Between Us Girls

That's Perfect! Unfortunately, I'm Not

We all like to succeed, don't we?  No one sets out in the morning with hopes of failure.  But some of us just want it more than others.  In fact, some of us demand it.  We want everything to work out perfectly and we put an insane amount of pressure on ourselves to make it happen.

The result?  Lots and lots of stress for the perfectionist and also for the people who have to live with them.

The Random House Dictionary defines perfectionism as "a personal standard, attitude, or philosophy that demands perfection and rejects anything less."  Obvious, isn't it, how that becomes a recipe for disaster?  On the one hand, a perfectionistic attitude motivates us to always do our best.  It makes us very persistent, to a point.  Perfectionists make excellent students, driven athletes and aggressive salespeople.  Unfortunately, they are all miserable.  There is

Making Small Talk With Men in Dresses

I pride myself on being open-minded and I think that I do a very admirable job of not just talking the talk, but of walking the walk as well.  Even so, I have to admit that accepting everyone is much easier when done from a distance than when it becomes up close and personal.  My ability to be truly accepting of people who have different views, life experiences and ways of being in the world was tested recently, and for a brief moment, I wondered whether or not I would pass the test.

I belong to a very liberal church and we are a welcoming congregation which means that we really do welcome all.  You can believe in God (or gods) or not.  You can lean towards paganism or fancy yourself a western Buddhist.  You can be black or white, Asian or Hispanic, lesbian or gay, transgendered or transsexual.  Come one, come all.

Our inclusiveness is what drew me to this church and I believe myself to be ready for anything.  But then I met Tracy (not her real name).  I wasn't quite sure what to make of Tracy.  She was always beautifully dressed and very polite but her figure and features had a masculine edge that I couldn't help but notice.  I began to wonder if she was really a "she" at all.  A masculine looking woman?  A transsexual in progress?  A man who just likes to wear dresses?   Whatever the answer,  I was truly willing to accept it.  I just found that the not being clear on who I was dealing with was a bit disconcerting, not to mention distracting.  How does one make small talk with a man in a dress anyway?

I made a point of pushing myself to look past the incongruities and to get to know Tracy, the person.  It wasn't easy at first.  I wasn't feeling judgmental or prejudiced.  It was more a feeling of confusion.  The first few conversations

Frustration: Friend or Foe?

My son is a lot like me - poor kid.  He loves to learn new things and share what he learns with others.  Good so far.  He also enjoys a challenge, but only to a point.  He's pretty bright so most things come easily to him.  The problem is when the challenge proves too much, when something doesn't come easily.  Determined little bugger that he is, he'll keep trying and trying until frustration and exhaustion overwhelm him.  Persistence?  He's got truckloads.  Patience?  Well, that's another story.

When my son was a baby,  he didn't just want to be able to turn over by himself, he felt a desperate need to do it and to do it now.  He would try and try and try and try to roll over and I would try to help, just a little to get him started.  But it didn't happen right away and so the trying became straining and the straining became battling and the result?  Crying, screaming and anguish. And you should have heard the baby!

Crawling, sitting up, walking?  Same scenario, over and over again.  And things haven't changed much in eight years.  The desire to roll over or to walk has been replaced with the need to speed read and to reach level three-gazillion on the latest Wii game within the first two days of ownership.  My boy still loves to take on challenges and usually skates along effortlessly for a while.  Eventually though, even the boy-genius hits a wall and then look out!  The tears flow, pillows are beaten mercilessly and mommy's limited patience begins to wear thin.  Granted, no one likes to feel frustrated, but as I've explained to my son, frustration is not the enemy.  In fact, the ability to tolerate frustration is a critical ingredient in the recipe for a happy life.  The real foe is our own lack of patience.

Stop Worrying and Start Living

So much of our time is spent regretting the past or planning for the future that we often fail to live in the present.  We know better.  We read the wisdom of spiritual masters.  We listen to pop psychology and motivational speakers.  Or do we?  Do we really listen to the message or do we simply hear it and forget it?

The trouble with life lessons of this magnitude is that they are harder to learn than we realize.  And if we've grown up in a society that trains us from early on to be future-oriented, always planning, always striving, always working towards something instead of being present in the moment, the lessons are that much more difficult.  Our habitual thought patterns create a way of being in the world and changing that takes concerted effort. 

"The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And the habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and it's ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings . . .

As the shadow follows the body,
as we think, so we become."

