How to successfully overcome life s challenges

We all experience various challenges in life. Maybe we have to figure out how make our next rent payment. You may be dealing with depression or anxiety. Perhaps you’re having relationship or job issues? A worst-case challenge might be dealing with the death of a loved one. The first step in dealing with any challenge is to recognize the issue. Recognizing a challenge isn’t so hard with some issues. For example, you don’t need to do a lot of soul searching to realize next month’s rent is due, and you don’t have the money for it in the checking account. Some issues do require recognizing the challenge. Alcoholism is a good example. Most alcoholics live in denial and don’t recognize the challenges they face. Many challenges have negative associations. Who wants to be labeled addicted or an alcoholic? Even though society seems to have become more accepting of such challenges, there’s still a personally felt stigma to avoid. Once you’ve recognized the challenge, there are additional steps you can take to overcome the challenge. One important step is to talk about your challenge with others. Discussing your issues with others has a number of benefits. First off, it helps define the problem and how it affects you. Open discussion can also help you relieve your own internal stress about the issue. Talking about the challenge with others allows you to get their insight into the issue and potential solutions to the challenge. If the challenge is a medical issue or mental health problem, you most definitely will want to talk to a medical professional. For addictions, organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous can help. Discussing the issues allows you to follow through with another step you can take to overcome the challenge – dealing with the emotions associated with the problem. For example, at the loss of a loved one, you need to allow yourself to grieve. Holding in emotions is destructive and can cause additional mental and even physical problems owing to the undue stress. Once you’ve recognized the challenge, discussed it with others, and allowed yourself time to deal with the emotions corresponding to the challenge, it’s time to look into solving the problem associated with the challenge. One way you can look at solutions is to research how others have dealt with similar challenges. Another way might be to ask for assistance with finding a solution through either discussing the issue with a professional (medical professional, clergy, mental health professional, etc.) or with someone who can give you insight into a solution. Often times, you’ll find that a person who is less involved with the challenge can give you a more apparent perspective on the issue because they’re not emotionally invested in the problem and can think more clearly on the topic. If the challenge is something where you can find a practical solution, then you should act on it. There are some issues you might not be able to solve immediately. For example, you can’t do anything about the death of a love. You can, however, look into additional ways to earn money for that overdue rent. Some issues may be solvable but difficult to solve. You might not be able to immediately stop an addictive behavior, but on the other hand, you can certainly begin the process with the appropriate guidance and behavior changes.

