Making Life Less Stressful: Five Tips for Easing Time Pressure

By Cynthia Lindner


Developing time management skills is one way to prevent Time Pressure from adding to unhealthy stress we may already have. The best way to prevent stress from becoming a health or emotional problem is to manage stress by both modifying our habits and changing the way we respond to situations we think are stressful.

With keeping this in mind, what is your experience in regard to time? Do you have the time to do the things you enjoy, or do you postpone your leisure activities for meeting work deadlines, and keeping appointments? Do you often feel so tired that you spend most of your spare time sleeping?

The many people who share this type of experience usually recognize feeling an increase in their stress levels, but ironically, they don't have the time to do the deep relaxation exercises that will help to reduce the unhealthy effects of stress. Feeling time pressure adds to the feelings of stress.

The pressure, it seems, is becoming the norm especially for women who work and raise a family. Fortunately, by using these tips even the busiest people can create extra time in the day to relax, have fun, and enhance their health.

Tip #1: Know What's Important

Every couple of weeks, or once a month, look at "the big picture", and consider what is really most important to you. How does that fit into your life now? Will it be important in the future?

Tip #2: Set Priorities

Keep a note book with a list of things to do, errands, chores, etc. Then rate the importance of the items listed in terms of your overall goals, and also the goals shared by your family, work group, also consider your education obligations. For each entry ask your self, "What would happen if I didn't do this? Is this task worth the investment of my time?"

Tip #3: Make Some Space

Get rid of unnecessary paper and clutter, and arrange things you save in a more orderly fashion so that you can find them more easily and quickly.

Tip #4: Break Big Jobs Into Small Steps

If you're putting a project off because it seems overwhelming, break it up into smaller manageable steps and take each step one at a time.

Tip #5 Change The Way You Think

Notice your thought pattern as you approach (or avoid) a task. Listen for negative thoughts such as: "I don't feel like doing this. I'm not capable of doing such a hard assignment. I always miss the deadline anyway." Substitute more positive ideas and self-talk. "I will feel much better when this is done. Once I begin this project I'll feel more like doing it. If I do a little each day, I'll be able to finish the project."

After about one month of using these techniques evaluate your progress. Ask yourself these questions: Am I accomplishing more? Do I feel more in control of the time I have? Am I feeling happier? If you are able to answer yes to any of these questions then you are experiencing some success-- keep up the good work. Many people, however, find making these changes on their own to be difficult or impossible. People who seek out the help of a professional have much greater success in making the changes and having the changes last for a good long while.




About The Author

Cynthia Lindner, MS is a certified hypnotherapist with 20 years of experience working in the mental health professions. She has specific expertise in applying the complementary modalities of guided imagery, hypnosis, and biofeedback for the purpose of self-improvement, wellness and with Doctor's referral, relief of pain and symptoms. Cynthia has taught hypnotherapy workshops at international conferences, and has authored several published articles, and conducts on-site corporate trainings. She is a highly skilled professional in private practice on Long Island, NY with a talent for using mind-body techniques as an enhancement to the standard therapeutic process. Website: http://www.clinicalhypnotism.com/id11.html

© Copyright 1997 & 2006 by C. Lindner, all rights reserved. May be reprinted in its entirety including author box.

Article Source: http://www.articlecity.com/articles/self_improvement_and_motivation/article_4877.shtml

If you are in a shell...

An inspiration for personal change in 2014

Self insight

By James Kyle

Many years ago I attended a series of seminars in London that would eventually lead me to studying for a masters degree in Spiritual Psychology at the University of Santa Monica in California. You can read more about this in this previous series of posts: What Did William Wallace Say?

Now, after many years absence, Insight seminars are returning to the UK. There will be an Insight seminar in the Primrose Hill area of London next weekend.

Some of the key shifts I have made, that have helped empower my own life, started off with "insights" from Insight. The following key concepts are a just a few of the topics covered:

• Letting go of judgement
• Responsibility and keeping agreements with self and others
• Giving and Receiving
• Being true to oneself

The above topics are those that resonated with me. In particular I have given much consideration to this concept of self. The degree to which we play set roles in our lives and how we often choose poor roles that are a disservice to ourselves and unnecessarily disempower us.