                                                - From the Dhammapada (Sayings of the Buddha)

Thinking about the past and the future, we become someone who resides there; someone who is absent in our own lives.  The good news is that life provides us with a regular supply of opportunities to learn how to stop worrying and

From Hot-Flashes to Hope: Hormones and Our Mid-Life Desire for Change

Waking at 3 a.m. with sweat-soaked pajamas, snapping at our husbands or co-workers, sleeping fitfully, cringing from headache pain, forgetting where we put our keys or where we were going in the first place, cringing from embarrassment as yet another shirt-soaking hot-flash overtakes us; women who are approaching mid-life know all-too-well the havoc that fluctuating hormone levels can wreak. 

From hot-flashes to heart palpitations, these delightful harbingers of "the change" can torment us for several months to several years before we actually stop having periods.  Perhaps that's why most women who are post-menopausal, rather than feeling old or sad, find themselves feeling more joyful and optimistic than ever.  Ahhhhh . . . sweet relief!

Our hormones have so much to say, but not just about how we feel physically.  These natural chemicals effect how we feel emotionally as well.  In fact, they might just have a lot more to say about who we are and what we want at any given point in our lives than we ever realized.

What We Most Need to Remember about Loving-Kindness

Buddhism teaches that the first of the Four Noblest Qualities of Mind (also known as the Brahma Viharas)is loving-kindness.  It is said that making the commitment to love life unconditionally in all its forms is the way of the Dharma.  But cultivating this attitude of loving-kindness isn't so easy. 

Our days are full of reasons to not feel loving or to behave kindly.  It seems there are obstacles everywhere we look.  We feel anger toward the child who just callously knocked our little one over on the playground and contempt for the parents who didn't teach their child better manners.  We feel impatience with the elderly driver plodding along ahead of us at a snail's pace.  We feel hatred toward the pedophile being led away in hand-cuffs on the evening news. 

Feeling loving towards all people sometimes seems all but impossible but we are encouraged, not just by Buddhism but by most faiths and philosophies, to develop this noble quality of mind little by little.  We are told to start with prayers or meditations that focus on feelings of loving-kindness and that direct them, at first, towards those we already love - our children, spouses and best friends.  Little by little we are encouraged to let those feelings of love flow a little further outward.  We might begin to include more distant family members, neighbors, animals and others.  Eventually, we need to try to send loving, kind thoughts and prayers towards those people we like the least - the boss who is making our life a living hell, the neighborhood kid who broke into our car looking for cash, the politicians who have forgotten that they work for us, the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. 

Those of us who are so-inclined, struggle through this process.  We pray or meditate and try our best to send love out into the world.   But there is someone whom we often forget to include on our prayer or meditation list and this person is usually the one who needs love the most and gets the least.  Frequently neglected, sometimes downright hated, the person we most need to send love to is

Changing Yourself, Changing the World

So many of us look at the world and wonder what's gone wrong.  How did everything get so messed up?  Why is there so much hate in the world?  What are people thinking?  Why can't anything be easy?  Why can't we all just get along?

The most optimistic of us continue to hold out hope that things will get better.  Wars will cease, racism and other forms of oppression will fade, diseases will be cured and people will all get along.  But how all this will  come to pass remains a mystery.  Will it happen because we simply wish it to be . . . as if by magic?

"A goal without a plan is just a wish" 
Larry Elder

We all know it already, the fact that wishful thinking gets us nowhere.  We also know that many of the world's problems are much bigger than we are. Watch the evening news and you come to realize that it does us more of a disservice than a service.  Designed to keep us informed, it leaves us instead feeling like we know too much and can do too little.  The problems are so big and our influence so small.  How can we change the world?

Mind and Body Blogs

There are so many blogs these days that it's sometimes hard to know where to start when you're looking for information.  Those of you who are interested in personal growth and development might want to check out the "100 Best Blogs for Mind, Body and Soul" compiled by the National Massage Certification website.  Happy reading!

Old Age: A Preview

It is often said that with age comes wisdom. And while I do believe that's true, I'm also becoming quite well aware of the fact that wisdom, like age, does not come alone. Wrinkles, moles, achy joints, a little sag here and a little bag there; these are all midlife harbingers of things to come.

Take cataracts for instance. Why? Well what could possibly scream “old” louder than cataracts? Not much, I can assure you.

Sitting in the waiting room at the eye surgery center, my husband surveyed the room and said “You're way too young to be here.” “Tell me about it,” I responded with a sigh. While some of my hair color does come from a bottle, I do still have a lot of my own natural color mixed in. I couldn't say the same for the rest of the room. Gray hair, white hair, bald heads, canes. What the hell?

