Does your ego let you complain constantly? Does it rob you of the peace and happiness that you seek?

Think about all of the persistent complaints that you have, ones that you complain about over and over again, either to yourself or others.

Some examples would be my spouse never does what I ask of them, my child is always late, I can’t get my co-workers to be supportive of each other, etc.

Take a moment and write down several of your favorites to test the validity of the balance of the discussion.

What you might now realize is that this is the ego talking. Every time that you have a persistent complaint, you get a payoff, and there is a cost to it. It appears as if you want whatever you are complaining about to stop, but in reality, that is not what you want. You want the payoff that comes with the complaint.

Tell me about payoffs, what are they? There are many but here is a prime example. You are right about whatever you are complaining about, thus making the other party wrong or at fault. You validate yourself at the expense of someone else.

You settle for complaining rather than taking action. Rather than confront an issue, you decide to play it safe, and blame others 0D rather than take responsibility.

Due to taking action, you continue complaining and it’s the playoff that keeps you addicted to the game, even though there is a cost to you. The ego wins again.

Next, the victim mentality comes in. You feel powerless and frustrated. Joy, peace and satisfaction are gone when you feel like a victim.

Unless you stop and evaluate the costs of your complaining, you‘ll just continue on and keep letting your ego win. If you can deal with the situation you are complaining about, deal with it. Confront the issues, person or actions in order to resolve the situation.

If you can’t do it, just accept the situation and move on with your life. Keep the
peace, joy and serenity that you were destined to enjoy!

Until next time !!!

Does your ego let you complain constantly? Does it rob you of the peace and happiness that you seek?

Think about all of the persistent complaints that you have, ones that you complain about over and over again, either to yourself or others.

Some examples would be my spouse never does what I ask of them, my child
is always late, I can’t get my co-workers to be supportive of each other, etc.

Take a moment and write down several of your favorites to test the validity of the balance of the discussion.

What you might now realize is that this is the ego talking. Every time that you have a persistent complaint, you get a payoff, and there is a cost to it. It appears as if you want whatever you are complaining about to stop, but in reality, that is not what you want. You want the payoff that comes with the complaint.

Tell me about payoffs, what are they? There are many but here is a prime example. You are right about whatever you are complaining about, thus making the other party wrong or at fault. You validate yourself at the expense of someone else.

You settle for complaining rather than taking action. Rather than confront an issue, you decide to play it safe, and blame others 0D rather than take responsibility.

Due to taking action, you continue complaining and it’s the playoff that keeps you addicted to the game, even though there is a cost to you. The ego wins again.

Next, the victim mentality comes in. You feel powerless and frustrated. Joy, peace and satisfaction are gone when you feel like a victim.

Unless you stop and evaluate the costs of your complaining, you‘ll just continue on and keep letting your ego win. If you can deal with the situation you are complaining about, deal with it. Confront the issues, person or actions in order to resolve the situation. If you can’t do it, just accept the situation and move on with your life. Keep the
peace, joy and serenity that you were destined to enjoy!

Until next time!!

We have all experienced the power of a good and positive statement about ourselves. When someone tells us we are great at doing something, we feel great about that affirmation, we believe it. Say someone said you were a really good dancer. Pretty soon, we want to continue to be good dancers, so we work on being a good dancer and people constantly tell us how great we are. This constant repetition makes it a part of us. We fully believe and embody being a good dancer.

That example is the power of an affirmation. It can help transform us for the better, maneuver us
towards the good and the positive. However, that example discussed someone else giving us an
affirmation. What happens during the times that no one is around? Or if no one is there to reinforce your actions? Well, the answer is simple: affirm yourself!

We can affirm ourselves daily. Doing this for ourselves will help transform us the way other
affirmations do, and it will help us constantly become better. Some people feel silly doing this,
however, or feel that if they tell themselves something, it doesn’t really work. So how do we
concretely affirm ourselves and give our affirmations the same power it would as if someone else had said it? Again the answer is simple: write it down!

