Is it time to Spring Clean your mind?

Spring is here! And with it comes new beginnings.

What new beginning would you like in your life?

What would you change?

How do you want your life to be different?

Your dreams can come true – as long as you’re ready to spring clean your mind.

Just like your home – your mind can get chaotic with too much stuff! The clutter in your mind includes old ideas, old attitudes, old conversations, old dreams, old hurts and old habits.

Are any of these thoughts actually benefiting you now?

How do you spring clean your mind?

It all begins with choosing to purse a happier lifestyle that benefits both you and your loved ones. It means that you will need to be willing to get rid of anything that no longer works for you. When you let go of the old you are making room for new and exciting opportunities and challenges.

Your mental spring cleaning will require both a conscious choice and dedicated effort on your part.

The first step is to get rid of the weeds you’ve allowed to grow in your mind. Weeds consist of self-limiting beliefs, hanging onto your past and negative emotions. These thought patterns will only lead to more of the same. If you want your life to be different – It’s imperative that you change your thought patterns.

Why are you hanging onto the past?

You could be hanging on to positive or negative memories. Put the past in the past. It is gone. You cannot relive it.

• Clear out the self-doubt. You are worthy of achieving any of the dreams and goals that you have.
• Clean out the blame in your life. Blame is just an excuse for you not to take responsibility for your own life.
• Clean out the anger, hatred and jealousy. It serves no purpose. It does not harm anyone but you. Let it go.
• Throw away impatience and replace it with patience. Remember patience is a habit. Good things will come to you in the right times. Don’t try to rush them.
• Show love and kindness to everyone – even those that have hurt you in the past. Forgiveness washes your mind clear and allows love to flow.
• Stop procrastinating. All it does is set you up to be frustrated and scrambling around while playing “catch up”.
• Laugh! The world can be difficult and scary at times – Find humor in it. Laugh out loud a few times every day – even if you don’t feel like it.
• Maintain a positive attitude. You may not have control over situations or other people – but you can control your reaction and your attitude towards them.
• Count your blessings. Begin each day being grateful for all that you have and carry your grateful heart with you throughout the day.
• Make a list of at least 10 of your dreams. When stress starts to creep in, refocus your mind and energy on your dreams.

You only have a certain amount of space in your heart and in your mind. When you spend your time thinking, doing and reacting to things in the past, planning for and worrying about the future, you are not focusing on the present.

Live in the present.

Don’t miss out on your wonderful life by reliving yesterday or dreaming about tomorrow.

Your own negative emotions can be one of the top obstacles you face in living a happy fulfilling life. Negativity is extremely destructive to your level of self-confidence.

Negative emotions are any feelings you have that make you feel bad. It’s perfectly normal for you to have bad thoughts and feelings at times.

Remaining stuck in a prolonged negative emotional state is something you should avoid. Thinking negative thoughts all of the time will drain you of energy, create additional stress, destroy relationships and cause physical illnesses.

When you feel bad it’s difficult to focus. It’s difficult to think clearly when making decisions. Negative emotions stop us from thinking and behaving rationally. Your feelings can literally make or break you. Have you ever known anyone who ruined their life because of their inability to manage their emotions?

Long lasting bouts of negative emotions can stop you enjoying life. Some of the most common negative emotions are anger, blame, discouraged, fear, guilt, inferiority, jealousy, loneliness, resentment, sad, unsafe, untrusting and worthlessness. All of these feelings cause you to be miserable. They make you dislike yourself as well as others.

You’ve heard the sayings: “Negativity breeds negativity “and” Misery Loves Company”? These sayings came to be simply because negative emotions create more negativity – On the positive side positive emotions create more happiness and joy. If you hang around the whiny negative people their negative emotions will rub off on you. Surround yourself with loving, positive people and their positive emotions will also rub off on you.

Your emotions are determined by what you think and what you feel. According to Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary: Emotion – “A psychic and physical reaction subjectively experienced as feeling and physiologically involving changes that prepare the body for action—”

Do you know what one trait will help you overcome all of your negative emotions?

