Highlight of Sunrise by eye of einstein.jpg

The feeling I least want to feel right now is sadness. Divorce is generally an emotional tsunami and I have been dealing with most everything except the sadness. I know that I can’t move on until I allow myself to mourn the person with whom  I’ve  have spent the last sixteen years of my life. He left the marriage to be with a new person so I’m sure that that is adding to my feeling of being overwhelmed by the loneliness. I’m a person who has few people in my life by choice. So whenever one leaves or I leave, there is a void there.

I’m sure my sadness is made bigger because I thought we were friends, but his affair and betrayal was compounded by his complete alliance with this new woman. I mean, when did I become the bad guy? Because he uses mind-altering drugs daily, he is able to live in a world of his own creation.

I am starting to focus on the fact that my use of the 12 steps is leading me to seeing my self as a person with rich and full emotions. With that depth comes a depth of feelings that are hard to face and accept. I am working on Steps 6 and 7 to see my part in the breakup. At the same time, by being around people in the 12 step meetings who are looking to improve themselves, I am making an investment in myself and in my future relationships.

So, when the sadness comes, I allow it to linger for awhile and then I move on to letting go gently. I know anything I leave undone today will return if I don’t accept it. And if I ignore feelings I don’t like, they will comeback stronger than ever.

Five suggestions for growing your positive self from explore life blog are:

(1)  Be fully in your body—(feel your feelings). As you wake up each morning fill your heart with light and spread that light wherever you go.

(2)  Take back control from your mind. Enter the stillness of your inner peace each day

(3)  Develop a relationship with your Higher Self (love that!). Each day do the simple affirmation/mantra, “I Am” with awareness as often as you can.

(4)  Relax, take it easy, let go, forgive, have fun, and be playful. Make spreading joy a daily practice.

(5)  Appreciate all you can each day. Keeping a gratitude journal is a powerful way to expand your success in life.

iandeth

No one else can make anyone feel anything, everything we feel is our choice. If we are choosing to continue in relationships, jobs, or situations that contribute to our feelings of negativity, we need to ask ourselves why we aren’t choosing to be happy. Happiness is a choice. With the choosing of happiness comes the responsibility to give up self-destructive patterns. Learn to distinguish what you like and what you don’t like.

The healing principle is that as we believe we will get better, we will get better. But choices have to be made. You can’t hold on to misery with one hand and reach for happiness with the other. As the trapeze artist lets go of one bar before she grasps the next one, so also must we give up misery for happiness.

Other methods to increase our self-esteem are (1) set goals from the dreams we have of what we would like to have in our lives, (2) learn to take risks in all areas of your life, and (3) develop a clear-cut precise schedule adding physical, mental, and spiritual healthy activities to our weekly life.

In developing positive self-talk, affirmations and guided imagery may be used. Remember our subconscious mind doesn’t know if something has happened already or is to happen in the future. Only the conscious mind knows time.

Therefore, don’t implant wishes or doubts with words like maybe or is or I hope. Use action positive words such as I am, I enjoy, I believe, I want, etc. Trust your subconscious to lead you to your “higher self”.

Develop an attitude of being gentle with yourself. Learn to recognize that the source of uncomfortable feelings is that we have added some degree of judgment to the future. The pain we feel is fear which is the withholding of love. The withholding hurts us as well as the person we’re “punishing”.

So all hatred is self-hatred first. It begins inside us and is projected outward. As we learn our loveability, we see the love in others. As we love ourselves, we project the love to others. As we love ourselves, we project to others. We confuse the giving of loving with the power of others. If I love someone who chooses not to love me, have I lost anything? If I choose to not love another and feel that hatred pass through me, have I gained anything? Who is the loser when I choose not to love?

We each have life issues that periodically disrupt our patterns. Knowing our issues helps us to accept the lessons quicker by spending less time in denial of them. Some of these issues may be: accepting our feelings, labeling our feelings, control, boundaries, intimacy, commitment, conflict, trust, authority figures, etc.

Likewise, we each are a collection of selves: (1) child, (2) adolescent, (3) teenager, (4) young adult, and possibly, (5) an older adult. Periodically, we need to “step back” emotionally and observe our own behavior in order to understand the behavior choices we are making.

In learning to check in with ourselves, we come to accept that just as we may be coming from several different vantage points from within ourselves, so also are all the other persons we encounter whether they are aware of their vantage points or not.

By Joe Marinaro

Begin a list of the 100-300 foods that you enjoy. You will be designing your list to add variety and choice to your daily food plan. I know that you think it would be easier for you if we picked out the “good” food and the “bad” food for you. But we believe any food that you control the portion SIZE when you eat, it is a good food for you. Don’t sabotage yourself by choosing foods you already know that you can’t or won’t control the amount that you eat.

