Monthly Archives: January 2020

Growing, mindfulness, Personal, Uncategorized

Seven Steps From Negative To Positive!​

On a good day, life is hard and on bad day, life just seems impossible. We’ve all been at that place where it seems like no matter how hard we try to stay on the positive side of life, the negative just keeps crashing in on us and all we can think about is giving up.

I totally understand, because it’s a battle I’ve fought since the very moment of my birth into this human experience. I am generally a pretty positive person and through the years, I have developed the skills that encourage me toward positivity over negativity. So it’s extra crazy to me how I can so quickly and easily he painted into a corner of defeat.

I have found that there are a few small things that can make a big difference in building up positivity in my life, so that I can take on and take out the negativity. When I feel the negative growing, I use these things as a check list to help bring me into alignment with the positive side of life. Several things on this list are actually a part of my daily routine, which contributes in a very big way in helping me to be an encouragement to others

Seven Steps From Negative To Positive!

1. Scriptures! The Bible is full of promises and encouragement. Take some time to discover and write down some of these that you own as your own. Read it and meditate on it. Speak it out loud and let it be real. Believe it and watch the miraculous happen in your life…

2. Journaling! Pen and paper are a very important part of being healthy. There is something almost magical that happens when we allow our thoughts to flow from our mind, through the pen and onto the paper. Just the act itself works wonders!!!

3. Music! Music jas always been a powerful force and it can lift you up or bring you down. It can excite you or give you peace. Make sure that you are listening to what is helping you. Learn to recognize your emotions and allow them to dictate your musical diet.

4. Quotes! With the internet and social media, we have access to all kinds of encouragement from words and pictures. You can print them out to post in key locations, use them as screen savers on electronic devices and memorize them to speak encouragement to yourself and others.

5. Diet & Exercise! Food and drink have an impact on how we feel. A good meal can do wonders for making you feel better. Pay attention to how food and drink impacts you and contributes to your well being. Exercise does not have to be complicated at all. It is amazing what a difference some simple stretching and a good walk can do for you both mentally and physically.

6. Self Care! We all have basic needs and being aware of those needs and making effort to make sure our needs are met is a very important part of living a healthy and positive life. Think of the three major areas of your life: Physical, Mental and Spiritual – figure out your basic needs in these areas and make sure those needs are being met. You matter and if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else.

7. Service! One of the quickest ways I have discovered that I can move myself from negative to positive is by doing something to make life better for someone else. Look for ways to be a blessing to others and you will be pleasantly surprised at how this simple a t opens up your own life to blessing…

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Gratitude, Growing, mindfulness, Personal, Uncategorized

A Great Attitude Begins With Gratitude!

When my girls were younger and they would catch a bad attitude, I would discipline them by making them go to their room with a legal pad and start writing a list of everything they were grateful for. They couldn’t come back out until they had written down 25 things. I had learned in my own life that when my attitude got out of wack, that I needed to get my eyes and mind off of myself and onto my blessings, which have always been many. Some where along life’s journey, I had learned this simple shift in focus was powerful in helping me to get back to a good place in life and it worked for them to – every time!

At some point, I can’t really remember when, I began the practice of writing down three things I was grateful for every now and then. A few years ago, this became a part of my daily routine and has become a powerful tool in helping me to cultivate a more positive attitude that contributes to all areas of greater blessing in my life and living.

Gratitude is not complicated, it is really a very simple thing. Gratitude is a feeling, expression or thought of thanks, appreciation or gratefulness. It amazes me how something so simple, can be so powerful. If there were just one discipline you added to your daily routine, this would be the one I would give my highest recommendation, because from it flows everything else.

Our world has a way of training us to look for the bad, rather than the good. Something inside of us compels us to play the victim. Most of us walk around with a sense of entitlement that the world owes us one, but there is nothing that could be farther from the truth. The facts are: The world owes us nothing and life is not fair!

But that’s okay, because while life does not always work out the way we want it to, it does find a way of working itself out. And I have found that life works itself out for us in a lot better way, when our focus is right. Gratitude realigns our focus, gets our attitude right and puts us on the track for greater blessings.

Take some time today to write out at least three things you are grateful for:

1. Thank You for ___________________________!

2. Thank You for ___________________________!

3. Thank You for ___________________________!

And by the way, you will be glad you did!

Growing, mindfulness, Personal, Suffering, Uncategorized

Challenges Come And Challenges Go!

This past Sunday, I shared a message entitled ”Speak Blessing!” The message was basically an encouragement to realize there is power in our words and we need to choose them carefully. I do my best to practice what I preach, so my goal was to live a positive life and only speak blessing this week. Great goal right?

Of course you know what happens whenever you get committed to living a positive life? Life seems to throw as much negative as it can and before you know it, your best intentions have become paving material for a road to you know where…

Live life long enough and you will discover that this is in fact life. Just because you are thinking, living and speaking positivity does not mean that you won’t have challenges, disappointments and frustrations. Life is made up of ups and downs, mountain tops and valleys, success and failure.

I’m not going to go into detail of all that has gone wrong this week, but I will tell you, I am doing my best to stay positive, upbeat and teachable. There are a few things I have to keep reminding myself about and I’ve become very fond of the saying: ”What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”

Here are a few good reminders for you to remember when you’re trying to keep in the positive lane of life, even while it seems that everything and everybody keeps trying to force you into the negative…

CHALLNGES GROW YOU LIKE NOTHING ELSE CAN!

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her classic on ”Death And Dying” said: ”If you shield the mountain from the wind storms, you never see the beauty of the carvings. There is a purpose to your pain. This does not make it easier, but it helps to know and remember that it’s not all for nothing. We are continually being shaped, grown and developed and this is what we call living.

GROWTH AND HEALING ARE A PROCESS!

We are born into this human experience as a baby, but we don’t stay a baby, we grow, develop and learn, but it takes time, because it’s a process. When we fall down and scrape our knee, as it heals, it gets a very ugly scab, which we are tempted to pick at and remove, but it is actually our bodies way of healing and healing takes time because it’s a process. This life is a process, so nothing, no matter how bad it may seem is ever final, not even death.

THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING TO LEARN!

The question we need to always run to is: ”What is this trying to teach me?” The quicker I learn the lesson, the quicker I get free to live the positive life of blessing I was created for. What is life and the challenges you face trying to teach you???