How To Boost Your Brainpower

The brain is more powerful than any computer. We use less than 10% of our capacity which is why someone once said that the graveyard is the richest place - in it lie all the people who had great potential they never really realised. Here are some tips to boost your brainpower:

1) FOOD FOR THOUGHT

A rather picky eater, the brain demands about 60g of glucose every hour. Primarily obtained from recently eaten carbohydrates only in extreme instances of deprivation will the brain use other substances for fuel. For ideal brain function you need to make sure a constant supply of energy to the brain by eating small but more frequent nutritious meals. According to a study by University of Wisconsin, the brain may actually react to excess food as if it were poison! The resulting immune response may cause cognitive deficits.

TIP# Avoid sodas, fizzy drinks and junk foods. Foods that release glucose slowly (eg. Fruits, vegetables & whole grains) give a steady supply of glucose to the brain. Think berries and oily fish these are high in anti-oxidants, walnuts and flax-seeds these are high in Omega-3 fatty acids, both crucial for brain health. Fish also have iodine, which improves mental clarity.

2) SUPPLEMENTS

A lot of us often neglect our diet, leading to deficiencies in vitamins and minerals. B vitamins play the role of brain chemicals formation such as dopamine, epinephrine, myelin and serotonin each of which plays a role in keeping your brain alert and healthy. Dopamine and serotonin help improve your mood.

Magnesium protects the brain from neurotoxins.Vitamin C and E are crucial anti-oxidants that can intercept free radicals before they affect the brain.An important supplement to consider is ganoderma lucidum, a mushroom extract which has a plethora of health benefits including speeding up metabolism, acting as anti-oxidant, enhancing the immune system and improving brain function.

TIP# Consult your doctor before taking any supplements as some may interfere with absorption of medication you might be taking.

3) PHYSICAL EXERCISE

Fact: Exercise helps boost blood flow to the brain, which in turn helps support the efficient working of neurons and regeneration of new ones. Regular exercise increases the size of the hippocampus (yes hippocampus - the part of the brain which plays an important role in learning and memory). All this translates into improved memory, concentration, body-mind co-ordination and lowered risk of degenerative brain diseases.

TIP# Hit the gym, or try 50 minutes of brisk walking three times a week.

4) MENTAL EXERCISE

We a living in a world with a plethora of gadgets to help us with the simplest and most complex of mental tasks, making our brains lazy. The brain slows down because it is not exercised as often as it could be.

TIP# Challege your brain by using your left hand if you normally use your right, multi-tasking, juggling and playing strategy games. Even keeping up with political shenanigans can boost your brainpower!

5) GIVE IT A REST

The brain can do it's reviewing faster when you are asleep than when you are awake.

TIP# Get 7 hours of sleep daily ( a luxury to most of us). Consider taking a nap during the day. A nap can help solidify long-term memories, such as events or skills you are trying to master. Slow down on alcohol have at least three alcohol-free nights a week.

Keep taking your multivitamin supplements to ensure that your body is getting all the nutrients it requires. If your mood needs an extra boost, try Pure Matters® Enliven with 5-HTP, which supports relaxation, concentration, and a positive mood target.

9 Foods to Make Me Smarter. squeezie-reviews.com/9-foods-to-make-you-smarter/. Providing useful self development and improvement articles, hynotherapy and counselling writings and other mind help resources online.

The Dream Incubation Experiment

My purpose in researching, writing about and investigating dreams is to help you to become aware of and appreciate the power of your dreams, and to provide you with information on how to use those dreams in a variety of useful ways. I want to inspire you to move from perhaps being an unconscious dreamer to where you're using your dreams for intentional foresight that will lead to personal, psychological and spiritual growth and evolution.

The solution to perplexing and sometimes frustrating problems, as well as everyday solutions to mundane issues, can reliably be resolved in the dreaming mind. Historical records bear witness to humanity's attempts to seek (and receive) guidance, wisdom and solutions through their dreams.

The ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, Indigenous cultures, and many, many more have dedicated sacred sites, writings and resources to the study and incubation of healing, problem solving, creative and guidance dreams. Even in modern times, dreams have helped solve problems in science, politics, literature, religion and almost every other industry, segment or part of society, as well as with everyday concerns such as health, finance, relationships and so forth.

