Daily Practices for Focus, Peace & Joy

I know sometimes I must sound like a broken record. I repeat myself again and again to my clients, my students, my friends, my family. And I'll say it again. Self-care is not an option if you want to live a happy, peaceful life. Especially if you're a sensitive, empathic, person.

Self-care, of course, includes the obvious elements, such as a nutrient-rich-plant-rich-diet, plenty of exercise, and good hygiene. None are optional if you want to maintain good health.

To maintain happiness and inner-peace, self-care must include emotional, spiritual practices as well. My daily practices, which I share below, help me stay centered, focused, optimistic, connected, creative, productive, peaceful, and happy.

These are the tools and techniques that work for me. With most, I mix and match, depending upon the day, the amount of time available, and my emotional/spiritual needs. Some practices, such as Meditation and Gratitude, are non-negotiable, and I do them every day.

Most days I usually do at least 4 or 5 of these techniques. Some days I do only 2. Other days I might do them all! Some are so quick, or so easy to fit in my day, that they don't take 'extra time.' And, truth be told, when I don't do anything, which does happen once in a while, I feel completely off, out of focus, and anxious. That's why I use a checklist to track my progress. I've learned the hard way, it's not worth falling off track.

Create your own plan. Take any of the following techniques that work for you, add in your own, and tuck them into pockets throughout your day. Choose at least one activity, such as meditation, to do each day, no matter what. None of the activities need to take a lot of time. And, as long as you're peppering them throughout the day, you'll be optimizing your energy.

Meditation I practice some form of meditation, each day, from 10 to 60 minutes. Some days I do two or more shorter meditations. Insight Timer is a fantastic, free, app that I use to time my meditations. It comes with an extensive library of sounds, bells, meditations, and music.

Abundance Meditation For this meditation, I use The Abundance Book, by John Randolph Price. It's a little green book with 10 principle statements. I meditate on one principle a day for 15 minutes, for 40 days or more. This helps keep me in an abundant, spiritual, frame of mind.

Gratitude Meditation Closing my eyes, I meditate for 5 minutes on something for which I am grateful. It can be something that I already have, or that I would like to have. This sense of gratitude feels truly authentic, and really, really good.

Goals I hand-write write my goals, in present tense, expressing my gratitude for reaching them. This feels good, and it helps me keep on top of my goals. I write my goals nearly every day. This takes about 10 minutes.

Morning Pages Originated by Author Julia Cameron, morning pages are 3 hand-written free-flow pages each morning. They're invaluable for clearing the mind, and sparking creative flow.

Yoga or ExerciseExercising in the morning invigorates me for the rest of the day. Movement is crucial for efficient energy flow, lymph flow, strength, anxiety release, and more.

Heart Breath I add the Heart Breath in whenever I feel stuck in my head. The Heart Breath helps me drop out of a busy, over-worked mind, into the peace and calm of my heart. It's a great tool for reducing anxiety. 1 minute, or longer.

Uplifting Reading Somewhere during my day, I find time to read. Sometimes it's work-related, but it's always uplifting.

Uplifting Listening This includes music, podcasts, Hayhouse Radio, audio courses, and more. I like to listen when I make dinner. This helps keep me in a positive, optimistic, frame of mind.

EFT Tapping This is an any-time-of-the-day, as-needed, practice. EFT Tapping is perfect for releasing anxiety, tension, fear, sadness, or any other unwanted feelings that might creep in.

More Gratitude Gratitude is something that can be expressed in many ways throughout the day. In addition to my 5-minute gratitude meditation, I enjoy spontaneous moments of gratitude, or write a gratitude list, or a thank you note, or simply say thank you, thank you, thank you as I do something that brings me joy. Gratitude helps me feel more connected to the spiritual world. And, the more grateful I am, the more I have to be grateful for.

Nature Walk Nothing better for pleasing the senses and soothing the soul.

Enjoy! And reach out -- let me know what works for you!

In Courage,

Marian

Hello! I'm Marian Buck-Murray, Certified Practitioner in both EFT Tapping and Matrix Reimprinting. I specialize in helping sensitive people boost courage, confidence and self-love. To schedule a FREE 30 Minute Call, where I'll help you get clear on your best strategy to honor your sensitivity, and give you a tool to turn it into a superpower, go to http://marianbuckmurray.com/

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6 keys to motivation

How To Use The Brain More Effectively

Behavior-Based Goals 101

Setting goals isn't complicated, but like everything else, there is a right and wrong way to go about it. Making intentions to change your behavior - whether it's to decrease procrastination or be friendlier when you're under stress - can be a lot trickier than creating them to change performance. Here are a few tips to get you started.