At 46, I am young to have cataracts. Why I have them is anybody's guess . . .it's either a side effect from my year-round allergy medication use or just luck I suppose. But, whatever the cause, I have a cataract in my left eye that has grown very rapidly and is robbing me of my sight in that eye. I also have very early signs of a cataract in my right eye. So, there I sat, with my gray-haired comrades, waiting for the doctor to disintegrate the lens of my left eye with ultrasound, suck it out with a little vacuum and

Hazing - Are Our Kids Going Too Far?

Hazing is a well-known and long-standing part of the fabric of our society. If we haven't been through it ourselves, we likely know someone who has. But the practice of hazing as a way to indoctrinate a new member of a club, team or other group is on the rise and the ages of the participants are dropping. Is this just a normal part of growing up or should we be concerned?

College fraternities and sororities are perhaps the best known of the groups that regularly require hazing as a rite of initiation, but lately it seems that many high school and even middle school groups are joining in. School band members have been suspended for participating in dangerous hazing rituals, cheer leading squads have jumped into the fray and even some church youth groups are sheepishly admitting that they too have crossed over to the dark side.

Although many still think of hazing as a harmless prank, a joke that leaves everyone, even the “hazees” laughing, hazing is more pernicious than it might appear at first glance. Hazing is defined as “any activity expected of someone joining a group (or to maintain full status in a group) that humiliates, degrades or risks emotional and/or physical harm, regardless of the person's willingness to participate.” The key here is that the activities are, by their very nature, designed to humiliate and degrade . . . and include the risk of physical or emotional harm. And the fact is that, as with so many things, our kids are busily trying to outdo each other. Hazing is becoming an on-going game of one-upsmanship. The activities are getting more risky and more violent.

Should we be concerned? What's causing this and why are our kids directing so much anger and viciousness at their friends?

These are good questions and I'm afraid I don't really have the answers. Could it be that our kids have been exposed to so much violence, from the nightly news to movies and video games, that they have become desensitized and callous? There is a lot of psychological research that suggests media violence can have such an effect on children. Have we as parents lost sight of our values or are we simply failing to

Taking Action to Reduce Stress

We're all familiar with stress. We know the symptoms; headaches, stomach upset, sleepless nights, irritability. And we know the causes; marital problems, job issues, parenting challenges . . . oh, and I almost forgot . . . a crashing stock market, a failing economy and a rapidly disappearing faith in a financially secure future.

So what do we do about it? There are lots of stress remedies out there and I've tried them all. Well, most of them anyway. Exercise, positive thinking, yoga, meditation . . . you name it, I've done it. While I've gotten some benefit from each, I think that I may have finally hit upon the most powerful of all. Action.

The Art of Diplomacy - What's in It for You?

We hear so much about the need for diplomacy these days in everything from international relations to bi-partisan relations, but the art of diplomacy isn't just for national leaders and members of Congress. Diplomacy, the employment of tact to find mutually acceptable solutions to a common challenge, can be employed by everyday people in everyday situations to the benefit of all.

Think of the many challenges we face: Your daughter, a freshman in high school, wants to date a senior. Your five-year-old son doesn't want to share his new Play-Doh set with his cousin who is in for a holiday visit. Your coworker speaks so loudly on phone calls that you can't focus and he's tired of your dirty looks. Your Aunt Rose doesn't speak to your Aunt Mary, but is the sister of Mary's husband, Bob who rarely gets to see Rose. How are you going to please everyone with the seating plan at your wedding reception?

Situations like these pop up all the time and they can really push our buttons if we let them. The result? Anger, arguments, hurt feelings, crying and worse. So how can the art of diplomacy make a difference and what's in it for us?

Well, diplomacy is a way of handling sticky situations that leads to consensus and compromise. In other words, it is a way of finding a solution that everyone can live with which, admittedly,  is often easier said than done. Happily though, diplomacy involves certain skills that, given some practice and patience,

The Top Twelve Scientifically-Proven Happiness Strategies

We are all searching for happiness these days and advice on how to find it abounds. But how do we know what really works and, more importantly, how do we know what is going to work for us?

