Thinking Positive

Saying No

No is the flip side of yes. This is easy to forget. Saying yes to something also entails saying no to something else. For example. “Yes, I will get out of bed and go to work.” contains within it “No, I will not sleep in and stay home from work.

In this awareness, I think it might be an interesting exercise to take note of what you are actually saying “No” to when you say “Yes.” to someone or something. And alternatively, what you might be saying “Yes.” to when you say “No” either to yourself or others.

It might even be informative to have an opposite day where you just say no to everything. Is that even possible? I wonder what that would look like in real life…. Is that an idea? Maybe? Probably not… but maybe…

All this talk about saying “No” reminds me of my years teaching puppy classes, training dogs, and teaching people how to train their own dogs.  There’s definitely something useful here.

When training dogs, it’s important to follow your “No” with a “Yes.” Because you don’t want to leave your dog in a vacuum of having to guess what to do next. Here are some examples:

  • “No” get your feet off the counter, should be followed by a “Sit” right here in front of the counter. For which you will get praise and pets.
  • “Drop it” could be followed up with a “Here’s your toy.”
  • “NO!” don’t chase that squirrel across the street would be followed with “Come” over here to me right now and plant your butt down.

I would also like to point out that when training dogs it’s also important to have the means to enforce your commands, both the positives and the negatives.

So, how does this relate to your life? Are you working to train your “inner dog”? What are you saying no to that could be followed up with a yes? What are your rewards? Do you have deterrents?  Are they effective? Could they use a bit of a tweak?

Here’s how it looks at my house. Apparently my inner dog is a wino. LOL.

I have a developed a deep fondness for Mead. There’s a particular brand that is sold at my local grocery store that I absolutely love! I love it so much that I have a really hard time stopping myself from just literally sitting down and drinking the whole bottle right away.

So, My “No.” put the Mead away has to be followed up with a “Yes.” heat up a cup of tea. My deterrent is that I never buy more than one bottle a week. And my caveat is that if I sit down and drink that whole bottle in one evening I have to wait two weeks before I can buy another one. My reward for this good behavior is that I feel better when I don’t drink too much, I save money, and if I am good, I can buy another bottle next week.

Now it’s your turn. What will you say “No.” to and how does that translate into a “Yes”? And when you do say no to yourself what is your follow up? and do you have a good deterrent/reward system in place?

Ideas To Lighten The Mood

When we explored Altschmerz, it occurred to me that I might really benefit from a specific time limit, or regularly scheduled space in my daily routine for either dealing with, or reliving the thoughts and feelings that put me in a funk, or ruin what might possibly have been a really nice day.

What I came up with is a number of fun little arts and crafts ideas that can be as basic and simple or as elaborate and complicated as you’d like them to be. It seems smart to start with simple and then embellish as time goes by, but I know myself pretty well, and I fully expect I’ll go full out elaborately complicated.

  • Happy Memories

Ok, so here’s what I was thinking. Instead of torturing myself with the sad, bad, or otherwise unhappy moments in the past, I thought it might be fun and useful to spend a few minutes each day thinking about the best days, fun times, happy memories or experiences. And then, taking it one step further and writing it down.

Sylvia Hartman suggests a Star Memories journal, where you have a simple journal, and then just jot down your best memories, the date, your age, and anything else about that experience that you’d want to share. I like this idea.

It might also be fun to have a box. It doesn’t have to be an awesome and amazing box. Something as simple as a shoe box would work just fine. And then just jot down memories that cheer you up or make you smile and toss them in. Maybe pictures, mementos, little stuff could also go in. If you are cleaning house, or decluttering your car, and find a little something that makes you smile, it could go in the box too.

On the days when nothing is happy or fun, you could open the box and spend a little time reliving those little moments. And, on days when you feel up to it, you could spend some time adding to your memory box.. or decorating it.

What I really like about this idea is that at some point, when your time is up, and you have left this life – there will be a box of happy memories that your family and friends might find comfort in.

  • Write About It

Some days, I need (or want) to just wallow in my “stuff.” And I am pretty sure that those are the days that the “Happy Memories” box will stay on the shelf, unopened.

For those days, I thought it might be helpful to simply acknowledge whatever it is that I’m in a funk about. I thought it might look like this:

I am ______ (pinpoint the feeling)
And I must really like feeling this way
Because if I didn’t, I would __________ (write the first thing that comes to mind)
And/or _________ (write the next thing that comes to mind)
So, it must be useful to me in some way
And I might as well spend the next ______ minutes enjoying it.