Focus on Future Performance

It's cause and effect - today's behavior affects tomorrow's performance. If you're having trouble meeting a performance-based goal you've set for yourself, consider that you might need to change a behavior instead. For instance, many people set targets to increase productivity. But regardless of how fast you type, if you spend all morning surfing the web you'll never meet your intention.

When it comes to behavior-based goals, your focus should be on future performance. Go out of your way executing your behavior-based intentions, stay consistent, and really work hard on changing the ways you handle stress or deal with interpersonal relationships. As you change your behaviors, the results will come.

Give Yourself Time

In some ways, changing your behavior is a lot harder than just increasing your productivity. How we feel, think, and react is second nature to us in a way that answering a certain amount of emails before lunch isn't. So don't be too hard on yourself if you aren't seeing the behavioral changes you want overnight.

Give yourself a realistic amount of time to make changes. You'll find it's difficult to change a behavior all at once. The most important thing is that you improve a little bit every day. Don't give up on your intentions, but don't get upset with yourself if it's harder to stick to behavior-based goals than it is to performance-based ones.

Measure Your Progress

Behavior-based objectives are harder to quantify than performance-based ones for a few reasons. It's not always easy to assign a number value to interpersonal skills or teamwork. It can be hard to track the ways you manage your time or communicate. Sometimes, behavior-based objectives are really subjective. But keeping track of your progress is important if you want to improve.

You may really need to get creative in order to measure your progress, and you'll definitely need to embrace the subjectivity of the process. Write down your thoughts and feelings. Rather than making charts and graphs, consider journaling to keep track of your positive and negative behaviors.

Peggy Everson - Superior Organized Solutions

Business Growth Strategist, Professional Business Organizer, People Problem Solver, Entrepreneur, Rescue Dog Lover. Got a problem? Let's talk!

Transforming the lives of entrepreneurs, through coaching and personality profiling! I want my clients to live the life they are meant to live and be happy, healthy and successful.

http://superiororganizedsolutions.com/

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Make Your Life Magical - Not Work

How often have you wanted to upgrade a certain area of your life, only to find it too much "work"? Most people set personal and professional goals, and then are stunted in their achievement of those goals.

Let's look at some ways to make things easier, in the flow and more magical.

1) DECIDE what you want. You can't get what you really want if you don't know what you want. This sounds simple, but when I ask clients, they're often vague saying things like: "I want to have better relationships, I want more interesting work." This simply is not compelling or clear enough to move you forward.

2) ASK for what you want. This may be literal, like asking for a raise, more time with your spouse, or to be treated with respect. However, it's also spiritual. State what you want in the affirmative. No pleading, whining, or sense of not deserving. Let's say you want to earn $70,000 a year or more. You would write and say a statement like: I am so joyful and grateful that I easily receive $70,000 or more a year in salary, happy gifts and welcome suprises!

An additional idea for asking is to write what Noah St. John & Denise Berard call Afformations. In their Book of Afformations, they explain that the brain is a question answering, solution seeking "machine." So, simply asking afformitive questions brings positive answers and results. Here are a few samples: "Why do I enjoy the huge benefits I bring to others through my wild abundance? Why is it so easy to talk about money to my spouse? Why has God given me the power to obtain great wealth? Why is money such a wonderful gift to me? Why does money come to me so easily?"

3) BELIEVE that what you want is on the way. If you've ever planted anything, you know that you simply water, give sunlight and wait. You believe that the seeds you planted will become a flower, plant, vegetable or fruit. It can take days or weeks before the first sprout. The time frame didn't stop you from believing it would happen. The same is true for getting what you want.

4) FEEL the feelings. Again, it is essential that while you envision what you want, you feel joy, gratitude, excitement, love, peace, passion.

5) DO! As you get guidance, opportunity and insight, do what you know to do . Enjoy the process.

6) RECEIVE! This is part of the process. Receive what you wanted. It often turns out better then what you wanted. Give thanks, put some of what you received back into the flow and start again!

