|
|
| Positive Attitude Tips & Information |
|
||
|
|
Spring Into Enchantment
Who can control a smile sneaking across your face as you go outside on a beautiful spring day, suddenly finding your nostrils filled with a sweet aroma of fresh blooms, while feeling warm breezes against your skin, whispering, "No coat today."? Nature provides enchantment all around us in the spring. The birds sing, the flowers bloom, animals have their babies, new birds learn to fly. If you look high up in a tree you might see an exquisite bird singing loudly, full of life. It is as if nature gives humans an opportunity for enchantment all around. Yet, we often are indifferent, not responding spontaneously to the rebirth of spring. We seem to be, at times, equipped to live lives of misery brought on by ourselves. Many of us are able to generate a bad mood, put ourselves down, see our future as dark or today as gloomy. We have lost or never had the easy comfort and capacity to relax and enjoy life that a cat has on a sunny porch just snoozing and rolling over. We humans have to work at enchantment. Let s take a moment and look at what the major components of this work called "enchantment" are. To experience what we call THE ENCHANTED SELF, that is positive states of mind and body again and again, a person must be able to develop three capacities. The first is the ability to successfully meet one s needs. This can be challenging when we find ourselves committed or obligated to be elsewhere or doing other things. There is a saying, "If you can t go to the mountain than bring the mountain to you." You may yearn to be outdoors playing sports or gardening but find yourself stuck indoors at home or at work. Opening the windows to let fresh air in, displaying a vase of colorful flowers on a table are some of the ways that can enable you to experience a spring day. What s important is that you recognize what you need and then act upon it. This may mean verbalizing what you want to others or just giving yourself permission to take the time to do something that adds enjoyment to your life. The second capacity we need to develop is having a positive appreciation of yourself, so that you see yourself as worthy of experiencing enchanted times. This means recognizing your personal value. Your children and/or husband, wife, boss, significant others are all important and should be treated with care and respect, but they are not more important than you. You are unique, with talents, coping skills and potential. You have the right to balance your life so that your needs can be taken into consideration. This self value is another building block of enchantment. The last component is recognizing what really does give you pleasure. You may love walking on the beach, your bare feet touching the sand, still cool in the spring. You may enjoy going to a local county park when temperatures start rising. Someone else may prefer to engage in a more active social life in the spring and perhaps does not care about being outdoors. The spring may stimulate a yearning to have friends visit, or go to the local fine restaurants and experience different types of foods Enchantment requires a self knowledge that only each person must know for himself or herself. And don t forget your memory banks, your wonderful treasure chests. As you begin to spring into enchantment, it is in these memory chests that you will recognize your special interests and preferences. Your positive memories can help you frame out what you would like to do this season. Here is an exercise to get you started: Close your eyes and let your mind wander back to something that you loved to do as a child in the spring. Did you like to climb trees? Did you like to ride a bike? Go fishing? Run? Catch lightning bugs at night? Think about the way your body felt as you did this activity. Did you feel excited? Did you feel particularly alive and alert? Did you feel relaxed? Think about how you felt when the activity was over. Were you exhausted? Were you revitalized? Were you hungry? Now list some of the skills that were necessary to perform that activity. For example, if you used to love to climb trees, some of the skills might have been agility or arm strength to lift yourself onto branches. Another skill was probably good balance. Do you still have these skills? If so, what would you like to try at this stage of your life that might let you get back in touch with the physical pleasures that you were so naturally in touch with as a child? Perhaps dancing or lifting weights or rock climbing? Whatever your physical pleasure may have been, lift it out, dust it off, and use it. And most important, enjoy! If you do not have these skills, what are some alternatives? Perhaps rather than tree climbing you could stretch in all directions, lying on a mat or on a soft carpet. This will require much less in the way of balance or risk-taking. Perhaps you would enjoy a risk-taking adventure via a book, movie or a computer game. Reinvention of yourself in order to experience pleasure is a never ending pursuit. How do we finally begin to generate a world of enchantment? It is very simple. If you are leading an enchanted life you will quickly see that you send out positive energies and positive messages. Before you know it, there is a mutuality of shared enchantment going on. Laughter is infectious, good moods are catching, and like the birds singing, all of these happy reflections of harmony are resonated again and again as they move out in ever expanding circles. We hope you will take some time to spring into enchantment and to let yourself move from feeling enchanted to being truly enchanting. About The Author Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein, originator of THE ENCHANTED SELF®, a method of bringing delight and meaning into everyday living, invites you to view her new line of ENCHANTED WOMAN products, downloadable e-books, and free gifts at http://www.enchantedself.com. Chat with others in Dr. Holstein's e-group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/encself/join, and sign up for her free e-group at www.enchantedself.com. Order her book, THE ENCHANTED SELF: A Positive Therapy, or the CD-rom or tape version and her book RECIPES FOR ENCHANTMENT: The Secret Ingredient is YOU!, or the ED-rom version, at http://www.enchantedself.com/ordering.htm
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