For me, today, it went like this:

I am feeling really tired and overwhelmed. I must really like feeling this way because if I didn’t, I would do something about it, and maybe get more sleep, go outside and get some fresh air, or even begin to implement a plan to cope with it. So, it must be useful to me in some way and I might as well spend the next 10 minutes enjoying it.

And I did spend about 10 minutes wallowing in the feeling, and then I actually got up and went outside and got some fresh air. Amazingly, it felt really good and helped a lot.

I didn’t want to forget this little exercise, and I thought it might be helpful if I had some little booklets all made up in advance. This video shows how to make little emoji booklets out of one sheet of paper with no glue… I’m going to make several when I finish with this post.

You will end up with 8 little pages. Some of the pages are doubled or even tripled, which bothered me a little bit, and I solved it by cutting the bottom edges of the bulkiest ones and then using scotch tape to bind up the middle parts where the booklet kind of separated.

My method gave me enough pages to do it like this:

  1. I am feeling:
  2. (leave blank to write on)
  3. I must really like
  4. Feeling like this
  5. Because
  6. If I didn’t
  7. I would:
  8. (leave blank to write on)
  9. and/or:
  10. (leave blank to write on)
  11. So it must be useful to me
  12. And I might as well
  13. Spend ______ minutes
  14. Enjoying it.

If you love your little booklets and want them to be really cute, you could use washi tape to secure the middles and around the sides. The double sided ones could even be left open at the top or on the side to give you a little pocket for… I dunno what… but something fun?

This has the added bonus of being wonderfully distracting! I love arts and crafts solutions to emotional issues. Plus you can take one or two of them with you in case you need to use it at work… when waiting for an appointment… or while visiting relatives.

  • Blow It Off

Here’s another fun idea. It looks really really easy, and doesn’t require a lot of materials. Plus you have the added bonus of simply using a regular box of tissues and decorating it (if you want to). My vision for this is to pull out a tissue and blow your angst, anxiety, issues… whatever it is that’s bothering you… into it. Really get it all blown out of your head and into the tissue.

And then flush the tissue with a wave good-by and a squirt of room sanitizer, a spritzer of aromatherapy fragrance… whatever you have that you think will clear the room. Some days it might take several tissues to get it all out. Other days, you might not even need it.

There are a lot of tutorials online about how to make these. You can also buy them ready made on Etsy. Or you can keep it simple and just decorate a box of tissues.

If you want to make one out of a jar, it’s pretty easy:

Start with a mason jar, take the lid off and decorate the jar with paint, fabric, or whatever you like. The round middle part of the lid can be replaced with either felt or cardboard. Or even the top of the tissue box if the opening is small enough. Simply use the middle lid to cut  the right size circle from the felt or cardboard. Make an opening to pull the tissues through. Decorate the top of the lid however you want, and voila!

Most of the tutorials call for a mason jar because the lid is easy to alter. You can use any wide mouth jar, even a plastic peanut butter jar, the only draw back is that the plastic lid will have to be cut for the tissues to pull through.

  • Put It On A Stick

This is a cute and fun little all purpose idea that requires either popsicle sticks or strips of colored cardstock. When I was a kid, my parents had a little set of bible verses on strips of cardstock that they kept in a container on the dining room table. Every morning we would pick one and read it aloud, and that would be our spiritual theme for the day.

This idea is similar. What you would do is spend some time making the different bits for it. It can be approached as a work in progress. When you find yourself spiraling down the rabbit hole, you could pull this out and add to it. If you’re already too far gone, you can pull something out of your jar and maybe it will help.

This would also make for a great group project. Get everyone in the family involved on a lazy Sunday afternoon, or get together with friends and help each other think of stuff to write down.

I find that the simple process of making something like this acts as a huge mood booster. It’s wonderfully distracting, feels productive and useful, and if you give it something cute to live in, you can keep it out and have it ready for those times when you really might need it.

  • Count Your Blessings

This can take any form. You can think about and list your good qualities and loveable attributes. You can list all the things that you have that make your life easier and more comfortable. You can use it as a gratitude journal, box, jar…

Alternatively, if this sort of thing works for you, you can fill your container or your book with affirmations, uplifting thoughts, and positive images.

