Category: Mind

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“What is wrong with you?”

I’m walking. Minding my business, thinking of world domination and why so many people get in the way of my plan. Actually one person in particular got in my way, in my mind.
Car driving backwards, I get hit. Nothing serious, just a light touch. I kept walking, undisturbed. Things happen, and honestly nothing happened.

The driver took the action of running after me, confronting me and shouting:

“What’s wrong with you?”

I did not know he was the driver at the time he asked this odd question. Strangers running up to me, getting full blown in my face shouting questions is something that makes me feel uncomfortable and makes me shut down.

“You hit my car!”

Now things made more sense. Or actually no, still not. The car hit me, well, no one got really hit.
“What is wrong with you?”

His monologue continued. I told him, I was fine and glad with his concern. He argued HE was not fine.. “You hit my car!!!

At that point you know your oppressor is in a bad temper because of his own shitty messy life and just looking for a way to blow steam. I’m glad to be of help.
After a few more outcries he got his mind back to functional mode and left me alone.

As I walked a way, his question was still bouncing through my head. What is wrong with me?
I have 10 voices in my head telling me what is wrong with me every day. First thing they do every morning is jamming in my head, telling me what is wrong with me. It takes 10 deep breaths and a huge black coffee to knock them down one by one.  Those I call   the Demons of Destruction. They make it a big point to tell you where your failings are in your doing. Mostly after the fact, where hind sight is 20/20. But I’m digressing.
We all mess up and DO wrong shit. We can BE wrong. To acknowledge a defect (something wrong) in my own systematic doing, I never took that seriously.

That was wrong with me, being in my own way, I guess.

I’m often mad at the world, frustrated for not getting my way. It makes me nothing more than a hammer looking for a nail to hit in order to get things on the right track.
I could get a bit more sophisticated with my mind in order to open the doors that get shut in my face. Or accept they are.

 

Photo: www.pexels.com

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Do you ‘deserve’ that cookie?


The take away: Do good, be good, stay good.

I hear her say it, my breath stocked…

“I’m ordering pizza. I think I deserved that after a work out like this.”

I wonder what that means, to deserve a cookie, or some sort of rubbish.

If you choose to eat it, okay, fine. Just please do not justify your moment of bad judgement, because you deserve it. Filling yourself with junk food because you deserve it after a day or hour of hard work. Nobody deserved that, ever!

Who, in it’s right mind deserves, crap after good work? You deserve a treat, sure.  Or a break.

It just sounds counter intuitive. Doing good to deserve bad.
After doing good and hard work, a decent rest or rejuvenating massage sounds like a better plan.

 

Do good, be good, stay good. All day, every day.

  • Side note 1: not all pizzas are created equal. Some are made with goodness and love. Unfortunately, not all. Choose wisely.
  • Side note 2: no pizza was hurt or damaged during the writing and editing of this post.
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Why keeping your new year resolutions is mental training

Did you make new year resolutions? If you did how are you holding up? Do you feel like the excitement of the new beginning of a year and the transition to a new you is wearing off already?

Keeping your resolutions or any commitment is a mental training. Of course massive action is necessary, no progress without action, for sure. But getting into the right mindset and keeping it in the right gear is the real challenge.

Think of this: let’s say you want to loose weight. You got your diet all figured out, got a gym membership, toke out all the bad food, filled the fridge with great colorful vegetables, lean meats  and so on, and so fort. You tell your friend your going to loose weight and there is always one, who seems to be the ‘expert’ with a ton of advice on what is good for you and what is bad for you.

Still that person does not seem to be able to apply their own talk into their own walk.

So knowledge on how to get to your goals, is one thing. Actually keeping your actions focused and persistent is the challenge. It is not about buying stuff and hopla, you get to your destination. You need to stay on the road into the right direction.

 

So how to stay persistent every day?

1 it really helps to write it down. Old fashion style on paper with a real pen, your goals, every day.

2 sit still and contemplate/ meditate on what it will mean for you to stay in the game. What obstacles will you face today? People who say you can not do it? A party where all the stuff that will tempt you is presented? Focus on how you will deal with these situation on fore hand. See yourself staying calm and making the right decision. It is okay in your moment of silence to feel excited by the thought of seeing your self make the right choices in difficult situation. That is where empowerment starts and how you get to the finish line.Anticipate on the obstacles.

3 at the end of the day, write down your victories! your strong points. Where did the road bend and what did you do to take the right decisions?

 

Stay focused on what you want. Stay on the wheel and enjoy the ride!

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Rethinking Anxiety

Anxiety

The other day I was watching National Geographic. The documentaries are so much better in details and color now, than in the days that Jacques Cousteau was still the number one. It made me again realize how much further we got as a whole in filming animals in their habitat. Anyway..