It is Self-Confidence. When you are confident you naturally feel good about yourself and others. You take total responsibility for your successes and failures. You understand your life is shaped by your thoughts. Your reality is your perception of everything around you.

When you develop self confidence you forgive others. You understands other peoples actions and feelings cannot directly affect you – unless you allow it. It’s been said that other people’s opinion of you is none of your business.

Self confidence is simply your belief in yourself and your abilities.

Empower yourself to find out who you really are so that your confidence will soar. A great way to grow, to stay motivated and to become positive is to listen to motivational audio programs.

Jack Canfield of the popular “Chicken Soup for the Soul” has developed an audio program that will help you gain confidence and rid yourself of negative emotions such as anger, guilt and sadness.
Get “Maximum Confidence: 10 Steps to Extreme Self-Esteem” now.

Negative emotions and feelings are often obstacles in our life. Every day we are making choices. We have problems to solve and need to communicate effectively with others. If our emotions aren’t’ in check we might jump to the wrong conclusions.

You may be wondering exactly what an obstacle is. It’s a barrier – something that interferes or prevents the required action needed for us to progress. When we let our emotions and feelings control our reasoning.

You may not realize that you can control your feelings. It won’t come easy, it will take time, but the results are definitely worth it. The first step is realizing that most of our emotions are learned habits.

As young children we see how our parents and other around us respond to various situations. We note their emotions and feelings and link those emotions and feelings with the situation. For example we will often see people respond to anger with anger and resentment, thus we believe this is the correct response.

Many people are taught to hide their emotions – such as “Boys don’t cry”. Even though the emotions are buried; the thoughts and feelings still come into play when making decisions – even the most logical ones.

Emotions and feelings become large obstacles when we focus on them, and let them control our every move. Especially negative emotions like anger, depression, disappointment, discouragement, doubt, envy, fear, guilt, depression, resentment, shame, stress and worry.

Negative emotions zap us of energy. We can become entrapped in a sea of negativity. One complaint leads to another to another to yet another …

Negative feelings often lead to negative actions – how often have you said something you shouldn’t have out of anger? When you’re feeling negative your subconscious actually looks for other things to be negative about.

A good example of this a woman might say “My husband never takes out the trash”. Her friend will say “Yeah, I know the feeling, my husband never takes out the trash either and to top it off he will leave trash lying all over the house.” This can often become a competition of whom has the worst husband. Then when the husband gets home the wife is mad at him and he has no idea why.

If a person consistently thinks, imagines and talks negative, it destroys any positive work they may be trying to accomplish. The person will eventually become negative in all areas of life. Their energy will be drained. They will be unable to see the good in anything. They will believe they are doomed for failure. They will literally be drowning with negative feelings.

Just about any excuse we make for not doing something usually is based on negative emotions and feelings. You may be fearful of failing – or even succeeding. How would your family and friends treat you differently if you actually succeeded?

You may not want to disappoint the people you love. You may be discouraged because of things so called meaningful people have told you.

To live a happier and fuller life you need to let go of the negative emotions you’re carrying around and replace them with happy positive feelings.

If you’re ready to say good-bye to negative emotions that are blocking you from taking action to achieve what you truly desire …. Open your mind to Dr. Wayne Dyer’s new way of thinking — the “Excuses Begone“ in which he shows you a step by step process to align your thoughts and feelings to a higher place.

If you have any self-sabotaging thoughts at all, I urge you to put Dr. Wayne Dyer’s “Excuses Begone“ program to work for you today and start attracting and fulfilling your most challenging desires.

Each and every person that has ever lived has had to face obstacles.

They are a part of life. We can however choose how we react to them.

Below I have listed what I believe to be the

Top 17 Obstacles in Life:

1. Emotions
Our own negative emotions can drain us and wear us out. When we’re drained it’s difficult for us to focus.

2. Self-Esteem
Lack of our faith in our self to succeed sets us up for failure before we even start. Not believing in self often leads to self sabotage.