I like the idea of using a bottle or a box over a journal simply because I have so many unfinished journals. However, I have been exploring Junk Journal making. It’s a really ambitious and complicated idea, but maybe i will make more than one. If I do, it might be fun to create a blessing / gratitude / positive thoughts journal. I’m really intrigued with the idea of a tiny one. Here’s a link to one of the tutorials that got me inspired.

Heading Out

The fourth of our Five Simple Things , ” Every time you use keys, visualize they are unlocking opportunities to get you closer to your dreams.” has been difficult for me in that I rarely lock anything other than my car, and these days I’m not actually driving to very many places. So, I did think of a number of different ideas related to locks and doors.

  • See every open door as a new opportunity.
  • When you walk out the door, open your mind to new ideas.
  • Every time you walk into a room, imagine that you are walking into the best thing ever.
  • When you walk out the door, open yourself up to new opportunities.
  • When opening a jar think about opening up to new ideas, experiences, and knowledge.
  • When opening a door, think about moving forward with your goals, ideas, and/or life.
  • Every time you walk out of a door, imagine that you are walking into a grand adventure.
  • When you pick up your keys, know that within you is the key to happiness.

As you can see, I also made some stickers. Which was a lot of fun. And in the process of making them, I ended up with “Every time you walk into a door, imagine you are walking into a grand adventure, or even something wonderful.” LOL…

And then I realized that this is actually a really good idea!

We’ve all had the experience of hitting a wall… or running into a doorway that we thought would be open to us, but instead it is not… I have had this happen to me a lot!

And I thought, what if, instead of thinking it as a setback or a road block, I saw it as a grand adventure… as something wonderful? How different would my life be? And what are my current blocks? What walls have I walked into recently? And how does it feel to think of them as wonderful or grand or an adventure?

What about you? What is your grand adventure?

Make An AND String!

A lot of people have a lot of conflicts because there are a lot of “ORs” in their lives. Either I can be successful, OR I can find love. I’m sure you have your own ORs that cause hassle – for no good reason, at that!

Today’s exercise is to make a string of ANDs – just keep on going by adding AND to what you’ve said until the 60 seconds is up.

I’ll get us started:

I’m going to be RICH … AND … healthy … AND … I’m having fun doing what it takes … AND … it’s going to pay off big time … AND … it’s going to be easy … AND …

Don’t stop, keep on going for the FULL 60 seconds – AND … enjoy!

From:

“I like Money and Money Likes Me”

I’ve noticed that many people who aren’t as wealthy yet as they would like to be have a very ambivalent attitude towards money.

Imagine money was a person, and you’d be constantly thinking how evil they were or how they would lead to your downfall, how they might rob you of love and honesty and all of that, EVEN whilst you’re pretending to be nice and wanting to be their friend!

EEEOWH!

So today, let’s put aside all the old fairy tales, forget all of that nonsense and we’ll simply say:

I like money,
Money likes me,
That’s the way
It’s s’posed to be!

Three times is the trick, and if you can clap along and tap your feet, your whole body becomes involved in learning, and in remembering.

From:

A Simple Blessing

23 is a special number.

Today, you don’t have to do anything at all because today, I will just simply send you a blessing.

I might not know who you are, And I might never meet you, But I know that you come from the Creative Order, And that YOU are endowed with EVERYTHING it takes To be successful and HAPPY in this life.

I wish YOU from the very bottom of my heart, And with all I have to give, That your best dreams WILL come true for you;

That you WILL find that which you are seeking, And that what life will bring for you, Should be even better still than that, and hold along the way, many wonderful surprises.

So shall it be!

From:

Count Your Blessings

Today, we’ll have something easy and very pleasant.

Simply think of ten things that you are blessed with, right here, right now.

This may be as simple as “my eyesight” or “a computer on which I can read my email”, or as profound as “my soul” or “a bright new morning full of wonders still to come”, it doesn’t really matter.

Just count your blessings, one for each finger of your hands!

Take a deep breath between each one and … enjoy!

From:

The Last 24 Hours

Time management usually wants us to look forward and decide before it has happened, what we’ll be doing.

This usually leads to a lot of failure and disappointment, because real life doesn’t work like a “master plan” – there’s always something to derail the best laid plans and the best intentions.

So for today’s 60 seconds wealth booster, I want you to think of something you did yesterday, that was important and you’re glad you did it, because it moved your life ON in the right direction.

Remember what that was, and why it was important, and use THAT to help you focus your mind on what you should be concentrating on for maximum effect.

From:

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