Feeling good and the law of attraction

The more we learn about using the Law of Attraction consciously in our lives, the more we understand that our emotional state determines our vibrational frequency, which attracts the quality of experiences we have. With this knowledge comes the understanding that feeling good (happy, joyful, enthusiastic, optimistic) will attract more of the same into our lives. But is it really possible to feel good all the time? How do we deal with life's little (and not so little) annoyances? Are we supposed to live in a state of denial and take on a Pollyanna attitude? What about the devastating life experiences that shake us to our core, such as the death of a loved one or a natural disaster? How is it possible to remain in a positive emotional state when laboring under feelings of grief and despair? The short answer is: it's not only difficult, but also detrimental to us to do so. Our feelings are real. Trying to deny them or smooth them over with blanket statements of positive focus won't help us resolve them at a core level. Instead, it's important to honor our feelings and work through them in a positive and productive manner. How? By admitting that we feel rotten, and allowing ourselves to feel that way. It's okay to feel angry, sad, or hurt when something awful happens! The best gift we can give ourselves is the opportunity to feel our feelings, genuinely and deeply. When you feel sad about something, let yourself feel sad. Embrace the feelings, and move through them. Write in a journal about why you're sad, and express the feelings rising up within you. Write out your rage, your pain, your grief. Scream your fury to the universe. It is only by moving through your feelings that you can come out of them eventually. Having said that, we must also reach a point when we choose to step out of our misery and feel hopeful again. We must eventually turn our focus to thoughts of healing and peace. Continuing to stay mired in pain for an excessive amount of time can be just as detrimental as denying our pain altogether. What is considered an "excessive" amount of time? Only you can say. Your grief process might last a few days, or a few years. Simply stay tuned in to yourself, your thoughts, your emotions, and you'll know when you're beginning to move out of the grief process. What about the smaller annoyances we deal with on a daily basis? This is the more common struggle for most of us. How do we stay positive when facing traffic jams, rude people, misbehaving children, inconsiderate spouses, demanding bosses, financial challenges, and repeated feelings of frustration that we just can't seem to get it together? Though these experiences seem overwhelming, they are actually the most simple to deal with if you shift your perspective slightly. The best tool I've discovered for dealing with frustration is the ability to choose what I focus on. Let's use an example to demonstrate this concept. Let's say you're running late for work and you have an important meeting to attend when you get there. You dash to your car, praying for a quick, easy ride to work so you can be on time for your meeting. Shortly after you leave home, you run into a big traffic jam. Cars are moving slower than molasses, and you sit there behind the wheel feeling angry and frustrated because you know you're going to be late for your meeting, which will bring on some unpleasant comments from your boss, and probably ruin your chances for the promotion you were hoping to get. The more you follow this line of thought, the more angry and frustrated you will become. So what can you do to turn this situation around? Here are the techniques I've found most helpful in frustrating circumstances: 1) Intend a different outcome. Remember that your focus will attract a corresponding result! You're already stuck in the traffic jam, so denying it would be futile. However, does the existence of a traffic jam have to bring about the negative consequences you envisioned? Not necessarily. You are making assumptions about what this experience will mean to you. If you instead choose to make it mean something else, you can actually change the outcome. How? Try affirming something like this: "Even though traffic seems to be moving slowly, I KNOW I will arrive at work exactly on time. The universe is working with me to create the most beneficial outcome possible." The trick is to put your full faith into this affirmation, and not let yourself become filled with doubt or worry. Then, any number of things could happen to support your new belief. Traffic might begin moving more quickly because the obstruction is cleared, or you might still arrive at work a few minutes late only to discover that your boss and several other coworkers were also late because of the traffic jam, so the meeting begins later than planned. 2) Choose to feel good anyway! This is a little more challenging, but the more you do it the better you get at it. Simply choose to turn your thoughts to a more positive place. Rather than dwelling on your frustration, find something to feel good about and focus on it. Think about your loved ones, pets, or friends. Recall a happy memory that makes you laugh out loud. Carry some uplifting audio books in your car so you can listen to them when you need a boost. Turn your attention firmly away from thoughts that increase your worry and irritation, and toward thoughts that make you feel happy. It seems difficult to overcome negative thoughts and feelings, but it's really as simple as choosing your focus moment to moment, day after day. The more practice you get at feeling good overall, the more you'll find yourself able to step calmly over minor irritations, and deal effectively with bigger issues.

Finding the silver lining

When I find myself in the midst of a challenging experience, I ask myself “Why is this happening to me?” Not in a whiny, wailing kind of way (not anymore that is, believe me, there was a time when I surely would have), but in a genuinely curious way. I know now that no matter how tough things are for me there is an opportunity for growth and expansion in the experience. And when I don’t know the reason for what’s happening, I hold the intention to know it. It doesn’t have to be right away. I accept that the knowledge or insight may well come in hindsight, and so I do the best I can to deal with the situation while trusting that everything will be alright. I know when the going gets tough that I’ve created or attracted the experience at an unconscious level through my thoughts, feelings and overall energy. I also know that this outer event does not have to impact my inner self if I don’t give it the power to do so. How I experience the event, how I get through it is down to me, I am not powerless in my response to the situation. I realise that I need to shift my energy, to align it more with how I'd prefer things to be rather than how they are/I don't want them to be. So what I do is take good care of myself. I let myself off the hook when it comes to all the busy stuff I “should” be doing, and instead focus on nourishing my body, mind and soul. I take a nap in the middle of the day. I light a fire and watch afternoon telly. I go for a walk – fresh air is such a great tonic. I read something inspirational. I go to the cinema in the middle of the afternoon. I do things for no other reason than it feels good doing them. I allow myself to sit with the dilemma without worrying about it. To wonder with curiosity rather than anxiety how things will be when I get to the other side of it. And I look forward to the inspired action I will take when the solution comes to me naturally. I never force it anymore, I just trust that the answer will make itself known to me in good time. I focus on getting clear on what I want the outcome to look and feel like, and stop trying to figure out how to achieve it. After a couple of days of this soul nourishing, I start to take baby steps. I still might not know “how” I’m going to solve my issue, but I start to do small things that feel like they will help, or at least can’t hurt! Often, this is when the inspiration does kick in. With small steps, my energy starts to shift, and little by little the way becomes clearer, and my enthusiasm stronger. “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” -- Helen Keller The former, more pessimistic me would have wallowed in my misery. The world is not a fair place, some people have all the luck and it sure as hell wasn’t me! But now I know that if I allow myself to do that I will probably miss the silver lining completely. And what a waste of time and misery that would have been! (I’m also much luckier now – and I don’t believe in coincidences) Life is never going to be a smooth ride. It’s going to be peaks and troughs. But our overall level of happiness, our resilience to the tougher experiences, can be a constant. Every challenging experience is an opportunity to grow and strengthen that resilience, to improve our coping skills and to get more out of life. The contrasts are what enable us to enjoy and appreciate the good stuff, and joy and appreciation attracts more of the same and better into our lives. “Whenever you’re in the middle of a crisis, stop and say ‘Thank You’, because you know that something better is on the other side.” -- Oprah Winfrey So, when things are looking a little dark in your life remember firstly that this too will pass and secondly that not only will things get better but you will get stronger. To find the silver lining, keep a conscious lookout for it!

