Keeping calm

“If you can attain repose and calm, believe that you have seized
happiness.”
— Julie-Jeanne-Eleonore de Lespinasse, O Magazine, October 2002

At this time of year it seems that I have a difficult time finding a
peaceful moment for myself. Whether it is the pressures of putting
together another wonderful Holiday Season full of perfect festivities
and foods. Or whether it is getting some work done while the kids are
home sick from school. Keeping calm becomes a task in itself.

If time is not a thing working in your favour try to do at least one
simple thing for yourself — just keep breathing! Take a few moments
throughout the day to take some deep, conscious breaths. It is quite
amazing how simply getting some oxygen to your brain can help keep you
calm.

Also, try to keep in mind that nothing is so important that you can’t
take even a few minutes break for yourself. If you have a difficult
time convincing yourself of that, let me give you the permission to do
so and call it your mental health moment.

By the way, sorry this was late — I was taking my mental health moment
this morning!

As easy as 1 - 2 - 3 — Think. Feel. Act.

"The more clear and definite you make your picture then,and the more
you dwell upon it, bringing out all its delightful details, the
stronger your desire will be, and the stronger your desire, the easier
it will be to hold your mind fixed upon the picture of what you want."
— Wallace D. Wattles

Did any of you watch Larry King the other night when some of the
experts from "The Secret" were there to discuss "Beyond Positive
Thinking"? I have heard some strange comments about the show. Some
downright negative and shall I say jealous comments in response to the
experts that were selected to speak and their respective messages.

So I feel compelled to speak on their behalf and explain that
unfortunately, TV can distort reality. The panel of experts each had a
few seconds to explain the concept of the Law of Attraction. And even
though I got it (because I already know the concept from my own
studies) I admit the message may have been lost in translation.

So here is the concept boiled down to the basics as explained by James
Arthur Ray (one of the experts on the panel): The Law of Attraction can
be summed up as 1. Think. 2. Feel. 3. Act. No one said you just "think
positively" and your life will turn around. They clearly indicated that
you must also feel the thought as if it already existed (in other words
you can think of an elephant, and an elephant won't magically appear in
your living room -- there's more to it than your thought alone). Then
you must act upon your thoughts and feelings. You can sit in your
living room meditating (thinking and feeling) about your life changing,
nothing will happen until you get up and start doing something about
it!

Trust your body... because your mind can lie.

“Intuition is the supra-logic that cuts out all the routine processes
of thought and leaps straight from the problem to the answer.”
— Robert Graves

Be in your body because it is where intuition lives. In our busy lives,
many of us typically function only with our heads. This is actually
very counterintuitive and tends to cut off our vital energy flow and
may not lead us in the right direction.

Take a moment to reconnect with yourself, with your body. Your body has
wisdom and sends you messages regularly. Your mind is important, but
sometimes it is so busy it forgets to check in and see how the body is
responding.

When making a decision, notice your body's signals. Do you feel
energized? Comfortable? Is your breathing effortless? Your gut calm?
Are your shoulders loose? Or do you have a sick feeling in your
stomach? A lump in your throat? In all your choices, tuning in to what
your body says is a naturally given gift for keeping on track with your
higher self.

Living Thanks

"You see, when you're grateful for what you currently have in your
life, it focuses you on the best. And that puts you in a vibration
(feeling) to attract and receive more of the best. When you have a lack
of gratitude in your life, you're focusing on the worst, and that puts
you in a vibrational feeling that attracts to you more of the worst."
— James Arthur Ray

This is a great time of year to focus on what you are thankful for in
your life. And then continue the habit to create a lifestyle of living
thanks.

Why? Well, when you think about a person, other than you of course, who
is constantly ungrateful. Perhaps they complain a lot and talk about
their problems, their aches and pains. Do you want to be around them
for long? How about helping them? Well, if life is anything like the
corporate office, you would duck behind the desk dividers when you see
that person coming.

