If we don’t clear the clutter from our lives, we aren’t able to let new feelings, experiences, projects, visions and relationships flow in. We often can become so focused on wanting to add so much more to our lives that we don’t realize that what we get rid of can have the most profound impact of all.
Find a "Comfort Food" for your mind
Gretchen Rubin writes…
One common happiness question is: How do you give yourself a boost? If you’re feeling anxious, blue, angry, scared, what can you do to soothe yourself?
A few days ago, I posted 5 myths for fighting the blues. Okay, those don’t work very well. So what does?
One suggestion: find a “comfort food” for your mind. Know what you can do with your brain that will give yourself a comforting break from your worries, at least for a little while. By doing so, you’ll re-charge your battery, find it easier to stay calm and cheerful, find it easier to take action to remedy your situation—and you’ll sleep better. But this is easier said than done.
We all suffer from “negativity bias,” that is, we react to the bad more strongly and persistently than to the comparable good. (What do you remember better, a compliment or a criticism?) Research shows one consequence of negativity bias is that when people’s thoughts wander, they tend to begin to brood. Anxious or angry thoughts capture our attention more effectively than happier thoughts.
So if you’re feeling blue, look for ways to pull your mind away from your worries onto positive topics…
Source: The Happiness Project: Find a “Comfort Food” for Your Mind.
Go to the source if you’d like to read the rest of Gretchen’s post…
6 Keys to live your truth and love your life
6 Keys to Live Your Truth and Love Your Life [BLOG] « Positively Positive
Go to the source if to read a great post from Terri Cole…
Good Friday…
From Jon Swanson’s blog…
Jesus Christ died. The son of God was crucified on a cross. We’ve heard the end of the story – He was raised again and lives forever.
But on Good Friday we celebrate His death. “Celebrate” sounds like the wrong word to use. Why should anyone be happy about such a cruel event? The reason we can celebrate is why Jesus died. Because of his death, our sins are forgiven. We don’t have to live under the troubling guilt of the wrongs we have done to others, to ourselves and to God. The consequences of our actions may well remain, but our internal guilt can be totally wiped away. God says in Isaiah 1:18, “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow.”
However, we need to turn away from actions that are keeping us from accepting God’s forgiveness. Acts 3:19 says, “Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away.”
The movie, The Passion of the Christ will stay with me a long time. The scenes of the pain Jesus went through to die perhaps the worst possible death are very haunting. Seeing Jesus suffer truly did bring tears to my eyes. I would recommend that you watch the film, if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s good to ponder the cost that Jesus paid for our gain. Just going through Good Friday like any other day is all too easy to do, with the busyness of our lives. Take at least a few moments to reflect on what Jesus did for you and thank Him for it. Pause your routine and go to a different room or outside and express your feelings to God. Bask in His forgiveness.
Today is a Good Friday.
Source: Good Friday | 300 words a day
On power…
Mastin Kipp of The Daily Love shares this…
If you are looking for reasons why you aren’t enough – you’ll most likely find them. If you look for reasons why you should quit – there are plenty of them there. If you look for reasons why it’s not working out – yup, you guessed it – that’s there, too. But, just because you find the evidence, this doesn’t mean it’s actually true. It just means you found something “out there” that, based on the meaning that you are giving events and circumstances, correlates with something you are looking for. The power here is that the MEANING we give the events of our lives is what controls the outcome – far greater than circumstance.
Go to the source if you’d like more…
On balancing energy…
Kristin Barton Cuthriell has an excellent post on balancing energy. She says…
What would happen if you were to drive your car without ever stopping to refuel? You guessed it. You would run out of gas. Your body is no different. If you continue to run, without taking time to refuel, you too, will stop. Your body needs to maintain a balance of energy to function properly.
We are going to take a moment to talk about this balancing of energy; balancing the energy coming into your body, input energy, and energy leaving your body, expenditure energy. Optimal wellness depends on maintaining a healthy balance of these two different types of energy.
Lets look at some examples of both input energy and expenditure energy.
Go to the source if you’d like more and follow her blog if you like what you see there!
Stand up to your fear of abandonment
Melody Beattie writes…
Many of us have a fear of abandonment. Some of us let it rule our lives. We’ll do anything just so that person doesn’t walk out and leave us alone.
