"Instead of spending your time thinking about how bad things are, think about how good they will be!"

Everyone knows that a positive attitude is key to the successful life. But what happens when things go wrong? What happens when circumstances deal us a blow? We have a tendency to let our attitudes take the dive along with our state of affairs. Life deals us setbacks, both minor and major, on a regular basis, but if we are going to be successful, we need to know how to deal with them and keep our attitudes intact! We need practical tools to help us understand how we can go about keeping our attitude up, when the circumstances are down. Here are some thoughts to help us do so:

Take some time-out. I'm sure you are aware of what happens. You are going about your day and everything seems to be going well, when out of nowhere disaster strikes. All of your best-laid plans begin to tumble. Sometimes circumstances surprise us and we react. Unfortunately, this often compounds the problem because by reacting we tend to operate out of our weaknesses instead of our strengths. We make decisions that are not well thought out. We function with a bad attitude that says, "I can't believe this is happening!"

The next time circumstances turn against you, take some time to just step back from the problem and think. This will enable you to deal with the issue at hand rationally, instead of emotionally. It will allow you to put your state of mind back into its proper place. It gives you the opportunity to choose your attitude as you face the circumstances at hand. Remember that we don't have to do something right now. Go grab a cup of coffee and relax little bit. By doing this you function with you being in control and not the circumstances.

 

Whatever your faith or mindset, meditating while you walk is a pleasant, easy way to expand your powers of concentration since the practice requires no accessories and no quiet room or special circumstance.

You can focus on your breathing and count out your breaths while walking to work. Just break your steps down into slow, mindful movements and breathe. You may repeat a favorite inspirational verse or affirmation. Notice how the ground rises up to meet your feet. Instructs meditation teacher and author Charles MacInerney, "Walk with 'soft vision,' allowing the eyes to relax and focus upon nothing, while aware of everything. Once you have discovered your natural rhythm, lock into it, so that the rhythm of the walking sets the rhythm for the breath like a metronome." Walking meditations are employed in various meditative traditions—Buddhist Vipassanna, for instance—as a way to give the body some relief from constant sitting.

Mindfulness

If you're constantly thinking about what you'd rather be doing—getting off work, driving a different car, or eating dessert, your mind is starving for mindfulness. So what? Well, if you're reading an instant message and talking on your cell phone while thinking about things you need to get at the store, you're not doing any of these things fully—and essentially, you're missing out on your own life. The antidote? Mindfulness. Mindfulness is a quality you can cultivate in any situation—whether you're walking down the street or washing the dishes. Although grounded in Buddhism, this practice is accessible to people of any faith. In mindfulness meditation you stop the restlessness of your mind by focusing your undivided attention on whatever you're experiencing in the here and now. The simplest version involves simply focusing on your breath. By enhancing your awareness in this way, you calm your mind, experience life more fully, and bring new clarity of thought to any situation that comes your way.