Luckily, the scientific community has been working hard on these questions and they are beginning to come up with some answers. First, scientists have confirmed what we all know by now to be true and that is that money doesn't but happiness and neither does that new car, the vacation at the beach, the big wedding, the job promotion or the face-lift – not lasting happiness anyway. On the other hand, scientists have also found at least twelve strategies that do, in fact, lead to sustainable increases in happiness. The trick is first, to know what they are and how to employ them and, second, to know which ones will work best for you.

First, lets take a look at the top 12 scientifically-proven happiness strategies. Here they are:

Equanimity as a Weakness? - I Think Not

During a recent television interview, Barack Obama was asked if he thought that the unusual bit of fiery passion he showed and the few hard hitting remarks he made in his acceptance speech were enough to quell the criticism that he isn't passionate or tough enough to be president. Apparently, many people seem to find his emotional control and his ability to greet questions, criticisms or alternative ideas with a thoughtful response rather than an impulsive reaction off-putting.

Just as advertisers know how to word deceptive claims in a way that makes them more believable and job candidates can cleverly frame their weaknesses as strengths, political opposition and the media can

5 Tips for Harnessing the Power of Your Words

No one would deny the power of words, but like all powerful tools, words can be used for good or evil. And sometimes, our failure to use our words carefully can hurt others and our relationships with them.

We've all had experiences with people who purposely use words as weapons, but we've also known those whose simple lack of ability to think before they speak unwittingly leads them to embarrass themselves or offend others.

I was reminded of this quality recently by the story of a friend of mine. A friend of a friend had recently become a non-friend because of her tendency to have whatever thoughts entered her mind immediately spill out of her mouth. I was sad to hear it, but not terribly surprised. When I first met the woman she had reminded me of an old, no-longer-friend of my own who was too quick to share her opinions and criticism. This old friend taught me some painful, but very valuable lessons. Thanks to my experiences with her, I had seen the writing on the wall early on with this new friend of a friend and had chosen to steer clear. Whew!

While we all make mistakes from time to time and occasionally say or do the wrong thing, some of us, like the woman in the example above, consistently make the tactical error of not thinking before we speak.

Where to Find Health Information for Women

     To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.  This is to have succeeded!  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

     I keep this quote in my mind when I feel unproductive, unsuccessful or lacking in purpose.  The last bit, "to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.", is, to me, the most meaningful.  My original intention when I decided to set up this blog was to create a way of sharing information that we, as

Passage Meditation: How it Can Help You to Translate Your Spiritual Ideals into Your Everyday Life

Although meditation is much-talked-about, it is easier said than done for most of us. It can seem too foreign, too complicated, or too strange, but somehow the promised benefits keep drawing us back in to take a look again and again and to wonder:

Can I learn to do this? Will meditation really help me to think more clearly, get in touch with my true self, realize that I am more than my body, more than my mind, part of a greater whole? Can I learn to train my mind, to become more focused, to learn to think and act rather than to simply react? Will I ever be able to sit still long enough to even try?

I believe that we all have what it takes to do this, but we may need a little help. There are many, many different ways to meditate and we need to find the way that is right for us. I've been searching for the right way for myself for a while now and I think that I may have found it. So of course, I 'd like to share it with

4 Steps to Finding and Following Your Passion

There is so much talk about discovering your passion, following your bliss and living a life that you love. Hearing messages like these over and over, we can't help but to take a look at our own lives and to perhaps find them lacking. We wonder how we can live a life of purpose and meaning, how we can follow our bliss. Then we begin to wonder. What is my bliss? Do I have a passion? Did I ever?

How to Find Happiness the Easy Way

Finding happiness is all the rage these days, but why does it have to be so darn difficult?  Are we that out of touch with what makes us happy or have our expectations just become too high?

Those of you who have ready my prior post on the Power of Positive Emotions know that experiencing positive emotions can undo a lot of the damage caused by negative emotions.  Common sense tells you that the more often we experience these positive emotions the happier we will be.  Considering this, I've decided that happiness doesn't have to be so difficult.  I've proposed a simpler way to conceive of happiness and some easy steps that we can take in our pursuit of it.

Check out my guest post "How to Find Happiness the Easy Way" over at the Positivity Blog and let me know what you think. Your comments, anecdotes and suggestions are always welcome!

How to Stop Procrastinating and Start Doing

Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today? Well, because it's easier, you have more interesting things to do and, perhaps, you never really wanted to do those things in the first place.

Procrastinating isn't just about waiting until the last minute to get something done. It can also show up as the tendency to avoid confrontation, a reluctance to take risks or try new things, the ability to make big plans but to never follow through, the tendency to get sick or tired when faced with unpleasant tasks or the choice to blame others for your unhappiness instead of taking action.

