Thursday 30 June 2011

"The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others." - Sonya Friedman

Treat yourself as you want to be treated by others.
Do you often think that people are treating you badly or unfair? Have you ever stopped to think why that is? Well, I can tell you why they do that and it's quite simple, at least in theory. People treat you badly because you treat yourself badly! It's as simple as that.

Take a long look at what you think about yourself. What do you say to yourself? Do you think "I'm so stupid for doing that", or "I am so fat"? Do you think that you're not smart enough to do what you want to do? Or maybe, you're thinking that you're not worthy of being loved by a really good man or woman? Well, how would you like it if somebody else, than yourself, told you all those things? Maybe, even likely, over and over again. You certainly wouldn't want to hang out with that person a lot, would you!?  This means that you don't really want to hang out with yourself!

Now, the question is; why would anybody else treat you any better than you treat yourself? Why would someone respect you when you don't respect yourself? Why would any man or woman love you when you don't love yourself? The answer is simply that nobody would, and nobody does! Hard to hear? I bet it is, but I also think that a part of you know it's true. As with everything else I write about I've been there, I know from personal experience, otherwise I wouldn't say it. I am still that girl sometimes, insecure, feeling fat and unworthy of my man's love. But when I fall into that kind of thinking now, I recognise it for what it is and I kick that person telling me all those things out of my head and out of my life. It's longer time between her visits now and she only comes when I'm really tired. I know that I'm smart enough, good looking enough and worthy enough for everything I want in life.

So what can you do about this problem? Start by acknowledging your thoughts about yourself. Get to know them on a conscious level. Once you know them you can start sorting them out. A lot of them you might need to turn around and start to consciously say the positive side of the same thing. “That was really clever of me to do it that way”, “I look really nice”, “I can do anything I really want to do” and most important of all; “I am worthy of loving myself!” Other ones are plain unnecessary and you need to learn how to ignore them and throw them out for good. Use affirmations, read books, blogs and websites to help you out with the right way to think.

Once you love yourself, and treat yourself with respect other people will love you and treat you with respect too. All it takes is awareness and to start taking action. Don’t wait. Just do it!

Wednesday 29 June 2011

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." - Lewis B. Smedes

Forgiving is healing for body and soul!
I don't want to be a prisoner so I decided a while ago to forgive those who have hurt me over the years. I've been hurt in so many different ways by a number of different people. People that I considered to be good friends, even best friends have hurt me real bad. For no apparent reason at all. Even someone in my closest family hurt me really bad, at a time when I needed more love and support than ever before. Most people have been hurt one way or another, by someone. I let the same people hurt me several times at one point in my life. That was the time when I didn't love myself and I didn't believe that I was worthy anything good in my life.

I had to go deep into myself to figure out my own part in the different matters and I had to forgive myself for them before I could forgive anybody else. I think you carry around a lot of guilt after you have been hurt, guilt that you should have known better, or left sooner or told them off, or you shouldn't have said this or that or done this or that. The blame you put on yourself, whatever it is about, is a very heavy bourdon. It weighs you down. After I started to explore myself and forgive myself I noticed that I felt lighter and happier. And after I forgave the people that had hurt me I felt a big relief and even happier.

When I happened to look back on those events and people, before the forgiveness, I usually got physical symptoms like stomach ache, or head ache. Now I can look back on the same events and the same people and see the good times and the good moments I've had with those people before things went wrong. That is quite a nice feeling. I'm not saying that I would want to go back to being friends with them again, they were a part of my life in the past. I brought them all with me to the future and suffered from them in the present that was, until I forgave me and them. Now I've left them where they belong, in the past. They can't get to me anymore, I've outgrown them and I've moved on. They had their chances.

I used to be a prisoner, but I forgave and now I'm free and that is a fantastic feeling. Forgiving is healing.

Did someone hurt you and you carry around anger, quilt, regret or even hate? If so, you need to understand that all the emotions and negative thoughts you put on them don't affect them the least. All those negative feelings and thoughts just bounce back to you and make you feel even worse. Find it in your heart to forgive yourself and the one that hurt you. You won't regret it!

Tuesday 28 June 2011

"If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily." - Gerald Good

Make Gratitude your Attitude!
To be thankful for all that you've got and all that you are about to get, is not as easy as you might think. But it’s not as hard as you might think either. It's a matter of opening up your eyes and your heart to your life and focus on all the good things. Gratitude is a very important key if you want to be happy.

