bitten folks have trouble finding beauty or seeing life anew in a daily way, and their arteries and immune system suffer for it." Answering these three questions inspires us to see the stuff of our days through fresh eyes.

Justice tells the story of a burned-out, jaded heart surgeon who attended a workshop on stress reduction. When asked these three questions, "he rolled his eyes, scoffed at the question and answered, 'Nothing, nothing, nothing, respectively.' "

Justice says that the surgeon was told that he was only seeing the human heart through the eyes of a surgeon, and it was time to see the heart through the eyes of a poet or an artist.

"When he returned to the group, he told how he had tried to change his eyes and for the first time in his career, a patient reached out and hugged him. The physician was floored, and forever changed," Justice recalls.

7. Connect your mind to your body
Studies show that journaling-recalling the day's events-both challenging ones and joyous ones, decreases physical symptoms of pain and illness, "and increases our sense of well being," Justice says.

Research also supports that the frequency of appreciation for the small things and the intensity with which we feel gratitude have an exponential growth potential. It creates a benevolent avalanche: the more often you tap into joy, the more joyous you'll feel, the deeper you'll feel it. The body's immune system and cardiovascular system then reap the benefits.

Sensing gratitude is the simplest possible gift we can give to ourselves that yields the highest possible return on our investment. "Letting ourselves feel that sense of wonder that surrounds us every single minute is what elevates our hearts beyond a mechanical pump and turns them into instruments of love and kindness."

This article is posted at http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=3641a

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Where are you? "Stop rushing through life. Live it instead."

Where are you?
"Stop rushing through life. Live it instead."

by Cheryl Richardson

"We do less by the very quality of our being. We must be completely present for what we are doing, without sacrificing or rushing what's in front of us in order to get to 'more important' stuff later. No matter how mundane the activity, treat everything as important and take pleasure in it. At bottom, whatever we are doing right now is what we are engaged in and it deserves our full attention and appreciation."

I read this passage in a new book called, "Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less", by Marc Lesser. I had been sent the manuscript in the hopes of providing a testimonial but, at the time, I had too many books in the cue and couldn't commit. So, I put the manuscript on top of a pile in my office and forgot about it.

One day, when I was feeling particularly frenzied, I picked up the book and went into my sunroom to have a look. I was immediately taken by the simple, elegant writing style, the obvious wisdom in the author's experience, and the good, common sense advice.

The passage above held a clue as to why I was feeling so frenzied, and Marc's suggestion to "treat everything as important and take pleasure in it," made me stop and think about how I was operating in my life.

How often are you engaged in a task while focused on another activity that needs to get done at the very same time? I soon discovered that I was doing it constantly. I'd be folding laundry or emptying the dishwasher, for instance, while at the same time ruminating about the number of emails that still needed a reply. Or, I'd be answering emails, while feeling distracted by a writing deadline that had to be met in short order. I was perpetually rushing through my life rather than living it. And, the tension of doing one thing while focused on the need to do another, left me feeling exhausted and irritable. It's no wonder. I was missing out on my life.

After reading more about this concept in Marc's book, I immediately put his wisdom into action. When I was feeding my cat, Poupon, I listened with tenderness to his excited meows, felt the can in my hand, and heard the fork scrape against the bowl as I placed the food in its center. If I were writing at my desk, I felt the keys under my fingers, focused my attention on the page, and allowed myself to get lost in the words. No more "body in one place, mind in another." I was engaged in the practice of actually being present for my life. Pretty soon I did, in fact, find myself taking pleasure in the task at hand. And I actually got more done, felt energized, and became a whole lot better to be around :).

Marc's one, simple piece of advice has made a significant difference in the quality of life, and I invite you to give it a try this week. Follow the "Take Action Challenge," and get back to actually experiencing the joy of your life rather than rushing through it.


Take Action Challenge


This week, I encourage you to do two things:

1. Simply notice where your mind is while engaged in an activity. You might be reading emails, watching TV, listening to a friend, or working on a project at your desk. Are you present for the task at hand? Or are you thinking about something else that needs to get done? Just bring awareness to your behavior without judging it.

2. Next, gently bring your mind back to the present activity by saying something like:

"I choose to be fully engaged in this activity right now."


Then, use your senses to ground yourself in the present moment. What do you feel with your body? What do you hear or see? What can you taste or smell?