We have listed several Internet sources for you to use in creating your list of foods in the 100-300 categories. Create your own choices from the lists.

Always remember to count all the calories. Using a food journal or notebook will help you to remember all the calories you eat.

To count calories, we use Barbara Kraus’s Calories and Carbohydrates. Revised by Marie Reilly-Pardo.  ISBN 0-451-20773-4.

Sometimes, you may reach a plateau. What happens as we lose weight is that the body adjusts to the smaller weight so we have to recreate what we have been adding. Always use the calories needed chart to determine the calories you can intake. Of course, you may increase the weight loss with exercise.

“Dr. Lam, a pioneer in natural healing, has good direction and explanation of the single dietary regimen most needed for weight loss. I have kept the statements marked in bold type because this is the basis for my High Energy Diet. He writes about the calories that count. In the introduction to CR (Calorie Restriction), he includes the following:

Only a single dietary regimen has ever been conclusively demonstrated to extend life span and improve the heath of laboratory animals and humans. It is known as calorie restriction (CR). Together with exercise, this is as close to the magic bullet as one can hope for in anti-aging. There are very few, if any, disagreements among anti-aging experts that calorie restriction can increase longevity.”

“The average human consumes 1,500 calories a day. The average American consumes 2,100 calories a day. For most of the population, calorie restriction means taking in about 20-30 percent fewer calories. For those serious about CR, the restriction can go up to 40%. In other words, the average-size human on a CR diet might consume 1,500 calories a day, compared to the 2,100 calories of the typical American. This anti-aging diet is made up of four or five small meals a day and consists predominantly of vegetables and fruits. “It requires a psychological profile only one person in 1,000 has,” says Richard Miller, associate director for research at the University of Michigan Geriatrics Center.”

“Nevertheless, CR diets are widely practiced by anti-aging experts. The reasons are clear – the list of the beneficial effects of CR reads like the packaging on a miracle cure. Benefits include: Increased average and maximum life spans and reduction in occurrence of virtually all age-related diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disease, ocular degeneration, blood pressure, and cancer.These reductions range from two-fold to as much as ten-fold. (For example, 50 percent of female control mice of a particular genetic strain develop breast cancer, but only 5 percent of the same strain developed cancer if on a CR diet.) ”

The value of customizable meal plans is how the major health plan programs work. They make money giving you weight loss advice and by supplying portion-controlled food to you. Most people who do these food programs lose weight. But do they keep it off? Generally, no, because the weight losers are having someone else do the portion control and he/she is not learning to choose portions for themselves.

Also,  some articles about maintaining motivation:

1)  How to Achieve Your Goals

2)  Motivation and Education By Matthew Horne

3)  The First Signs of a Successful Habit Change

4)  Why you need to be your own hero (and how to do it!)

5)  Beyond Motivation: Getting to What Really Drives You

6)  14 Tips to Lose Weight & Be Healthier in Time for Summer

7)  From Here to There: Proven Methods for Reaching Your Goals

8)  How do you talk yourself into something?

By stevendepolo

In an article from the Mayo Clinic, several suggestions for eating emotionally–using food to avoid feeling negative feelings. The suggestions are:

• Learn to recognize true hunger. Is your hunger physical or emotional? If you ate just a few hours ago and don’t have a rumbling stomach, you’re probably not really hungry. Give the craving a few minutes to pass.
• Know your triggers. For the next several days, write down what you eat, how much you eat, when you eat, how you’re feeling when you eat and how hungry you are. Over time, you may see patterns emerge that reveal negative eating patterns and triggers to avoid.
• Look elsewhere for comfort. Instead of unwrapping a candy bar, take a walk, treat yourself to a movie, listen to music, read or call a friend. If you think that stress relating to a particular event is nudging you toward the refrigerator, try talking to someone about it to distract yourself. Plan enjoyable events for yourself.
• Don’t keep unhealthy foods around. Avoid having an abundance of high-calorie comfort foods in the house. If you feel hungry or blue, postpone the shopping trip for a few hours so that these feelings don’t influence your decisions at the store.
• Snack healthy. If you feel the urge to eat between meals, choose a low-fat, low-calorie food, such as fresh fruit, vegetables with fat-free dip or unbuttered popcorn. Or test low-fat, lower calorie versions of your favorite foods to see if they satisfy your craving.
• Eat a balanced diet. If you’re not getting enough calories to meet your energy needs, you may be more likely to give in to emotional eating. Try to eat at fairly regular times and don’t skip breakfast. Include foods from the basic groups in your meals. Emphasize whole grains, vegetables and fruits, as well as low-fat dairy products and lean protein sources. When you fill up on the basics, you’re more likely to feel fuller, longer.
• Exercise regularly and get adequate rest. Your mood is more manageable and your body can more effectively fight stress when it’s fit and well rested.

