Tag: Karen Salmansohn

Give time …time! Stop trying to control and rushing things. You’ll get there.

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via Give time …time! Stop trying to control and rushing things. You’ll get there..

Want to see HUGE CHANGE in your life?

I frequently curate ‘pattern interrupts’ like the one above from Karen Salmansohn at notsalmon.com and I love her mind and her images. Did you know she is also a beautiful thinker? Here’s proof…

You can get there by making small changes daily. After all, it’s easier to be a saint for 15 minutes, than to be a saint for 2 hours. Right? Of course!  I’m personally a big fan of small daily changes – which means I’m a big fan of “Kaizen” – which is a Japanese word which pithily summed up means: “doing small changes over time which create huge life changes.”

With all this in mind, I want you to do a Kaizen Experiment. For the next month commit to devoting a tiny 15 minutes a day to a new improved habit- and tweak your way to a happier life. The good news: You can always find an extra 15 minutes in your day!

More good news: Brain researchers Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang believe if you can train yourself to stay disciplined for a mere 15 minutes a day doing a specific task – eventually – over time – you will become a more disciplined person in general – and be able to do a habit for far longer than 15 minutes!

The Brain Research Cliff Notes: Aamodt and Wang have discovered that a human brain‘s overall willpower capacity increases like a muscle every time a human practices even a little bit of willpower — for even 15 minutes — because the human is literally strengthening their brain‘s neural pathways.

Meaning? If you want a toosh of steel, exercise your toosh muscles a little daily! If you want a discipline of steel, exercise your discipline muscles a little daily.  On an amusing note: Aamodt and Wang mention in their report how increasing “a human’s overall willpower muscle” can begin with something as simple as disciplining yourself to brush your teeth for two weeks with your non-dominant hand.

Well, instead of having you brush your teeth differently, I want you to brush up on doing “that thing” you know you need to brush up on! For example: Yoga stretches. Jumping rope. Organizing closets. Meditating. Gratitude journaling. Staying in closer loving touch with friends/family. Reading that NYTimes Best Selling book. Reading that cute picture book to your child at bedtime. Writing that book you want to write. Writing that business plan. Looking into a family vacation. Creating a vision board (then happily staring at your vision board) etc…
Basically, sometimes the idea of doing something new to change your life can feel so overwhelming – that you wind up choosing not to do anything at all. However, if you commit to doing a tiny 15 minute habit a day – moving one tiny 15 minute step forward a day – you will happily discover changing your life is not as overwhelming as you‘d thought.

Start today. Right now. Start to do “that thing” you know you gotta do – for just a mere 15 minutes of doing. No excuses. You can find 15 minutes. I promise you that if you can do this 15 minute habit tweak daily for the month, over time you’ll want to do this habit more and more – and over time you’ll find yourself smiling more and more – because both your discipline and your happiness will increase substantially.

By the way, I believe thereʼs a secondary reason why discipline for changing your life increases when doing small 15 minute habit changes over time. Youʼre creating what I call “identity shifting.” Basically, when you start doing a new disciplined live-improving 15 minute action, your identity begins to shift to see yourself as a disciplined life-improving person.

Your subconscious starts to say: “The old me did not used to have discipline. But lo and behold, now this new me does! I be da boss of my cerebrum, baby!” Thereʼs even a famed psychological theory called “Cognitive Dissonance” which explains this identity shift. The Cliff Notes On “Cognitive Dissonance”: We humans donʼt like to have a disparity between our thoughts and our actions — so when we change our actions, we change our thoughts to match them.

For example: If Human A starts to do a loving action for Human B — through Cognitive Dissonance — Human Aʼs brain will start to tell them “Geez, I must surely like Human B if Iʼm now doing a loving action for them!” As a result, according to studies on cognitive dissonance, Human A will wind up liking Human B a wee bit more.

Likewise: If you force yourself to do positive, disciplined actions, then your brain — via the perks of Cognitive Dissonance — will start to tell you, “Geez, I must be a positive, disciplined person if I am doing positive, disciplined actions.” Eventually you will wind up being a wee bit more positive and disciplined!

Source: Want to see HUGE CHANGE in your life? – Karen Salmansohn

I hope Karen doesn’t mind that I shared her post in its entirety on my blog. You can find her site by following the link and she has books full of pattern interrupts and other great thinking available on Amazon.com:

Click to buy…

If you like By the way,  for those of you keeping score at home this is post number 5,000 on this blog…

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Love yourself enough to give yourself this beautiful gift…

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via Love yourself enough to give yourself this beautiful gift….

Where do addictions come from? “Elf Esteem”!

 

Karen Salmansohn shares a cute, but powerful, perspective that I wanted to share with you this morning:

Self sabotaging behavior often is a sign of low self esteem.

Or I guess that would be “elf esteem,” because it’s low esteem.

Okay, about as low as this joke! Although addictions are no joke. I am however a big believer if we can laugh at ourselves, we can loosen our ego’s grasp on tightly held beliefs, and we’re more open to change.

I’d like to help you loosen your ego’s grasp on maintaining addictions, and change over to more healthful behavior.

How?

If you want to break an addiction, you must heighten your low “elf-esteem” to high self esteem.