Building on this, a key learning for me that really took root as I subsequently read Hayakawa' s book "Language in Thought and Action" was realising that my inner map of reality is just that - a map -  and not the territory. And then a huge leap forward can be made when we start to realise that the very concept of who we hold ourselves to be is just another map of reality ... and this "self" too is a mental construct can readily be changed.

And with that realisation, the words of Marianne Williamson really come to life:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Of course what you would get out of this seminar will depend on where you are on your personal path of self growth, but I have confidence that wherever that is, you will find value in the seminar. Further details can be found here Insight London Seminar.

For those outside the UK have a look here instead.

Do You Want Comfort or Growth?

By Steve Pavlina

At a recent visit to the beautiful Keukenhof flower gardens in Holland, I learned about the practice of topping. As flowers grow, sometimes the growers cut off the tops of the flowers, which they believe causes the plants to invest more energy into flower growth and less into seed production. The expected result is flower buds that will produce higher quality flowers.

This is a nice analogy for personal growth as well. Sometimes when we produce preliminary results in a certain area, it can be helpful to cut them off and discard them. This can free up energy for a stronger attempt elsewhere instead of settling into the comfort zone of satisfaction with the old results.

After running my computer games business for 10 years and generating satisfying results with it, I decided to drop it and leave that field behind. This freed up my energy to focus on my personal development writing and speaking. If I’d kept running the old business, I’d have become more enmeshed in that field, planting more seeds there, so to speak. This would have meant less energy to invest in my new path and weaker results.

It can be difficult to choose the topping approach because you’re taking something that’s already reasonably satisfying and cutting it out of your life, in the hopes that something even better will grow in its place. But if you don’t do this, then you can easily stunt your future growth, causing more energy to be invested in planting ever more seeds around the old path. When you decline to make cuts, you effectively say: This is as good as it will ever be, so I’m going to settle myself here.

Do you want to settle where you are right now? If so, then topping is unnecessary. But if you’d like to do better and believe you have a good shot at improvement, just like the flower growers at Keukenhof, then topping is a sensible practice. To free up time and energy for future growth in new directions, you have to drop the merely satisfactory. This gives you a shot at the truly beautiful.

When you feel like life is becoming too stagnant, try mixing things up now and then. In many cases you can apply topping on a temporary basis by dropping old routines and trying something new for a while.

As a way to mix things up, I’ve been traveling continuously since April 23, first to Germany, then Holland, and now I’m in the UK (staying in the Shoreditch part of London). By the time I return to Vegas, I’ll have been in Europe for a month. That’s not only my longest trip to Europe but also my longest trip away from my home base ever.

During this time, I’ve dropped my old routine that I would normally use at home, and I’m trying something different for a while. I arrived with a one-way ticket, with only some part of the trip planned in advance. Even though my home-based routine was reasonably satisfying, by choosing to cut it out for a while, I no longer need to invest any energy in maintaining that routine. This means that more energy is freed up for exploration and growth. That’s basically what I’m doing each day — going out, having new experiences, meeting new people, exploring, learning, and growing.

I didn’t break with the old routine because of any problems with it. The old routine was working okay for me. I broke away because I didn’t want to allow myself to get stuck, even in a seemingly good place.

When you stay relatively still for long enough, you put down seeds. As time passes, these seeds develop stronger and stronger roots. Your reality becomes increasingly solid, and this can make change more difficult. The longer you stay still, the more people will relate to you based on your current position. Your thoughts and feelings may become repetitive and circular. Your physical environment may begin to exert more and more control over your daily routine. Pretty soon you notice that as the years are passing, little is changing in your life. This is the comfort zone.

If you like the comfort zone and wish to stay there, that’s your choice. I prefer not to get stuck there for too long. As soon as life becomes a little too comfortable, and I feel like I can just relax into the satisfaction of maintaining the status quo, I feel the urge to break free of that reality and go for more growth.

Stepping outside of your comfort zone is by definition an uncomfortable experience, but it can yield a lot more growth than staying put. During my Europe trip, for instance, each day brings new challenges, like making the mistake of taking the stairs from the bottom of Covent Garden Underground Tube Station (felt like climbing up from the earth’s core). But with so much to explore and learn each day, it feels like every day includes minor victories of the sort that I seldom experience at home.