An efficient way to personal growth

There is a way to grow and expand and resolve issues on your mind that is simple, efficient and relatively unknown. This way will hardly take a moment out of your day. I can personally vouch for the fact that what tends to occur is above and beyond many ways I know for creating excellence, happiness and peace of mind. Let me begin by painting a picture for you. Imagine that there is an issue or decision that you want to resolve (you may like to actually think of one). Now this issue may have been on your mind for sometime, or it might have come up today, but you're pulling yourself left one moment and right the next and are unsure what to do. Maybe a friend has advised you and you still don't know the answer. Maybe you go to see a psychic in the hope they will tell you the out outcome. You can go on like this for days, weeks and maybe even months or years, but what I'm going to tell you about is an efficient process that can help you. What's more you can do it while you're asleep. We've all heard the expression, 'Let me sleep on it.' This saying has more wisdom in it than you might know. What's been lost is the method. So I'm going to share it with you. All your problems, issues and decisions occur in your 'conscious' daily life. The solutions are all in the 'unconscious' or higher self. In order for you to access this there is a very simple technique which I've listed below this article under tips on today's subject. Although this process is kind of a 'one a day process', if you follow the wisdom that comes to you overnight, you'll find life transforming comfortably in a direction you'll enjoy. One of the things to be aware of is that the dreams you have seem to answer the questions you raise before falling asleep. On one occasion I was worried about the outcome of something. The impression the dream left on me was that there was nothing to be concerned about and I was just to sit back and wait. Another dream told me to sit and wait for a time and I would be taken on a journey of new possibilities. 48 hours later that's exactly what happened. I sat in a meeting with a man who unexpectedly told me what I needed to know. Concerned about a family member I was reassured and asked to be still and calm and be consistent. The list goes on. But I can assure you the energy of resolving decisions and issues in this way is more efficient than pulling your hair out. Tips on this subject… 1. What question do you want help answering? 2. As you as falling asleep repeat the question slowly, over and over until you fall asleep. When you do this you take your conscious problem into the unconscious mind. 3. When you wake recall the dream and the feeling you have on waking. 4. You should now have the answer you need. If not repeat this the next night and ask for more clarity on the question. With love and good wishes Neil CommunitySoul

Hypnosis and the media misconceptions

When you see a hypnotist portrayed in a movie, the script was presumably not written by a professional hypnotist, but rather by a writer who is calling upon his own interpretation of hypnosis. Presumably, that interpretation has been fed over the years by misconception. The product of his script continues to perpetuate that misconception. And so on it goes. It becomes a self propelling cycle of misinformation. As for the media, we can’t really expect to see or read stories about the successes of clinical hypnotherapy. There’s no media value to such a story. It isn’t sensational and it doesn’t merit a space in the newscast. We already know that media is fundamentally a business, and that producers have a mandate to achieve a certain readership level, and therefore choose their features based on what they know will get ratings. They have to be selective about the angle they choose to feature. This is true of any news story or subject, and hypnosis is no exception. It’s an unfortunate reality in society that we feed on bad news and negativity, and drama. So what you see in the media is the sensationalism, and the burden of reporting factually on clinical hypnotherapy is left to those of us who know the difference, because everyone else is happy to believe what they hear. We’ve come a long way, no doubt about it. But the dated impressions certainly continue to prevail. While both stage hypnosis and clinical hypnosis continue to build in popularity, clinical hypnosis does not elicit the same kind of mainstream media attention as stage hypnosis does. Entire campaigns are conceived to promote the theatrical effects of stage hypnosis. That’s the purpose, to entertain. But clinical hypnotherapy doesn’t elicit that kind of attention because it’s not at all newsworthy, or dramatic, or sensational. It isn’t intended to awe an audience. Therefore it fades in the background and fails to make its essence understood, except to those who make an effort to find out. The ongoing lack of awareness, lack of knowledge, or education on the subject is often evident in my therapy sessions. I usually investigate my client’s starting point before I proceed with their therapy. I like to assess their interpretations when they come to me, to identify what their expectations or fears may be. That way I know exactly where I have to start from, how many myths I have to dispel, how much foundation work I have to do before we can really proceed with therapy.

