~ Looking For Love in All the Wrong Places ~ Johnny Lee

Take Responsibility for Your Emotions

The next time you catch yourself saying, “You make me mad” or “You hurt my feelings,” stop your conversation immediately. Then remind yourself that only one individual on earth can make you feel angry, sad, annoyed or even happy. That person is you. No one, and no event, can make you feel any particular emotion. You choose your emotions, they cannot be forced upon you. Blaming others or events for how you feel is, one of the most common obstacles to good mental health and to satisfying relationships. The next time you are in a situation where someone “makes you mad”, you use the following approach to take charge of your feelings.

~ Admit that you feel angry, and accept that anger as a normal human emotion. Don’t feel guilty about it.
~ Take responsibility for choosing to feel angry. As long as you blame someone else, you give that person the power to cause an emotional reaction inside of you. By taking 100% responsibility for what you are feeling, the power comes back to you.
~ Try a little tenderness. If you are upset, there is a place inside you that hurts. Heal that hurt by applying your own compassion, perhaps by thinking of someone or something you love.
~ Channel your negative energy into a positive response. Instead of complaining, blaming, and demanding, caringly point out to the person who “made” you angry what he or she might do to change the situation for the better.

By taking constructive action, you will learn that you can direct your emotions away from feeling like an angry, upset victim and toward feeling like a responsible, confident individual. As Abe Lincoln said, “We are just about as happy in life as we decide to be.”

~ Anger is quieted by a gentle word, just as fire is quenched by water ~

To Heal Your Hurts

By writing in a journal about your hurts, grief, and painful secrets, you can become healthier. People who keep journals of their deepest thoughts are found to be measurably healthier, physically and mentally. Following are some journal writing tips.

~ Let go and express your deepest emotions. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar. Just write for yourself. Don’t let anyone read your journal. You will be inhibited if you think you’re writing for someone else.
~ Write 15 minutes a day in a comfortable, isolated setting.

Immediately after writing, you may feel sad. But those feelings will quickly dissipate. Most people feel a heightened sense of happiness, relief, and contentment.

Guarantee a Good Day

You can make every day a good day. The tenor of our thoughts is determined largely by the first thoughts of the morning. Condition your mind daily.

~ Before arising, recall the most pleasant and exciting event that happened to you the previous day. Re-experience the warm glow you felt at that moment.
~ Empty your mind of all negative thoughts and emotions. It might help to fill a sink with water, wash your hands and face, then pull the stopper. As the water drains, say, “So do I wash out all fear, hate and tension.”
~ Refill your mind with positive thoughts. Do this by reading inspirational material, and by speaking such affirmations as, “I am in God’s hands. I shall follow His guidance. He will help me solve every problem.”
~ Start every day with a prayer and with the thought of God’s love and care. Keep in mind your opportunity to serve Him.
~ Talk pleasantly to everyone for the first half hour of the day. If you do, the rest of the day will likely remain pleasant.

~ The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it - Richard L. Evans

A good attitude can help you live longer. Studies show that people who are chronically hostile and cynical are more vulnerable to heart disease and other ailments. “A cynical, mistrusting attitude is a driving force that makes people most susceptible to heart disease.

~ What do we live for if it is not to make live less difficult for each other? - George Eliot

How To Get Along With an Aging Parent

Caring for an elderly parent is one of the most stressful situations in modern life. The following tips will help for reducing this type of family tension.

~ Be realistic about what you can do for your parent. Learn to say no to unreasonable demands. Eliminate from your vocabulary the phrases, “I have to” and “I should.”
~ Don’t consider yourself your parent’s parent. Let your parent remain self-reliant for as long as possible.
~ Plan your parent’s last years with him, not for him.
~ To prevent burn out, be good to yourself.
~ Accept your parent’s aging. You have no choice, and acceptance brings peace and understanding.

~ The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. The most important thing a mother can do for her children is to love their father

How To Get Along With Your Child

Terry Brazelton, pediatrician and best-selling author, offer this advice for disciplining a misbehaving child:

~ Look at the situation objectively to make certain that it warrants discipline.
~ When you do act, be sure that you are emotionally in control.
~ View each incident as a learning experience for your child.
~ If your child ignores your attempts to stop him/her, either physically restrain him until he is calm, or remove him from the area.
~ Once the child is calm, talk with him/her about what has happened.

~ One of the marks of true greatness is the ability to develop greatness in others

How To Get Along With Negative People

Here are some suggestions for dealing with negative people.

