Practices That Lead to a More Fulfilling Life
Don’t Allow Anyone to knock You Down
Don’t Allow Anyone to Knock You Down!
“Somehow we learn who we really are and then live that decision.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
Unfortunately, way too many people learned that they were something that they are not- and then they learned to live with that decision. [Read more...]
Serenity Prayer 2 (Photo credit: Violette79)
What Can You Change?
When my brother was two he learned how to ride a little trike bike. He would zoom all over the house with his eyes focused on the pedals rather than on where he was going. One day he was so focused on making those pedals go around and around that he ran right into a wall. [Read more...]
Do you know the difference between true intimacy and the fantasy bond? Many people confuse the fantasy bond with true intimacy. Although these two styles of relating may appear similar to outsiders looking in, they are indeed very different. [Read more...]
Smile fasdfdsfoiueire (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A Happiness Tip
Do you want to be happier? You may need to smile. Yes, research shows that smiling can improve your mood. Most of us think that the good mood comes first. You are in a good mood which causes you to smile. Have you ever considered that sometimes it is actually the other way around?
Studies show that the more you smile the happier you feel. This does not mean that you forbid yourself to grieve and walk around with a fake smile every minute of everyday. No, that’s not it at all. But it does mean that if you smile at each person that you meet and smile when you pass a stranger on the street, your mood will improve.
It is also helpful to be aware of the good things in life. If you spend your day taking inventory of the good rather than the bad that surrounds you, you will smile more. Instead of focusing on the traffic that is holding you up, accept that the traffic is beyond your control, and remind yourself of the blessings in your life. Instead of focusing on the people who annoy you, think about the ones who love you.
When you are feeling a lot of stress, you may also want to ask yourself, “Will this really matter one year from now, one month from now, or even one week from now?” Many times just knowing that our distress is temporary can bring a smile to our face. The important thing is to always look at the bigger picture rather than getting sucked up in needless minutiae.
Since we know that smiling improves our mood, you may want to opt for the comedy every now and then. Dramas are great and often have a way of sparking our emotion. But so do comedies. They make us laugh, they make us smile. If you are a drama lover, you might want to try a comedy for a change. It may improve your mood, your happiness, and your health. It will hopefully make you smile.
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“Being assertive is a core communication skill. Being assertive means that you express yourself effectively and stand up for your point of view, while also respecting the rights of others.” -Mayo Clinic Staff
Aggressive people tend to put their needs before the needs of others. Passive people tend to put the needs of others above themselves. Passive-aggressive people tend to [Read more...]
Self-compassionate people hold themselves accountable for their actions.
They are not threatened by their mistakes. Because they do not judge themselves harshly, they are able to admit their mistakes. Because they are able to admit their mistakes, they are able to learn from them and own them. Because they own them they are less likely to blame others for them. They are also less likely to deny or rationalize their unacceptable behaviors. [Read more...]
Fighting depression is hard! It requires a lot of work. What may seem like a simple task to someone who is not depressed, may be terribly difficult for someone who is.
If you are feeling depressed, ask yourself, “Am I doing everything that I can to decrease my depression?”
If you do not like the way that you are currently feeling, you may need to do something different, no matter how difficult, to get you snowballing in a different direction.
If you answer no to any of the following questions, you may not be doing enough to decrease your depression. [Read more...]
Brain structures involved in dealing with fear and stress. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We can actually change our own brain. When our anger is triggered, it can turn into rage very quickly. When we feel rage, we are no longer in wise mind and all logic is gone. This is when we cause ourselves problems.
Our amygdala, the emotional part of our brain that assesses whether we are safe or in danger, responds within 50 milliseconds- that is quicker than the blink of an eye.
Our prefrontal cortex- the part of our brain that plans, reasons, and holds our attention responds about ten times slower. [Read more...]
It is often the pause, not the event that is life changing. Between the event and your reaction lies a very small space. That space might only be a quarter of a second long. But if you practice inserting a longer pause in that space, you give yourself time to think about how you want to react.
Viktor Frankl, neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor put it so well, ”Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Yes, that space can be lengthened. But it takes a lot of mindful practice and focus. You can change what feels like an automatic response into an automatic pause. It really is all about the pause.
Day 88/365 – my prescriptions (Photo credit: Newbirth35)
“Xanax Makes Me a Better Mom,” written by Shawn Bean, Executive Editor of Parenting Magazine, appears in the March 2013 issue. The article discusses the rising number of parents who currently take antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications.
This article reports the following statistics.
1-5 American adults take at least one type of medication to treat behavioral or psychological problems.
21% of fathers will experience one or more episodes of depression by their child’s 12th birthday.
28% of stay at home moms report feeling depressed compared to 17% of working moms.
There has been a 264% rise in psychiatric drug use among women ages 20-44 over the past ten years. [Read more...]
WELCOME! I am so EXCITED that you are here! My mission is to MOTIVATE and INSPIRE you to look at things from multiple angles- create lots of "WOW, I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT," or "I NEEDED TO HEAR THAT TODAY!" moments. These posts are written to be read again and again in order to OBLITERATE negative thinking and MASTER something new. Something new that will improve your life one baby step at a time, one blog post at a time. Please don't sell yourself short. For you are tall, really TALL! Let's get started.