Writing down our affirmations helps us see the positive statement exactly. It gives us encouragement, and slowly helps us believe the statement to be true. Every affirmation statement has power, even if  it is from yourself to yourself. Writing it down gives it that power.

When writing down your affirmations in order to give it power and help it transform your life, the
first thing you have to do is write yourself a letter. In this letter, visualize your affirmation.

Explain to yourself why you should believe this statement (and make sure the statement is believable!

If it is not believable, your subconscious will reject it.) Make sure the letter is filled with
positive statements, ones that deny your current situation or focus on what you want and not what you want to get rid of. For example, write to yourself: “you are not a bad dancer (this is denying your possible current situation of believing you are a bad dancer), and in fact you have the power to become the best dancer in your class (this is focusing on what you want to happen).”

After you’ve written yourself a letter, do something that makes your affirmation concrete and put it up. Some people like hanging an inspirational message that reminds them of their affirmation or paint a picture that reminds them of the positive statement. Setting up a reminder of your affirmation will help you counter any negative energy or thoughts that you may have regarding the statement.

Next, repeat your affirmation to yourself. You may want to say it to yourself in the mirror every
morning when you get ready for work (make sure you say it several times) or record it onto a tape, and listen to it a few times a day. Some people like writing it down everyday, and following the written statement with their thoughts regarding the affirmation for the day. The constant repetition of your affirmation will help you the way it did before. You will strive to make sure it is true, you will believe it to be true, and then you will embody it as a truth.

Finally, ask yourself what needs to be done and do it! Make sure you practice your affirmation or do

something concrete, that will make it a truth, everyday. This means that everyday, you will be doing something that turns your affirmation into a reality.

We often hear about the power of love. But do we really know what that means or what the power is all about? Often, when people talk about love, the immediately think about romantic love. While this may be a wonderful type of love, and passion is born from it, it is a different type of love that has true power.

Scientifically, it has been discovered that acts of love are good for the health. It is well known to scientists (due to an old and reckless experiment) that babies who are not given affection simply do not thrive or survive, even if given all the nutrients needed. Hugs, cuddling, and holding hands, are needed by infants, children, and adults in order to be emotionally and psychologically happy and stable. Physical affection from others (pets included) makes a person happier and healthier.

Touch has this effect on us because when we are given a loving gesture, oxytocin (the love drug) is naturally released in our brain. It makes us feel good and it releases dopamine, which lowers the levels of stress hormones in the body. This makes us healthier.

Apart from stress, however, frequent physical affection sis also known to improve someone’s mood (due to the dopamine), reduce the blood pressure (has a calming effect on a person), increase tolerance for pain (perhaps because we are filled with happiness and knowledge of our social ties to a person can help us through difficult, as seen in a study conducted by UCLA), and is also linked to speeding up the healing time of wounds! Seems like love is a powerful drug and vitamin rolled into one!

The positive effects of frequent contact does not only occur in humans, but is also seen in animals. In terms of psychological health, love plays an important role in our relationships. It is linked to how much we are able to trust others. Those who receive a lot of physical affection are more trusting, while those who do not get even the bare minimum are less trusting towards people.

Health and science aside, however, love has a power to bring peace to your life. It can strengthen a person in almost every way, and can make you do things you never though you would do. It has the power to make you think of the other, putting them first before yourself, therefor making both their life and yours extraordinary.

Love is forceful and enduring, which is why nothing can stand in its way. It is positive, which always works to give the upper hand to those who find themselves in and with love.

Many people deny it, and you probably do too, but deep down inside we all know that we have a certain zone of comfort that we’re not willing to step out of. We acquire our comfort zone almost from the moment we are born. How we are raised, the school we go to, the friends we make, the food we eat, and so many other small little factors contribute to the building of our comfort zone.

As we settle into this zone, we get comfortable, become happy, and go day by day in our little bubbles. However, we aren’t really living. We’re not experiencing anything new. This is because everything that is happening within our bubble are things we can predict or things we’ve already experienced. To truly live, we have to step out of this bubble, break it, even. Anything new and exciting lies beyond our zone of comfort. Anything liberating and wonderful depends on our destroying our happy sphere, and everything we need to have a memorable lifetime depends on our taking a chance beyond what we know.