By Foxonque

A

The abyss winking back at me

Acceptance, appraisal or suppression: anxiety solutions

Affirmations about inner wisdom

Anger at things we can’t control

How to manage anger

What causes addiction?

B

Breaking open

It builds up

Are you burned out?

C

Change your life, be a mentor

Change–here’s how

Community:  You deliver me

Compassion in action

Managing conflicts with email: why it’s so tempting

D

12 steps toward freedom from depression

Disease is a shape shifter

Doing good during bad

E

Increasing energy

How do I know what emotion I’m feeling?

F

Six easy steps to conquering fear and achieving bliss?

Business of forgiveness

10 reasons why I should forgive

Forgiveness with aromatherapy

But frozen things they all unfreeze

G

Getting through downturns

The God of my understanding

Grief–Welcome to my own little world

H

The social contagion of happiness

5 steps to achieving happiness (video)

4 conscious ways to really help others during any difficult situations

Paul Allen’s call for emotional health

Finding hope in the midst of depression

I

J

Stop following “the rules” of your life and bring back the joy

K

Law of attraction in action: knowing

L

5 easy healthy lifestyle tips

All you need is love

Married but oh–so lonely

M

Mastering your own mind

Meditation and the false lure of zoning out

Learn how to be a mindful leader

The power of mindsight: An interview with Dr. Daniel Siegel

A shift of mind

Money:  Rent or buy is a stickier question when you look at real lives

N

Teaching doctors the art of negotiation

O

Online mindfulness meditation for PTSD, Boulder Colorado

Organization:

Hard, fun and beautiful

P

11 quick and simple ways to spread positivity around you today

Processes

Q

Are you asking the right question?

R

The road map for life project–great discussions

S

Shamed for making mistakes

T

U

Unraveled? Here’s how to knit yourself and the world together

V

The false solace of vilification

W

My post-evangelical wilderness

X

Y

You are not broken. You don’t need to fixed

Z

Boat by MorBCH

“In my eighty years, I prefer to call that the forty-first anniversary of my thirty ninth birthday, I’ve seen what men can do for each other and do to each other, I’ve seen war and peace, feast and famine, depression and prosperity, sickness and health. I’ve seen the depth of suffering and the peaks of triumph and I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph and that there is purpose and worth to each and every life.” [the last portion of this quote is inscribed on his gravestone]
-Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan Library Opening Ceremonies

Each of us has an inner guide to show us when we are off target. To sin is to miss the mark. Becoming a valued person takes patience and willingness to accept the responsibility of treating others with the same respect.

But love begins with loving and accepting ourselves. And paradoxically, that means accepting what Carl Jung called our shadow self. Jung believed (from Wikipedia):

“In Jungian psychology, the shadow or “shadow aspect” is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. It is one of the three most recognizable archetypes, the others being the anima and animus and the persona. “Everyone carries a shadow,” Jung wrote, “and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”^[1] It may be (in part) one’s link to more primitive animal instincts,^[2] which are superseded during early childhood by the conscious mind.”

“According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to project: turning a personal inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. Jung writes that if these projections are unrecognized “The projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand and can realize its object–if it has one–or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power.” ^[3] These projections insulate and cripple individuals by forming an ever thicker fog of illusion between the ego and the real world.”

“Jung also believed that “in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness—or perhaps because of this—the shadow is the seat of creativity.”

I try very hard to not bad and good in my self-appraisal because I have made the decision to accept the job of making my emotional choices based on self-acceptance. That means loving others now that I have found how to love myself.

The following links offer different ideas about learning to value ourselves and others. From these feelings of value, empathy is born and grows.

Love thy neighbor

Social media marketing (not marketing: conversations

Social independence

Your money or your life–a summary of Chap. 11 from 50 Prosperity Classics: Attract It, Create It, Manage It, Share It (50 Classics)

Saving 200 runaway girls from prostitution

Coachology: Finally, the men place high value on personal life. Get on the bandwagon

Counter-intuitiveness comes of age

Affirmations are helping my mind

Good Livin' by v stamey

Emotional health is directly connected to our physical health. Choosing healthy ways (exercise, meditation, centering, deep breathing) to deal with stress go far toward our overall health. The mind-body connection is the way your body responds to how you think, feel and act.

Some of the physical signs that your body and mind may be out of connection are chest pain, headaches, back pain, extreme tiredness, high blood pressure, upset stomach, weight loss or gain, insomnia, etc. Many of these ailments may be as well treated by learning how to improve your emotions. Learn how to sort out the following emotions: anxiety, stress and sadness.