This was about the life of a mouse, in the wild. Nothing special on first sight, yet what a constant danger hit the mouse. When underground, a snake was trying to catch him. While running though the fields a big bird of prey wanted him for lunch. And after that, there was a bunch of wild horses that almost crushed him. Heavy rain nearly drowned him and much more mayhem was being poured down on him.

Being a mouse is not an easy task, there is danger around every corner. Why didn’t he stress out? Blessed are we humans in our mostly civilized environment. We can be relaxed. No need to watch over our backs, in the sky to be eaten.

And yet we are hardly relaxed. Did you ever wake up and immediately start beating yourself up on all the things you need to do, did not do, or all the people who got in your way? What is I got sick? What if we cannot pay the rent..? What if…?
Common signs of anxiety. I have mostly when I wake up. Some might have it before going to sleep and some wake up in the middle of the night with these feelings.

The mouse needs to be alert and scanning his environment for danger. It is an instinct. His life depends on it pretty clearly.
What if we humans have the same instinct still working. Scanning our life for danger, part of our brain looking for what can go wrong, scaring ourselves with horrible thoughts of disasters that might happen in the nearby future.
It might just be that our brain wants to warn us of risk and wants the other part to think about unrisking our fears.
As soon as I saw my anxiety mornings as a sign of warning, not to panic, but to do a risk assessment, things cleared.
The paralyzing thoughts, became guides. It helps seeing it this way.

Luckily we do not have to run like the mouse. But our instinct might still be on the lookout for us.

Thanks to Nat Geo for the picture

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Either good or bad, nobody knows

good or bad

good or bad

Is this good or bad? I asked myself too many times. Too often in hindsight, things look different. Good, bad. If it is good we want to keep it that way, if it’s bad, we try to avoid, change, or learn from it.

Good or bad is a way or seeing things, perspective. On how some events can be good and bad, I remember in a story I read somewhere.

This is not a story I created, just a story I want to pass on to you.

Once upon a time in a village far away, there lived a farmer. The farmer had a horse. A beautiful strong horse.
One day the farmer decided to bring the horse to a contest. The horse was recognized as the most beautiful and strong horse. With great awe and applause of the other villagers the farmer collected his price and went home.

The next day his neighbors came up to him and congratulated him on winning the price. ‘You must be so happy and proud. A very good thing happened to you.’ They said.
The farmer was not happy nor sad. He just spoke: ‘ What is good or what is bad, nobody knows.’
The neighbors looked at each other, not understanding why the farmer was not celebrating and happy or more into their congratulations.

Later that week in the darkest of nights, thieves broke into the stable and stole the price winning horse. They heard about the beauty of this animal and figured they could sell the horse for a high price.
When the neighbors heard about this unfortunate event, they came to express their concern and sorry for the farmer. ‘Such a bad thing had happened to you, we feel so sorry.;
The farmer was still not moved.’ What is good or what is bad, nobody knows.’ he spoke.
The neighbors shake their heads and went off.

The thieves were not very careful at keeping this and other horses captivated. And as horses do, they escaped. The price winner navigated his way back to the farmed taking his new friends, 4 other horses with him. There the farmer found himself with 5 horses.

The neighbors came by and called the farmer a lucky man. ‘Such good luck is happening to you!’
You might guess by now what the farmers reply was.

The new horses were wild and not yet ‘broken’ into domestication. It takes a strong and patience man to do that job. The farmers son had both skills. He worked with the horses for days, weeks, until one day he fell of the back of the wildest one and broke his leg.
‘Ooh what a misfortune that this happened to you son. Broken leg..so bad.’ Neighbors were telling the farmer. Still his reaction was the same: ‘ What is good or what is bad, nobody knows.’

Soon after this incident, the king of the country decided to go to war with the neighboring country. Men were send to get every young man into the army. If they would not join willingly, force was to be pressed upon the new soldiers to defend the king and destroy the enemy.

Of course these recruiters came to visit our farmer. The son would have been a good candidate, yet the broken leg would do no good on the battlefield. So the son could stay at home…..

The neighbors thought this was a good thing. Lucky farmer did not see his son into a war.. The farmer’s thoughts….well you know by now

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How I deal with grief

grief

grief

In my life so far, I had my fair share of grief. Losing some one dear is what caused a hole in my heart every time. That feeling, crumbles me to do nothing else than to fall on the floor crying. Thinking I will die from pain.

Besides the hole in my heart, losing some one who loves you, leaves a hole in your soul. Love is a 2 way street.

Loved ones will die at some point. Maybe to a nasty decease, maybe a truck, some times just because of old age, being worn out by time. Hardly anybody dies at the end of their life it seems. Most of them go at when we least expected it. Death does not care about your schedule or to our perception of the conditions somebody should die.

Death just strikes, never fair, always unmerciful. What is left behind is emptiness. I gasped the whole ‘why did he die?’ too many times as a part of physics. Like finding an equation that would predict and define the outcomes of death. My mind’s hunger for logic and reason was forcing to find an answer.