NOW let's play with these magical steps. Take a look at the playtime renewal below.

Summertime - Playtime with Renewal!Take a look at the areas listed below. See which statements are true for you and the statements you'd like to be true for you. Now use the magical steps you just learned in the information above and apply the steps to what you want. Please be sure you write me with your results!

1) BODY -

* My is beautiful and exactly how I want it.

* My skin is beautiful.

* My teeth look great.

* My posture is great.

* I look and feel at least 10 years younger than my age.

* I eat healthy food and exercise regularly.

2) MY SPIRIT

* I see beauty in everything.
* I am well connected to spirit, which is my energy source.
* I feel overwhelmingly grateful.
* I have strong intuition and follow my intuition.
* I have a sense of God's presence around and through me.

3) MY HEART
* Each of my friends love me and are unconditionally positive with me.
* I ask for what I want and need.
* My heart feels joyous, loving & at peace.
* I protect myself from energy vampires and nasty, negative people.
* I am lighthearted and enjoyable to be with.

4) MY SELF CARE
* I am on the top of my "to do" list.
* I keep a pace that is comfortable for me.
* I enjoy my own company.
* I eat well & exercise regularly.
* I've looked at other areas of self care and added those enriching things into my life.

5) MY HOME
* I love being in my home.
* My home nourishes me.
* I have beauty inside and outside my home.
* I feel good welcoming others into my home.
* I feel safe, secure and happy in my home.

6) MY FAMILY
* I enjoy my partner, we are happy, kind and supportive of one another.
* My children are well balanced, socially skilled, compassionate individuals who take responsibility for their actions at an age appropriate level.
* I love being with my family.
* I have worked through issues from my family of origin and forgiven the past.
* I live in the present moments with my family.

7) MY WORK
* I love my work.
* My work is fulfilling, creative and enjoyable.
* I am amazingly well trained, highly competent and productive in my work.
* I am well regarded in my field.
* I enjoy my workspace.

8) MY FINANCES
* I have $100,000 in savings or liquid investments.
* I have insurance to take care of my health, loved ones & the things I own.
* My net income is increasing annually.
* I am taking advantage of the 8th wonder of world...i.e. compounding interest on sound investments.
* I have a sound financial plan for retirement.

Copyright 2007, Iris Fanning. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. www.irisfanning.com [http://www.irisfanning.com] Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article as long as you leave all of the links active, do not edit the article in any way and give author name credit.

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Stay Happy - Keep the Faith!

How do you keep a positive faith filled life even with the myriad of changes and challenges facing you today?  I take a few minutes to nourish yourself and remind yourself that you are not alone. 
 
Many of my friends and colleagues are experiencing rapid, unpredictable change.  Most of this change is not the type we would wish for.  It includes: layoffs, salary reductions, health scares and concerns, ending of relationships and the like.  So, how do you keep your faith in uncertain times?  Let's look at a few ideas.

1)  You are not alone!  Call it Spirit, God, Universal Force, Love, Mystery, Life Force, or Angels.  We need to remind ourselves that we are not alone in any struggle, fear or circumstance.  That something greater than ourselves is as near as our next breath.  We are divinely protected and surrounded.  Our circumstances change, but this abiding force is constant.
 
2)  We don't have all the answers.  We don't need to have all the answers.   In the midst of trouble, it's hard to see what will be the results.  Fortunately, as we look back at the changes in our life, many have moved us forward, made us stronger and even turned out better than we hoped for.
 
3)  Surrender to what is.  A great deal of our stress comes when our expectations of what should be isn't met by what is.  We can come into acceptance of what is and even enjoy what is now.  We can do this while holding a vision of a more fulfilling future.
 
4)  Believe that things will be better.  In the midst of difficult circumstances, know that this is a season...and as with all seasons it will change.  Keep believing that a difficult time is a passing thing.  Keep your expectations on what you do want in your life. 
 
5)  Stay connected to others.  Social isolation simply isn't good for us.  Sometimes when things are difficult, we withdraw due to depression or embarrassment.  Now is the time to reach out and connect with others.  We gain energy from connecting, laughing and being playful.
 
Copyright 2009, Iris Fanning. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.  Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article as long as you leave all of the links active, do not edit the article in any way and give author name credit

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You Will Never Be Lazy Again | Jim Kwik

How Incredibly Successful People THINK