You'll know you're getting it when you feel yourself slowing down, relaxing, and breathing more deeply and fully. Then, wait for the moments of joy to come - the experience of realizing that this very moment is actually the best time of your life, regardless of what you're doing :).

http://cherylrichardson.com

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Emotional independence

Emotional independence
by Paulo Coelho


“At the beginning of our life and again when we get old, we need the help and affection of others. Unfortunately, between these two periods of our life, when we are strong and able to look after ourselves, we don’t appreciate the value of affection and compassion. As our own life begins and ends with the need for affection, wouldn’t it be better if we gave compassion and love to others while we are strong and capable?”

The above words were said by the present Dalai Lama. Really, it is very curious to see that we are proud of our emotional independence. Evidently, it is not quite like that: we continue needing others our entire life, but it is a “shame” to show that, so we prefer to cry in hiding. And when someone asks us for help, that person is considered weak and incapable of controlling his feelings.

There is an unwritten rule saying that “the world is for the strong”, that “only the fittest survive.” If it were like that, human beings would never have existed, because they are part of a species that needs to be protected for a long period of time (specialists say that we are only capable of surviving on our own after nine years of age, whereas a giraffe takes only six to eight months, and a bee is already independent in less than five minutes).

We are in this world, I, for my part, continue – and will always continue – depending on others. I depend on my wife, my friends and my publishers. I depend even on my enemies, who help me to be always trained in the use of the sword.

Clearly, there are moments when this fire blows in another direction, but I always ask myself: where are the others? Have I isolated myself too much? Like any healthy person, I also need solitude and moments of reflection.

But I cannot get addicted to that.

Emotional independence leads to absolutely nowhere – except to a would-be fortress, whose only and useless objective is to impress others.

Emotional dependence, in its turn, is like a bonfire that we light.

In the beginning, relationships are difficult. In the same way that fire is necessary to put up with the disagreeable smoke – which makes breathing hard, and causes tears to pour down one’s face. However, once the fire is alight, the smoke disappears and the flames light up everything around us – spreading warmth, calm, and possibly making an ember pop out to burn us, but that is what makes a relationship interesting, isn’t that true?

I began this column quoting a Nobel Peace Prize winner about the importance of human relationships. I am ending with Professor Albert Schweitzer, physician and missionary, who received the same Nobel prize in 1952.

"All of us know a disease in Central Africa called sleeping sickness. What we need to know is that there is a similar disease that attacks the soul – and which is very dangerous, because it catches us without being noticed. When you notice the slightest sign of indifference and lack of enthusiasm for your similar, be on the alert!”

"The only way to take precautions against this disease is to understand that the soul suffers, and suffers a lot, when we make it live superficially. The soul likes things that are beautiful and profound”.

http://www.warriorofthelight.com/

Sunday, March 15, 2009

SPREAD THE JOY by Dr. Lisa Love

The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.-- Audre Lorde

Dr. Lisa Love Coaching Tip

The other night I was home with my son and received a video link from a Facebook friend in Greece. The images of Greece combined with the music got my heart happy and the next thing you know I was singing and dancing all over my home. I new fan of Twitter, I "tweeted" about all the fun I was having to friends there and the next thing I knew I was in the middle of an international party spreading the joy all around. I even had people from other states in the United States call me on the phone. The laughter, the networking, the sheer fun and silliness of it all kept amping up the joy in my life. In turn I amped it up with the people around me and went to bed on a super high of giggles and smiles.

As I woke up the next morning I thought to myself, "Instead of telling people around the globe in this economic crisis to go shopping, maybe we should tell everyone to go dancing instead." A vision of people all around the world dealing with the economic crisis not by saying, "Oh my, how will I handle this all?" but by indulging in one big joy fest of singing, dancing, laughing, and smiling flooded my imagination. I could even see YouTube videos being shared of people just sharing the major joy fest they were having. None of it costs a thing to indulge in, yet far more than shopping I am certain such a thing would do way more to help out the economy than anything else we could think of. Can't you see it? A world wide laugh fest? No one able to supress our spirits because we decide instead to raise them up to a whole new vibration regardless? Couldn't be better. So get out your dance shoes. Tune up your instruments. Looses up your vocal chords. Get playing and spread the joy! It's infectious! And, it's one virus worth spreading right now.

Dr. Lisa Lisa
www.doctorlisalove.com