Often, people would rather not leave their comfort zones because they are afraid of what lies beyond. They don’t know what to expect, and because they can’t plan for what they don’t know, they freak out. The first step to getting up and starting to live is to face all your fears dead on. Look it in the eye and declare that it can’t prevent you from living. Stand at the edge of your bubble and give it a big pop, then jump out into your unknown fears. Trust me, it’s never ever that bad.

Here are some suggestions for things you can do to start living and get out of your comfort zone:

1. Do something you’ve always told yourself you’d never do. Whether it be trying a new food, going skydiving, bungee jumping, cave exploring, an African safari… whatever it is you were always telling yourself is crazy and stupid, and you’d never do it. Go out and do it! Document it. Savor it, and be glad that you did it. Many times what you’re afraid of doing is something many others are also afraid of doing. In going out and doing it, you become one of the elite few who now stand out and have really experienced life!

2. Go on a long trip with a friend. Take a good friend and explore a foreign land you know nothing about. It will be the trip and experience of a lifetime. One that you will never forget! It’s a great way to step out of your comfort zone, and it also teaches you about other people and what their comfort zones are. Going with a friend makes it less frightening, and gives you a bit of comfort along the way.

3. Learning a new skill is another way to step out of your comfort zone. Trying out a new language or taking up knife throwing can be something really unique, and can change your life by opening up unexpected and new experiences. When you choose to do something so out of the ordinary, the things that end up happening are likely to be things you would never have seen, heard, or experienced otherwise. So no matter what it is, it’s well worth your time and effort.

Remember, tell yourself it’s going to be great. Keep assuring yourself that and repeat it like a mantra even if you don’t believe it. All the things you do will prove your mantra to be correct anyway!

Everyone I know wants to live the good life. I’m sure everyone you know is the same, yourself included. Who doesn’t, right? We all have goals to be happy, content, have lives full of everything we’ve ever wanted. In other terms, we all want to find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

As we go about our everyday lives, we sometimes see people who are living a great life and have everything anyone could want. They seem to be one of the lucky ones who have found a pot of gold. Guess what? There is a pot of gold for everyone out there, including you! You can begin living the good life right now! All you have to do is manifest abundance.

Following the law of attraction in order to manifest abundance in your life is a skill anyone can learn and perfect. Once perfected, you will be an expert at being able to attract and have all of your desires. Those people we see that have everything have either a natural ability to attract abundance to their lives or they have perfected the skill of attracting abundance. Either way, these people are all using the same method to attract abundance and to live a great and happy life.

The first thing successfully abundant people have is the power to think positively. Believe that you will have abundance. You have to genuinely believe that you deserve everything you have. Notice all the proof of abundance in your life and feel good about it. Believe that you deserve to have what you want. Once you have a positive mindset, you will be able to create the right energy vibrations that will attract even more abundance towards you.

Next, focus on being abundant. Never focus on what you don’t have. Remember that you have to focus positively. If you focus on what you don’t have then you will never have abundance. Many people tend to compare their success with people who are more successful. Whenever you do this, your life will seem less abundant, and as a result, it will be. You have to focus on the what you have and want want and in a positive manner all the time. To back this up, do positive things that make you feel abundant. The more you think abundantly and do things that make you feel abundant, the more abundant you will be! You will just realize one day that you have everything you could ever want!

Remember that each one of us is connected to the universe, and the universe listens to our wants and desires. You can never be disconnected from the universe and everything you think and do flows through it, and in return the universe will flow all the possibilities and blessings back to you. Be aware of this connection and have faith in it. It is through the awareness of how we are connected to the universe that we develop the open mind needed to properly see the manifestation of our wants and desires right before our eyes.