When I wake up in the morning I feel love and happiness for waking up next to the most wonderful man, and our cat. I feel grateful for it. As I look out the window and sea the Mediterranean Sea and the horizon above the roof tops, I feel thankful. I feel grateful for my diet that allows me to have cream in my coffee. Being thankful, feeling gratitude is falling in love. I fall in love with all the people, situations and things I feel grateful for. It's great to fall in love with my man over and over again, sometimes several times a day. It makes me happy that I am thankful for everything.

I know what I expect in the future, I know what I want for me in life and I am grateful for that. I know I will get it all, as long as I"m thankful for what is to come. If you think that I sound like a religious fanatic now, you are wrong. I am not religious, although I might be a bit of a fanatic. But here"s the thing. Since I started to be thankful for things in my life (big and small) my life has turned around. I used to be a lot more depressed; I used to think that life treated me bad and unfair. That everybody else was better off than I was. I used to think that I would never find what I wanted in life and that I would never be as happy as I wanted to be.

Do you think that your house is too small, or your clothes are too old? Or maybe your hair is too straight, or your teeth are too yellow? Be grateful that you have a house, and that you have clothes. Be thankful that you still have your own hair and your own teeth. There are possibilities to be grateful for everything, every little detail, in your life. All the things you feel bad about, there is something about them to feel thankful for.

I can't remember what put me on to try thankfulness, but whatever it was I am thankful for it. Today I am happier than I ever thought possible. My dream about living by the blue sea under the warm sun came true. My dream about writing has come true with this blog. My dream of being happy came true. My dream about finding the perfect man for me came true. I believe it all started with gratitude for what I already had, back then. I still have a lot of dreams to fulfill and a lot of dreams to expand. They will all come true too, I know that, and I am thankful for it. All my dreams will come true!! How cool is that?!

What are you thankful for in your life? List all the things in your life that you love, no matter how small and silly it seems. Those things are what you should be grateful for, that is what you should focus on. Be grateful, it will change your life around to the better!

Sunday 26 June 2011

"Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves." - James M. Barrie

Bring sunshine into the lives of others by sharing your love.
One of the best ways to feel good about yourself and about your own life is to "bring sunshine into the lives of others". This blog is me sharing the knowledge I've gathered, my wisdom of life. I share it with you because it makes me feel good, but also because maybe what I know, what I've experienced and what I share might help one of you out there that is reading this. I'm hoping that I bring a little bit of sunshine into someone else's life. I love helping people find their way to what they want, what they love and dream of. It makes me happy when I can help someone else be happy.

I believe that what you give is what you get, but you get more than you give. I started this blog only a couple of weeks ago, and good things are starting to happen in my life. In the last three days, out of the blue, it's been decided that my son, who I haven't seen for 6 months will come for a 3 week visit and he's getting the flight here paid from someone who normally never pays for anything that can benefit me. What a miracle! That's not all though, it has also been decided that my sister will come for a visit in a few months time, I haven't seen her for a year and a half. The flights were booked and paid for within a few others from first thought. Another miracle! I get to see two of the most important people in my life, the two people that I want to see the most, that I haven't seen for a far too long time and I am so happy.

I am convinced that my attitude towards life and my wish, and my actions, to try to bring sunshine upon others is what make all these things happen, without there being any effort put into it. I also think that it helps a lot that I am genuinely happy for my friends that have a lot of nice things going on in their lives, even though it means that they are leaving me to move far away. I love it when good things happen to people around me, it gives me the chills. Good chills. "Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves." (James m. Barrie) As long as I keep doing what I'm doing, the sun will keep shining on me.

Are you bringing sunshine into someone's life? Are you happy for other people? Do you have good things happening in your life? Are you sharing your love, without asking for anything in return? If not, try it, it's a great feeling. If you are already doing it, keep doing what you’re doing!

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." - Carl Jung

Get aware and make your unconscious conscious.
Yesterday's post was about expectations and that you get what you expect, the problem with that is that most people don't know what they expect. Most people are led by their unconscious and not their conscious minds. And the unconscious mind is not a very obvious place, it isn't all  that easy to find it and to get to it. But it's not impossible! You can train yourself to be aware of the thoughts that go on in your unconscious mind. And to get what you want out of life it is a necessity to make the unconscious conscious. I think what Carl Jung ment was that there is no fate, there is only you. I agree! Do you?

