Archives for November 2011

Smile or Go Naked

If the title made you think post is more exciting than most…you’re right. Because a song and dance is always exciting.

In one of my my girls’ dance classes, they are rehearsing some of the numbers form Annie, the musical.  The other day, one of them was playing some of the music, and I heard for the first time one of the songs they are NOT dancing to: You’re never fully dressed without a smile!

Who cares what they’re wearing
On Main Street,
Or Saville Row,
It’s what you wear from ear to ear
And not from head to toe
(That matters)

So, Senator,
So, Janitor,
So long for a while
Remember,
You’re never fully dressed
Without a smile!

Annie is a pretty popular musical, so I know many of our readers will be familiar with this one, but it is a wonderfully upbeat song to enjoy one more time. And if you are like me and have never seen Annie, I hope you will enjoy this for the first time.


 

Make a Silly Face

Make a face in the mirror. Make another. OK, now make another face.

Make sure they are funny faces.

We adults are so silly. We sometimes get so caught up in our serious worlds that we forget to act silly. And that is silly, because acting silly is a great stress reliever. It is a great reminder of our own humanity. It helps us to go easier on ourselves for our slip-ups. It connects us with our selves.

It’s not that we are happier when we act silly, as much that we are usually happier if we act silly every now and them. Acting silly is like a release valve, and all the tensions and all the guilt and all the negative energy is allowed to dissipate into the atmosphere.

So go ahead and make a silly face in the mirror.

READ ALSO: Live like you were dying

Three Tips for Happiness After the Car Crash

Imagine you are driving down the road, half paying attention, half listening to the radio or reviewing the grocery list in your mind or steaming over some injustice at work or doing whatever you usually do while driving.  (Yes, most people pay only half attention while driving down a familiar road.)

All of a sudden you see something happen on the road.  There is a car or a truck or a bus that is spinning out of control.  Or traffic has suddenly – very suddenly! – come to a screeching halt.  Or you hear the sound of CRASH! right behind you.  Before you even have time to react, you feel the sudden lunge of your car as it is hit or as it hits something else.

It all happens so fast, you can’t even be sure what happens.  But you are in pain.  The details will vary from crash to crash, but such are the stories of people filing claims for personal injury.  Even in cases of whiplash, people don’t always know what happened, because it usually hits them from behind.  People filing claims due to whiplash might not even remember all the details, because the pain might not kick in for a few days.

Their stories may differ, but their emotions don’t.

  • Crashes place stress on a person.
  • Injury places stress on a person.
  • The legal system places stress on a person.

Happiness After Personal Injury

There are ways to rebuild your happiness after the crash. Here are a few tips to recover emotionally:

Call in the troops.

Your friends and family are there to support you, so now is the time to ask for help.  Let them help you consider your options.  let them listen to your thoughts and feelings.  let them laugh with you – yes, go out and have some fun with friends and family.  Do things that are less painful, of course, but you need positive company to regain your strength.

Dive deep.

You are wonderful.  Yes, I am talking to you.  Whether you are hang gliding off the coast of Madagascar or sitting in pain on your  sofa at home, you are wonderful.  The crash is just a situation; it is not you.  The pain is just a situation; it is not you.  The legal process is just a situation; it is not you.  What really counts is you – who you are deep inside.  Focus on yourself, on who you are, on your values.  These have not changed.  This is your rock.

Look ahead.

In most cases, the pain will go away and the injury will heal.  Or, you will learn to cope with the pain and manage your life with the injury.  Sooner or later the lawyers will leave and hopefully you will have the extra money that you need to put your life back together.  Imagine yourself past the trauma, part the anger – really, close your eyes an envision enjoying life when the doctors and lawyers have packed up their bags and gone.

 

Hide Your Goat!

If you don’t want anyone to get your goat, don’t let them know where you have it tied.

One of the very early lessons we determined to teach our daughters was how to be teased. Yes, I know that might not rank high on the typical;list of priorities, but we knew that is they see their parents teasing each other in a positive way and laughing at ourselves, and if we tease them and let them tease us, they would enter school tease-proof. Let’s face it, the worse a child reacts to teasing, the more she will be picked on.

I wrote about this in The Daily Dose of Happiness eight years ago, and based on how freely they will tease us, we haven’t totally failed. They keep chasing our goats.

Teasing does not go away as an adult; it just gets subtler. It is never to late to hide your goat. (For those who have read Climb your Stairway to Heaven, you may be thinking of hiding your goat with a sheep down a well, but that’s another story.)

The next time you are teased, try laughing with the teaser. It can be a very liberating experience.

November – The Most Depressing Month of The Year

A few reasons why November is the most depressing month of the year:

  • It is getting colder, not as much fun being outdoors. Bleugh.
  • The green of the trees has left.  The leaves have fallen.  All that’s left are bare sticks. Bleugh.
  • Grass and ground plants are turning brown.  Bleugh.
  • There is no white snow yet to brighten up the landscape. Bleugh.
  • Days are getting shorter, so there is less light. Bleugh.
  • Cloud cover makes the shorter days and the browner barren landscape, making it all even bleughier.

