January 31, 2022 in Blog by Dee

The Power of Vision Boards

By: Jessica Sepel

A vision board is a simple yet powerful visualization tool that manifests your dreams into reality by activating the Law of Attraction… And it really works!

Oprah Winfrey and many other highly successful people have used this technique for generations. It consists of a poster or foam board of cut-out pictures, drawings and phrases of the things that you want in your life, or the things that you want to become.

Some examples include: pictures of places you would like to travel, your favorite car, dream lover, your dream body, your business goals, inspirational quotes, pictures of friends and family… really anything that you love and you are grateful for.

The idea behind this is that when you surround yourself with positive images of who you want to become, what you want to have, where you want to live and the things you are grateful for, your life changes to match those images and those desires. The law of attraction in essence! When we express gratitude, we bring more into our lives to be thankful for. Although it may seem otherwise at times, we all have many things to be grateful for. If you are reading this blog, then you can be grateful for your eyesight and for being able to read!

I made a vision board about two years ago (image above). I placed phrases and pictures of things I wanted to achieve onto a black board. I kept it on my desk; so every day when I walked through my room I would glance at my goals and dreams. Now looking at it two years later, I can truly tell you that 80 or 90 percent of the things I placed on the board have become my reality. And a very happy reality, too!

Supplies needed:
Scissors
Assortment of Magazines/Websites (Pinterest/Tumblr)
A piece of cardboard (as big as you like)
Glue

Method:
Start cutting out images and phrases of the things you love and want to see in your future onto the cardboard in any way, shape or form. You can be as creative as you desire. This is your personal masterpiece! And then, place it in a position where you will be able to view it regularly.

January 30, 2022 in Blog by Dee

Journal Writing Is Good Therapy

By: AdChoices

Effective journal writing captures the essence of your thoughts, provides reflection, allows for creativity, sharper memories, good therapy, self examination, and spiritual direction for a more complete person.

Journal writing is a powerful tool for therapy, an excellent method for self examination and reflection especially for spiritual direction or development of self esteem and better self image. Journal writing allows for sharper clearer memories and diaries, but allows for more than reflections or recording daily memories, it allows for a new sense of direction and purpose. While diary writing can be equally important and can be a part of journal writing per se, there are other exercises that can be used with journals that can be very enriching. Looking at journal writing from three different perpectives, the diary method, the reality therapy method and the spiritual direction method, all illustrating effective means of writing different types of journals or integrating styles to have a more complete and complex journal.

Most people are more familiar with the idea of keeping a journal in the form of a diary. The basic daily entry, with an internal dialogue with oneself or record of daily happenings or important thoughts. Sometimes the individual addresses themselves or the classic “dear diary” directly reflecting on the days events. This is a good way of recording memories similar to a photo album but one painted with words. It allows for sharper memories, but also records important details. It can be important because there may be some dispute about the actual details of an incident and this can be useful to clear up what actually happened. Written records are better than personal recollection. In fact in the court systems diaries and journals can be considered admissable in a court as evidence. Many a secretaries journal has saved a company money based on their record of a business event later disputed in court, acting as a form of receipt and evidence. Writing information down provides a clear means to express your emotions, vent on paper and examine your feelings. A good form of therapy in and of itself, one recommended for victims, although it is usually done in the form of letters to the victimizer and the letter is usually destroyed as part of the method of ridding oneself of negative emotions.

Reality therapy goes quite well with journaling in that it provides a daily record for you to track goals and accomplishments, as well as take a real look at what you are doing in life. Reality therapy asks four basic questions.

1. What do you want to do (stated goal)?
2. What did you do today about it?
3. What stopped you from accomplishing your goal?
4. What are you going to do about it now?

By tracking your goals and objectives and asking yourself reality based questions you can not only see what some of your stumbling blocks are in life but also try to work out problem solving strategies, and solutions. You can look at your behavior and determine if you keep putting yourself in the same situations and if so why? You can start to move forward instead of being doomed to repeat failures or mistakes. Reality therapy allows you to do a reality check daily and move forward in your personal growth.

Pastoral counseling and spiritual direction are also forms of therapy that use journal writing to encourage the individual towards personal and spiritual growth. An excellent example is choosing key writings or thoughts and centering a journal and questions around them for self examination. For example, the Christian scripture of the Prodigal Son is a favorite passage used by spiritual directors for growth. In the classis story the wastrel son spends all his money and inheritance in parties and then returns home poor only to be accepted by his father with open love and complete unconditional acceptance. The father orders a feast with the fatted calf to be slain and so much more. The journal writing explores daily his or her feelings on the idea of being able to return to the love of God or the Divine, with unconditional forgiveness, encouraging a new beginning and reminding all of us that we can make new beginnings. Writing journal entries on this kind of subject or any book of wisdom or holy book can be very important for self examination and growth.