I spent many years letting fear of abandonment control me. After a while, I finally wore out that belief. I just got sick and tired of worrying about whether I was good enough for that person.
Then a new thought set me free: If you don’t want to be my friend, or my lover, or my employer, I don’t want you in my life.
No more emotional blackmail. No more stress. No more having to second-guess what that other person is feeling.
Are you spending your time worried about someone leaving you? Does your fear of being abandoned leave you feeling like an underdog in your relationships? Let it go. Stand fast. And listen to what I’m about to tell you: If that person doesn’t want to be in your life, just let him or her leave. Do you want someone in your life who really doesn’t want to be there? Of course not. Let him or her go.
Once you adopt this belief, it’s easy to send the bad relationships packing, and the good people want to stay.
God, help me believe that I deserve only the best of relationships.
Source: April 5: Stand Up to Your Fear of Abandonment | Language of Letting Go
Related articles
- Relationships and Fear (whollyhappy.wordpress.com)
- Getting over Fear (plantfueled.wordpress.com)
- From Frozen Feelings to Fear to Freedom (michelewhitney.wordpress.com)
- Go easy (toddlohenry.com)
- Thursday Quote – Melody Beattie (elizaggie.wordpress.com)
Dare to be selfish
Jason Moskovitz writes…
This is not a call to be careless or to be preoccupied with yourself. This is not a call to be full of yourself. I would argue that many of us are far less than full of ourselves. I urge you to fill your self up MORE.
We all have mothers. Many of them are naturally giving—often to a fault. In this day, mothers often find themselves parenting, working, and socializing at the same time, with less support from our communities when compared to traditional times when it literally took a village to raise a child.
Whether you are a parent, an artist, an athlete, or a giver of any kind—many of us can give too much. Maybe we give as part of our nature, maybe we focus on the needs of others as a way to distract from our own needs and desires.We burn ourselves out. We empty ourselves.
Now is the time to become self-centered. Focus on what makes you happy. Focus on what you want. Be that strongest link that holds your family, your workplace, and your community together for the long haul. Here are nine things to assist in filling yourself up…
I have found recently that if you don’t take care of yourself in a healthy way it’s hard to take care of your responsibilities in a healthy way. Go to the source if you’d like to see the 9 ways…
A powerful three-step algorithm for happiness
Another powerful post from Leo Babauta…
Today I’m going to share a really simple secret that can make your day instantly better. If you’re feeling down, it can make you happier, all day long.
It’s something I’ve been trying myself, with great results.
It’s three steps, and anyone can do them. This is an algorithm that can be repeated over and over, all day long. It starts with a basic assumption: that we are all human beings capable of goodness, of love, of pain, of broken hearts and passionate love. That we all have bad days, that inside our jaded exteriors is a person who just wants love.
It is based on my observation that we take other people for granted, and that we judge others and become irritated with them for almost no good reasons, and we expect everyone to make us happy or at least behave the way we want them to, and if they don’t, our day is ruined. That’s crazy. People are living their own lives, and aren’t trying to please us or act in accordance with our expectations, and once we accept that, we can be happy.
Here are the three steps. They might sound silly to some of you, but I urge you to give them a try. For just one day. Even just an hour. They are powerful, and they work.
Source: » A Powerful Three-Step Algorithm for Happiness :zenhabits
Go to the source if you’d like the 3 steps…
5 Excuses that keep you unhealthy (and how to destroy them)
Matt Frazier of No Meat Athlete shared this on zenhabits…
Each and every one of us, as a human being, is hardwired to choose the path of least resistance. We’re programmed to conserve energy for when we might need it and to avoid risk wherever possible, because that’s what it took for our ancestors to survive (and reproduce) in a world full of unknown dangers.
Today, it’s why the status quo — tested, predictable, familiar — is so comfortable. And it’s why we find change so difficult, even when our very lives depend on changing.
I’m referring, of course, to our health. Continue reading “5 Excuses that keep you unhealthy (and how to destroy them)”
If your happiness is based on always getting a little more than you’ve got…
…then you’ve handed control over your happiness to the gatekeepers, built a system that doesn’t scale and prevented yourself from the brave work that leads to a quantum leap.