When Things Go Wrong As They Sometimes Will... Dont Get Your Knickers In A Twist! In frustration it's easy to jump to false conclusions that life is out to get you. Wrong assumptions will invariably lead you to wrong conclusions. And, it is ridiculous to think that our limited experiences are reflective of life in general. When the struggles begin, it's time for a reality check. Decide Your Own Destiny Human nature is created so that you can choose your destiny. In order to know your destiny you must realize that your life is in a constant state of change. The key to deciding your destiny is to be one of the few who know where you are going and exactly how to get there. With each step along the way you develop experience. You enrich your learning. Beginners Programming 101 Recently a great idea popped into my head about creating a software program. Now, if the truth be told, I know absolutely nothing about computer programming. But the thought of creating this software was very persistent, so I went to the book store and purchased a few books for beginning programming. Anchoring Positivity With NLP There was some sunshine this weekend while I was writing this! At least here on the sunny south coast of England there was. I went out walking along the sea front with my partner Sara on Saturday morning and it was wonderful; the feeling of sunshine on my face, the smell of the air, the sites of other people out and about and happy, the local land train was shuttling people and their excited children back and forth from Bournemouth pier to Boscombe Pier and my senses were filled ? a major event for human neurophysiology (mine anyway!) All My Needs, Desires, and Goals are Met -- INSTANTANEOUSLY I get emails and questions from people all the time who are frustrated because they have read all types of self-help books, attended all types of motivational seminars, received personal coaching and yet, they still are unable to live the life that they dream of living. How To Self Talk Your Way To Success? Dear Friends, Business Career, Executive Coaching - The Top 10 Tips to Begin the Practice of Positive Affirmations Positive Affirmations are things we say to ourselves that build us up and make us strong. They empower us to take chances and to be our best. Thoughts run through our mind thousands of times a day and are often negative. Making positive affirmations a daily practice gives you a powerful tool to strengthen your inner foundation and follow your bliss. Start Living Your Dreams Today With a Positive Attitude "Those people who think they can do something and those who think they can't are both right." - Henry Ford Success or Failure: How to Cope With Failure There is no such thing as failure ? only feedback ? we can learn from our failures. Do not let apparent failures beat you up, learn from them. As humans, we tend to be harder on ourselves than others are. A small child learning to walk never fails to get up and try and try and try until success is achieved. It is the same in life; every failure is a step closer to success. The Difference Between the Curmudgeons and the Serene Have you ever noticed how many unhappy people there are in this world of ours? Almost every time I venture out I come in contact with them. You see them in the stores, the market, on the roads ~ everywhere. They are the ones who don't seem to know how to look pleasant. Their faces are scrunched up in ugly frowns, they sigh and grumble a lot. They're rude to store clerks and restaurant servers. They honk their horns if traffic doesn't move fast enough to suit them. They let the door slam in your face as you enter a store. They yell at their children and lose their tempers if they are made to wait. The Power Of AND Not Amen, just so we're clear on that. A Solution For Trouble? Try This Breath Of Fresh Air! I just heard the story of a man who hired a plumber to restore an old farmhouse. After he had finished a rough first day on the job he realized he had a flat tire which made him lose an hour of work; then his electric drill quit, and then his truck refused to start. As his customer drove him home, the plumber sat in stony silence. Making Conflict Productive Conflict is unavoidable. How we respond to it makes a difference in its outcome. Personally I had never before given a whole lot of thought to turning the table on my conflict. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if we could all transform our battles so that we could profit from them? Not Getting What You Want in Life? Your Thoughts Could Be the Culprit Unhappy? Stressed out? Do you feel you not only want more fun in your life, but you need more fun in your life? You seem to be doing all the right things, but yet you still feel unfulfilled. So, what's wrong? You want that feeling of happiness again, like that sense of pleasure you had as a child when you saw your first rainbow. But now you feel like you aren't getting what you want out of life, and it's leaving you feeling disheartened. The answer could be that your thoughts are sabotaging your happiness. Use Affirmations to Build Self-Esteem Most of us carry on a running internal dialogue at all times. It is as if our lives are a sporting event on television and there is a panel of psychic sports commentators hunched over their microphones doing a play-by-play of the action. Positive Mind, Successful Life It took me a long time to realise the benefits of positive thinking. I had often heard people mention that if you think positive, positive things will happen to you, I used to think they were a bit weird. I now believe they were right and this article explains why. Really Scary Stuff With the probable exception of some basic instincts ? or motivation toward self-preservation ? we've just flat learned to be afraid of about all the rest of the stuff we're afraid of. I know, the word "about" is a cop-out but I'm using it because I'm not really sure where this next mega-fear comes from. Maybe it's an instinct thing, too. I dunno? Using Negative Experience to Discover Your Strength "Someone was hurt before you; wronged before you, hungry before you, frightened before you, raped before you; yet, someone survived" - Maya Angelou Your Mental Attitude is The Key! As a being of thought, your dominant mental attitude will determine your condition in life. It will also be the gauge of your knowledge and the measures of your attainment. The so-called limitations of your nature are the boundary lines of your thoughts; they are self-erected fences, and can be drawn to a narrower circle, extended to a wider, or be allowed to remain. You are the thinker of your thoughts and as such you are the maker of yourself and condition. Thought is causal and creative, and appears in your character and life in the form of results. There are no accidents in your life. Both its harmonies and antagonisms are the responsive echoes of your thoughts. A man thinks, and his life appears. How Much Better Can You Have It? "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain." -Maya Angelou
|
