75 Affirmations to Jump-Start Your New Year

Get more here: 75 Affirmations to Jump-Start Your New Year | FinerMinds.

December 31, 2012 0

It’s Time to Let Go!

The Daily Love

via Visual Inspiration: It’s Time to Let Go!.

December 31, 2012 0

Thanks for sharing this, David…

Live & Learn

A post by Amanda Patterson on Rudyard Kipling triggered a stream of thoughts this morning. Kipling was born yesterday in 1865. I couldn’t recall ever reading anything by Kipling but I’ve certainly heard of him. (DK. Mr. Contemporary. Always looking forward. Never much for history. Not much for looking back. What possibly could I learn from a life 100+ years ago? PAST IS PAST.)

Kipling, “born in India, was sent to England to live with a foster family and receive a formal British education at the age of 6. These were hard years for Kipling. His Foster mother was a brutal woman, who quickly grew to despise her young foster son. She beat and bullied Kipling, who also struggled to fit in at school. Kipling’s solace came in books and stories. With few friends, he devoted himself to reading. By the age of 11, Kipling was on the verge of…

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December 31, 2012 0

I still haven’t found…

…what I’m looking for!

December 31, 2012 2

New Year’s Tips That May Cause Miracles

Gabrielle Bernstein writes:

“Each New Year brings awesome opportunities for personal growth. Now is the perfect time to make powerful change—your willingness is at an all-time high. To help you get a jump-start on your resoluting, I’m sharing thirteen happiness tips from my new book, May Cause Miracles: A 40-Day Guidebook of Subtle Shifts for Radical Change and Unlimited Happiness. Apply these principles, and you’ll kick off the New Year with power, commitment, and confidence. Each tip will greatly help you redirect your energy and learn to heighten an inner sense of power to let your outer life grow, expand, and flow.”New Year’s Tips That May Cause Miracles « Positively Positive

December 31, 2012 0

The 100 Best Lifehacks of 2012: The Year in Review

Stepcase Lifehack

Full story at: The 100 Best Lifehacks of 2012: The Year in Review.

December 31, 2012 1

More winter walk…

December 30, 2012 3

2 Words That Make You Powerless

FinerMinds

Full story at: 2 Words That Make You Powerless.

December 30, 2012 0

Journey To Forgiveness

Manifestation Station

Full story at: Journey To Forgiveness..

December 30, 2012 0

Winter walk

Had a little lake effect snow last night — made for a pretty walk today. Click an image to enlarge…

December 29, 2012 0

Twelve Ties That Bind Long-Term Relationships

That crazy thing we call love is perhaps one of the most studied and least understood areas in psychology. One reason is that many studies of romantic relationships are carried out not in real life, but in the lab. Making matters worse, many of these studies involve dating relationships between samples of convenience, consisting of undergraduate students. Though these students are certainly capable of close relationships, many of them haven’t matured enough to know themselves, much less what they want out of a romantic partner.

What better way to find out about love than to survey the experts? Not the psychology experts—the expert members of couples who have been married 10 years or longer. The surprising findings of this study, reported in the prestigious journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, showed not only that many people were still in love even after 10 years of marriage, but also which factors predicted the strength of their passion. As reported by Stony Brook University psychologist K. Daniel O’Leary (2012) and his research team, the findings provided a stark contrast to the typically glum view we have of long-term marriages. Rather than being doomed to a bland, mediocre existence, these couples endorsed their positive feelings toward their spouses with hearty (dare I say) enthusiasm. A whopping 40 percent of those married 10 years or more stated that they were “Very intensely in love”—the highest rating on the scale. Another 15 percent gave their marriages the second-highest rating on the love intensity scale. Perhaps even more surprisingly, those who stuck together for 30 years and more also gave their marriages high ratings with 40 percent of women and 35 percent of men saying that they were very intensely in love. Clearly, many couples are able to maintain high levels of passion as the decades go by well into their middle and later years.

Full story at: 1. Twelve Ties That Bind Long-Term Relationships | Psychology Today.

December 29, 2012 2

Your Time Has Come

If you are reading this column, count your blessings – you have survived a potentially catastrophic 2012. But the media tells us ‘Not so fast!’ Now we have to prepare to be sucked over the Fiscal Cliff. 2013 doesn’t have to be the new end of our old world. In fact, it can be the beginning of our new, sustainable, progressive world. But before we make plans for the future, let’s take some time to assess how far we’ve come recently. As the year winds down, we have the perfect opportunity to set ourselves up for a good new year – and maybe even the best for the rest of our lives.” Full story at: Your Time Has Come | Psychology Today.

December 29, 2012 0

Procatstination…

December 29, 2012 0

December 29, 2012 1

The Most Dangerous Word in the World

Mark Waldman and Andrew Newberg, M.D. write:

If I were to put you into an fMRI scanner—a huge donut-shaped magnet that can take a video of the neural changes happening in your brain—and flash the word “NO” for less than one second, you’d see a sudden release of dozens of stress-producing hormones and neurotransmitters. These chemicals immediately interrupt the normal functioning of your brain, impairing logic, reason, language processing, and communication.

In fact, just seeing a list of negative words for a few seconds will make a highly anxious or depressed person feel worse, and the more you ruminate on them, the more you can actually damage key structures that regulate your memory, feelings, and emotions.[1] You’ll disrupt your sleep, your appetite, and your ability to experience long-term happiness and satisfaction.

If you vocalize your negativity, or even slightly frown when you say “no,” more stress chemicals will be released, not only in your brain, but in the listener’s brain as well.[2] The listener will experience increased anxiety and irritability, thus undermining cooperation and trust. In fact, just hanging around negative people will make you more prejudiced toward others![3]

via 3. The Most Dangerous Word in the World | Psychology Today.

December 29, 2012 0

Endless possibilities…

My wife and sons have departed to visit family for the holidays and leaving me with five glorious days alone in the house. The question is how to best spend this treasure. Five empty days without interruption. To some people that might sound like a nightmare but to a father of six boys with three teenagers an eight-year-old currently at home it sounds like heaven. The question is and how to best spend? The possibilities are truly endless! One possibility? Buy a case of beer and load up on sausage and cheese and make it my objective to watch all five seasons of Castle back to back while never changing out of my boxers. Somehow I feel as if I have a higher calling and that this time could be better invested. What if I used the time to actually read the books on my Kindle that I thought I couldn’t live without? What if I use the time to actually do the exercises I gloss over in those self-help books I’ve purchased? What if I ate nothing but good food? What if I use the time to reduce or eliminate coffee from my morning? See what I mean? The possibilities are truly unless but the choices that I make will tell me more about who I really am than anything that I’ve ever written here…