On the other side of the coin, you have someone completely different.
They are grateful and appreciative for all they have in life. When they
ask for a favor, are you wanting to help them? Probably, because they
are also the ones that are there for you when you need a helping hand.

So this holiday season, start a new trend in your life, if you haven't
already, and focus on everything you are grateful for every day.

Perseverance

“I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to
persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”
—Christopher Reeve

Another inspirational quote comes from Thomas Edison and his efforts in
inventing the light bulb: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000
ways that won’t work.” Imagine if he had given up after the first 100
attempts? Or even 1,000? Thankfully, perseverance won out and he
succeeded in achieving his goal.

DECIDING to change is the first step in a healing journey. The second
step is BELIEVING that you can change. The third step is putting a very
strong WHY behind your decision to change. The forth is ACTION — taking
the necessary steps to move you closer to your goals. Now, here is the
fifth important step — PERSEVERE.

Don’t give up. Keep your goals in sight and keep going until you get
there. For every setback, just realize that you’ve discovered one more
way how you won’t get to your goal — and then move on to find your
success.

Respecting the individual

"We must respect the body as an individual planet. No person should try
to own another. We should assign ourselves to assist and to help one
another, but never try to own or possess. Jealousy is a deadly disease
which disintegrates the body."
— "Mr. A", in Born to Heal by Ruth Montgomery

There seems to be some confusion over what jealousy is really all
about. Some seem to believe that it has everything to do with loving
someone. But when jealousy enters into a relationship, anger is soon to
follow. Anger and fear are two of the greatest emotional setbacks a
person can experience. They can actually make a person sick by drawing
out all the energy from the body where it is needed to maintain optimum
health and placing it into the negative emotion instead.

Think back to any of your relationships, past or present, that
entertained jealousy on either side. How well did the relationship do?
Did it survive? Did it blossom? More than likely it did not. Jealously
drains the soul and depleats any love that may have been there in the
first place.

Remember the Law of Attraction: like attracts like. If you are a
loving, giving, and respectful person in a relationship, you will
attract the same in your partner. Focus on respecting the individual in
yourself and in your partner and you will see your love grow.

I understand

“It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked,
through understanding.”
—Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)

Every now and then we have to deal with a person that seems to ooze
with anger. They make our lives miserable with their harsh words or
constant complaints. And often, this behaviour makes us either want
nothing to do with that person, or we want to let out a few harsh words
of our own to set them straight.

However, this situation can be viewed from another side. What if we
were to say to this person, “I understand” — how you feel, how you are
hurt, how you feel alone, how you are scared. Anger is usually a mask
for many other vulnerable emotions that we don’t want to have to face.

Reaching out with some kind words of understanding is probably the last
thing that the angry person would expect to receive, but what a
wonderful gift we could give without even being asked. Kind words have
the power to heal in miraculous ways.

What if?

“Your mistake does not define who you are...you are your possibilities”
— Oprah Winfrey

"What if" stories are pure speculation because something else has
already occurred. It's just guessing. But there are times in one's life
that we when reach certain crossroad events, that due to a decision
taken, or not taken, a chance encounter, whatever, we go one way
instead of another.

These many paths taken and decisions made are the ones that create who
we are today. They form our knowledge, abilities, skills, and emotions.
And from time to time, we may allow ourselves to wonder about how
things might have worked out differently if we'd made different
decisions along the path. That glimmer of "second chances" to do it
again another way.

In the present moment, however, lamenting about the "what might have
been" will not help us with who we actually are right now and the
decisions we must make today for all the possibilities that are before
us. But thinking back with a thought of gratitude for all the diverse
experiences we have encountered along the way, all the people who may
have helped us, and for the strength that we continue to have to keep
going on in our wonderful journey of life, is a good sign that we know
a little of what life is all about.

Healing old wounds

<fontfamily><param>Arial</param>"The divine flow is like the flow of a
river, however many rivers nowadays are polluted, full of junk or
simply stagnating. It is time to take care of them - meaning it is
time to take care of our emotional bodies and to look at them as
rivers, where stuff got thrown in over the years. For some, there is
so much built up, that it works like a big dam which does not allow
any flow of energy. You can easily recognize the flow of energy, by
looking at how much love is flowing in your life, how much happiness,
how much time do you have available, how much money is flowing etc."