The secret collection of inspirational quotes part 5

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it? -- Dogen Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life. -- Sandra Carey It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere. -- Agnes Repplier Your attitude toward life in general is reflected in your response to the dawn of a new day. -- J. N. Gehman Life is the ultimate I. Q. test. -- Alex Fraser God gives the birds their food, but He does not throw it into their nests. -- Greek Proverb The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy. -- Florence Scovel Shinn One man gets nothing but discord out of a piano; another gets harmony. No one claims the piano is at fault. Life is about the same. The discord is there. Study to play it correctly, and it will give forth the beauty; play it falsely, and it will give forth the ugliness. Life is not at fault. -- Anonymous Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate; As the voyage along through life; Tis the will of the soul That decides its goal, And not the calm or the strife. -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox Speak the truth wherever you may find it. Seek the truth wherever it is to be found. Don't confuse facts with truth. Facts may not even be facts at all. Most times, they're just opinions. Facts are relative. Truth is absolute. Instead of trying to force your facts on others, help them to find truth for themselves. You're all brothers and sisters on a common journey towards your true potential. You have the power of God with you. You've always had it. You're as free as you will ever be. If your experience seems to be lacking in this freedom, it's only because you have been fettered in chains of your own forging. Lift up your head and look. See with your true eyes and you'll never again be in bondage to yourself or to another. My will for you is really your own will for yourself. -- John Harricharan I know the path: it is straight and narrow. It is like the edge of a sword. I rejoice to walk on it. I weep when I slip. God's word is: “He who strives never perishes.” I have implicit faith in that promise. Though, therefore, from my weakness I fail a thousand times, I shall not lose faith. -- Mahatma Gandhi There is no need to run outside For better seeing . . . Rather abide At the center of your being; For the more you leave it, the less you learn. Search your heart and see . . . The way to do is to be. -- Lao-tzu

Identity theft you can prevent it

By now everybody has heard of some horror story about identity theft from TV shows or magazine articles. In the popular culture, references of identity theft are found in the novels and movies, notably Frederick Forsyth's novel, “The day of the Jackal” and the 1995 movie “The Net.” In real life, the Identity Theft Resource Center ( idtheftcenter. org) reports 8.9 millions identity theft victims in 2006. So, what is an identity theft? An identity theft occurs when somebody steals vital pieces of personal information, e. g. your social security, credit card numbers, etc. and uses that information for financial gains by taking your identity. The most common form of identity theft involves credit card and mortgage frauds. But it can also be used for vicious crimes like drug dealings, terrorism, etc. You may be surprised to know that many minor identity thefts are committed by someone you know. So, don't make it an easy job for a person to steal your personal information from your wallet, checkbook, etc. Avoid leaving things containing your personal information lying around for others to have an easy access to that information. Shred, shred, shred. Buy a cheap paper shredder from an office supply store and shred all your paid bills, used check books, etc. before tossing those into the trash. Put aside 30 minutes every Saturday morning for shredding anything that contained your personal information and you intend to trash. Make it a habit. Never give out your personal information like your social security number; birth date etc. over the phone when the call you received is unsolicited. Your financial institutions have those information and they will not ask you for that. Sometimes, for verification purposes, they make ask you the last four digits of your social security number. Don't pay to get anybody to get a copy of your credit report. Because of a congressional mandate, all three-credit report bureaus will give you a copy of your credit report for free every year. Go to AnnualCreditreport to obtain your free credit report every year from TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. While obtaining your free credit report, these bureaus will push some paid services. Just ignore those. Don't get your free credit reports from the three bureaus all at the same time. Then you have to wait one year before you can get your reports again for free. In the mean time, some unwanted stuff may show up in your report. Get your free report every four months from each bureau. If you are using a PDA, password protect it to prevent others from accessing it. Phishing is a popular method to steal sensitive information for identity theft purposes. Don't be a phishing victim. Avoid clicking on any link that comes to your way through e-mails or IM. The e-mail will disguise itself coming from your financial institutions (your bank or PayPal accounts) and will urge you to click a link to verify your accounts or resort to such other tricks. Sometimes, it can be outright threatening. If you click the link you will end up in the thief's website. And if you enter your user name and password, the thief will have enough information to log into your actual account. Open online accounts for all your credit cards and financial accounts. Online accounts are not only convenient for faster bill paying, paperless transactions, etc.; they also help monitor your accounts frequently, instead of waiting for the monthly bill or statement to arrive. Monitor your accounts online every week and if you see any suspicious charges, checks, etc., call you banks immediately. Also setup e-mail based account alerts, if available, to alert you when charges are made to your accounts. If possible, avoid putting your outgoing mails containing bills and checks in your mailboxes for easy access by a thief. Drop them in mailboxes located in the post office or street corners. Better yet, setup online bill payment with your bank and avoid the snail mail for bill paying. You also need to keep your computer safe. Thieves can get into computers through spyware and unsecured wireless or network connections. Use anti-spyware programs and turn on your Windows default personal firewall program. To prevent viruses infecting your computer, use an anti-virus program. Setup accounts for each user of your computer and ask them to use strong passwords that include a combination of letters and numbers. Another way to prevent anybody, including you, from opening any credit in your name is to freeze your credit. This option is not available in all states. If it is available in your state and you opt for this option, you need to lift the block before you allow anybody, e. g. an employer for a new job, creditor for a car loan, etc., to access your credit information. Though it is almost like a foolproof system to prevent identity theft, it is the also the most inconvenient method.