Some of us have a bigger problem with procrastination than others, but we are all guilty of it now and again. What about you? Have you ever waited until the eleventh hour to pull together a term paper or a report for the boss? Can you always find a reason why that talk about boundary issues with your mother-in-law can wait? Do you spend hours or months researching the best brand of toothpaste or minivan? Do you keep talking about that new business you're going to start or that book you're going to write...someday? Whoops, that

How to Keep Your Cool When the Heat is On

Whether you're a chronic worrier or steady as a rock, chances are that you have experienced anxiety at one time or another. I'm not talking about panic attacks or anxiety disorders, just the run-of-the-mill anxiety we experience when we are about to face someone or something that sets those butterflies a-fluttering.

Think blind date, job interview, marriage proposal, confronting your nosy neighbor...any situation that might make you tense and fearful. You're worried about the impression you'll make, you fear you might embarrass yourself, you're afraid that you'll come across as unprepared or that you will get a negative reaction.

The anticipation of potentially stressful events can be worse than the event itself. So when the heat is on, how do you keep your cool? Next time you are worried about an upcoming event, try some of these ideas and see how they work:

Do Your Homework

Preparation is key. If you are worried that things will go wrong or that you won't be ready for whatever is thrown at you, take a hint from the scouts and be prepared. Gather whatever information or tools that you think you might need and have them at the ready.

7 Tips for Keeping Things in Perspective

We are all too familiar with stress and what it can do to our health and well-being. Each and every day new problems crop up that create the opportunity for worry and anxiety to stop us in our tracks. But every problem that we encounter doesn't carry the same weight. Difficulties, like people, come in all shapes and sizes and keeping our perspective is important if we want to avoid being sent into a tail-spin numerous times a day.

So how do we do this? How do we keep things in perspective so that we aren't overcome with anxiety every time an obstacle shows up in our lives.

There are many ways to maintain perspective – to see our problems for what they really are and to not let them balloon to larger-than-life proportions. It all comes down to stopping, breathing, and taking the time to ask ourselves some important questions:

Therapy, Therapists and Techniques: How to Find What Works for You

The world of psychotherapy is a very broad and varied one. There is a dizzying array of theories, techniques and approaches to therapy from which to choose and weeding through them to find the therapy style that is right for you can be almost as stressful as the problem that drove you to therapy in the first place!

From psychoanalytic theory to cognitive-behavioral theory, from “Gestalt Therapy” to “Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy,” from relaxation techniques to role playing exercises, the options are endless. So where do you start? Is there some easy answer...some secret formula?

Of course not. I wish I could give you a simple formula...some easy mathematical equation that would lead you to “the answer” but I can't. Finding what works for you is simply, or not so simply, a process of trial and error.

But let me tell you something that might help. Before I decided to stay home with children (and climb the walls on a daily basis), I did a little bit of counseling myself. What I mean to say is I counseled other people...but then again, I have counseled myself quite a bit as well. Never mind...the point is I have some training and experience in this area and I'm going to let you in on a secret. Counselors and therapists can sometimes have a hard time sorting through the piles of psychotherapeutic techniques as well.

Finding the Meaning of Life

We all have our moments...times when we just don't like the way life is going, when we feel that nothing is working, when everything seems so overwhelming. We feel like we're swimming upstream and we wonder why we are even bothering. What's the use? Why does life have to be so hard?

Sometimes life is hard. But it's also true that no matter how difficult it gets, there is always a way to go on. Always. No matter what. Whatever your circumstances, you can find something to live for. But when we are in the midst of a bad time, we can easily lose sight of that fact, can't we? Times like these call for drastic measures. Times like these call for a story. Let me tell you one

How You Can Fight Materialism and Win

This post is the third in a series on the dangers of materialism.

An unchecked focus on materialistic values can cause so much harm to us personally, to our relationships with others and to the ecosphere as a whole. In“The Scourge of Materialism” we learned that materialistic people are generally less happy and more likely to act in socially and environmentally damaging ways. In “The Costs of Materialism” we took a more in-depth look at the personal, social and ecological costs of materialism.

The result? We know that materialistic values are not congruent with a psychologically, socially and ecologically healthy way of life. But what, if anything, can we do about it? Living in a society that is built on the drive toward material gain, how can we manage to live a life based on more pro-social values? Is it even possible? 

