masterwordsmith-unplugged

Ever notice how some people just seem to be able to be content and bounce back no matter what the circumstances? Research shows that this isn’t a gift or a talent – it’s a skill that they have developed. Surprised? Well, the real surprise is that you too can put to work their techniques and make your life happier too.

1. Happy people cooperate with life.

Each person has a destiny to fulfill. You can fight it or cooperate with it. Does that mean you just lay back and let life happen? No. But you can adopt the attitude that you will play the cards you are dealt the very best you can. When you begin to cooperate with life, you will notice new ways in which you are motivated. Life wants you to realize your destiny. Wouldn’t you rather cooperate than battle with life?

2. Happy people don’t just think positive, they act positive. Thinking positive definitely has its place, and you’ll need to change your thoughts to ever be truly happy. But don’t wait on the feelings to come. You have direct control over how you act and what you think (feelings and physiology are indirectly affected). If you want to be a happier person, act happier. If you want to be a more compassionate person, act more compassionate. If you want to be a friendlier person, act friendlier. The feelings will follow.

3. Happy people ask for what they need.

Good things don’t generally just fall out of the sky. Complaining gets you nothing, except to attract you to other complainers. If you believe that “you reap what you sow”, then asking for what you want makes much more sense than sowing complaints. It’s your choice-- you can choose to point fingers and assign blame, and still end up with nothing. Or you can simply ask.

4. Happy people are willing to change.

It’s contrary to all laws of nature for things to stand still. If you try to make that happen, you’ll always be disappointed. If you let fear of change stop you, you are in essence *agreeing* to not having what you want. You can believe that change will harm you and resist it. Or you can embrace it and believe that it will help you. It all depends on what you decide to believe.

5. Happy people don’t allow themselves to be defeated. A failure or set back does not mean that the goal will never be yours, nor is it evidence that you should quit. It simply means that you need more practice, more experience. Be willing to make mistakes. Don’t give up. Don’t allow one slipup, or setback from the outside, influence you to erase all the progress you’ve made. Feel the joy of the finish line!

6. Happy people live in the present.

If you are alert to the present, and anticipating the future, you are better able to take advantage of opportunities. If you are brooding over the past, you’ll be blinded to present possibilities, and lose the advantage for future prospects. A happy life is the product of living a great present. And a well lived present is a guarantee of a wonderful future. You can only affect your future by what you do today.

7. Happy people plan ahead.

Happy people know that they must exercise mastery in their lives, show control in their life in order to guard against feelings of being helpless and victims. Planning is essential to getting things done. Planning is essential to making sure you are spending time on your priorities, and not just the next thing that gets your attention. Plan for what’s important to you, and choose to spend your limited time, money, energy, and resources on it.

Kathy Gates is a Professional Life Coach in Scottsdale AZ. If you liked this article, you’ll love her “Beat the Procrastination Blues” program. Get more information at her website Real Life Coach, http://www.reallifecoach.com/ and sign up for the newsletter.

Dear readers,

I first posted this in my other blog at Masterwordsmith@Writers.Inc. and had positive response so I thought I would post it again in this blog.

The first time when I read it, I was deeply moved and had many lumps in my throat and I had the same reaction even after reading it many times. I guess that is what makes children so special - their innocence, naivety, candid remarks that come from their heart and most of all, their willingness to show love...I just wish I had MORE children and of course a daughter or two!!!

Please leave a comment if you wish. I would love to hear from you. I know a significant number of you visit my blog regularly and I am very touched that you care enough to read the posts that I put up. I just hope these articles and the ones I wrote have warmed your heart the way they have warmed mine...

By the way, my 8 a.m. feed did not update today and if you did not catch this post called LIFE'S A TRIP BUT WHERE ARE WE GOING?, please click here after you finish reading this lovely heartwarming post. :-) It did not update because greedy me included too many graphics and exceeded the limit set by Feedburner. :-) Lesson learned. I have deleted the pics from that post and this one as well :-).

Thanks a lot! God bless you and may you have a lovely weekend with your loved ones.



A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love." Rebecca - age 8

When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other." Karl - age 5

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs." Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired." Terri - age 4

Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." Danny - age 7

"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss" Emily - age 8

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen," Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate," Nikka - age 6

"There are two kinds of love. Our love. God's love. But God makes both kinds of them." Jenny - age 8

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday." Noelle - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well." Tommy - age 6

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore," Cindy - age 8

"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night." Clare - age 6

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken." Elaine -age 5

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford." Chris - age 7

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." Mary Ann - age 4

"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones." Lauren - age 4

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." Karen - age 7

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross." Mark - age 6

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget," Jessica - age 8

Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."