Holiday stress relief ebenezer scrooge found the secret

Holiday stress is as much a part of the Christmas season today as shopping, and we search for the secret to stress-free holidays as frantically as we hunt for shopping bargains. So why not look to the character most often credited with changing his own experience of Christmas--Ebenezer Scrooge? Scrooge had so many Christmas issues to overcome, it took nighttime visits from three spirits before he got the message about how to celebrate the holiday. But he learned his lesson well. After that night, Scrooge was a changed man when it came to Christmas. In Dickens' words, "… it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!" "I wonder if that can be said of me. Can it be said of you?" I asked my friend. "Who knows what that even means, keeping Christmas well. Scrooge lived in a much simpler time. All he did was send a big turkey to Bob Cratchit's family, play games at his nephew's house, and raise Cratchit's wages and help him with some medical bills." My friend sounded exasperated. "Today we have excessive commercialism, too many parties, fattening food everywhere while we're continually warned about being overweight, long lines to get the special toy our kids can't live without, and hundreds of articles about holiday stress. Scrooge might find Christmas more of a challenge in 2006 than he did in the 1840s." "What do you think he'd make of all the tips on how to avoid holiday stress?" I mused. "You know—don't try to do it all, skip the parties you don't want to go to, make lists before you shop and cut back on spending, don't eat too much, don't drink too much, don't expect too much, exercise, take relaxation breaks—stuff like that." "He'd call it humbug," my friend replied. "But, like I said, he lived in a simpler time. Plus he was rich, so once he decided to be generous he could give as much as he wanted without worrying about paying off credit card bills for months like most of us today. And he was starting from nowhere, so people were thrilled with whatever he did. It's not like they were comparing his gifts to the ones he gave last year or the ones his brother gave. I don't get where you're going with this." "I'm wondering whether we're off on the wrong path with all the tips to banish holiday stress," I said. "Every year more articles come out. I did a Google search on reducing holiday stress the other day and got over 78,000 hits. All the experts say we're overwhelmed and they offer advice, but it doesn't look like it's working. Maybe we need to find a new approach." "I can't believe you're saying this," my friend said. "You've been teaching stress-management for over 20 years, and now you're saying it doesn't work?" "Oh it works for your life overall if you regularly use techniques like meditation, yoga, physical exercise, deep muscle relaxation, and time-management," I said. "But those are long-term. We're talking about the Christmas season here. It's only a few weeks long. Realistically most people aren't going to start some new technique like meditation in the middle of the Christmas season when they're already complaining that they don't have enough time. And little hints like setting priorities and taking time for yourself are way too general to have much impact." "So we're all doomed to live with Christmas stress unless we can time travel back to Scrooge's day when life was simple? Not a very helpful conclusion," my friend said. "No, not doomed," I said. "Just misguided. Instead of reading through endless lists of ways to reduce Christmas stress, maybe we should take a lesson from Scrooge's experience and focus on keeping Christmas well. Just step back, look around and enjoy what is out there. Look--here's how Dickens describes what Scrooge did on that Christmas day after the spirits had visited him." He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk -- that anything -- could give him so much happiness. "You're way oversimplifying the issue," my friend argued. "I'm reminding you again that we live in a more complex time. We can't just go wandering around patting unknown children on the head and peering into other people's kitchen windows. And even if we did, I don't think we'd find it nearly as satisfying as he did." "Duh! It's a metaphor," I responded. "Expand your awareness. Live in the moment. Enjoy the small daily pleasures. Be a good person. Help someone out. Maybe that's enough. Christmas is a holiday. It's supposed to be a happy time, not an endurance test. So let yourself enjoy Christmas with whatever you have, whoever you're with, wherever you are. Maybe it's that simple." Copyright © Lynn Osterkamp, 2006.