The industrial system (and the marketing regime) adore the mindset of ‘a little bit more, please’, because it furthers their power. A slightly higher paycheck, a slightly more famous college, an incrementally better car–it’s easy to be seduced by this safe, stepwise progress, and if marketers and bosses can make you feel dissatisfied at every step along the way, even better for them.
Their rules, their increments, and you are always on a treadmill, unhappy today, imagining that the answer lies just over the next hill…
All the data shows us that the people on that hill are just as frustrated as the people on your hill. It demonstrates that the people at that college are just as envious as the people at this college. The never ending cycle (no surprise) never ends.
An alternative is to be happy wherever you are, with whatever you’ve got, but always hungry for the thrill of creating art, of being missed if you’re gone and most of all, doing important work.
via Seth’s Blog: If your happiness is based on always getting a little more than you’ve got….
Bio as Bible: managers imitate Steve Jobs
In the latest ‘drive-by’ management trend, the deification of Steve Jobs continues…
Mimicking Mr. Jobs’s keynote style and adopting catch phrases like “one more thing”—the words Mr. Jobs often used to introduce products—may make bosses think they’re operating more like the genius himself. But it has provoked plenty of eye-rolling among staffers. “Some employees are teasing me about when I’ll start wearing black turtlenecks,” says Mr. Thammineni, referring to Mr. Jobs’s signature item of clothing.
“It’s not to that point of being annoying yet, but it might get there,” says Dominique Levin, vice president of marketing at Totango Inc., a software company based in Mountain View, Calif., and Tel Aviv. Her boss, CEO Guy Nirpaz, devoured all 656 pages of the book in three days, then bought copies for his employees—including Hebrew translations for employees in Israel—so they could discuss the book at company meetings.
Jobs was a brilliant but an assaholic! Managers should be careful about who and what they choose to emulate…
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Just frikkin’ do it already…
Are you glued to the computer all day like me? Get inspired by Gemma Stone…
Since I saw her video post last December, I have been trying to work walking into my life. I used to poo-poo walking as not being exercise ‘enough’ but lately my wife and I have been ‘power’ walking for 40 minutes a day and the benefits are amazing!
I use an app called Endomondo for my smartphone that tracks my distance and time and I use Pandora to give me some upbeat music to keep the pace up. Stop making excuses and join me! Everyone in your life will thank you…
I <3 Gemma Stone…
Looking for another video post of hers I stumbled upon this to share with you…
“Jean-Paul Sartre says, “Hell is other people”.
I don’t think it’s quite that bad but the reality is much of the stuff that causes us to suffer, comes from our reactions to others.
What to do?
Let’s suppose you tried the strategies from the last vlog. Maybe you’ve also tried talking things out, setting healthy boundaries, and being ‘the better person’, and you’re still struggling.
This sucks. I know.
Do not close off your heart.”Source: 3 more strategies for dealing with family drama | Gemma Stone.
I encourage you to visit her blog and subscribe or follow her on Twitter…
Go easy
“Go easy. You may have to push forward, but you don’t have to push so hard. Go in gentleness, go in peace. Do not be in so much of a hurry. At no day, no hour, no time are you required to do more than you can do in peace. Frantic behaviors and urgency are not the foundation for our new way of life. Do not be in too much of a hurry to begin. Begin, but do not force the beginning if it is not time. Beginnings will arrive soon enough. Enjoy and relish middles, the heart of the matter. Do not be in too much of a hurry to finish. You may be almost done, but enjoy the final moments. Give yourself fully to those moments so that you may give and get all there is. Let the pace flow naturally. Move forward. Start. Keep moving forward. Do it gently, though. Do it in peace. Cherish each moment. Today, God, help me focus on a peaceful pace rather than a harried one. I will keep moving forward gently, not frantically. Help me let go of my need to be anxious, upset, and harried. Help me replace it with a need to be at peace and in harmony.”
Beattie, Melody (2009-12-15). The Language of Letting Go (Hazelden Meditation Series) (p. 90). Hazelden. Kindle Edition.
Got excuses?
Watch this for one minute…
Takes only 1 minute to find inspiration for your work-out… – Lead.Learn.Live.