There are no answers to be found. Most people just die..

It does not matter how old you are, the hole of emptiness remains. I did not find a shortcut though these emotional events. It just hurts. I tried filling the hole with all kind of substances, wine, junk food. It did not help. Only to find myself again and again on the floor crying, digging a hole for my own pity self.

In the last episode of the series where somebody I loved died, I changed the protocol. I still cried, breath was taken and panic took over, do not get me wrong. Those feelings are inescapable. The change was, I leveraged love. The hole left by the parting person, I filled with the love, hugs, attention, cups of tea I got from friends.

This time I allowed others to see my grief. I was amazed, how many were willing to pick me up of this floor. To put me in a comfortable chair and listened to my sadness.

Their warm and kinds words smoothed, brought me on my knees from pure gratitude.

On some moments I might have forgotten what the conversation was about, all I could think of was the warmth and joy I found in the present. Their smiles I will remember for as long as I live. Or as long as my memory allows me to.

Losing a loved one is painfully hard. Being able to share that, talk about in the presence of friends, it fills the void in your heart and soul. You might end up with stronger loving connections.

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Ego vs love

Harvey Specter Suits

Harvey Spector. He has a point. The things we do for others. Sometimes with discard of our own needs. It is made into a virtue. But it does not work on airplanes. When those oxygen mask come out.

In order to save somebody, you have to save your self first.

In order to love some one, love your self even so. Listen to your needs, your fears, your obsessions, your desires and love them.

In self love, you might also find forgiveness for yourself. That is good. We all fuck up at some point. We will get to a point that we just do not care about an aspect of life or care for anything at all. I’ve been there. Forgive yourself you got fat, lazy, shouted to your kids, or what ever you misinterpreted. Point is, love yourself, forgive and be better for it.

Do and be better a little bit everyday. Why? Because you love your self. Not because you have to from an ego whispering in your are you are not good enough. Or even worse, you will be loved and liked by others if you lose 50 pound, become father of the year. Life will be so much better if you just.. that is plain BS. Nobody really cares about you that way. They are to busy listening to their ego, pleasing whom ever for their likes.

Love yourself now. For all the pounds you are.

In amidst of screaming teenagers who say terrible things. They do that. It is part of them growing up.
Take a deep breath and love yourself.

Life will change, just by acknowledging the love you have for yourself. By choosing to do the best for your self.

It might sound counter honorable. But it is the only way to beat ego and to be thrown at the likes of other to feel good.
Unbeatable mind master Mark Divine said it best, to leave ego outside the door when starting the journey of becoming a NAVY SEAL.

I like warriors, the older ones, the new ones. They all come from a place they have mastered inside of them. In their minds and hearts. They love themselves and do everything to choose to become a better warrior. To protect and to serve those who need.

Love yourself, right now, here. Think about what a fantastic human you are.

Please share this with some one who can use the love.

 

About Mark Divine see this link

read the books The way of the SEAL and Unbeatable mind. (I have no affiliation, pure affection 🙂  )

 

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What is your kryptonite?

kryptonite

kryptonite
If you are on your journey of becoming strong, in all possible ways, your body, financially, and mentally, you will find what indeed makes you a stronger person. But that is not enough, you also have to look deep into your self and figure out what makes you weaker, what is your kryptonite?
Take a good look at your behavior, what do you reach for when you feel uncomfortable? What do you do at the end of a bad busy day? Comfort food? A glass of wine? A good soak in the tub? Not all matters are bad straight away. This post is meant for you to deeply look into you behavior and mark those treads that connect to your weaker treads, your personal kryptonite.

Also let’s look at the other end of your emotional spectrum. What do you reach for when you did a good job, when you feel like having a celebration with yourself? Wine, comfort food, cigarette? Chances are it might be the same as you use in bad emotional states.

Isn’t it funny how we reach for the same poison of choice for getting into our comfort zone as well as reward for good things done?

I learned this while I was on my way of quitting cigarettes. A bad bad habit, that thought me some valuable stuff about my behavior.
When I got nervous, I longed for a smoke. If I got angry, smoke. When some good news arrived, smoke.

It was only then that I viewed my cigarettes as those bad friends you don’t want your kids to play with. Or like those bad friends, you just know when you hang out with them nothing good is going to come from you and you will go down a path that goes only down if you keep joining these friends.

And those muggers keep calling you, “Hey you got a bad day, come here and hang out with us!” “Oh poor thing, nobody understands you, come over and hang out with us. We understand you” “Yeah, well done, come over and celebrate, you are a rock star!”