— Quantum Angel

It may be time to ask yourself how polluted is your river of emotions?
Has there been some junk and pollution thrown in there when you
weren't paying attention? Are my emotions contaminated and perhaps
poisoning others that come in contact with them?

One quick way to figure out the answers is to look at how much
discomfort or pain you have in your life. Is it all the time, only in
certain situations, only dealing with certain people? We are like our
planet, and over the years of use and misuse the environment now needs
our protection.

Science shows us that we do release chemicals in response to our
emotions. Over time, if these chemicals are not cleared out, they
build up and can become toxic to us. So take action and break down the
dams that are restricting the flow of energy in your emotional river
and get the vitality of living back on track.</fontfamily>

Letting go of the outcome

"Be open to everything and not attached to anything."
— Dr. Wayne Dyer

Thinking back on the things that disappointed me the most in life, they
were all situations that I really had set my heart on getting or
accomplishing. And when they didn't happen the way I wanted them to
happen— expected them to happen — I felt let down. In comes the lesson
of "letting go of the outcome". We don't always know exactly what the
end result will be, and for that reason, we need to detach ourselves
from the final outcome.

Take, for example, a relationship that is ended by the other person. I
remember going through this and thinking it was the end of the world.
THIS was the only person I was ever meant to be with! Only to end up
meeting my future husband a few years later... Maybe I didn't know the
best outcome for myself way back then after all.

So, having an attitude of positive expectancy does create miraculous
results. But don't get caught up or attached to a specific end result.
Continue with your actions, and know that they are the right things for
you to do at the present moment, but surrender any attachment you have
for the outcome. It's the attachment to a specific outcome that may
bring us pain. You may not realize an equal or even greater outcome
that is for your greater good.

The Feeling Power

"In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words
without a heart."
— John Bunyan

I have often wondered as a young adult if there was really any point to
praying. Over the years though, I have come to realize that there are
many ways to accomplish the real power behind "prayer" (or mediation,
focus, affirmations, etc.). And it's also now clear to me why so many
prayers have gone unfulfilled: Too many of us have not done it the
right way.

When I was little, I was taught the words to certain prayers and I
recited them. But the power of prayer isn't about the words; it's about
the feeling behind the words. How many of us have been taught to
memorize and recite the words, which we so diligently do; but by
focusing so much on the prayers we've memorized, we have totally
forgotten (or they were never explained to us in the first place) the
feelings the words are meant to provide.

So I may not still formally pray like I was taught growing up. My
intentions however are strongly reinforced with my feelings. When I sit
in meditation and visualize something, I add the feelings that are
associated with the visions. Feel the power of prayer and you may just
notice a big difference in what you are praying for.

Creating Room for Change

<fontfamily><param>Arial</param>"By learning to identify the
"emotional baggage" and manage our feeling-world reactions, we can
view life based on current information instead of being held captive
by our past."

— Doc Childre

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Over the past few years, I have begun the long process of purging and
decluttering my home. I started this because I was preparing for our
family to move. Now, we are still in this same house, but I don't
regret the work I have done so far, and there is still much clearing
out to do. And I am doing it for my day-to-day stress reduction
because I am a firm believer that "mess is stress" and the principles
of Feng Shui of allowing the energy to flow more easily with clean
spaces.

It still amazes me how difficult it is to part with certain items in
the house that, even though we have no use for them, we want to hold
on to them. Perhaps it gives a feeling of comfort or security to know
we have "stuff" even if the "stuff" serves no purpose.

Now what about the emotional baggage that we keep acquiring over the
years. Are we clearing space for new emotions, hopefully positive,
emotions to flow? Maybe it is the same sense of fear of losing
something or being empty if we let go of the emotions that no longer
serve a real purpose in our life.

