Stress Less!

Stress Less!

STRESS. "Yes, the S word'. Stress is the 'wear and tear' our bodies experience as we adjust to our constantly changing environment. Stress has both physical and emotional effects on us and can it can create positive or negative feelings.
As a positive influence, stress can help compel us to action; it can result in a new consciousness and an exciting new perspective. As a negative influence, it can result in feelings of distrust, rejection, and depression, which in turn can lead to health problems such as headaches, upset stomach, insomnia, ulcers and other health problems. As you can see, as we adjust to different situations, stress can either help or hinder us depending on how we react to it.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you shouldn't let things concern you but what I do what to say is that you can slowly begin to reduce the stress in your life.
As women, we wear many hats and as moms, our hat racks are overflowing. Be sure to recognize stressful situations and take a notice of how you deal with them both mentally and physically.
You remember that saying? If mama' ain't happy, nobody is happy? Well, I tend to agree with it so I am very conscience of the stressful situations that I am confronted with and I am sure to time off when I can to replenish my mind, body, and spirit.
Sit back, relax, and see if you can apply some or all of the action steps below into your life and begin on the road to less stress.
Write it down. Write down goals, errands, chores, due dates etc and instead of creating just a "To Do" list, keep a "Have Done" list too. Move things from your To Do list to the Have Done list after having completed them. At the end of the day, review how productive you were.
Express yourself. Unloading your worries and concerns is a terrific way to clear your mind and reduce stress. It's very important not to keep everything inside so try finding a friend or a professional whom you can talk to. You can also write your feelings down in a journal. Moving things out of your head and onto paper can help you release a lot of the inner turmoil you may feeling.
Don't avoid. If there's something in your life that's causing you to worry; seek out things that will help you feel in control. For instance, if you're suffering from financial problems, try read some books on gaining control of your financial life or seek the help of a financial planner.
Drink some orange juice. Scientists have discovered that vitamin C can reduce the production of stress hormones. Try Eating an orange, drinking some juice, taking a Vitamin C supplement. Here are a few foods that are rich in vitamin C: broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, strawberries, grapefruit and cantaloupe.
Exercise. Studies have shown that taking a brief 10 minute walk during intense times will increase the amount of oxygen to your brain, allowing you to think more clearly and ultimately helping you to make better decisions.
Give yourself a license to be imperfect. No one is perfect. Give yourself a break. Try to reach a healthy balance between what really needs to be done now and what can wait. Also give yourself permission to ask others for help when you need it.
Adjustments. Let's face it -- there comes a time when we have to make adjustments. Try to identify your stressors and adjust yourself so that you react differently to them.