Interestingly, in studies on happiness the happiest people are those with high self esteem.

And just as interestingly, the happiest people are reported to be those who do consistent acts of altruism.

There’s a do-good-feel-good-do-good-feel-good cause and effect.

My belief: the more good you do for others, the more you raise your self esteem, and the better you feel about yourself, and so the more you want to do good, and on and on the upward cycle goes.

Ironically, the more you do your addiction, the worst you feel about yourself, and the lower your elf esteem, then the more you seek your addiction, which further lowers your elf esteem, and downward do you go.

In other words, you create a do-bad-feel-bad-do-bad-feel-bad cause and effect.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT: If you have a bad habit you’re trying to break, start by doing more positive habits: donate time in an old age home or read to the blind. Of course “elf esteem” also comes from deeper subconscious forces that you need to delve into as well – and I suggest you do some delving.  But it’s a good jump start to loving yourself more if you start to do more good in the world – so you can feel what a powerful spirit you can be – thereby you start to believe more in the awesome goodness inside you!

And keep in mind the words of Abraham Lincoln: “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Aren’t you worthy of happiness?” via Where do addictions come from? “Elf Esteem”! Karen Salmansohn.

We take care of what we value. Value your self…

 

Do you relate?

Sometimes when I’m not feeling so happy

I do something to make someone else feel happy

then I find I’m suddenly feeling happy again. – Karen Salmansohn

The post Do you relate…? appeared first on Notsalmon.

via Do you relate…?.

Let Go of What You Can’t Control

Karen Salmansohn writes:

Don’t let regrets about the past or fears about the future stop you from fully enjoying your present. A good way to ensure you’re living fully in the present is to make sure you’re fully using all of your miracle senses – and seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching – and intuitively being – as much as you can in a day! Most people pay attention to mostly what they see around them. But you have so many wonderful other senses as well to tap into.” via Let Go of What You Can’t Control.

Can Posters Work As Pattern Interrupts In Changing Moods?

I curate a lot of Karen Salmansohn‘s ‘posters‘ on my blog — well over 100 at this point. Her she writes about posters as ‘pattern interrupts‘:

About two years ago, I gave birth to a baby boy. Shortly after, I found myself experiencing trouble giving birth to writing a book. I began believing in that much talked-about “mommy brain.”

Thankfully, I’ve always loved design. Being the positive problem solver that I am, I started experimenting with designing inspiring posters. It seems the “designer” part of my brain was not fogged by newbie mommyhood. (Perhaps this is a topic for yet another essay – where I explore the interesting workings of the right versus left brain! I know in the book My Stroke of Insight, the author said she found it easier to write in a journal rather than by computer when she was on her way to recovery. But I digress!)

I began calling my daily posters I was writing and designing my “Daily Inspirational Flashcards” – because their goal was to quickly remind people of positive psychological beliefs and productive habits which lead to the happiest life. Soon, my “Inspirational Flashcards” began to go viral – with thousands – then hundreds of thousands – then even millions of shares for a single poster. I began receiving hundreds of emails from people – thanking me – explaining that my daily “Inspirational Flashcards” were truly helping them battle depressed emotional states – even when it came to dealing with majorly challenging issues like a bipolar disorder or a loved one’s death.” Read the rest of the article here: Can Posters Work As Pattern Interrupts In Changing Moods? | Psychology Today.

I love Karen’s work [duh! Why else would I curate it so much?]. My friend and mentor RJ always says ‘never confuse the artist with the art’ but in this case, the artist is the art and it’s all beautiful. To answer the original question there have been many times when Karen’s posters have interrupted my mood in a good way hence the reason I share them so much…

Seek out the happiness in all of life’s crappiness. – Karen Salmansohn poster crappy doodle – notsalmon.

Fear is dyslexic faith

It’s believing strongly what you want won’t happen. Stop it and swap it for real deal faith. Karen Salmansohn via Fear is dyslexic faith..

An Analogy For People Who Have Been Hurt Deeply By Another

Something good from Karen Salmansohn that I wanted to share with you…

When someone has hurt you – deeply to your soul – it’s tempting to want to shut down and shut off – to give in and give up – to get bitter, resentful, depressed – and all before breakfast!
This soul-shutting-down tendency reminds me of those classic Zombie horror movies! You know how unconscious, soul-less Zombies walk around – thriving mostly in darkness – miserably taking bites out of happy, soulful people? One chomp – then – suddenly – these newly bitten innocent folks find themselves becoming Zombie-like in their behavior. They feel their souls shut down. They crave spending time in darkness. They want to bite others.
Likewise, if you’ve suffered from an emotional Zombie bite, it’s temping to wanna join the Zombie crowd – and shut off your soul – seek dark thoughts – chomp upon another. It’s especially tempting to want to chomp upon the Zombie chump who chomped upon you!
Basically, when you’ve been bitten by a Zombie, you can find yourself feeling the urge to become Zombie-like yourself. But you must resist! You must stay strong! You must keep your soul alive!
How?

Source: A Funny But Helpful Analogy For People Who Have Been Hurt Deeply By Another | notsalmon

If you’re intrigued, go to the source. While you’re there follow Karen’s blog and continue getting this goodness in your life…

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