The pot of gold you’ve been waiting for may already be with you or it may be right outside the door. Just remember to think positively, focus on what you want and on your happiness, and become aware to how you are connected to the universe. Doing these three things will help you see the abundance you already have, and it will help you attract even more abundance than before. Remember that like attracts like, and abundance attracts abundance, so recognizing your current abundance and being positively happy will help you focus on future abundance and make it easier for you to see it when it arrives!

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” — Buddha

Learning how to give yourself a pep talk can be one of the most useful skills you will ever hone. Pep talks are something we all need from time to time because they are great at motivating us, lifting our spirits and keeping our momentum going. If you can learn how to do this amazing thing for yourself then you will master the art of self-motivation, the secret of many happy and healthy people.

Being able to motivate yourself is important because there isn’t always going to be someone beside you all the time telling that you are on the right track. So you should learn how to stop, breathe and give yourself a quick pep talk!

First, tell yourself you are doing the right thing. Many times we get tired, confused or unsure of ourselves because we don’t know if we’re still doing things right. Sometimes simply telling ourselves that we are doing things correctly will clear our heads, and then we will see and know for sure whether or not we are doing the right thing. If we are, we feel great and if we aren’t then we feel good that we caught ourselves in time to correct anything.

More often than not, though, you’re on the right track and so simply telling yourself that you are doing things right is great motivation. This should always be the first part of your pep talk.

Second, assure yourself that you will continue doing the right thing. Now that you are happy and on the right track, you can feel better and more motivated knowing that you will continue on with the correct course of action. If you feel like you might make a mistake, keep telling yourself that you are going to consistently do it right. Repeating this mantra will help you stay on the right track and it will help keep you motivated. Tell yourself that you are good at what you do and you will continue to be good. Prove this to yourself by giving yourself examples of all the times you’ve succeeded in life and have done the right thing all the way through. These examples show you that you have proven yourself time and again.

Last, tell yourself that tomorrow is a good and better day. Reminding ourselves that there is a tomorrow with no mistakes in it yet is a great motivating factor. Many times self-motivation is all about keeping ourselves going and telling ourselves that tomorrow will be great because we are going to make it a point to make it great is the third part of your pep talk. Tomorrow is going to be great and you are going to be great at living it. Tell yourself that and remind yourself of it everyday. This gives you a great tomorrow to look forward to, but more importantly it gives you a tomorrow to take control of and to make great

A lot of self motivation deals with taking control of our feelings or not letting our feelings get the better of us. Calming yourself down and assuring yourself is one of the best ways you can stay happy, healthy, and calm. If you are able to do that, you will be able to stay motivated for as long as you want!

Sometimes there are days that take too long to finish. Usually, these are the same days that we had problems getting out of bed in the morning. You don’t want to wake up. You woke up tired, and you don’t want to deal with all you have to do this day. That’s perfectly normal. We all have our “off” days.

Whenever you feel yourself having an off day, think to yourself that you have to get up and get going. Think of this day as the only day that you have to do whatever it is you need to do. Sure, you may reason with yourself that there is always a tomorrow to do these things, but that means you are cheating yourself out of a tomorrow of new possibilities and new things to do. Tomorrow should always be reserved for other things, things other than what you have to do today. So tell yourself to get up and get going.

It probably isn’t often that you stop to think to yourself about all the time you spend on activities that need to be done or you are comfortable doing, but don’t really matter to you. For example, all the time you spend driving can also be used as time to learn a new language or finish an audio book. Remember that this time you spend driving takes up a big chunk of your every day. It’s part of the twenty-four hours you are given, and those twenty for are all the time you have for this day. You can never take it back. That isn’t fair! I mean, do you want to spend it driving?

So you have to find ways to make the most out of your time, to find the time for all the things you’ve wanted to do despite doing the things you have to do. You have to find ways to get up and get going.

If you think about all the time that has passed you by, you may realize how you now must make the most of the time you still have. Think about it. Could you be running out of time? Guess what? We all are! So get up and get going. Do it now! Seize this day because you will never live it again. Don’t you want to live it to its full potential? Don’t you want to end your day happy and content that it was a day well lived? If you live like you’re running out of time, think of all the things you can accomplish.