Reassuring Reasons Why Hypnosis is your Friend

Reassuring Reasons Why Hypnosis is your Friend

Believe the hype or think for yourself
For too long hypnosis has had a bad or ‘difficult’ press. If a person doesn’t understand something they have 3 options open to them.
1) They might be sceptical and therefore save the trouble of looking further and possibly benefiting. 2) They may conclude it is dangerous and to be avoided at all costs. 3) They may spend time discovering the truth behind the hype.
If you don’t know much about a topic it’s easy to be suspicious. Some people assume hypnosis is akin to a carnival side show, others consider it mystic mumbo jumbo or ‘mind control.’ For those who look beyond the hype the truth is far more illuminating.
The most powerful tool you possess
There are potentially huge benefits for those who use hypnosis as part of everyday life. When you understand hypnosis you start to see its potential to improve human performance in the physical, emotional and intellectual realms. For me, rumour, gossip and suspicion weren’t good enough.
I determined to learn all I could about hypnosis - I learned every fact and practised every technique under the sun. I took several training courses - some good, some terrible. I invested thousands of hours of devoted study to hypnosis and discovered just what is possible. I hypnotised friends, neighbours and work colleagues. Hypnosis greatly changed things for me on a personal level.
How hypnosis helped me
I used to be shy. Thanks to hypnosis I can now talk to thousands at a time and can approach anybody calmly and confidently.
I used to have poor concentration and procrastinate; thanks to hypnosis I can instantly motivate myself.
I used to find physical work outs and exercise exhausting but because of hypnosis I am now in the best shape of my life.
Incidentally I also stopped myself blushing with hypnosis. Now if ever I have a difficult call or conversation coming up, something I may naturally feel reluctant to do (you know the kind of thing) I spontaneously self hypnotise and rehearse the upcoming situation feeling good, with myself remaining calm. In this way I habitually set my own emotional ‘blue prints’ for up coming situations. Having said that it’s naturally that some people have concerns or half digested ‘hand me down’ ideas regarding hypnosis. A common one is the one about ‘mind control.’ However what does this really mean?
Why you are more in control of yourself in hypnosis
If someone expresses concerns about being ‘controlled’ in hypnosis what they mean is they don’t want to be like a robot, an automaton that is forced to obey the every whim of the hypnotist. We can't help but influence others but we don’t control them. To understand why you need to understand hypnosis better.
So what is hypnosis like?
Hypnosis isn’t like a coma. It’s not unconsciousness - more a subtle shifting of consciousness. In hypnosis, you can still think logically but you also have access to the ‘software’ of your mind so that you can update instinctive emotional and physical responses. In fact the hypnotised subject (not the hypnotist) calls the shots. When I hypnotise someone I need to go at their speed and respond to their needs and expectations. Hypnosis will give you more control in your own life because of what it enables you to do.
How can I be so sure?
Because over the decades I’ve seen all kinds of people, all ages and from all backgrounds turn their lives around thanks to hypnosis. When you use hypnosis for yourself it improves confidence in all kinds of ways. When you use it to change other’s lives it just blows you away. This is what I mean.
When I first hypnotised someone to feel no sensation in a painful arthritic arm it was an incredible feeling. When I first cured life long phobias quickly and comfortably I was astounded. When I stopped hardened alcoholics from drinking and even got a heroin addict off the stuff and back into mainstream life again I started to feel angry that people could just associate hypnosis with entertainment.
With the aid of hypnosis I (and many people I have trained and worked with) have helped severely depressed people feel strong and positive again. The rewards and satisfactions are hard to describe. I’m going to take a stand against ignorance and short sightedness around hypnosis and here’s why.
Why you need to reclaim hypnosis for yourself
Hypnosis is your birthright. It’s nature’s optimum learning tool. In fact to learn and perform anything well you need to experience a natural focussing of attention, a natural kind of hypnosis. To be successful hypnosis needs to be your companion and friend.
Successful people use it naturally all the time because hypnosis is natural. It’s the way we learn new responses. Unlike medications its side effects are purely positive - one expectant mother I worked with to feel relaxed during child birth later reported that she was also more relaxed when flying!
Hypnosis is easy to learn and every body can benefit. Hypnosis is a safe environment to ‘try out’ new behaviours and emotional patterns before you experience them for real. So the young man can ask a woman out for a date many times in calm relaxed hypnosis so that by the time he does it for real it feels real and natural and relaxed. Sports people who use hypnosis learn new quicker and more accurately. So hypnosis gives you more control of yourself and your life, it’s natural and gives you instant benefits and it’s a way of ‘trying on’ and establishing new patterns of emotional response and behaviour, Hypnosis enables you to develop yourself as a human being.