The Cost of Materialism

This is the second post in a three part series on the dangers of materialism. For an introduction to the subject, please read “The Scourge of Materialism.”

Our society has centered itself around materialistic pursuits. We place a high value on financial success, social status and the many symbols that represent both. Quite often, we push the people and activities that we love onto the back burner as we pursue the better job, the bigger house, the shinier car.

But these symbols of success have a price and we're not just talking about money. The costs of materialism are far broader than that. Their impact extends well beyond our bank accounts to our personal

The Scourge of Materialism

It seems that there is a plague in our midst. It threatens to steal away our health, our happiness and perhaps our future. Celebrity carriers like Paris Hilton and Donald Trump may be it's poster-children but they have a lot of not-so-famous company. Look around...it's likely that many around you have already been infected. In fact, chances are good that it's gotten most of your loved ones and quite possibly.......you.

Materialism, consumerism, commercialism...call it what you will. It permeates our culture. Buying, spending, accumulating...these are the building blocks of our society. Our values reflect it and our government encourages it. Feeling good about ourselves comes not from what we do, but what we have. Social status is based on wealth and possessions. Legislation is designed, not to protect the common good but, to protect corporate profits and shareholder interests and to preserve the link between money and power.

Research (not to mention common logic) has demonstrated that the more people value materialistic goals, the less happy they are and the more likely they are to act in socially and ecologically damaging ways. It is becoming more and more clear that when we choose to define success in materialistic terms, we pay a very high price. Here in the United States, we are reaping what our capitalistic society has sown and most of us are disappointed with the harvest.

Huge fuel costs (despite record fuel industry

How Spirituality Can Help You Reach Your Goals

     Some of us are naturally spiritual people and some are not.  Some of us equate spirituality with religion and some do not.  Whether we attend church, chant and meditate, participate in drum circles or eschew all things spiritual or religious in nature, one thing that we do share is the tendency to build our lives around our goals.  We can also agree that achieving the goals we set for ourselves isn't always easy.

     I have written elsewhere about the importance of choosing our goals wisely.  Goals that are congruent with our values are much more meaningful and more likely to be attained.  But psychological research shows that having goals that are not just meaningful, but spiritually meaningful, boosts our power to achieve.

"Psychological studies have recently begun focusing on better defining and studying spirituality, as opposed to a cloudy mix of religion and spirituality, and the results are quite interesting. It turns out that a sense of spirituality can be good for you, especially when it comes to achieving your goals."

     Having spiritually meaningful goals doesn't mean that you need to become religious or set goals like "ending hunger" or "saving the whales."  But contemplating your place in the world and the meaning of your life may help guide you in determining the goals that are most meaningful to you.

The Strength to be Yourself

     Once in a while I get in a funk...don't we all? I fall into the trap of comparing myself with others, regretting past mistakes, wishing I had done things differently or that I was more like someone else I imagine to be far better off. For a day or two, I can't seem to muster the energy to take all of my own advice on positive thinking, gratitude, living in the here and now, blah, blah, blah.

     Hey, I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. Yes, I know better and yet sometimes, even knowing better isn't enough to keep my spirits up when things aren't going my way. So, I allow myself a day or two of moping and then I get on with my life. I get back on the positive psychology wagon. I focus on the moment, try to meditate, exercise (of course), engage in activities that foster more positive emotions (like reading or walking outside or a little gardening) and the world seems bright once again.

     It's good that I go through this really. It keeps me humble and serves as a reminder that there is a lot of unhappiness in the world and that we are all susceptible. Experiencing it myself now and again helps me to be more compassionate towards others who are feeling low and maybe don't have the knowledge or the skills to pull themselves out of it like I do. I believe that we all need to do what we can in this crazy world to try to stay positive, to improve our lives and to be happy. I also believe that we owe it to our friends, our families and our neighbors to reach out and grab their hands and lift them up as well.

Mindfulness Meditation and Stress Reduction

 

     Stress is a given in our lives. Difficult people, time pressures, repetitive and routine tasks, financial concerns, and a lack of self-confidence are some of the most common stressors we face. But it is not the stressors themselves that cause the problem. It is the way we handle, or fail to handle them, that causes us grief.

     Meditation has long been known to assist people in dealing effectively with the stresses in their lives. It is a simple and proven method, yet few of us take advantage of it. Why? Perhaps because we see it as being much more difficult than it really is. We view it as something foreign, something that is one small part of a very complex religious or philosophical system that we may have no interest in or little time to pursue. Or, we just think it is too hard.