In the final analysis putting down daily thoughts, studying important writings, applying reality therapy and working towards goals and personal growth and spirituality are all important and effective ways that journal writing can act as good therapy. It goes far beyond this in stirring our own creativity. It goes towards an old idea that living the unexamined life may not be living life at all but living in a sleep of being half alive. It is far better to be aware and growing. Effective journal writing is one tool that can broaden everyones horizons.

January 30, 2022 in Blog by Dee

10 Natural Ways to Stop Feeling Depressed

By John Wesley

•Life is a drag.
•What’s the point of anything?
•I’ll never be happy.

Do any of these gloomy thoughts sound familiar? It’s likely they do. The occasional case of the blues is perfectly normal, but that doesn’t make dealing with it any easier. If you allow them to, negative thoughts can fester and lead to serious depression. That’s why it’s important to take action early to bust yourself out of a slump.

While these suggestions won’t eliminate your problems, they can help you break a negative thought pattern and stop feeling depressed. If you think you might have a serious mental health problem, don’t hesitate to see a medical professional.

1. Understand the emotional cycle – Life is an emotional roller coaster. Some days you feel like nothing can stop you. Other days you feel utterly hopeless. Most of the time you’re somewhere in between. Understanding the pattern of positive and negative emotions will help you put your feelings in perspective. Next time you feel down, just remember that it’s a natural emotion that will inevitably pass. Knowing that a feeling of depression is only temporary makes it less dreadful.

2. Spend time with positive people – Nothing affects the way you think and feel more than the people you interact with. Thoughts (both positive and negative) are contagious. If you are surrounded by negative people, it’s only natural that you’ll start to think and feel the same way. To improve your outlook on life, spend time with positive people. Search them out and try to understand the way they see the world. Chances are their happiness will rub off.

3. Reflect on past success – In the wake of a colossal failure, it’s easy to forget everything you’ve ever done right. Take a few minutes to remember your past accomplishments and build yourself up. What made you successful before? What are your strengths? Frequently, this exercise will build self confidence, help you figure out what went wrong, and generate ideas for success in the future.

4. Focus on gratitude – It’s human nature to measure ourselves against those ahead of us on the social ladder. Studies have shown that people care more about being richer than their friends than actually making more money. When you consider everything good in your life and compare it to the problems of less fortunate people, the issue that’s making you depressed won’t seem as serious.

5. Change of scenery – One of the best ways to change the way you feel is to change your environment. When you get in a slump, you start to associate your problems with everything around you. It can get to the point where your environment is a constant reminder of your problems. This can be a dangerous cycle. The solution is to change things. Change doesn’t have to be radical. Cleaning up, adding more lights, or including pleasant decorations can completely change the mood of a room.

6. Break your routine – Going through the same routine, day after day, can be monotonous and depressing. It often leads to getting caught in a rut. To get out of it you need to temporarily change your routine. If you can, take a day off from work. Do something you don’t normally have time for or something you’ve never tried. In the long run, taking a day off every now and then to get out of slump will make you happier and more productive.

7. Interact with animals and nature – It’s funny when you consider how humans put so much importance on their own tiny problems. Animals don’t think this way. A little bird doesn’t mope around because it isn’t an eagle or because another bird beat it to a tasty seed. Animals live in the present moment and they show love unconditionally. Observing and interacting with them will help you get over your problems.

8. Get moving – As Johnny Cash famously suggested, “Get a rhythm, when you get the blues.” Moving to a beat makes everyone feel better. The same is true for movement in general. Hitting the gym or going for a walk will help you shed the lethargy that comes with feeling depressed. The more enthusiastic your moments, the better you will start to feel.

9. Think about the big picture – As Carl Sagan made evident with the Pale Blue Dot, we’re insignificant creatures living in a vast universe on a tiny planet. In the long run, everything we do will probably be forgotten. Some might find this depressing, but it shouldn’t be. It means that all our problems are illusory. In a million years no one will remember what you did or didn’t do. What matters is the present moment and enjoying every second of life that we’re blessed with.

10. Do something to help yourself – Above all, the best way to stop feeling depressed is to take action. What is your biggest problem? How can you alleviate it? Once you decide to stop moping and start moving forward you won’t have time to feel depressed. Action will occupy your mind and give you something to look forward to. Once you get some results, you’ll build momentum and positive thinking will keep getting easier.