The top 10 relationship myths and why they’re myths
Susan Whitbourne shares this. I chose to share this one…
4. It’s better to live together before getting married. We can dismiss this myth fairly readily. According to the “cohabitation effect,” couples who live together before getting engaged are more likely to have their marriages end in divorce. The key here is that they live together before they actually get engaged. Once engaged, couples living together prior to marriage do not experience negative effects on their marriage’s duration. The reason for the cohabitation effect makes sense. Couples who decide to marry after living together may do so out of simple inertia. When they moved in together, the people who experience the cohabitation effect didn’t have a particularly strong romantic attraction. Once living together, they may have found it convenient to enter into marriage. Having drifted into that state, they find it just as easy to drift out. They are also more likely to be unhappy during the time that they’re together (Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2009). It’s important to realize that the cohabitation effect doesn’t occur among every couple who find love once they start living together. It’s just that the odds favor people who make a commitment first, and then marry prior to deciding to share their living quarters.
Source: The Top 10 Relationship Myths and Why They’re Myths | Psychology Today
There are 9 more waiting for you at the source if you’re interested…
Don’t drink the negative Kool-Aid
Terri Cole posted this recently…
The onslaught of bad news in the media continues to fester. The climate of fear has reached epic proportions. We are inundated with bad news about our crumbling economy, the rising unemployment rate, executive greed, lack of affordable healthcare, etc. So the question is how can YOU stay positive and productive in a relentlessly negative climate and NOT drink the Armageddon Kool-Aid?
Well, as you may have guessed, I have a few ideas. Continue reading “Don’t drink the negative Kool-Aid”
5 ways to eliminate distractions and do your best work
I like Amber Rae’s 5th way…
If you have to, do not be afraid to be unavailable, unreachable, and hard-to-get-ahold-of. Because in a month, you’ll be back and with hellfire momentum, and they’ll forget the weeks where you were MIA because you were focused.
This very moment, you can change your life. There has never been a better moment, and never will be, to take a stand, do what matters, and alter the course of your life.
It’s Go-time. Rock!
Source: 5 Ways to Eliminate Distractions and Do Your Best Work [BLOG] « Positively Positive
Go to the source if you’d like the other 4 – it’s worth the trip!
Related articles
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- 3 Ways To Stop Multitasking & Stay Focused To Be More Efficient & Productive [Windows] (makeuseof.com)
- Distractions from Purpose. (danielnaborsjr.wordpress.com)
A seven-step prescription for self-love
Some people see the term ‘self love’ and immediately start to squirm, yet the Good Book says we must ‘love our neighbor as ourselves’ implying that self-love is fundamental in healthy relationship. Author Dr. Deborah Khoshaba shares her perspective here…
Self-love is a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological and spiritual growth. Self-love is dynamic; it grows by actions that mature us. When we act in ways that expand self-love in us, we begin to accept much better our weaknesses as well as our strengths, have less need to explain away our short-comings, have compassion for ourselves as human beings struggling to find personal meaning, are more centered in our life purpose and values, and expect living fulfillment through our own efforts.
Here is my Seven-Step Prescription for Self-Love. Continue reading “A seven-step prescription for self-love”
Every behavior and every thought has a consequence
“When you choose the behavior, you choose the consequences. When you choose the thoughts, you choose the consequences.” –Dr. Phil McGraw
First, look at the consequences and decide. Is this what I really want?
My dad once told me, “Remember what you know.” Through the years, I have found this to be great advice. So many times we forget simple truths in life, things that we already know. Often, I write about these simple truths to not only remind my readers, but to also remind myself of things that we already know and may have forgotten to practice in our lives.
Today I write about choices.
Every choice that we make is followed by a consequence. Too often, we act impulsively, not taking the time to think through the possible repercussions of our actions. We do not play the tape through, which means that we do not visualize the backlash of our thoughts and behaviors. We simply act without thinking it through in its totality.
Whether our choices are impulsive or well thought out, the consequences will be the same. Take the time to play the tape through. The choices we make when emotions are high, we usually come to regret. Take a moment to think it all the way through.
Source: Every Behavior and Every Thought Has a Consequence | Let Life in Practices
Go to the source if you’d like her list of ‘obvious things we forget’. Click the ‘follow’ button while you’re there!
Bright, shiny objects! 
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