Let's say you're carrying a tray of glasses, and somewhere in the back of your head you start to think that you will drop it. Sure thing you will! Or you overslept in the morning and the rest of the day you are trying to catch up and one after another things go wrong. You've been there, right?! This is not because you can't carry a tray and it is not because you are having a bad day. It is because in the back of your head, in your unconscious mind, you expect it to be that way. You can turn it around though, because you know that you are thinking something "bad", somewhere in your unconscious mind, by the way that you feel. If you're feeling stressed, insecure, angry, annoyed or any other negative feeling, you are thinking something negative. If that negative thought is not in your conscious mind it will be in your unconscious mind. Easy right? If you feel bad you're thinking something bad. And once you've established how you feel, you can start searching your unconscious for the bad thought. When you find it you're automatically making it a conscious thought and you can change it.

The first thing you need to do is to make a conscious decision to make your unconscious conscious . That is, if you want to be aware of where you're are leading yourself in life. After you've made that decision you need to start being aware of your feelings, at all times, small or big. If you wake up in the morning feeling grumpy, take a moment to figure out why, make the thought come up to the surface and turn it around. One thing you need be careful with, though, is that your brain can't understand negative words like no, never, not and so on. It will read your thought as an opposite one if it contains a negation. Think "This day will be a good day", rather than "This day will not be a bad day". If you take out  the word "not" in the latter it will read "This day will be a bad day" and that is the opposite of what you intended.

My day will be great! Will your day be great?

Saturday 25 June 2011

"The world is full of abundance and opportunity, but far too many people come to the fountain of life with a sieve instead of a tank car… a teaspoon instead of a steam shovel. They expect little and as a result they get little." - Ben Sweetland

Life is a self fulfilling prophecy where you get what you expect.
Most people think that they can't have it all. That they have to choose between all they want in life. I don't believe that to be the truth. I think that you get what you think you expect, or what you think you deserve. If you expect little you will get little, but that also means that if you expect a lot you will get a lot. As Oprah said; "You get in life what you have the courage to ask for".It's a self fulfilling prophecy. All the good things in my life, I expected to get before I got them. But I also expected all the bad things I've been through. Of course, I didn't see it at the time, it's not until now that I can look back and say; "wow, I expected (not always consciously) that to happen, and it did". Scary? Or up lifting? I think it is the latter, because it  puts me in control of what happens, right? And I like being in control of my life.

Say you are looking for a new car, and in a perfect world you want it to be a red convertible, with white leather seats and a white top, and you want it a good price for you. Now, people might tell you that you can't have all that for the price you are willing to pay and you start to question what you are asking for. Maybe you don't really need it to be a red car, or maybe it doesn't have to be a convertible, or have white leather seats. And maybe it can have a black top. All of a sudden the car that you want is now a blue sedan with black fabric seats, because that is all you can get for the price you want to pay. That is the expectations you have. But what would happen if you didn't listen to what other people, or your own expectations, say? Could there be a chance that you might be able to get the car of your true dreams for the price you are willing to pay? I think it is highly possible, and even highly likely.

It's the same with everything in life, I think. If you expect to meet the best man in the world, you will. But if you expect to meet yet another cheating bastard you will. If you expect your day to go badly it sure will, but if you expect your day to be good it will be good. I've always gotten what I expected, good and bad, big and small. I am still learning to expect the big stuff, but at least I have learned to expect the good stuff. It is a long process, and some people catch up easy and some people need longer time to get it. I’ve needed a longer time, but that's all in my expectations. And at least I got it now, which I also expected. Next step for me is to start dreaming big, to start expecting big. Where are you? Do you expect the big and the best stuff for yourself or do you settle for the small and not so good stuff, because that's all you can get? Do you think that it has to one or the other, or do you believe you can have it all?

I’m getting it all, I’m sure of that! I hope you are too! (And by the way, there is more than enough out there for every one.)

Friday 24 June 2011

"Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait. The grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of will and energy to execute your ideas." - Henry Ford

It is time to get enthusiastic about your life!
At the moment the enthusiasm I have for, and in, my life, is fantastic. Sometimes even overwhelming. And, of course, I love it! It's an amazing feeling, to find yourself smiling all the time, at all the small things. Yesterday at work I found myself laughing at myself several times, My cheeks are getting sore from smiling so much. This is great! Everybody in the world should be feeling like this about their lives!