~ Pray for them. You need to see people, their hurts and their potential, through God’s eyes. Ask for the strength you need to relate to these people in a genuine, loving way, but in a way that does not reinforce or condone the problem.
~ Interact with them lovingly. You cannot argue negative people out of their negativism.
~ Don’t simply discount the opinions of the negativist, but move forward with what you want to do. Affirm the person by saying something like, “I have a better understanding of your reasons for thinking the idea won’t work, and I appreciate your listening to the other possibilities. But I will go ahead with what I originally proposed and give it a try. However, I value your continued perspective as we move along.”

~ The best way to destroy an enemy is to change him into a friend ~

How To Get Along With Everyone

Below are some suggestions for getting along with everyone you meet, starting today.

~ Treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight.
~ Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward.

Your life will never be the same again.

~ The next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it ~ Frank A. Clark

To Prepare for Achievement

~ Establish a goal and a time-frame for achieving it. Think of goals as dreams with deadlines.
~ Next, enter into a state of deep relaxation. Close your eyes while breathing deeply and slowly. Relax your entire body from head to toes. Then, as vividly as possible, imagine your goal.

If there is something in your scene to smell, smell it. If there is something to feel, feel it. Do this over and over to create in your mind the reality you want to create in the world.

~ Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over - E. Scott Fitzgerald

How To Impress Your Boss

In an ideal world, everyone would receive salary increases, promotions and other job rewards based strictly on merit. But in real life, the most important factors can be the special initiative you display, and the relationship you develop with your boss. If the two of you are a good “fit”, you are more likely to enjoy your job and advance in your career. Following are five suggestions that can help you achieve that fit.

~ Determine your boss’s goals. Your mission is to help your boss accomplish his or her true objectives.
~ Support your boss. You can express your loyalties in many ways without being an informer.
~ Help your boss succeed. When you are pursuing your own ambitions, it is easy to forget the primary reason you were hired - your boss thought you could contribute to his/her success.
~ Solve problems. An important way to get ahead is to help your boss solve thorny problems.
~ Reward your boss. Many managers complain that a major part of their job is praising others; yet they receive few compliments themselves. You can help satisfy this need, especially by praising your boss to top management. Avoid vague flattery such as labeling your boss an “inspirational leader.” A compliment should be specific and make sense to executives.

Cultivating a good relationship with the higher-ups doesn’t just benefit you. As you move up the ladder of success, you are also helping your boss and your company do a better job.

Try the Power of Optimism

Did you know that optimists: enjoy better health? make more money? excel in school? - establish long and happy marriages?

An optimistic attitude is acquired not inherited, and most people can achieve it. Optimists know how to keep themselves motivated and approach their problems with a can-do philosophy. The following are some suggestions to maintain a balanced approached in trouble.

~ Think of yourself as a problem-solver. People who adopt this attitude excel in stressful situations.
~ Look for multiple options. With this technique, you’ll simply move on to another option when one approach fails.
~ Anticipate problems. Be aware that things can go wrong and ask such questions as: “Is there a way this will backfire?” “Where could we get cheated in this deal?”
~ Look for the good in bad situations. Learn to turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.
~ Avoid phony pep talks. “Successful people do not talk about how wonderful things are when, in fact, they’re bad.”

Following are some erroneous thought patterns that lead to pessimism. Following are a couple examples:

~ Monitor your automatic negative thoughts. Keep a log of them as they occur. You’ll soon slow them down and make them less automatic.
~ Avoid jumping to wild generalizations. Don’t see setbacks as personal deficits that will plague you forever. See them as mistakes that can be remedied.

To Win - You Must First Lose

Disaster teaches you something about your strength and acquaints you with your limitations. We should brush failure aside as the cost of seeking new challenges. You learn a great deal more from what doesn’t work than from what works routinely.

Suggestions:

~ Stop using the “F” word. High achievers rarely refer to failure. Instead call your reversals “glitches” or “course corrections.”
~ Don’t take a lapse personally. The language you use to describe yourself becomes a powerful inner reality. For example, don’t label yourself unemployed, rather as a person with options.
~ To insulate yourself against catastrophe, ask yourself, “What is the worst that can happen?” Then plan for it, while expecting the best.

~ Praise God even when you don’t understand what He is doing -

Six Steps to Happiness

The tendency to feel unhappy may be linked to your genetic make-up. Even so you can create your own happiness.

Here’s how:

~ Invest yourself in loving relationships ~
~ Work hard at what you enjoy ~
~ Volunteer - it builds self-esteem and relieves physical and mental stress
~ Exercise - any type will do ~
~ Try something new ~
~ Maintain a steady flow of emotions. Those who tend to experience the highest emotional highs also tend to reach the lowest lows ~

~ Each day comes bearing gifts. Untie the ribbons - Ann Schalbacker

~ Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars - Les Brown

~ The Sioux Indians have a wise saying: The first thing people say after death is, “Why was I so serious?” - John Tarkou