3. Money
If we lack money and are constantly struggling to just meet basic needs of life – it can be difficult to focus on the bigger picture.

4. Illness
All of us will face illness in our life. Some illnesses are worse than others. Sometimes it’s hard to stay positive when we feel like crap.

5. Knowledge
Sometimes we don’t have the knowledge needed. (Sometimes this can be the easiest obstacle to overcome.)

6. Grief
We will all lose people we love. Allow yourself time to grief – just don’t get swallowed up in it.

7. Perfectionism
Nothing or no one is perfect – So stop creating stress for you by trying to make it perfect.

8. Stress
Be prepared with activities that will reduce stress – such as a short walk, deep breathing, laughter etc.

9. Decisions
When it comes time to make a decision – make it and go on with your life. Don’t fret on whether or not it was the right decision or not. Only time will tell.

10. Distractions
Today’s hectic life is full of distractions. Be prepared for them and avoid them when at all possible.

11. Time
Learn good time management skills. We can make the time to do anything that we truly desire to do.

12. Conflict
Know that you will have differences of opinion. Accept the other persons point of view and learn to compromise.

13. Procrastination
Tic … … … Toc … … …. Tic … … … Toc … … …. Oh my gosh! An hour has passed while I’ve been doing nothing but surfing the web ….

14. Relationships
Disagreements are a part of life. There will be times that we disagree with our spouse, children, parents, siblings, friends and business partners. They may strongly agree with your goals and dreams – which may cause you to question your motives.

15. Addictions
Drug and alcohol addictions often cause the most harm to an individual – but any type of addiction is an obstacle; Including but not limited to, gambling, shopping, sex, smoking, eating …

16. Nature
Hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, floods, storms – you name it. It’s a part of life. Natural disasters cause stress and grief over our loss of people and personal items.

17. Belief
Do you truly believe in your goals and dreams? If you are doing something that goes against your core beliefs – You will never find happiness.

Many of the obstacles in life are due to the beliefs we have.

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” Napoleon Hill

I read an article the day. The author stated that “words” can not hurt you. He goes on to clarify that it’s our perception of the meanings of the words that we allow to hurt us …

Yesterday I told you why I disagree with what has to say … Now I’ll tell you why I agree ….

In his article he states that if someone you love was calling you names in a language you didn’t understand, your feelings wouldn’t be hurt.

Well, naturally if we don’t understand something it doesn’t affect us. I also think that the actions of the person would speak to us. If they sounded angry or was yelling, we would be confused as to “what is wrong”. But the actual words couldn’t hurt us.

One of the reasons that I agree with the author in question, is due to my favorite quote ….

“No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.” Eleanor Roosevelt

Think about it. We give others a great stronghold over us. If they call us names, or say hurtful things to us and we take it to heart – then in essence we give them permission to hurt us.

If someone you didn’t like came up to you and said “That was a real stupid thing to do”. You might get angry at them but more than likely you’d shrug it off and say that person doesn’t know me from Adam – where’s he get off telling me anything.

On the other hand, if someone you loved and respected said “That was a real stupid thing to do”, you would be more inclined to take it to be true. It might hurt you and you might feel inferior for what you have done – or worse you might feel like you’ve let down the person you love.

The most important thing to remember is that you are human. You will make mistakes – That’s the only way that we grow.

Learn to Love yourself unconditionally. Accept yourself for whom you are. And don’t give anyone else permission over your feelings or your life.

Bottom Line: Words can and do hurt many people. They only stop hurting when we learn to take control of our lives and develop a healthy self-esteem.

I read an article the day. The author stated that “words” can not hurt you. He goes on to clarify that it’s our perception of the meanings of the words that we allow to hurt us.

Though I do have to agree with him on some level, I also disagree.

First I’ll tell you why I disagree ….

We are constantly growing and changing through our lives. Sadly many people never reach the level where they are so self confident that they could one hundred percent care less what others say or think.