Have the courage to let go of your baggage, both emotional and
physical, and recognize the emotional hold that our emotions and
possessions can have on us.

Remembering gratitude

Gratitude is the heart's memory."
—French Proverb

What comes to mind when you hear the word gratitude? Is the
Thanksgiving holiday the only time to be grateful for all the food,
drink and friendship surrounding us on that day? The wonderful
celebration you experience then doesn't have to be limited to a once a
year event. Enjoying every meal, every day and every moment with those
we love filled with gratitude can increase your state of joy, and love
everyday.

As always, placing attention on what you have and being thankful for it
makes it expand which therefore increases the joy in your life. This
energy generates momentum bringing about more to be grateful for, which
in turn can create even more unexpected positive results.

Expressing gratitude is a way of remembering of our connections with
others, a reminder of our humanity, and a way of recognizing that we
are all one. Begin right now, by being thankful for what you have, what
you've had and what you will have.

The Mirror Effect

"You marry your unconscious mind. Let me repeat that — You marry your
unconscious mind. That means that any area of your life which is not in
harmony will surface the further you go into a marriage, in order to be
worked on and then cleared."
— Yvonne Oswald, Keyspeech, 9 Keys to Inner Power

The mirror effect works in many ways. Often in marriage, we marry our
mirrored selves so that we can effectively work out our life issues
with them. It is usually easier to see problems in others, instead of
ourselves. If we are aware enough, we can see through the blame and
accusations that we tend to easily dish out to our companions, family,
and friends, and we can start learning what issues we need to work
through and clear.

Give it a test. Take a situation or complaint you have with your spouse
or partner, or friend and write it down on paper. Then substitute their
name with your own name and see if the sentence is true to your case as
well. Also, make sure you know what time frame you are working in —
past or present. Does that sentence apply to you or your partner now or
is it a past issue that you are clinging to because you have not
forgiven yourself of your own past actions?

Also, be sure to learn to distinguish between your own limiting beliefs
about yourself and what is an actual true fact. There are many things
we may believe about ourselves that do not hold true. When you catch
yourself making these types of judgments about others, we should
examine if we are holding on to these limiting beliefs about ourselves
on a subconscious level of being.

Healthy Love

"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others."

— Anne-Sophie Swetchine

Have you heard the explanation of true love, of a soul-mate before
that goes like this; Two halves of a circle coming together to form a
whole? What do you think of that definition? I know when I was growing
up, that was what I read, what I saw in the movies, etc. So somehow
along the way, I figured that must be what true love was all about.

But what happens when the other person that I am a "half-of" doesn't
give me what I need? What if something is missing on my half. Aren't
they supposed to be my better half? Aren't they supposed to complete
me?

Well, I've decided to go with a different definition of "true love".
Instead of seeing two halves coming together, I see two complete (and
separate) rings interlocking. Two complete people with different needs
and personalities and ways of doing things that work well together (at
least most of the time). If something is not complete, it is lacking
in your ring. And it is for you to complete yourself and find out what
is missing in your ring that will bring you contentment and keep your
love intact.<fontfamily><param>Arial</param>

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Speak your mind with clarity

"Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas
to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label
of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem
important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost."

— Thomas J. Watson

Sometimes I want to throw my arms up in the air and say "why bother"!
Even if I speak my mind, it never changes anything, right? But then I
wouldn't be true to myself if I didn't speak up. The key is for me to
learn to speak with a balance between clarity and emotions.

Not that my emotions shouldn't be heard either. They are usually the
driving force behind my thoughts. But if that is all people can hear,
they may not hear the message with the clarity required.

My voice is an authentic part of me that needs to be expressed. The
only way others can get to know my true self is when I speak from my
heart. So I now allow myself to communicate my thoughts to others at
the appropriate time (cause timing is essential), with the correct
amount of emotional intensity.<fontfamily><param>Arial</param>

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Act in spite of...

“It takes 30 days for a change in behavior to become a habit, and six
months for a habit to become the automatic way a person does things,
... If they haven't changed in 30 days, it's not happening.”