Inventions as varied as Elias Howe's sewing machine needle-where he dreamt the solution to the problem with the needle to be the placement of the hole at the pointed end-- and J. B. Parkinson's computer-controlled antiaircraft gun, were conceived in dreams. Scholar Herman Hilprecht reported that he dreamt that an Assyrian priest revealed the accurate translation of the stone of Nebuchadnezzar.

Problem Solving

The most common use of dream incubation is to request a solution to a current or continuing problem in your work or home life. These may be along the lines of whether to ask for a raise or make a career change; whether to have a baby or marry your current beau; If now is the right time to take the plunge and buy that little house, or move to another part of the country.

Several research studies have examined different aspects of problem solving and dreams. Wile, in 1934, addressed the incubation issue when he measured how long it took children to self-induce a dream on a desired topic. In 1974, Dement tested 500 undergraduate students by giving them three "brain-teaser" problems to solve while they slept. Morton Schatzman, in the 1980s repeated the Dement experiment, giving brain-teasers to huge numbers of people in England via the mass media.

Dr. Deirdre Barrett, of the Harvard Medical School, Behavioral Medicine Program, conducted a study of dream incubation for problem solving. However, unlike the researchers before her, she explored how subjects would do if they could solve problems of their own choice, rather than predetermined puzzles or problems.

One of the more interesting results of the Barrett study revealed that a solution was usually arrived at by the start of the dream. It didn't appear that the problem was being struggled with throughout the experience. However, in some instances, the solution was presented through subtle hints which built toward more obvious ones until the conscious mind finally "got the message."

Inventive and Scientific Solutions

Inventors, by nature are dreamers; sometimes in a very literal sense. Nikola Tesla, famous inventor of the high-voltage transformer (Tesla coil), for example, often perceived his inventions in dreams and in dream-like mental visions. Tesla reported that he "saw" his inventions as if they were real on the screen of his mind's eye. He claimed that the power of his imagery was such that he could do "experiments in his mind."

Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz was the great chemist who revolutionized the study of chemistry with the discovery of the Benzene molecule. In a dream he was shown an image of a snake biting its own tail and realized that the molecule was a "closed chain."

In 1922, Niels Bohr received the Nobel Prize in physics due to a dream that enlightened him. He was trying to figure out what the structure of an atom was. One evening he fell asleep and in his dreams he saw the nucleus of the atom, with the electrons spinning around it, just like our solar system with the sun and planets. He knew immediately that this was the solution to his problem. Further testing and experiments proved it to be true.

Creative Solutions

Dreams can provide creative insights and solutions as well as practical and mundane ones.

Mary Shelley, who in the company of her famous husband Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and others had been reading aloud a collection of ghost stories, became part of a plan, suggested by Lord Byron, that they all write ghost stories of their own.

According to Mary Shelley's journal of April 1817, after listening to a long conversation between Byron and Shelley on the speculation that, "Perhaps a corpse would be reanimated," she retired to her bed well where, stimulated by the evening's conversation, was unable to sleep. When finally she did fall into blissful slumber her "imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie," she wrote, and thus Frankenstein was born.

Robert Louis Stevenson was influenced by his dreams. He wrote an essay in which he called his dream helpers "the Brownies. Whenever he was stuck for a character, plot or story he'd make a request of his "Brownies" and in the morning he'd have what he needed.

Edgar Allen Poe's personal favourite work was The Lady Ligeia. He was particularly captivated by her eyes, which had met his in a dream. Her eyes were "far larger than the ordinary eyes of our race. They were even fuller than the fullest of the gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley of the Nourjahad."

Healing Solutions

Like Edgar Cayce, though perhaps not to the same degree, we can all request health related information, advice and even diagnoses. In 2004, I was suffering with terrible headaches daily. I had visited the doctor but, after a cursory examination, he informed me that there was "nothing wrong." Frustrated with his evaluation and flippant attitude, I decided to diagnose the problem myself... with the help of my dreaming mind. The dream I received that night told me that my diet and my anger with a situation in my life at that time were the cause. A change in eating habits and attitude alleviated the headaches.