So what is it that makes my life so exciting? Honestly, it is my attitude about it, I think. I mean, to other people my life is just an ordinary life. To me it is the best life I have! (It's also the only life I have, so why not make the most of it.) I do, however have the most amazing people in my life, and that helps. I am an amazing person, for sure! And at the moment I got so many exciting things going on, I got a job I love, the best boyfriend in the world, a cat that makes me laugh, an amazing place to live and soon a new, even more amazing place to move to (we haven't found it yet, but we will), my wonderful son will come for a visit soon, I got my amazing friends, food that makes me feel better than I've ever felt before, the sun and the sea just outside the door, a fantastic family and all the rest of the it. All equally important!

Enthusiasm is love! It is life! It is happiness! If you don't feel enthusiastic about the things in your life, maybe you don’t have the right things in it. Get enthusiastic! Do something that makes your eyes sparkle, your energy rise and that make you shine to the stars. Henry Ford did it, and look where it got us! Oprah did it, and look where it got her! Everybody that ever made a difference in the world did it! They all got enthusiastic! I am! You can be to!

Thursday 23 June 2011

"Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends." - Virginia Woolf

Love your friends and they will love you back.
I love my friends, I think I am extremely privileged to have the friends I have. It did take me some time, actually a lot of years and heart aches, to learn what a good friend is. To me a good friend is someone who can make you laugh, someone who picks you up when you're down, someone who tells you the truth even if it's the last thing you want to hear. It is someone who loves you for exactly who you are, and someone that watches, and helps, you grow with proud and joy. A good friend is someone you can be honest with, someone you can trust no matter what. It is someone who doesn't judge you, but still tells you when you did something wrong. A good friend is someone who is happy for you when you find your right way in life, even though you might end up far away for them.

Do you think I ask a lot of my friends? I don't. These criteria are what I expect of myself as a friend, and there is no reason why I should want something less than the best of what there is. I don't consider myself lucky to have the amazing friends I have, I know that I deserve it. I am, as I said, privileged that they consider me their friend. I know that they love me as much as I love them. I know that they are there for me when I need them, just as they know I am there for them when they need me. Even if it's not always possible to be there in person.

Virginia Wolf said; "Some people go to priest, others to poetry. I to my friends.". That is what I do too. I went through a very hard time a few years ago and my friends helped me through it. When I broke down completely, my friends sat beside me watching over me to make sure I was ok. When I decided to move to another country, my friends supported me one hundred percent. My friends are the best friends in the world! Can you say that about your friends? Do your friends treat you as you treat them? Do you treat them as you want to be treated by them?

Friends are one of the great joys of life and some of the greatest loves of your life, make sure you enjoy your friends and make sure they know they are appreciated. If you don’t have any great friends, you might want to think about why that is and do something about it.

To my fantastic, wonderful and amazing friend; I just want to say that I adore you, love you and I am so happy and proud to have you in my life!

Wednesday 22 June 2011

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." - E.E. Cummings

Cats are funny and makes you laugh.
How often do you laugh? Do you laugh every day? Several times a day? Or less than every day? I think we can all agree that laughing makes you feel better, mentally and physically, at least for the moment. If I've had a real burst out loud laugh moment, I usually want another one as soon as possible. Because it made me feel good, even great, and the moments after a great laugh feel a bit empty. Do you feel like that too? Some of my best memories are from moments of great laughter. With friends, family or alone.

Laughing makes me happy, and that is a normal reaction. Laughing releases substances in your brain that makes you happy, it reduces the amount of stress hormones in your brain, relaxes you and so on. Those are all things I am aiming for in everything I do. Happiness being the main one. Now, I don't mean that I want to walk around in life and laugh at everything all the time. That would just make me a lunatic. But I do think that laughs, big and small, are very important for you to feel good about yourself and your life. And feeling good about yourself and your life is something that is necessary to be happy.

What makes you laugh? I laugh at all sorts of things, silly people, our cat, sarcastic humour, my friends, stuff on tv, mistakes I make, a funny story, a funny book or a funny film. The list can go on for a long time. I probably laugh at least 20 times a day. Not always big aloud laughs, sometimes they are more like giggles. Giggles count too. I’m not counting smiles today though, but they are sort of laughs too but in a smaller dosage. I used to want to go to laughing classes, I don’t need that anymore, but I think it can be a great thing to do if you don't laugh enough in your life.