I’m sure you can think back to a time when you were a child and you had dreams about making and leaving a mark in the world. You had all these accomplishments planned out for yourself. If you haven’t started yet, guess what? You still can! All you have to do is get up and get going today.

The Rolling Stones once crooned that “you can’t always get what you want.” For a long time we’ve always accepted this kind of thinking. Not everything we want can belong to us. Our desires don’t always become a reality in our lives.

We’re raised in a society that makes us believe that our fate is in the hands of fate, it is something we have no control over. This has made sense to us for a long time. After all, who can predict the future? The answer is that no one can predict the future, rather you can mold the future to be what you want it to be. It all lies in the law of attraction.

The law of attraction is a universal law that has taken note of the phenomenon that what people think can dictate what happens in their lives. You may not realize it, but your thoughts form your future. This applies for both positive and negative thoughts. This is because your thoughts have energy. Your thoughts release this energy through brain waves. Coupled with emotion, your thoughts vibrate out towards the universe. Now here’s the amazing part. Things can vibrate back towards you!

Remember The Byrds sang “to everything turn turn turn?”, well listen to them more than you would Mick Jagger. Everything you send out will come back to you. This means that if you send out something positive, you will receive something in return.

What’s more is that you can mold what this positive thing will be by focusing your energy on a particular thought. If you know exactly what you want, you can send this vibration out to the universe. Everyday that you send out these vibrations, you must feel and behave that what you want is already coming true, and already happening. This believing makes you open to receiving what you want, and it will happen! You will see it happen and unfold in front of you because you are now open to seeing how you are going to receive your wants and desires, whereas you were not open to it before because you lacked the focus needed to vibrate these thoughts out.

Be wary though, because this also applies towards negative thoughts. This is why we should never dwell on the negative. If you are too focused on what you cannot have, you are bound to lose what you already do have. The universe will feel you vibrating these thoughts and will get the message that you want less, and it will naturally happen. You will make the wrong decisions and lead a life that will give you less than what you already have.

Keep your thoughts positive and positive things will come your way. Whenever something feels right, go ahead and do it! Never do something that feels wrong. Doing what feels right and good and desirable will bless you with what is right and good and desirable. This is the law of attraction. Your thoughts will manifest itself in your future. Believe in this!

Don’t ever think that it’s impossible to take hold of molding your fate. This is the old thinking. It is possible. Look around. Impossible things happen everyday.

Have you ever been jealous over what someone else owns? Have you ever wanted to trade lives with anyone? It’s okay to say yes. It’s human nature to want more, and to strive for more, but when you are upset with your life or when you feel like you will never be happy, STOP. Remind yourself that you are exactly where you should be.

Think about it. Everything you are right now is a product of everything you have done. That means that everything you want to be or can be will be a product of everything you are about to do. Your choices determine your future. Choose to be happy. Choose to not be jealous. Choose to want the things you have and the life you lead. You are exactly where you should be.

Understand that there will always be someone who has more than you. There will always be someone who will be prettier than you. In the same way, you will always have more than someone else. You will always be prettier than someone else. Being better than someone is not something to rejoice over, but it proves to you that the only person you are competing with is yourself. Trust yourself, trust what you have and who you are. You are exactly where you should be.

When you feel yourself becoming upset with your life or becoming jealous of someone, look on the bright side of life. We usually feel these upset and unhappy emotions when we find ourselves in an undesirable situation. Look on the bright side! In every situation you are in, there will be a bright side and there will be a tomorrow. Maybe there is a lesson you need to learn from whatever it is you’re going through at the moment, so trust the universe and what God plans for you. Know that you are exactly where you should be.

Finally, believe in the power of a positive thought. Everyday, do one thing that makes you feel great. Go get your shoes shined, have some ice cream, go for a run, walk your dog, buy yourself flowers. Love yourself a little each day and enjoy your life no matter where you find yourself to be living. It will be a great way to appreciate where you are, after all, it’s exactly where you should be.