Too many of us have learned as children to stuff our feelings. The only emotional growth comes after we accept our feelings. Feelings aren’t good or bad or wrong or right. They are simply how we feel. Some people are helped by writing in a journal a short description of how they feel. After you accept your feelings, you can study healthy ways to deal with them.

Unfortunately, many people now believe that they have to continually “vent” all their feelings. In my opinion, vending feelings about the same situation does little good. If, once your feelings are know about a situation to all involved in the situation and everything stays the same, then learn new coping skills such as reframing to change the way you feel.

Remember, you can only change yourself—not others. If you still feel unable or unwilling to change—find out what your unhappiness is giving you. Holding on to old hurts only hurts us.

Distance by Shivashankari

Emotional health is directly connected to our physical health. Choosing healthy ways (exercise, meditation, centering, and deep breathing) to deal with stress go far toward our overall health. The mind-body connection is the way your body responds to how you think, feel and act.
Some of the physical signs that your body and mind may be out of connection are chest pain, headaches, back pain, extreme tiredness, high blood pressure, upset stomach, weight loss or gain, insomnia, etc. Many of these ailments may be as well treated by learning how to improve your emotions. Learn how to sort out the following emotions: anxiety, stress and  sadness.

Too many of us have learned as children to stuff our feelings. The only emotional growth comes after we accept our feelings. Feelings aren’t good or bad or wrong or right. They are simply how we feel. Some people are helped by writing in a journal a short description of how they feel. After you accept your feelings, you can study healthy ways to deal with them.

Unfortunately, many people now believe that they have to continually “vent” all their feelings. In my opinion, vending feelings about the same situation does little good. If, once your feelings are known about a situation to all involved in the situation and everything stays the same, then learn new coping skills such as reframing to change the way you feel.

Remember, you can only change yourself—not others. If you still feel unable or unwilling to change—find out what your unhappiness is giving you. Holding on to old hurts only hurts us.

2 People Beach Shadows by mikebaird

“When two codependents enter a relationship, they often overtly or covertly try to manipulate the partner to provide the love and approval needed to fill what John Bradshaw calls the “hole in the soul”. Both partners attach themselves to the other for a sense of completeness, a strategy that stunts personal growth and development. By surrendering responsibility for our happiness to other people, we create power struggles, arguments, and ultimately broken promises, expectations, and hearts. We can break out of the codependent trap….by working through the pain of our unmet childhood needs and by cultivating an inner life.”       Ronald S. Miller

Because I am in the middle of a divorce, I am determined to find my unmet childhood needs in order to grow more completely. One pattern I have seen is that I don’t feel that I deserve affection from a man. My father was very self-absorbed. Being the oldest child of three girls, I must have learned very young that he didn’t have much to give me or anyone. Instead I apparently decided that I needed to parent him. Actually, I guess I became the parent for both of my parents at a very young age.

I know now that my husband and I have paid a high emotional price for each other. It is amazing how clear it is to me now and how I never realized it sooner. Maybe because his leaving was so traumatic, I was able to see my anger for what it was. Instead of trying to work through our trouble with each other, we chose to attack and criticize. We were on a collusion course for disaster. I know that I need to heal and to mourn.

While I’m healing, I am continuing to read Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples. The author, Harville Hendrix , and his wife, Helen Lakelly Hunt, continue to help healing couples. This book was originally written in 1988 and has been updated. I am reading it very slowly and am hoping that I will be learning with my heart and not just with my head.

I am pondering this selection now: From “Becoming a Lover”–”We all have an understandable desire to live life as children. We don’t want to go to the trouble of raising a cow and milking it; we want to sit down at the table and have someone hand us a cool glass of milk….This wishful thinking finds its ultimate expression in relationships. We don’t want to accept responsibility for getting our needs met; we want to “fall in love” with a superhuman mate and live happily ever after. The psychological term for this tendency to put our frustrations and the solutions to our problems outside ourselves is “externalization,” and is the cause of much of the world’s unhappiness.”

So each day I focus on being a happy person. It really is a daily choice I have. To accept what is and to be grateful for it sometimes takes me several start-overs for the day but it is getting easier.

The following conditions should exist if this is the time for you to incorporate life change into your life. You will benefit the best if you:

(1) Have made the decision to change habits that are robbing you of your energy,

(2) Will find the time to begin incorporating the chances into your daily life,

(3) Willing to let go of self-limiting behaviors that were effective as a child but which impede your success now as an adult,

(4) Accept that the changes may be somethings that you don’t want to do,

(5) The only change we as individuals can make happen is in ourselves, and,

(6) Understand that we don’t spend time on other people or the past.

Whatever happened can’t be changed. But we can change our feelings about it by changing our thoughts.

Life is exciting and vibrant when your energy is directed toward those things you can change. The best use of our energy really is the Serenity Prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” –Reinhold Niebuhr