— Mark Goulston

Habits are funny things. At first they seem not so easy to make. And
then there are others that seem impossible to break. You know what I
mean. Making new good habits like working out, eating healthy, going
to bed at a more reasonable hour. Sounds so simple, yet after a week
or so, I find the tendency to let them slip. And then changing the old
(shall we say bad) habits, how come they seem so challenging to break?

 

So what can you do? Well, some studies show that it can take anywhere
from 30 days to 6 months to change your behaviours (habits) either
adding new good ones or eliminating the bad ones. So that means
keeping at it until you make it over that hurdle. Often, when you do
something especially when your mind and

body is fighting against your better direction, it solidifies the
change process.

<fontfamily><param>Arial</param>So, choose an action today that
challenges you and moves you forward. Take that action today, in spite
of any negative feelings or what your mind might tell you. Write it
down first thing in the morning and at the end of the day, write down
the feelings that came with accomplishing the action and how it has
helped you grow.

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What do you want MORE of?

“You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make
it.”
— Unknown

We know by now that what we focus on expands. So what do we want more
of in our life? For me, it seemed I was always feeling like there
wasn't enough time to do everything I wanted. Where could I find the
time to spend with my kids, go workout, make healthy balanced meals,
bake, sing, the list goes on and on.

I have come to realize that I will never find the time for all of that.
I have to simply MAKE the time. And that actually comes when you start
to examine what you really want more of in your life.

Make a list. Brainstorm all the things you want to do, feel you should
do, never have the time to do. Then clump them. What this means is
group them into similar categories to fit under one bigger heading.
Then you prioritize. What are the top 10. Then what are the top 3 that
I can do now. And then here's the big one — schedule it in. I find that
when I commit something in writing on my calendar, I am that much more
likely to actually do it.

So, what you do want more of in your life today?

Simply pick one thing

"You must BE the change you want to see in the world."
— Mahatma Gandhi

What could you work on now that would make a difference to your life.
Simply pick one thing that you could change or improve that would give
you a new start, a new perspective, a new direction.

You may want to look at the things that concern you in the world. Or
you could start with your day-to-day routines. Making a difference to
your life could be as simple as picking up the clutter in your house.
Gives you immediate results (a cleaner house). May help to reduce your
levels of stress (mess is stress). And gives you a goal to maintain
your new sense of well-being (keeping the clutter from accumulating,
therefore less work for the future).

So that was my one thing to make a change quickly and effectively. Now
your turn. What's one thing can you do today to put on your list of
successes and make you feel better? Remember, it's a start. And
sometimes that's all you need to get the journey of change rolling the
way you really want it to. Before you know it, there will be a long
list of accomplishments to your name.

The Other Powers

“Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve
problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage
and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without
courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy.”
—Dean Koontz

I have done many years of research and reading on different ways to
help myself and to help others on this wonderful but sometimes
challenging journey of life. Out of all the tips and formulas out
there, the best advice I could find was turning to the core values of
courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy.

With these powerful tools, that are really so easy and natural to use,
I found the path to healing so much easier and comforting. Now,
whenever I am faced with a challenging situation I sit back and ask
myself to look at it from any of the above perspectives. I may have to
give it some patience, it is not always immediately obvious how to turn
these challenges into something more positive, but usually things
miraculously work out for the better using this method.

5 Steps to Permanent, Positive Change

If you haven't requested your copy of my short report on 5 Steps to Permanent, Positive, Change go to http://www.RealLifeChanges.com and click on the book link. I will e-mail your copy to you within the shortest delay. This is a short summary of all the research I have done over the years on the best steps to take to make permanent, positive changes in your life.

The other step that I find truly reinforces your journey of change, is helping others by sharing your story. If you have made some significant breakthroughs, let us know what you experienced, how you came about them, etc. Or if you are looking for a helping hand or words of guidance, put out your questions and see if we can help you with your next steps.

Thanks for all of the positive feedback we have been receiving for our report.

Sincerely,

Rose-Anne
RealLifeChanges.com