Dropping satisfaction to go for more growth is not an easy path to follow, but I do find it to be the more beautiful path. Do you feel the same?

http://www.stevepavlina.com

Making a Quantum Leap

By Steve Pavlina

Since 1992, I’ve been pursuing personal growth with a passion. I’ve attended seminars, listened to audio programs, and read hundreds of books in this field. I’ve easily spent many thousands of dollars and invested thousands of hours on such pursuits. And one thing I can tell you from all of this effort is that personal growth is very, very hard.

Many books, audio programs, and self-help gurus promote the quick fix mentality. Read this book and all your time management problems will vanish. Attend this seminar and you’ll be the next self-made millionaire. This kind of marketing is unfortunate because most people who buy these products will achieve only modest results with them. Then disappointment and disillusionment set in. Some people feel they must be defective if they can’t meet such unrealistic expectations. Maybe I have a genetic predisposition to being lazy. Others conclude the whole personal development field itself is just a sham. [Insert guru name here] is only in it for the money — none of his/her ideas really work.

I’ll say it again. Personal growth is very, very hard. If you think you can read one book or article on time management and instantly erase procrastination and disorder from your life forever, that’s an extremely unrealistic expectation. While a single book can potentially lead you to a big change, most won’t. When you experience a big change in your life, it’s probably the result of a long chain of events, of which reading a particular book was only a small but perhaps critical part.

Personal growth experiences often occur in the form of a quantum leap — a strong and radical shift from one mindset to another. There may be a number of small steps leading up to that leap, but at some point there is a big change, and it happens in an instant. You go to work and suddenly realize you’re going to quit your job; even before you tell your boss, you know you’re certain and that there’s no going back. You decide to ask your boyfriend or girlfriend to marry you after you’ve been together for years. You decide you’re done smoking, and you quit for life. These decisions can happen in a mere second – a moment of clarity suddenly hits you, and you know what you have to do. A quantum leap occurs, and from that moment on, you’re never the same again. Some of these leaps appear more gradual than others, but virtually all of them can be traced back to a moment of decision. At some point you made a decision to change. And even before you manifest this change in your physical reality, you immediately know you’re not the same anymore.

It’s rare that reading a single book will produce a quantum leap. Quantum leaps require a large amount of consistent input and energy. When you decide to quit your job or break off your relationship or move to a new city, it may be the result of months or years of dissatisfaction. It may also occur after lots of time spent thinking positively about what life will be like after the shift. Both positive and negative factors can help generate a quantum leap.

Most of the time when people pursue personal growth, they simply don’t invest enough time and energy in a consistent direction to achieve a quantum leap. Maybe you’ve read a book on getting organized, and while you were reading it, the positive energy you experienced moved you closer to making a leap. You felt fairly certain at the time that this was going to work. But then you finished the book (or got sidetracked and didn’t finish it), and the impact of the book gradually faded. You never reached the quantum leap that allowed you to break through to a new level of order in your life. Over a period of days or weeks, your old pattern reasserted itself. Sound familiar?

But it wasn’t the book or the ideas themselves that failed you. The problem was that you didn’t invest enough sustained energy in the same direction to achieve the quantum leap. You never reached the point of no return. Reading a single book was only a small, short-term nudge, albeit in the right direction.

In order for a rocket launched from earth to reach outer space, the rocket must exert a sufficient amount of sustained force to overcome the earth’s gravity. If the rocket’s engines cut out prematurely, the rocket will crash back to earth. Just as it can take a massive amount of sustained force to put a rocket into orbit, recognize that there are certain areas of your life where you may need a large force to knock you into a higher state. Small efforts over a long period of time may do absolutely nothing for you. You can read one time management book a year and be no better at your managing your time.

So what does work? How do you achieve a quantum leap? You need to exert some effort in a particular direction where you want to grow, and you need to consistently sustain it until you achieve a quantum leap. If you stop short, you’ll likely fall right back to where you started. So first of all, if you’re going to target a new quantum leap, you need to commit to sustaining that effort until you hit the leap.

This is why I say personal growth is very hard. Effecting a quantum leap is tough work. It requires a strong force of sustained effort, and you can’t let up until you hit the leap. If you get sidetracked for too long, you have to start over again.

But the bright side is that after you make the leap, you can rest for a bit. You’ve reached a higher state, and you’re going to stay there by default, just as a satellite in orbit will remain in orbit. Sure the orbit may slowly decay, but if that happens it will be over a long period of time, and only a minimal investment of energy is needed to adjust course and sustain your new orbit indefinitely. Quitting smoking may be very difficult. But if you’ve been a nonsmoker for years, it doesn’t take nearly as much effort to remain a nonsmoker; you may need to make some adjustments along the way, but they’ll be minor required to the initial energy required to quit.