As e.e.cummings, I too believe that a day without laughter is a day wasted. Every day is a good day to laugh, without exceptions. Did you laugh yet today? I have, several times already.

Tuesday 21 June 2011

"It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from. The ability to triumph begins with you - always." – Oprah Winfrey

It always begins with you! Everything in your life begins with you, everything about you begins with you. How is that possible? Because your life's centre is You, not your kids, your friends, your partner or your parents. Only You! You are responsible for your life, and you can never be responsible for somebody else's life (unless for your children's, and in that case you are responsible for teaching them responsibility for their own lives).

My first realisation that my life is my responsibility was about 15 years ago, when I was watching the Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah, with her attitude and love for life and the people in the world, inspired me to take a good look at my own life. I am grateful to her for sharing her knowledge, and for sharing the people that helped her get it. I am grateful that I was smart enough to listen to them. I figured that if she can I can too.

You are responsible for your life, and it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from. It doesn't matter what your current situation is, YOU are still responsible for your life. And the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can start changing your circumstances. I always say, if there is something in your life you're not happy with, it's up to you (and nobody else) to change that situation, no matter what it is. If you don't even try to change it, you do not have the right to whine and complain about it. Because, again, your life begins with YOU! YOU are the centre of your life! YOU have the responsibility for your life!

MY life is in MY hands, and that is a great feeling! That means that I can make it what I want it to be and that is so cool! Do you take responsibility for your own life and for yourself? If not, maybe it is about time to change that!

Monday 20 June 2011

"When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion." - Abraham Lincoln

Go with the good feelings, reject the bad.

This is the key! If you do good, you will feel good and if you do bad, you will feel bad. I believe that Abraham Lincoln was spot on about that. Because that's how it is, isn't it!? It is for me anyway. And I'm not only talking about doing good for other people, it works the same way when it's for me. If I do something for me, no matter what it is, and it doesn’t feel good it's not going to be good. That helps me know that it's not worth doing.

When I make decisions about something in my life, the first thing I do is to sit down and really think about it. I will think about the goal in question and I will be alert if it makes me feel good or bad. I mean proper good or bad. Does thinking of the goal make me feel happy? If it does, I know I'm on the right track. If it makes gives me any bad feelings I will know that that goal is not for me. If it makes me feel good, I know that it will happen, that I will reach that particular goal, maybe not right now, but when I'm ready for it. In due time.

This was how this blog came about, it started as a vague idea about six months ago. The idea of writing down my thoughts and beliefs about life and share them with others made me so happy. (It gives me a reason for why I've been through all the things I've been through in life) But then I got stuck, every time I thought about HOW to do it I got a bad feeling, so I eventually let it go. Until a couple of weeks ago, when it popped up in my head and I had a clear idea of how to do it. And it made me feel good!! So here I am, proud and happy and excited about this new thing in my life. And no matter what happens, and no matter what you think about me, my thoughts and my blog, I will always know that I did it because it made me feel good and happy and I did it in a way that I can be proud of. Every little detail is thought over, and felt good about.

So stay away from the things, actions and thoughts that make you feel bad and go for all the good feelings you can have. It is worth it, and it is so easy to do. And honestly, it is a fundamental tool to becoming happy and for me the only way to live my life. Good luck and feel good!

Sunday 19 June 2011

“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” - Author Unknown

The future is a goal, the past is the past
You can’t change your past, I think everybody agrees with that, right?! So what do you do when you don’t like it, your past? When you think you had a lousy childhood, when your dad wasn’t around, when you were bullied in school. What do you do when boyfriend after boyfriend cheat on you, or you where too fat or too skinny? Or even worse things. The way I see it you’ve got two choices. Your first choice is to keep disagreeing with it and as a result feel bad about whatever you do in your life. Your second choice is to accept it, pick out the good parts of it, learn from the bad (and the good too, of course) and move on to today and the future.