We are in the final stages of setting up a solar power generation system on our land (You can read about it at http://www.solarontarioblog.ca)  Until we saw the month solar radiation stats, we did not realize just how cloudy November is.

See this graph:

Consider that December 21 is the Winter Solstice – the shortest day of the year.  That means that December should have the least hours of sunshine, weather excluded.  Because the 21st is closer to January than to November, January should have the second-fewest hours of sunlight, and November should have the third-fewest hours of sunlight.

November is the perfect time to do purposeful things to add some uplift to your days.  In our household, that has meant some games of air hockey, trips to the library and board games – family things we can do together that encourage laughter and smiles.

How do you plan to blow away the clouds of November?

Note: I have cross-posted this (sort of) over at November – Solar Power’s Doldrums.

Muhammad Ali’s Lessons for Life

Ali was not only one of the greatest boxers the world has ever known but he is also known as an incredibly inspiring human being. He was also known for his pre-match hype, where he would “trash talk” opponents on television and in person some time before each match, often with rhymes. These personality quips and idioms, along with an unorthodox fighting technique, made him a cultural icon. Below I will list some of his most inspiring quotes and how important they can be to the person who takes heed.

1… Fake it until you believe it.

 

“I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was”

I’m sure you have heard the “fake it till you make it” phrase before. How you hold yourself and what you say to yourself has a dramatic affect on how others see you and how your mind perceives your environment.

 

When you are out and about in the world today, hold your head up, pull your shoulders back and speak with clarity. By purposely and consciously acting how you would like to feel, your body and mind will begin to follow the lead you set out before hand. Also, the people you meet will treat you the way they perceive you, thus, reinforcing into your mind the outcome you set out to from the start.

If you want to feel more confident, in control and you want others to see you that way, then fake it. Inside, you might be nervous at first but others will not notice this as they will only be focused on what their eyes can see.

“I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest”

2… Short term pain for long term gain.

“I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”

Everything we do in life has consequences and more often than not we tend to opt for the easiest solution ahead of persevering in the face of resistance. Our bad habits are a perfect example of this lesson because they give us instant gratification and yet we never focus on the long term effects they may cause.

It becomes very easy to choose between what makes us feel good now as opposed to what will make us feel good in the future. Take a look at the choices you make each day and ask yourself if you are simply choosing instant gratification over long term pleasure. Most don’t want to put in the effort today because the results may take some time to manifest.

I am all for living in the moment but there are certain seeds that need to e planed today for the to harvest tomorrow.

3… Nobody knows you better than you know yourself.

“I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.”

 

No one can accuse Ali of being a person who lived his life on others terms. What about you? Are you living your life on your own terms? Have you made choices in the past because of what others expected of you and continue to do so?

I made the decision some time ago to live my life on my own terms. I left an extremely well paid  job after 12 years because I simply didn’t enjoy it anymore. It was a big decision at the time and I had to listen to my friends and family tell me how I was making a huge mistake in doing so. If I would have listened to them then I would be as miserable now as I was then. It was the best decision I ever made and I couldn’t be happier with my decision.

Most often the time is never right and you just have to go for it. I truly believe that things will always work out for the best in the end if you are willing to fly in the face of adversity, make a decision that feels right and stick with it.

4… You are so talented.

“It’s lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself”

 

Nothing is impossible if you have faith in yourself…nothing. I have found the biggest problem that people have is doubting themselves and their abilities. I have also realized that your mind is the great trickster. How many times have you doubted your ability to accomplish something and avoided the task altogether. Stop listening to useless thoughts created in your mind that limit your growth. You are not your mind, and doubting yourself is absolutely useless because it is absolute lies.

You have enough ability to last you 100 lifetimes but you may never believe it if you give power to the thoughts that limit you. Believe me when I tell you this, you have the power to either entertain or dismiss any thought that enters your mind. Your mind is always thinking, remembering, fantasizing and forever creating stories based upon the information you subject it to. Start to believe in your abilities and begin to discard the negative useless thoughts that limit you.

“It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen”

 

5… Does life just happen to you?

“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life”

If we do not consciously create the life we want for ourselves then we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over until the lesson is learned. Your life will change as the years go by but will it be because you took control and made the effort to consciously change your life, or will you leave it up to life to do the changing for you.

I have met many people who are not living up to even close to what they are capable of. The worse thing is that they don’t make any effort whatsoever to change their circumstances. They obviously want to have a better life, but it’s as if they’re hoping things will magically get better for them further down the line.

Take an inventory of your life up till this point and ask yourself if you are in the same situation, physically, mentally and emotionally as you where last month, year or even decade. Then ask yourself if your life is being played out on automatic pilot.

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This was a guest post written by Delcan at zenmed reviews where he discusses zenmed scar treatment reviews as well as many other natural treatments.