Suppose you want to lose weight. You read a book on weight loss and get motivated to lose weight. You join a gym and start working out. After a few weeks, you’ve lost five pounds. But you get busy with work and gradually stop going to the gym. Crash! You gain all the weight back plus a couple more pounds. A few months later you try again. You get inspired and buy some new exercise equipment. Again you use it for several weeks and lose some weight, and again something takes you away from this habit and you gain all the weight back. The next year you join a weight loss organization, adopt their diet plan, and start going to weekly meetings. But after a dozen sessions, you drift again and gain back all the weight you lost. You’ve invested a lot of time, money, and energy into this goal, but it wasn’t enough to hit a quantum leap.

So how would you pursue such a goal as a quantum leaper?

The exact manner of pursuing this goal is up to you of course. But here are some ideas that will help you achieve a quantum leap:

• Immerse yourself in your goal. Get clear on your exact goal, and write it down in your own words. Post your goal somewhere you’ll see it every day; I often use the text of my goals as screen savers or write them on my marker board.
• Educate yourself on what it will take to achieve your goal. And I mean really educate yourself to the point where you become an expert. Keep pouring knowledge into your head until you succeed — continuously. Don’t just read one book on the subject. Read 10. Then read 10 more. Then 10 more. Listen to audio programs. Talk to experts. Never let up on your self-education.
• Alter your environment to support the achievement of your goal. This subject was already explored in a previous entry.
• Consciously change the people you spend the most time with such that your goal is supported by those around you. For details read this entry.

One reason people fail to achieve a quantum leap is that they make only a meager effort in these four areas. They don’t get really clear about what they want and keep their goals in their face every day. They invest only a few hours in education instead of several hundred. They maintain an environment that fails to reinforce their new identity. And they continue to cling to people who hold them back. Year after year they remain stuck in unfulfilling careers, unhealthy bodies, stagnant relationships, and incongruent belief systems.

In my own life, I’ve experienced many of these leaps:

• employee -> independent contractor -> retail game developer -> shareware game developer -> game publisher -> speaker/writer (in progress)
• SAD (Standard American Diet) -> vegetarian -> vegan (with some branches going into raw foodism, alkalarian diets, whole foods, and macrobiotics)
• single -> dating -> living together -> engaged -> married -> father of one -> father of two
• Catholicism -> atheism -> agnosticism -> various new agey stuff -> ? -> Buddhism -> ? -> Bajoran wormhole aliens -> ? -> objectivism -> ? -> ? (the ?s are belief systems that can’t really be labeled)
• None of these shifts happened by accident; each leap was a consciously chosen step… well… all except “father of two” — whoops!

If I’d never experienced any of these quantum leaps, I’d be an employed Catholic bachelor who eats the standard American diet. And that’s not necessarily any “better” or “worse” than my current situation (OK, the diet part is a lot better). I don’t think in terms of trying to reach some kind of final destination though. What’s important to me is experiencing the path itself: having been single AND married AND a father, having experienced lots of different belief systems, having worked in a business AND having owned one. In some areas there’s a logical progression; for example, I keep shifting careers to those that give me more and more freedom and which increase my ability to contribute. But in other areas, I find the most growth by experiencing a lot of different perspectives in no particular order, such as in my spiritual growth pursuits.

Yes it’s a lot of hard work to achieve a quantum leap in any of these areas, but I think the alternative of stagnation is worse. You can pursue the quick fix methodology and fall flat on your face over and over. Or you can accept that the change you want is going to be hard and that it may take years to achieve, but it will be worth it. And best of all, once you’ve gone through a few quantum leaps, you may learn to enjoy the process of building up to the next one. It’s deeply satisfying to look back on your previous state of being and see how much you’ve grown.

www.stevepavlina.com

How to Develop a Personal Development Plan: 10 Easy Steps

By Suzanne Glover

When you set out to develop a personal development plan, you want to take a few factors into consideration. Here are ten easy steps that give you a good start:

STEP ONE - TAKE INVENTORY OF YOUR LIFE NOW: First thing to do when setting out to make change is to evaluate where you are right now. So, for at least one week (but doing it for two weeks would be better), notice how and where you spend your time. Also, notice if things take longer than you "think" they should take you. Don't place any judgment on how and where you spend time, just notice. Be sure to include weekends so you have a variety between work days and non-work days. Keep this step simple. Don't try to change anything. Just notice your time commitments.