Motivate Yourself

Motivate Yourself

Why do you want to motivate yourself? Actually, just answering that question fully can be one of the better ways to get your daily motivation. Below are seven more ways that have been provem to work for others. Chances are, some of them will work for you too.
Seven Ways To Motivate Yourself
1. Explain your plans. Usually, by the time I tell my wife about the newsletter I'm going to write, I'm out of my slump and back at the keyboard. Find someone that listens well, and tell them what you want to do. If it is something that you really want, this will almost always get you motivated.
2. Stimulate desire. Imagine the rewards of your effort clearly. Imagination motivates many to sign up for get-rich-quick plans. Good salesmen can have you living in your imagined dream home in minutes, and you'll feel motivated to do anything to make it real. Just learn to be your own salesman.
3. Use pain. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) teaches you to link pain with not acting. If you imagine a scene of your kids sitting in jail for drug use - that might motivate you to have that talk you've been avoiding. Linking pleasure and rewards to acting is only half of the formula. Remember to link pain to not acting.
4. Develop a true interest. If you have no interest at all, it might mean you need to do something else, but if it's just a task you dislike, relate it clearly in your mind to the greater goal. I don't like to drive, but when I remember those mountains I'm going to, I get motivated to drive.
5. Create energy. Coffee can help for a while, but one way or another, you need to have some energy to have motivate yourself. Exercise, sleep well, and watch out for sugary foods - the "sugar blues" will kill your motivation.
6. Have the proper mental state. It's rare to be depressed and motivated. Resolve some of your negative feelings, and you'll have more motivation. Another way is to do your important work when you are in a better mood.
7. Make any small step. Commit to raking up one bag of leaves, and soon you'll want to finish the yard. Any small step towards your goals creates momentum.
You have seven ways now, but you have to actually use them, so how do you get motivated to do that? You have to figure that one out yourself. Humor, by the way, can be a good motivator. Laughing often breaks up the feeling of being overwhelmed. There's your eighth way to motivate yourself.

The Principle of Accountability

The Principle of Accountability

We are responsible for every thought, word and deed of ours. The ancient masters said we are the owner of our deeds and we are the result of them.
Once we understand the concept of...
AS WE SOW, SO WE REAP
.. we will understand that whatever we get out of our lives is a result of what we have planted in our mind. Our past mental imprints determine our present situation in life, and the mental imprints that we plant now will determine our future situation.
The ancient sages liken this to planting a garden. If we want a beautiful garden, we will have to selectively plant beautiful plants. What is equally important is that we must constantly pull out the weeds. Without doing that, our garden will be overrun by weeds, obscuring the beautiful plants.
Likewise, to plant for a beautiful life, we must select only the mental imprints that we want, and constantly weed out the unuseful or harmful mental imprints. This, of course, requires constant mindfulness. We need to continuously guard what goes pass our conscious mind into our subconscious mind.
What this means is that ...
WE ARE FULLY RESPONSIBLE AND ACCOUNTABLE FOR OUR LIVES
We cannot blame anyone or anything for what is happening in our lives. Unfortunately, we often have this unhealthy tendency to blame someone or something. We unconsciously look for someone to blame when things go wrong in our lives rather than accept that we reaped what we sow.
Funnily, though, when good things come into our lives, we somehow believe we deserve them. We rarely look outside for someone to praise. If we would blame others for the bad things, why do we not praise others for the good things in our lives?
Blaming others is our way of avoiding taking responsibility for our lives. As long as we do that, we will never be the master of our lives. To counter this unhealthy tendency, we should instead cultivate a sense of gratitude towards all that we received.
One of the ways I do this is by repeating the following poem like a mantra as often as I can remember:
Thank you for the abundance,
Thank you for the wealth;
Thank you for all the happiness,
Protections and Good Health.
Repeat this mantra consistently every night before you sleep and you'll soon experience the pleasant changes in your life.
EXERCISE
Here are two other methods you can use to cultivate a sense of gratitude:
1. The Gratitude Book
At the end of each day, review your day and count your blessings. Write these down in a little note book. You may call this note book your Gratitude Book. By doing this consistently, you'll be retraining your mind to focus on the positive aspects of your life. Why is this important? Because like attracts like. The more you focus on the positive in life, the more positive things will come your way.
2. Altruistic Joy
Altruistic joy is a concept borrowed from the Buddhists. It means rejoicing at other people's good fortune. This practice counters our tendency to be envious of another person's success. Each time we rejoice at other's success, we are basically planting joyful imprints in our mind, thereby sowing seeds of joy for our own future.