-Author Unknown-

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If you did not catch my 8 a.m.post for today called LIFE'S A TRIP BUT WHERE ARE WE GOING?, please click here after you finish reading this lovely heartwarming post. :-)

or THE ART OF CHOOSING WHO TO BE RATHER THAN WHAT TO DO

by Yanni Maniates

Whenever I mention to people that I teach stress management, meditation, and life mastery skills, they almost always say to me, “Boy, do I need that!” We live in a very fast-paced world. Information, opportunities, and challenges are expanding exponentially every day. Life is full, to say the least!

Too often, our experience of life is like a series of breathless, unconscious, one-after-the-other chase scenes in a fast-paced movie. Rather, I believe life is meant to be a series of vibrant still shots or landscapes, to savor and enter into with just a sprinkling of the right amount of madcap scenarios to add some spice.

Often, as soon as we wake up in the morning, we are immediately mentally inundated with an infinitely long “to do” list. Instead, I would propose that we start off our day by focusing on creating an exquisite, rich, high-quality “to be” list.

As I see it, it’s not about what you want to do today that is most important, but rather, what you want to be, or feel, or experience. What qualities of life do you want to primarily participate in today: peace, balance, love, courage, happiness, joy, humor, harmony, confidence? Or do you really want to go into a lowest-common-denominator default mode and experience their opposites?

Why not begin your day by jotting down the quality that you would like to experience and embody that day? Then, as the day progresses, create various practices that will help you to remember and reinforce that quality so that your day is filled with what is really most important to you and with that which will bring you the greatest lasting value. For instance, you could choose feeling “peaceful” as the most important “to be” quality for a particular day. Therefore it would be with peacefulness that you would want to begin, follow through with, and end every activity and interaction in your day.

In other words, let the quality you want to experience be more important than the list of goals you want to accomplish. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, and with whomever you are doing it, always ask yourself, “How can this interaction be permeated with the quality I have chosen today?”

Here is a technique, one of many I have developed and taught over the years, that can help you to refocus on your quality again if you realize that you have lost it.

First, slow yourself down; next, take seven deep breaths. As you breathe in, imagine that you are breathing in the quality that you have chosen for that day; see and feel it permeating your whole body-mind, and then, on the exhalation, see and feel its opposite being expelled. Really feel it and see it as you breathe in deeply and gently. At the end of these seven breaths you will feel refreshed and on target again.

Just trust that as you learn to be consistent with focusing on your quality, you will be surprised that you not only have had the pleasure of experiencing the positive quality you have chosen, but as an added bonus, you also find that what was most important on your “to do” list has been accomplished easily and effectively.

Note that what I am suggesting you begin practicing here is an “art,” and sometimes, when you first sit down to create a work of art, things can get quite messy. Don’t be discouraged if at times you lose your vision and just can’t seem to be able to keep your chosen quality in focus. In time you will get better at it. In time, as well, you will learn that if you do lose your focus, it doesn’t really matter! When you do lose it, first, just notice that you have lost it, and then, with a sense of humor, have a good laugh at yourself, give yourself a break, and when you have calmed down, gently come back to practicing the quality you have chosen.

So, when you wake up in the morning, why not begin with your “to be” list, and then, let the quality that you have chosen permeate your whole day. To help you stay focused, do the breathing exercise described above as often as you can remember; do it while you are driving your car, standing in line, waiting for someone, etc. Also, some folks find it helpful to put Post-it® notes up everywhere, with the quality written on them as reminders. You can even write your quality on the palm of your hand or automate a message on your computer.

Just imagine, after a year of practicing this, how rich and full a tapestry of qualities and experiences you will have woven into the fabric of your life and into the lives of your loved ones as well as many others. I know many people who have turned their lives around practicing this simple approach!

It is possible! Give yourself a chance; you deserve it. You won’t always do it perfectly, but it’s never about being perfect, is it? It is all about the journey and not the destination. Remember, you can always, every day, in every moment choose “to be” filled with a wondrous joy, peace, and love. It is a choice, and it’s yours. You are a human being, not a human “doing”! Begin your day by putting first things first: claim your mastery and step into and experience who you want “to be” today!



Author's Bio
Yanni Maniates, MS, CMI, is the founder of The Life Mastery Institute. He has been teaching meditation, intuitive development, healing, and metaphysical subjects for the past 20 years. He is certified in mediumship and numerous holistic and esoteric healing modalities. Yanni has published articles, book reviews, three meditation CDs, and a number of certification programs. He is also publishing a book on self-mastery to be released in 2006. The primary focus of all his work is to help people experience the “Embrace.” Yanni offers individual intuitive consultations, the Mentor with the Masters® Program, Spiritual Renewal Retreats, and much more. Visit his Web site at http://www.LifeMasteryblog.com.