STEP TWO - CATEGORIZE HOW YOU SPEND YOUR TIME: Now let's categorize each area of your life where time is currently spent. A personal development plan sample that I like has the following categories:
1. Dreams
2. Career/Financial
3. Purpose/Goals
4. Love/Family
5. Health

STEP THREE - DREAM ABOUT YOUR PERFECT LIFE: Give yourself permission to take a few moments to dream about your perfect life. While this is only imagination, this exercise opens a portal of inner knowledge that can lead you to your perfect life. Don't judge any of your dreams. These are your true feelings and ones that will guide you in your own proper direction.

STEP FOUR - MATCH UP YOUR IDEAL LIFE WITH YOUR CURRENT LIFE: After visualizing where you would like to take your life, compare it with your current life. Be prepared for this step to cause some pain if there is a big difference between the two. But, this step gives you a "starting point" and an "ending point," both of which are necessary to set out plans to get from one to the other.

STEP FIVE - ASK, "WHAT SMALL CHANGE CAN I MAKE NOW THAT WILL ALTER MY OVERALL LIFE TRAJECTORY?" Many times making a small change in your current circumstances has stronger ramifications as your life unfolds because it changes your focus. For example, if you decide to take a 15 minute daily walk just to "percolate" how to take the next step for your life, this small action will move your current mindset from "I'm stuck now" to "What's next and how do I get there?" Over time, this will gain momentum as your trajectory of life broadens because your "rocket" is now pointed to a new planet - the planet of hope!

STEP SIX - FIND A GOOD PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN TEMPLATE FOR DETAILED PLANNING: There are many personal development plan samples, examples and templates available today. Look for one that keeps it simple because one of the things I have found that is a hindrance when people develop a personal development plan is that they make it too complicated - which, of course, leads to overwhelm and failure.

STEP SEVEN - GET PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN COACHING: When you are planning out a major event such as your life, it's a good time to get an objective view of yourself, which is one of the best things about using a coach. Strategizing with someone in this manner can rapidly increase your success rate when you want to develop a personal development plan. Often times, a coach will also have a good example personal development plan.

STEP EIGHT - GIVE YOURSELF TIME TO MAKE THE CHANGES: Often times what stops people from success when they develop a personal development plan is underestimating the time it takes to set goals and make changes. When this happens, it's easy to get discouraged and give up. So, one of the best things you can do is to give yourself plenty of time to make change.

STEP NINE - VISUALIZE YOUR DESIRED RESULTS: Visualization is very powerful, but there is one important component to doing visualization that many people miss. That component is to actually feel the scenario that you are visualizing. This one portion makes the difference between success and failure.

STEP TEN - HAVE FUN: Many times we get overly serious when trying to make changes in our lives. This serious point of view takes all the joy out of the endeavor and joy is also a critical factor when seeking goal achievement.

By using these ten steps when you start to develop a personal development plan, you are setting yourself up for success, one step at a time.


To download a free copy of Suzanne Glover's "Create Your Own Life - Personal Development Plan, Life Plan Workbook," visit her Personal Development Plan article at Effective-Positive-Thinking.com where she gives more free tips and advice.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Suzanne_Glover
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Develop-a-Personal-Development-Plan:-10-Easy-Steps&id=6429341

Living beyond limits

When she was 19, Amy Purdy lost both her legs below the knee. And now ... she's a pro snowboarder. Inspirational!

This video is just under 10 minutes long.

Asking the Right Questions

Some more very wise words from Steve Pavlina

By Steve Pavlina

Tony Robbins says that thinking is a process of asking and answering questions.  He stresses the importance of asking the right questions to get the right answers and therefore the right results.  I agree with him.  Most people ask lousy questions that cripple their results.  Lousy questions turn your focus away from what you want and towards more of what you don’t want.  And since we ask and answer mental questions every day, our questions wield great power over our results.

Here are some examples of weak questions vs. strong questions:

Upon waking up early

Weak:  Can I fall back asleep again?  Should I go back to bed?

Strong:  What would be the best way to start my day?  How can I energize myself?  Where can I find something inspirational or motivational to read right now?