All those things are what make us stronger today, if we let them, and they also allow us to use them to make us a better tomorrow. You can’t change your past, but you can be in control of today and set up the tomorrow that you want to have. It’s all your choice how you choose to look at it, how you choose to use it. I mean, I sure prefer accepting yesterday for what it was (because I can’t change it anyway), so I can let it go and be happy today. I used to dwell upon the past though. I kept repeating situations over and over, in life and in my head, feeling sorry for myself. Until I realized that the dwelling and the repeating made me feel worse than the situations I dwelled upon did. I made myself sick and miserable with staying stuck in the past. So I made the choice to try to see it all from the “outside” and take with me what I needed and I moved on. I made the choice to leave the past where it is, in the past, to remember the good things and to let go of the bad, because I can’t change it anyway.

To live in today is a much nicer way to live my life. Today is adjustable, today is changeable, today is where I am right now and it is all up to me what happens to it. And it is a thrilling and exciting feeling. And everything I do today is setting me up for the future. Everything I do today is creating my brand new ending, because no matter how hard I try and how much I want to, yesterday cannot be changed, but today and tomorrow can!

Saturday 18 June 2011

“If a mistake is not a stepping stone, it is a mistake.”- Eli Siegel


I believe that as long as you make your best to learn something from your mistakes, you haven’t made a mistake. I actually think it’s more of the other way around. If you never make mistakes you will never learn anything, because you have no reason to look for something else. My mistakes in the past have made who I am today, and my mistakes today will make me who I will be tomorrow. But only if I choose to learn from them.

Of course I don’t set out to make mistakes, but when it happens I don’t see it as a bad thing but as a good thing. Why? Because it taught me something I obviously didn’t know, but since I made the mistake I now know that’s not the right thing or way to do it. Are you with me?
If I would step outside in the gazing sun without wearing any sunscreen and I got burnt, I would learn from my mistake and wear sunscreen the next time I step out in the sun. Or if I were baking a cake and I changed the recipe and it didn’t turn out well, than I would know that that was not a good way to do it so I won’t do it again. Right? It is the same thing with everything in life. Nothing is a waste of time as long as you choose to learn something from it. Save the knowledge and use it when it’s needed. In my opinion, that is what the mistakes are all about.

Once you’ve come that far, as to start seeing your mistakes as something good instead of something bad, you are starting to use the mistake as a stepping stone for the rest of your life. Some knowledge you attain you save up in your inner library, to take out when needed, and some of it you can put into active use in your everyday life. You’ll find out for yourself what knowledge goes where. The important thing to remember is to actually use the knowledge, though, because if you learn something and don’t use what you learn to get ahead you haven’t actually learnt anything. Some things are harder to learn than others and some times I’ve made the same mistake several times before I started to use what I already knew, from previous times, and that’s the second I gained the knowledge.

Friday 17 June 2011

“We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.” - Calvin Coolidge


Sometimes poking isn’t enough, sometimes it takes a big shaking to wake someone up. Or a bucket of cold water over their heads. It might seem a bit scary to start questioning yourself and your whole life, because it’s not really that bad, is it?! Hopefully, it isn’t bad enough to need a complete and immediate change. See, change doesn’t come over night. Not usually, anyway. It’s happened to me and to other people, but some of the changes I’ve made in my life have taken a long time to reach and some of them I’m still working on. Some of them I haven’t started on yet. What is important here is that you need to remember that “we cannot change everything at once, but we can do something at once”. It’s like a big jigsaw puzzle where you are the final result.

Maybe you need to change the way you think about yourself, you can start by picking one thing about yourself that you really like. It can be anything from your eyes to what a caring person you are when it comes to a loved one. And every time you feel bad about yourself, you redirect your thoughts to that one good thing that you really like about yourself. It doesn’t matter how many times a day you have to think about your friendly eyes, just do it. If you have more things you like about yourself you can alter them. Write down all the good things about you. What do you like about you? Never mind the bad stuff, focus on all the good stuff.

And then do the same thing about your partner, home, job, life, well, anything and everything you can think of. Just pick one little, or big, thing about it and focus on that one when you feel bad about it. So you don’t really like your job, but there must be at least one thing about it that is good, the money, your work or the hours you work. Change the bad thoughts into the good one. Try to add more things to the good list all the time, and you will eventually see that the way you feel is changing too. It’s not going to happen over night, but one day you’ll realize it.

This way has worked very well for me; hopefully it can help you too. It’s worth a try, right?! What have you got to lose?

