1. Practice yoga.
No surprise here, but my daily practice of yoga is a grounding force in my life that keeps me centred and calm in an otherwise often turbulent storm. Find a studio and give it a try — if you don’t fall in love immediately, try a new teacher or class.
2. Meditate.
Find an intro course in whatever style or technique of meditation you choose, then practice every day. I wake up early in order to give myself the gift of a clearer mind. I'm then able to begin each day with purpose, clarity and a level of calm that you won’t have without this centering practice.
3. Eat well.
Eat local, organic, raw, whole foods as much as possible. Feed your body with the fuel it needs for optimal health and development. Before you eat anything, ask yourself, "Is this something my body will use to build health or dis-ease? Am I craving this or do I truly feel hungry and need nourishment? Will I feel better or worse after eating this?"
4. Plan.
Set aside a bit of time each week to plan your meals, your physical activity and your self-care for the week ahead. Just as many of us create a strategic plan for our work life, the same thing needs to be applied to our entire life.
5. Journal.
Keep track of what triggers your ups and downs — keep a food journal and include anything that comes up for you physically, emotionally and mentally throughout the day. This will help you to discover possible food sensitivities, emotional triggers to eating habits and what foods help you feel truly energized.
6. Find your passion and pursue it.
Explore and discover what makes you feel purposeful and alive, then find ways to do more of it! Even if it’s just 10 minutes a day or an hour a week to begin with, if you find the time for your passions, the universe will conspire to help you find more and more time.
7. Seek out positive, like-minded people.
Like attracts like; if you're feeling crappy and focusing on the crappiness, then crappiness is what you are going to see and crappy is how you will continue to feel. I've been called a Pollyanna — and somehow this is supposed to be a bad thing?!
Ask yourself where you'll be in 75 years. Most likely dead, yes? Me too… so, between now and the inevitable then, I would much rather spend my time thinking positively and surrounding myself with positive thinkers than focusing on what seems to be not working and holding onto crap from the past that no longer exists.
Enjoy the journey with a light, playful and non-judgmental frame of mind… I look forward to seeing what else you have to add to this list!
Showing posts with label journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journal. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
How Learning to Be Positive Saved My Life
Easy ways you can become more positive:
Gratitude. Start a gratitude journal in order to focus on the positive. List five things per day in which you are grateful. Getting into this daily habit forces you to appreciate more out of your life, and subsequently conditions your thinking to be on the look out for the positive. You will begin to start looking for things that will go on your daily list, and expecting them to show up. Even if some days you can only think of the basics such as, enough food to eat, a comfortable bed, or the sun shining, no matter how bad a day is you can always be grateful. I remember when my mom told me a story about how her car broke down and she was stranded for three hours in the rain, waiting for AAA to pick her up. When she told my brother about her awful day, he (the eternal optimist) replied, “At least you have a car to break down!”
Affirmations. Begin repeating affirmations. Many of these still amuse me with their annoying level of optimism, or cheesy phrasing. But, they work. Telling yourself such extreme phrases of positive thought teaches your brain to reprogram your thinking to highlight the good in life. Louise Hay is the master of positive affirmations. Simply adding one or two to your wall or bathroom mirror can shift your thinking. Google “positive affirmations”, and there are tons of sites out there that give you a new, daily positive affirmation. Finding ones that go with aspects of your life that you are struggling with also help tremendously. I have found that they can ease anxiety, even if I don’t believe the affirmation 100%. You can’t think two thoughts at once. Only one thought can go through your head at a time (though it may be at lightening speed!)… so while you are saying a positive affirmation to yourself, the thoughts of negativity or anxiety are incapable of existing at the same time. That is the beauty of positive affirmations
Surround yourself with positive people. Keep the naysayers at a distance. We all have people in our lives that seem to always find something to complain about. It’s never their fault, and they always get the worst hand dealt to them. Whether they are family or friends, keep them at a distance. Once you begin to recognize negative thought, you instantly raise your awareness of how negative the people are around you. Your tolerance level for others being negative in your life instantly goes down as soon as your awareness of it goes up. You DESERVE to be happy, and it takes effort to surround yourself with others that are happy. Being happy takes effort, as does depression, but it is the most worthwhile endeavor.
Live in the present. So many people preach this recently… but what does it really mean?? It means don’t expect negativity. Don’t think about some future event and assume a negative outcome. Yesterday, my mom was talking about moving and said to me “If that garage isn’t cleaned out and organized before the move, I will have major stress!!”. Don’t assume that a situation will cause anxiety or stress, otherwise you will absolutely make it a self fulfilling prophecy. Even if you have to force it at first, tell your self it will go smoothly and easily. Don’t look back on past negative events and assume that it is the way a future even will end up. Stay in the now, for this present moment is all we have. Today is all there is. Assume good things will result.
Choose to be positive. I did. Life is so good, you just have to let yourself be able to realize it.
http://dreaminthelife.com/2009/06/hello-world/
Gratitude. Start a gratitude journal in order to focus on the positive. List five things per day in which you are grateful. Getting into this daily habit forces you to appreciate more out of your life, and subsequently conditions your thinking to be on the look out for the positive. You will begin to start looking for things that will go on your daily list, and expecting them to show up. Even if some days you can only think of the basics such as, enough food to eat, a comfortable bed, or the sun shining, no matter how bad a day is you can always be grateful. I remember when my mom told me a story about how her car broke down and she was stranded for three hours in the rain, waiting for AAA to pick her up. When she told my brother about her awful day, he (the eternal optimist) replied, “At least you have a car to break down!”
Affirmations. Begin repeating affirmations. Many of these still amuse me with their annoying level of optimism, or cheesy phrasing. But, they work. Telling yourself such extreme phrases of positive thought teaches your brain to reprogram your thinking to highlight the good in life. Louise Hay is the master of positive affirmations. Simply adding one or two to your wall or bathroom mirror can shift your thinking. Google “positive affirmations”, and there are tons of sites out there that give you a new, daily positive affirmation. Finding ones that go with aspects of your life that you are struggling with also help tremendously. I have found that they can ease anxiety, even if I don’t believe the affirmation 100%. You can’t think two thoughts at once. Only one thought can go through your head at a time (though it may be at lightening speed!)… so while you are saying a positive affirmation to yourself, the thoughts of negativity or anxiety are incapable of existing at the same time. That is the beauty of positive affirmations
Surround yourself with positive people. Keep the naysayers at a distance. We all have people in our lives that seem to always find something to complain about. It’s never their fault, and they always get the worst hand dealt to them. Whether they are family or friends, keep them at a distance. Once you begin to recognize negative thought, you instantly raise your awareness of how negative the people are around you. Your tolerance level for others being negative in your life instantly goes down as soon as your awareness of it goes up. You DESERVE to be happy, and it takes effort to surround yourself with others that are happy. Being happy takes effort, as does depression, but it is the most worthwhile endeavor.
Live in the present. So many people preach this recently… but what does it really mean?? It means don’t expect negativity. Don’t think about some future event and assume a negative outcome. Yesterday, my mom was talking about moving and said to me “If that garage isn’t cleaned out and organized before the move, I will have major stress!!”. Don’t assume that a situation will cause anxiety or stress, otherwise you will absolutely make it a self fulfilling prophecy. Even if you have to force it at first, tell your self it will go smoothly and easily. Don’t look back on past negative events and assume that it is the way a future even will end up. Stay in the now, for this present moment is all we have. Today is all there is. Assume good things will result.
Choose to be positive. I did. Life is so good, you just have to let yourself be able to realize it.
http://dreaminthelife.com/2009/06/hello-world/
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