When contemplating exercise (and feeling unmotivated)

Weak:  Is it too hot/cold to exercise?  Can I skip it for today?  What difference will it make if I just skip a day?  Don’t I deserve a day off?

Strong:  Won’t it feel great hitting the showers afterwards?  What should I listen to while I workout?  Won’t it be wonderful to achieve my fitness goals?  How can I make this session more fun?

When considering a dietary improvement

Weak:  What foods am I going to have to give up?  How am I going to deal with the deprivation?  Am I going to have to eat like this forever?

Strong:  What foods that I like will I get to eat more of?  What new foods can I experiment with?  Won’t it be great when I reach my goal weight?  Won’t it be wonderful to finally master this area of my life once and for all?  Once I succeed at this, who else can I help?

Nearing the end of the workday

Weak:  Have I done enough that I can justify quitting for the day?  Is this a good time to stop?  Can I finish this tomorrow?

Strong:  What’s next?  How can I complete one more task?  How much more can I get done today?

When spending time with the kids

Weak:  Why do I have to do so much childcare?  How can I keep the kids from draining my energy this evening?  What’s the bare minimum I can do to keep them out of my hair?  How early can I put them to bed?

Strong:  What can I do with the kids that will leave me feeling energized?  What do I appreciate most about my kids?  What would I enjoy doing with them this evening?  What would happen if I let my kids direct how we spend our time together?

When facing an unfamiliar social situation

Weak:  How can I avoid looking like an idiot?  What should I talk about?  How can I keep from being too nervous or shy?  How did I get myself into this situation?  Can I get out of going?

Strong:  Won’t it be fun to meet some interesting new people?  If I see someone there who’s a bit shy, what can I do to make him/her feel more comfortable?  What can I expect others at this event to have in common with me?

When feeling depressed, anxious, or otherwise negative

Weak:  Why do I feel so down?  Why can’t I be happy?  How come I never get any time to myself?

Strong:  What can I do to energize myself?  Who can I talk to that would help cheer me up?  What can I read or listen to that would inspire me?  Are these feelings trying to tell me something — should I go journal about them?  How long can I hold a fake smile before it forces me to start feeling good again?

What’s the difference?

Weak questions are disempowering.  They keep your focused on your own ego, your problems, and your shortcomings.  Weak questions keep you focused on what’s wrong… on what isn’t working.  That might seem like a good idea, but all it does is further reinforce the situation you’d like to change.  Weak questions will lead your brain to come up with answers that are useless, circular, or even destructive.

Yet weak questions are addictive.  At first glance they may even seem helpful, and that’s why they’re so insidious.  You might think that if you’re depressed, the best thing you can do is to ask, “Why am I so depressed?”  Perhaps if you could diagnose the problem, you could cure it.  But it doesn’t work that way.  When you’re in a negative state or situation, you aren’t thinking clearly to begin with.  You’re in no position to accurately diagnose yourself.  Effectively you’re blind.  So the answers you get back will be worthless.  At best you’ll merely come up with a temporary solution, but the underlying condition will remain, and the problem will simply submerge and crop up again later, sometimes in a different form.  Asking why you’re depressed merely feeds your depression.  In answering the why question, now you’ve added a story on top of your depression.  That goes way beyond acknowledging your depression and trying to do something about it.

Strong questions are empowering.  They keep you focused on solutions, on what you can control.  When you focus on what you can do, you avoid falling into analysis paralysis.  Ultimately the way out of any negative situation is right thinking.  Wrong thinking leads you in circles.  Right thinking leads to action.

Going back to the depression example, the first thing you need to do is to get yourself to a more positive emotional state.  And with practice that can be done in a matter of minutes — even seconds if you’ve studied NLP.  Strong questions will help you shift your focus away from depression and the thoughts that reinforce it and towards action.  When you focus too much thought on what you can’t control and don’t like, depression is a natural consequence.  When you ask different questions to focus on what you can control and what you like, depression will lift.

Mediocre results largely come about from asking mediocre questions.  Great results come from asking great questions.  If you don’t like the results you’re getting, try asking completely different questions from the ones you’re used to asking.  Ask questions that turn your focus towards your goals instead of away from them.  Ask questions that allow you to enhance the pleasure in your life instead of creating greater pain.

http://www.stevepavlina.com

What Makes Emotional Healing So Hard?