From young children we are taught “words hurt”. If a toddler or young child says something like “you’re ugly” “you’re fat” “you’re stupid” “I don’t like you” …

What is the child told?

“Honey, it’s not nice to say things like that – You’re going to hurt their feelings.”

I also believe that we all desire to be loved and accepted for whom we are. There have even been studies done, where the mom will disapprove or remove herself from her baby for a few minutes. The baby begins to withdraw without the love, affection and acceptance of its mother.

Studies show that 70 to 90 % of families in US are dysfunctional. You have to remember that dysfunctional can consist of several different factors …

Including but not limited to domestic violence, child abuse on all levels, mental illness, drug and alcohol addictions, cheating spouses and some studies include divorced parents.

As children going through all the drama of their family lives, very few grow up to have a healthy self-esteem. Lets face it most of us carry around a lot of “emotional baggage.”

As children we all want to please our parents. For some reason we feel that any and everything that happens to them is our fault …

Therefore as we grow older we continue to knock ourselves down. When someone calls us names or berates us, we feel like we deserve to be treated this way. The words make us feel worse about ourselves and the cycle continues ….

According to American Heritage Dictionary Feelings are:
An affective state of consciousness, such as that resulting from emotions, sentiments, or desires.

Our feelings in themselves are not good or bad. They just are. You shouldn’t ever let anyone tell you how you should feel about any given circumstance.

Each person reacts to any given situation based on their past experiences. Our emotions are directly related to adaptive behavior and are designed to increase our survival instinct.

According to American psychologist Robert Plutchik every feeling we have is derived from the following eight primary emotions …

Acceptance – the feeling of being liked/loved just as you are. Giving credence to your thoughts, actions and beliefs.

Anger – a feeling that is oriented toward some real or supposed grievance

Anticipation – a feeling of pleasure (and sometimes anxiety) in considering some expected or longed-for good event, or irritation at having to wait.

Disgust – typically associated with things that are perceived as unclean, inedible or infectious.

Fear – a powerful, unpleasant feeling of risk or danger, either real or imagined.

Joy – a feeling of pleasure; a source of happiness.

Sadness – a state of unhappiness and hopelessness.

Surprise – a feeling of shock due to something perceived as unexpected. (Can be pleasant or unpleasant).

You may note that the eight primary emotions are four pairs of opposites;

Acceptance / Disgust; Fear / Anger; Joy / Sadness; Surprise / Anticipation

These eight emotions can be blended in numerous ways for instance blending joy and acceptance gives us the feeling of love.

Even though we cannot experience opposite emotions at the same time, positive and negative emotions can be blended. Acceptance and Fear leads to submissiveness.

It is believed that direct or indirect messages that we received from our parents may contribute to the development of our feelings. As children we are often labeled in our family.

We might be identified as smart, funny, and sensitive, lazy or superior – just to name a few. As we grow we either accept or doubt our parents perceptions of us thus creating self-esteem issues.

Here are three common faces of low self-esteem:

The Imposter:

This person seems to be happy and successful to the outside world. However, he or she is engulfed with feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt.

They don’t believe they are deserving of their success. They believe it was due to luck and chance instead of their capabilities.

They are often driven by the fear of failure. They are terrified that they will be found out as a fraud. This can lead to feelings of depression and anxiety.

Imposters come from all walks of life – Regardless of your career, wealth, gender, race or age.

The Rebel:

This person appears to have the, “Who the heck cares” attitude. They often say they don’t care what others think – but deep inside they never seem to feel good enough.

They live in constant anger. A constant need to prove that other peoples opinions don’t hurt.

They blame others excessively for everything that’s wrong in their lives. Sometimes this can lead to them breaking rules or laws – fighting any authority figure.

The Victim:

This person seems to live in continuous crisis. They consistently look to others for guidance, support, love and a feeling of self-worth.

They are waiting to be rescued. And are unable or unwilling to take responsibility for their life.

They are afraid of making their own decisions. They lack assertiveness and are often times under-achievers.