The Power Of The Mind

Anyone who's experienced a creative breakthrough or insight through their dreams knows that the dreaming mind has a power we don't experience while awake. This power is unfettered by time, space, or self-imposed limitations. It reaches into the endless, boundless and eternal universe of unmanifest potential, where unlimited ideas, inspirations and imaginings lay in wait.

When you incubate or request, a resolution, solution or guidance dream, your sub/unconscious and superconscious mind work in unison to bring you the best solution for you at the present time. In some instances you may have been thinking about a particularly troubling problem for days, weeks or even months, but hadn't been able to resolve the issue. Then, out of the blue, you have a dream that makes everything crystal clear. At other times, you might not have consciously been focused on any particular problem, but you have a dream that provides you with a big "fix" for your life in general. It may be that the issue was smouldering in the back of your mind for quite a while and your dreaming mind finally brought it to the forefront for you to deal with.

Incubation Method

There are tons of resources on how to incubate or request a specific dream. What I'm sharing here is my own personal method. Feel free to adjust it to your liking.

The most important part of dream incubation is setting an intention. The more clearly your intention is articulated, thought or written, the more likely it is that you'll dream the answer to your question, problem or issue.

Clearly define the issue in your conscious mind first. What do you want your dreams to work on? Are you seeking the answer to a technical question or a career decision? Are you inquiring into a health or physical concern? Are you debating a relationship issue? By clearly understanding the problem or concern, you'll better understand the solution given.

If you usually keep a dream journal, write out your question or query on a new page. If you don't have a dream journal, any piece of paper will do. If you can draw an image, add a photograph, sketch the problem, add the additional information.

Once you settle into bed for the night, start thinking about the issue you want your dreams to work on. Repeat the question or statement you wrote out, over and over while you drift off to sleep.

That's all there is to it. You may not get an answer, solution or response the first time you try dream incubation. If this is the case, don't be disheartened. If you keep with it, you will get the answers you need. The most common reason new dreamworkers feel that their efforts yield no results is that they don't recognize that the dream or dreams they receive relate to the problem at hand (or each other). However, what I've found is that once I begin investigating the dream story, I'm surprised to discover how much they do in fact relate to my concerns and that they do indeed offer practical and sound solutions.

Like any new skill, dream incubation takes a little bit of practice and some patients. Once you begin using your dreams to explore and resolve issues, problems and concerns, you'll discover how invaluable the information they offer really is and you'll wonder why you didn't start requesting guidance sooner.

The Experiment

The point of this entire article is to provide the background and reason for an experiment I'm conducting, and to invite you to take part in the research. From October 31, 2012 to December 31, 2012 I'll be requesting information from my dreams on a variety of topics. I will also be attempting to incubate information for others as well.

Every day (or once I receive an answer/response to a dream query) I'll post the pre-dream request or question on the blog at: http://terrygillisdreamanalyst.ca/blog/. I'll then post the dream I receive. If you would like to participate, either by incubating your own questions/queries or by requesting that I incubate an issue for you, post your question or incubation and dream on the blog.

At the end of the eight weeks, I'll write up a report and article on the experiment and our results.

Terry Gillis is a dream investigator, researcher and author and would like to invite you to participate in her ongoing research and become a part of the growing dream community by posting your dreams on her blog.

Providing useful self development and improvement articles, hynotherapy and counselling writings and other mind help resources online.

Emotional Triggers, the Power of Anticipation

I have never gone to a party or gathering with the intentions to be tagged as the funk of the night. Instead I looked forward to getting out of work mode and into the mode of joy. Preparing to meet and greet happy people, who just want to let their hair down, relax and be totally beautiful, is an inspiring and exciting opportunity. Similarly during holiday season's it is a fact that people who get in the spirit of being jolly usually land there.

Can we learn from the magic of the high note? Have you ever noticed how people are naturally happier during the festive seasons? I have, in fact it is accurate to say that outside of the holiday season most people, that would normally pass you by without saying a word, suddenly adopt the gift of greetings. More people carry on with new pep in their step, in a blissful spirit uttering some of the following warm wishes;

- Happy thanksgiving

- Merry Christmas

- Season's Greetings

- Happy New Year

- Happy Valentine's Day

- Happy Easter

- Happy Independence day, labor day etc...