By: Mark Myhre

When I was 5 years old our family moved to Starkville, Mississippi. My dad had secured a position as a research scientist at Miss. State Univ. that was simply too good to pass up. Starkville was a small town like many other small towns across America. Life was slow and safe and predictable. All in all, not such a bad place to live. For the next 12 years I was a Starkvillian. Like so many other young boys I spent most of my free time exploring the world from the comfort of a bicycle seat. Life was full of adventures. Looking back now, it resembled a series of Norman Rockwell paintings. But it wasn't always so idealistic. In fact, for over 20 years after leaving that small town I hated everything to do with Starkville. I called it a nightmare existence in a God-forsaken town. So why do you suppose I hated it?
I Focused On The Negative Like children everywhere, my wonder years consisted of good events, bad events, and many mediocre and neutral events. Good times that made me feel good. Bad times that made me feel bad. And many events stirred little emotional reaction at all. However, my problem was that I discounted the good events, while elevating the bad ones. The painful events on my past became like anchors - the pillars of the past. The defining moments of my life. Certain events would happen, and rather than simply feeling the pain and moving on, I would suppress and repress those painful emotions. Paradoxically, while I denied the feelings, I elevated the events. I would take a painful situation and make it much worse than it really was. I Embellished My Past
How do you embellish a painful past? Intentionally exaggerate its stature and importance. Like a playwright constructing a play, I would add drama for the effect it created. I would set the stage. Get the lighting just right. Play suspenseful music in the background. Create a prologue - "The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent..." Like one of those old Dragnet TV shows! I built it up any way I could. I made it sacred. And no matter what, I could *NOT* feel the feelings of those past events and let them go! I needed those unresolved emotions to breathe life into an otherwise-dead past. I spent way too much of my time giving CPR to a corpse of the past. Ever given CPR? It'll wear you out! It's hard to do it for very long; it's just too much work. Imagine doing it for decades. I defined my life by those highly selective events of the past that were being kept alive ONLY by my emotional energy. I Was Giving My Power To The Past
Thoughts and feelings are the very source of your power. Your power - your ability and willingness to act - comes about because of the constant stream of your thoughts and feelings. Thoughts and feelings are constantly and consistently springing forth into your consciousness. A stream of thoughts. A stream of feelings. Together they are the source of your power. If you're using those thoughts and feelings to hold onto the past, then you'll have less power available to you now. Power that could be used to heal your emotions instead becomes diverted into holding the past in place. I Built My Past Into A Frankenstein's Monster
Out of that handful of painful events I created a backbone. From the backbone I grew a skeleton. Surrounding the skeleton I grew muscles and skin and internal organs. I gave it a heart. I gave it a voice. All that growth required conscious effort on my part. I had to keep reminding myself of those painful events. "I really was wronged." "I really was shamed." "I really was abused." Building them up and fleshing them out took a lot of my power. But it was worth it. I got to feel like a victim. I got to hide in my self pity. I was entitled. Hey, I EARNED the right to engage in any errant behavior I chose! I earned the right to blame, to struggle, to manipulate and punish anybody I wanted. I earned my righteous arrogance because of my embellished pain of the past. I was powerless as a result, but that's okay. I earned the right to be weak by all the effort I was expending to try to keep the past alive. ***
I took the best of me and gave it to a past that didn't even exist.
*** It takes constant effort to keep the past alive. You can't just set it and forget it - like a thermostat on the wall. You have to keep remembering it. You have to keep using today's power to reinforce the imprisonment of yesterday's power. We Invest In The Past
The past is over, yet so often our power remains trapped in the emotional investment we've made in certain painful events of that dead past. The past is over. But the very power we need to break free of those memories is instead being diverted into a much more sinister goal. We invest a lot of time and energy creating a Frankenstein's monster of the past, and it's become too big to handle. The power you need to heal the past is instead being used to try to keep it alive. It becomes a tangled mess. You can't heal the past until you get more power. You can't get more power until you heal the past. So what's the answer? First you heal a little bit, and you retrieve a little power. Then, in your empowered state you heal a little more and get back a little more power. It happens layer by layer. And it all begins with a willingness to change. Author Bio
Mark Ivar Myhre, The Emotional Healing Wizard, author of the highly acclaimed - Emotional Healing Quick Start Guide - what to do right now to feel better. Go to www.join-the-fun.com Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content