Developing a positive attitude

The way you think, day in day out, affects all aspects of your life. Learning to listen to your “internal dialogue” will help you recognize your thought patterns and how they may be affecting the way you handle the stressful situations of daily living.

Many people have found that, when they tune in to their internal dialogue, much of it is negative. Thoughts like, “I could never do that” and “What if I fail?” can seriously impact the way you behave. This, in turn, affects every aspect of your life. When we are stressed, certain hormones are produced by the body. When released infrequently, these hormones are harmless but, when produced continuously, they can cause serious damage. Cardiovascular disease is caused in part by the continuous production of stress hormones.

Sleep more soundly!
Sleep is absolutely essential to improve and maintain energy levels, immune system effectiveness, mental and emotional clarity and overall quality of life. When you feel good, you function better.

The following tips may prove very useful if you need to sleep better!

• Decrease mental activity in the evening.
• Make preparations for the next day.
• Take a hot bath before bedtime to help relieve stress.
• Soothing fragrances, lights, and music may help as well.
• Limit activities in bed to sleep and sex only - no reading
  or television watching.
• If you have trouble sleeping, try sleeping in another area
  of the house.
• Try listening to repetitive soothing natural sounds (waves, wind, waterfall, stream, etc.) from a selected high quality sound device.
• Natural homeopathic, nutritional and herbal support may prove useful (e.g. calcium, melatonin, passionflower or valerian before bed).
• Turn off all the lights.

This last item is particularly important, as melatonin (key hormone involved in sleep/repair cycles) production may be inhibited if you sleep with the lights on.

Develop your positive attitude!
Here are some ways to help you develop a more positive attitude and better manage the stressors in your life:

• Listen to internal dialogue. Divide one or more sheets of paper into two columns and, for a few days, jot down in the left column all the negative thoughts that come into your head. Rewrite each thought in a positive way in the second column. Practice doing this in your mind until it becomes a habit. (For example, “I’ll never get this finished by the end of the day!” could become, “I will probably get most of this finished by the end of the day.”)
• Learn to communicate. Not saying the things we feel can lead to a sense of frustration, hurt, anger or anxiety . If you find communicating difficult, or are afraid of arguments or bruised feelings, take a course in communicating effectively.
• Get back to basics. Reconnect with old friends, take the dog for a walk, visit an art gallery or listen to your favourite music. Enjoy a long, relaxing bath, read a great book, tell your child a story, or ask an older relative to tell you one! It is the simplest things in life that give us the most pleasure…
• Help someone out. The simple act of helping others helps us to feel good. Pick up groceries for an aging neighbour, volunteer at your local hospital or read a book to someone with failing eyesight. If you are unsure of how to help out in your community, call your nearest volunteer centre.
• Find your spirituality. Research has shown that those who have developed their spirituality through associating with other spiritual individuals or having their own personal and unique beliefs, live longer, more satisfying lives. The secret is practising those beliefs, either through organized spiritual associations, or simple meditation in a quiet place.
• Allow yourself to be loved. The ability to love and be loved is the most basic human trait. We, as a society, have become disconnected from this most basic need - fear-centred emotions (depression, loneliness, guilt and anger) are the symptoms. Finding ways to reconnect with others is extremely helpful in developing a positive attitude. The following link is very enlightening. The Web of Love - Reconnecting with Source www.WebofLove.org
• Allow yourself to laugh and find humour in the simplest of things. Laughter is a powerful mood elevator. If you are feeling down, read some jokes, watch a funny movie or just act "silly" once in awhile. At times, it is a good thing to let yourself see the world through a child's eyes. Click here for examples of silly things that help diffuse stress.
• Participate in new physical and mental activities to improve confidence levels and coping mechanisms. It could be as easy as learning the meanings of new words or learning about new topics to build confidence.
• Follow the principles of holistic health (better nutrition and exercise help improve mood and attitude)
• Remember that the mainstream media focuses on information that leads to fear, negative thoughts and emotion. Find other more positive things to do with your precious moments such as reading a great positive book, a walk in nature or volunteering with people and animals.
• It is all about letting go of the "emotional baggage" that holds us back from true enlightenment! All that you require is already within you, so do not give your power away by blindly following others. Rather, trust in the goodness that already resides within your heart.

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.
Who looks outside, dreams.
Who looks inside, awakens.
Carl Jung

Decide to Have a Positive Day!

Our inner critic is the internal voice of negative judgmental self talk. It is the nagging feeling, the inner voice that makes us critical of ourselves and others. It is postulated that our inner critic developed early in life as a mechanism for reminding us of childhood rules and standards that we internalized about how we were supposed to think, feel and behave.

We learn to be critical of ourselves as we learn to march to the drummer of others wants and needs, we learn to be critical of others when they do not conform to what we want or expect.

The inner critic speaks loudly in judgment of ourselves and other people. It is a voice that yearns to castigate. It is the voice of enslavement to our egos and to the wants of others.

Sometimes our inner critic will leave us with feelings of self doubt; sometimes it will allow us to feel negative and critical of others. When we listen to our inner critic, we listen to negativity that separates us from our best self and also from others.

Our best personal and professional selves come from a place of self love and acceptance. When we can truly love and accept ourselves we can also see those in our world as collaborators on our path of personal learning. Love is a path which brings us closer to the seed of creation and to a place where we can grow, learn and to share joy with others.

We are all partners on a human journey, and the greatest challenge in our roadmap to personal and professional success is to cleave to our humanity, to the values of sharing and caring that make us brothers and sisters on the road of life.

Take a day this week to stomp out the voice of your inner critic; to free yourself from self imposed negativity and judgment.

Silence all criticism and negativity for 24 hours. Concentrate only on the good in yourself and in others that you meet and interact with. Give the inner critic a day off, and in so doing spend a day with your highest, greatest and best self.

By Irene Segal
JUST COACH IT http://justcoachit.com/

Key Examples of Positive Affirmation (self-talk) to Help You:

• I will think of myself as Successful!
• I will have positive expectations for everything I do!
• I will remind myself of past successes!
• I will not dwell on failures, I just will not repeat them!
• I will surround myself with positive people and ideas!
• I will keep trying until I achieve the results I want!

Books to Read:

• The Art of Happiness - Dalai Lama
  www.amazon.com
  Have you ever wondered what it would be like to sit down with the Dalai Lama and really press him about life's persistent questions? Why are so many people unhappy? How can I abjure loneliness? How can we reduce conflict? Is romantic love true love? Why do we suffer? How should we deal with unfairness and anger? How do you handle the death of a loved one? read more...