Get more organized and clear the path ahead… you’ll be amazed at how many new gifts will appear in your life! It is important to set the tone daily... not just once a year when you make New Year's resolutions. In the universe around us everything is organized in a certain order, rhythm and flow. Feng shui helps us get in tune with this universal energy. The more you organize your home or office according to simple feng shui principles, the more the universe will support you in manifesting your goals. Are you ready to open your life this year... to improve your health, find a new direction, land a promotion or attract more romance? Committing yourself to being more organized will help you clear your space for all the wonderful things waiting to come toward you. 1. Clear Your Entryway: The first and most important thing you can do to get more organized in any aspect of your life is to make sure the entrance to your home or apartment is neat and tidy. If you always enter and exit through clutter or chaos, guess what you will carry into your home... and out into the world? The entryway is the "mouth" of chi – or life energy. An entryway that is clean and beautiful allows chi to flow into the rest of your home and opens the space for organization to take hold everywhere. Make sure shoes and boots are hidden away, coats are not hanging in the open near the doorway and that your entry looks neat and organized both inside and outside. The porch or walkway leading to the door should also be clear of clutter. Store trash receptacles, recycling bins and garden tools somewhere else. You'll enjoy coming home much more if the way is open and clear! 2. Enter Through Your Front Door: Our dependence on automobiles has led to the common practice of entering the house through the garage or through a side door. From the perspective of feng shui, this is definitely not a helpful practice. The typical garage is designed to be functional not beautiful. And most garages are full of clutter of one type or another. Very often a doorway that leads directly into a house from a garage or side yard is small and dimly lit. You may even pass through a storage area or laundry room as you enter your home in this way. This will not create the positive flow of energy that is possible to generate by entering through a front door, especially one that is clear and open and welcomes you home with a sense of peace and beauty. 3. Keep Things in Good Repair: Your overall level of organization will increase if you make sure that everything in your home is in good repair. Pay special attention to lighting fixtures and lamps – be sure to replace burnt out bulbs immediately so that your home stays well lit. This will help the chi in your home keep flowing freely to support you in many amazing ways. When things are broken, cracked or not working properly, it can slow you down. Just as order tends to inspire more order, so, too, cracked and broken appliances, loose door knobs and the like are impediments to an organized life. 4. Light the Corners: Clutter tends to gather in shadowy areas, so be sure that the living areas of your home are well lit, especially the corners. You and your family members or roommates will be much less apt to pile things in places that are highly visible. By shining some light on those potential "dump-spots," you may prevent them from attracting clutter in the first place! 5. Make Your Bed Every Morning: Start your day by making your bed and arranging the covers and pillows in an orderly and pleasing way. Make sure all your laundry has been put away and that your bedroom is neat. This should be your first gesture of organization every day, as it marks the passage from sleep to a new day and prepares the bedroom for your next night of sleep. Starting and ending your day in a well-ordered environment will inspire a more organization in the rest of your life. 6. Leave the Bathroom Tidy: Another area to pay attention to in the morning is the bathroom. Make sure you hang towels neatly after you bathe or shower, and keep your toiletries tucked away to avoid creating clutter around the sink or tub. Tending to these two areas... the bedroom and bathroom... will set a tone of organization that will continue throughout your day. 7. Straighten Your Desk Before Leaving Work: At the end of each work day, clean your desk or any other work area that you use in your job. This lends closure to your day and prepares the way for a new beginning when you return. If you work with a lot of papers or documents, organize them in folders or neat piles, but be sure to leave a clear space in front of you or next to your computer... such an open space welcomes new information. It's an invitation to the universe to keep the flow coming toward you. If you don't allow open space on your desk, you can block new opportunities and the prosperity they are trying to bring to you. 8. Don't Overlook Your Computer: Just because you – and others – can't see the clutter on your computer doesn't mean it isn't burdening you. Delete unwanted emails and purge anything that is no longer needed. If you must save certain emails to refer to later, move them from your general Inbox to separate folders that have been created for conscious storage. These folders can be arranged by theme or by the names of the people with whom you correspond. A cleared out Inbox invites new possibilities and new contacts – a cluttered one may prevent them from finding you. 9. Carry a Special Wallet or Envelope: Stay better organized when you are traveling or shopping by carrying a special wallet or envelope that you use to collect receipts, business cards that are shared with you and other bits of information you might gather as you move about the world. Go through the papers in this wallet or envelope on a regular basis and record or file any information you need to keep for any reason. Shred and discard any pieces of paper you don't need. Strive to keep this wallet or envelope clear and open, so you are not carrying the past around with you in the form of outdated receipts. 10. Surround Yourself with Blue: The color blue in feng shui supports an organized life, so try to have some blue around you when you work or pay bills, etc. Royal blue is especially good. Put blue accents on your desk, use blue sticky notes or find other ways to surround yourself with the color blue. 11. Put a Bubbling Fountain in the North: North is the direction of new beginnings and of an organized professional life, so a bubbling fountain placed in the North of your office or living room can help activate your resolve to get – and stay – organized. Stand in the middle of the room and, using a small compass, determine which direction is north. Imagining that you are the center of a pie, draw make-believe lines to create a pie piece radiating out from you to either side of due north. Placing a fountain anywhere along the outer edge of that slice of pie will activate the north and help make staying organized easier for you. 12. Keep the Center Open: Keep the center of your living areas open so the energy can flow. Arrange your furniture so the middle of the room is not blocked. That way, the chi can come in and move about, energizing your thoughts and feelings and making it easier to live a happy, healthy... and well-organized... life!

So often we make something huge out of a simple problem, and blow it out of all proportion. How many of our difficulties start with one tiny misunderstanding: someone didn't give us their usual smile today; our teacher gave us a stern look or our best friend criticized us; this morning's cup of coffee tasted bitter; we woke up feeling a bit cranky... that's all it takes to ruin our whole day! We can find ourselves so fragile, so frail and vulnerable that any offhand remark, any hasty reaction or ill-timed joke, can puncture our confidence completely. If we don't catch the misunderstanding there and then, it can act like a seed that germinates and grows bigger and bigger...

We revel in self-pity or depression. But above all, we cannot let go of it. As if hell-bent on bringing everything to a painful point, almost as if we wanted to take revenge on someone or something—which always turns out to be ourselves-we lurch unfailingly toward a crisis. Meanwhile our delusion, or our depression, looms like some macabre sculpture we are fashioning, or a building we are feverishly constructing, enlarging and extending, and finally topping with the discovery of some deep-seated, ancient problem, so that everything is assembled into an ideal home, complete with all the best reasons why we should be depressed. Yet what escapes us all along, apart from the fact that our problem is not even that serious, let alone disastrous, is this: it is built from nothing! It does not really exist.

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." Teddy Roosevelt

Do you remember when you were a child and no dream seemed too big? Some of us thought we would walk on the moon; some dreamed of riding with Roy Rogers; others imagined stepping to the plate in a big-league game. Every one of us, when we were young, had a common trait - we were dreamers. The world hadn't gotten to us yet to show us that we couldn't possibly achieve what our hearts longed for. And we were yet still years from realizing that in some cases we weren't built for achieving our dreams. The dreamer is always the last to know.

Eventually we started to let our dreams die. People began to tell us that we couldn't do the things we wanted. It was impossible. Responsible people don't pursue their dreams. Settle down, get a job, be dependable. Take care of business, live the mundane, be content.

Do you know what I say to that? Get Lost!

It is time to dream again!

 

 

The new New Agers are all about spiritual ritual, the environment, health, sustainability, and style.

If you buy health food, show concern for the environment, and meditate or do yoga, you're not just green, granola, or purple—you're also a member of the

 

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