Thursday 16 June 2011

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” - Abraham Lincoln

Is this true? I think it is. If you make up your mind and make a conscious choice to be happy, then you will be. But on the other hand, if you make up your mind that you need a certain person, a certain job, a certain thing, a certain house or a certain car to be happy then you never will be. You will feel a bit of joy once you get that person, job, thing, house or car, but that is not happiness. Happiness is being content with who you are and what you’ve got ALL the time. It goes hand in hand with love, that I wrote about yesterday. If you love everything in your life, you will be happy. If you choose to see the bad, less good or lack of things in your life, you are not happy. The only way to be happy is to be happy NOW. The good thing about that is that NOW is always. NOW is where you are right NOW, whenever it is.

In my experience most people are afraid of being happy. I’m not sure why, but it might have something to do with being afraid of losing it once they’ve “found” it. Or maybe it is just safer to remain where they are and pretend that they’re happy. Or what if the people around them will look down on them, or whisper about them, if they would be happy. I think all these things apply for a lot of folks out there. None of them are true though. If you are truly happy you can’t lose it because it comes from within you, it is not easier to remain in a state of false happiness than it is to be truly happy (quite the opposite actually), and people around you WILL look at you differently but they will whisper about how happy you seem to be and they will think about how much they envy you. How do I know all this? Because I’ve been the first one, the one being scared of true happiness, and I am the second one, the one actually being happy.

How did I get there? I made a conscious decision to be happy and I changed the things inside me, to be able to change the things outside of me to get there. If you are completely happy with who you are, and where you are I congratulate you to your wise decision. If you are not completely happy, maybe you need to take a look at yourself and your life and make up your mind where you want to be and be happy with it.

Wednesday 15 June 2011

“I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.” - Arthur Rubinstein

I am a big believer in Love. I’m not only talking about Love for my partner, son, family and friends. I’m talking about Love for everything in my life. And most of all the Love for my life. And all the small details that make up my life. Everything from where I live, that I live, how I live, to the clothes I wear, my work, the sun, the wind, the sea, and on to the fact that I can read and write (sure helps me a lot when I do this!), that I have eyes that work well enough do use them for this. That I am constantly learning about Love and life. Loving everything has helped me become a better person, a happier person, simply because it brings me good feelings about everything and about me. I love life and life loves me back and if life loves me back, than I can’t be such a bad person. Right?!

Of course, it wasn’t always like this. I’ve had my fair share of bad situations, bad feelings, fights for the will to live, hating life, hating circumstances and so on. I’ve worked my way to where I am today and it hasn’t always been an easy trip. But at the end of the day, all those situations, and feelings has helped me to get here. And that makes me grateful for all my experiences, and that makes me love my past even if it wasn’t always easy or fun.

I believe that the world would be a much better place if everybody could just see all the good things in their lives, instead of all the things they lack. I’m not saying it’s wrong to want something more or something even better than what they already have. It is a necessity to keep striving for something better. Although, I do think that most people need to take a hard look on what they want and why they want it. I love my life, and my life loves me back, but I still want an even better life, because the strive helps me grow. And I love to grow!!! How about you? Do you love life? Does life love you back?

Tuesday 14 June 2011

“Quality begins on the inside – and then works its way out” - Bob Moawad.


This quote tells a lot about who I am, because this is a strong belief of mine. It doesn’t matter how much money, time or effort you spend on your outside, if you don’t work at least as much on your inside it is all done for nothing. And if you do work on your inside you will find that you don’t have to spend, by far, as much money and time on your outside. Now, when I say work on your inside I mean all of it, your feelings, thoughts and health. Mind, soul and body. The whole package. Because it all has to be in abundance, you can’t leave one part of you out. If you do, you will never be completely happy. And to be completely happy is what this blog, and my life, is all about. Inside and out!

Working on your inside, to me, means to get to know yourself. To know what you love, so you can choose those things to be in your life. To know what you don’t like, so you can choose to keep them out of your life. It is about knowing what makes you smile and make use of those things when you need them the most. It is about loving yourself for exactly who you are. It is about changing the things about you and your life that you don’t like. It is also about getting to know and love your physical body. To learn what makes you feel good, what to eat, how to exercise, how much you need to sleep and so on. In short, it is about taking responsibility for you.

This isn’t something that happens over night, quite the opposite. This is something that will take you your whole life. There is always something you find you need to work on or change, because you change and your circumstances change. This is the absolute beauty of life, to me, because it gives my life a life long meaning.