Yes, they kept on calling me… Until the day I decided I did not want to play with them. My cigarettes understood my emotions for sure, yet I was better and not willing to drag me down any more.
I quit…

Soon I saw, this same behavior came up, in my relation with food. Food is good, we need it..Yet as fuel or repair. Not for comfort.. Coming clear on this, I found I had new kryptonite disguised as something good.

So I hope you understand more about you behavior for the better you. Make decisions about what is making you feel comfortable. Will it make your stronger, better, faster or will it do the opposite?
Get stronger every day, day by day.

For those who wonder: what de hell is kryptonite? It is the stuff that weakened Superman..

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Find your purpose in 3 minutes here

find your purpose

find your purpose

Did not find your purpose of life yet? And I assume you feel the year ticking by and probably you feel lost and need a direction or a compelling reason to jump out of your bed every single morning. Well you got it, and I will tell you your purpose if you did not find your calling yet.

If you did find it already but you do not feel satisfied by it, feel free to use this one.
To be honest I did not find my purpose anywhere, and I looked every where. By now I am expiring faster that my purpose will. And I am okay with the purpose that I am using already for a great number of years.

Actually I have 2, just depends on my mood.

My purpose, my drive to get out of bed, and yours too, is
to sleep well.

Ha simple, isn’t it? To sleep well. What is that? What does it mean? Go to bed early, take pills, booze or any other stimulant to pass out?The last options will not promote your sleep or your health.

To sleep well, means, to have done well during the day. To feel a bit tired from working, to feel satisfied of the progress that you have been made. And also the things you have done that prevent disaster tomorrow. ( pay bills in time, check the oil in the car, batteries of the fire alarm, you know the small stuff that f*cks up a good day).

What helps me sleep very well is the knowledge, I hold no grudge toward anybody or anything. I never mean to do harm, not only to my self, but also to others.
My conscious is clear, no need to look over my shoulder for some reason. No fear any of my lies come out, as I know I am a terrible liar, so I stopped with that early in life. I feel safe, and therefor I am save.

I work hard to stay out of financial problems that might keep me up at night. My health is for this moment a blessing and during the day I do what is in my power to stay healthy.

So go to bed early, have a good sleep. In order to jump out of bed in the early morning, to do everything in your power to sleep well the coming night!

Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Ebook Meditation Basics aka Meditation for beginners

meditation for beginners

  Meditation for beginners

At some point all of us have experienced some type of stress. It’s hard to live in today’s world without it! If that does not describe you, then you probably don’t need to read any further. Congratulations, you are that rare individual who never gets stressed!

However, if you are like the majority of people, not a day goes by without some kind of stress in your life. We rush to work or school and we hurry through our meals.

Finally you usually fall into bed exhausted at the end of the day, unless you don’t get that far and zone out in front of the TV.

Stress triggers surround us every day. Rush hour traffic, standing in line after line, the boss, co-workers, deadlines, kids and we know you can compile a list of your triggers in a few seconds!

And then there’s Eve. Or Tracy. Or Bob. Those people you would sometimes like to strangle. Nothing ever seems to faze them.

Trapped in freeway traffic they are likely to say, “oh well, I have more time to listen to a motivational recording.” Caught in a line, they are apt to say, “what a great opportunity to make a new friend.”

No matter what is going on around them, they don’t appear to be concerned at all. Nothing ruffles their feathers!

So what gives? How can they be up and positive all the time? It’s disconcerting and downright abnormal, isn’t it?

It would appear that way, on the surface. However, if you dig a little deeper you just might discover a secret weapon – a very powerful secret weapon.

It really doesn’t matter how THEY do it. What matters is HOW you can do it too, right?
3 Things You Should Know!

1. There multiple causes for stress.
2. There is a way to treat it.
3. Symptoms can vary from person to person.

You’re in the right place to get some answers about stress and how to end or at least diminish the symptoms. Learn about how to use meditation to deal with it. This is the first step toward preventing stress altogether and become a better you.

Learning about meditation can be a challenge. That is why Meditation Basics was created. It’s a introduction into  meditation for beginners.

It’s simple to read and understand.

It’s presented in simple, easy to read and understand language. Because of that you don’t…

ü Need any special training.
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ü Have to wait days for answers – get them with a click.

Meditation for beginners

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You have all the information you need to get answers about Meditation Basics
Take a quick look inside of  Meditation Basics  and see what you will learn:

Did you know that there are multiple types of meditation?
Read in depth descriptions on different types of meditation. Learn what they are and how they may help you.
Meditation is no longer a specifically religious activity. Learn how meditation for beginners has evolved to a point where the benefits are recognized not only by mainstream religions but also as a therapeutic tool within the medical community.

There is much more about Meditation Basics that you will access inside. Learn how to implement the correct type of meditation to suit the relieve you need.
This is a “must have” for everyone’s digital bookshelf but especially crucial if you have or a loved one experience stress.
And at only $14.95 this guide is a steal!

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Meditation for beginners

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