On a normal day outside of the holidays a simple good morning or hello might be like pulling teeth for many, for whatever reason. Perhaps people who need people are becoming afraid of people and of each other. Could fear be driving such blah? Could the excitement of unity and celebration be so stimulating that it gives immunity from such apprehension on any given day? If you pay attention you will note that the power of anticipation and excitement peaks joy.

Why? This rings true because of the magnificent ingenuity of you. Your body is designed to respond to emotion. Emotions either negatively or positively impact our mind, body and spirit. The State of Euphoria is good for the soul because people are in the mode of anticipation. Joy is naturally motivated by the likelihood of gain, which is exciting. It feels good to get rewards and recognition, promotion, being the top choice and winning. On the physical side the body is producing higher levels of those happy chemicals called serotonin.

Serotonin and dopamine are released in the brain when we increase activity and experience excitement that drives our adrenalin up. When we are stimulated we are also motivated. Motivation leads to more energy which leads to better attitudes and greater productivity, which leads to favorable conditions around us. When we are able to live and operate in favorable conditions we are happier, healthier and more likely to become masters of living within the magic of the high note.

There are countless benefits behind the scenes of life's high notes or more specifically, your ability to maintain happiness throughout the year. When you are happy serotonin is plenteous and affects your system in functioning optimally by;

- Regulating sleeping and awake cycles

- Stabilizing a healthy mood

- Increasing your libido

- Establishing a healthy appetite

- Ward's of depression

You can help your body out with increasing the production of this happy juice by

- Exercising, Getting 8 hours of sleep and Eating Healthy

- Through Temperance, Prayer and Meditation

- Hydrating, Getting Fresh Air and Sun Light

- Organizing and keeping clean surroundings

- Decking your walls (your body, mind, spirit and surroundings)

Knowing all of this, it would only make sense to take note of how internal and external stimulants positively influence our moods. Healthy moods lead to healthy living. Why not live in happy mode more often? You can leverage the magic of anticipation in your daily life by supporting your mind body and spirit with what it needs. The payoff will be mountainous!

Sonya R. Ward is the founder of Harmony Success Solutions an online coaching & development practicum designed to empower and serve individuals, groups, organizations and communities.

In addition, Sonya heads up various development groups such as VOW: Voice on Words & Branding Your Brilliance. Sonya is a well-received voice of inspiration and empowerment to her audience. Sonya is a prolific speaker, writer and author. She is a content coach, book coach and ghost writer.

Sonya can be found in the following ways; sonyaward.com. harmonysuccess.com. email: leap.empowerment[at]gmail.com.

Providing useful self development and improvement articles, hynotherapy and counselling writings and other mind help resources online.

The Confessions of A Dream Expert and The Fight Between God and Satan

When we translate the meaning of dreams according to Carl Jung's method of dream interpretation we understand God's words in the dream images. I managed to understand the meaning of dreams better than Jung because I was a literature writer.

I will explain why a literature writer was the ideal person to continue a psychiatrist's research. I will also help you understand your reality with my story. You'll understand the relationship existent between the meaning of dreams and your mental health. You'll also understand the meaning of the fight between God and Satan.

Since Carl Jung discovered that our dreams are produced by God, and since I discovered God's sanctity, I had to obey God's guidance. I had to remember the religious lessons I had during my childhood and my adolescence.

I studied in a Catholic school during twelve years. I had learned my religious lessons very well because I paid attention to this topic. However, I became an atheist after suffering from a tragic car accident when I was 15-years-old, while still studying in the same school.

My atheism helped me understand the importance of God's existence when I recovered my faith. It also helped me understand what kind of enemies I would have to face when I would have to prove God's existence to the world.

My religious education played an important role during my entire research, especially when I had to fight absurdity, while keeping my conscience alive. I had to pass through atheism in order to really believe in God after discovering scientific proof of His existence.

When I became a revolted atheist, I started criticizing my religion with the same arrogant spirit that characterizes all atheists. My atheism lasted six years. After this period of time I started believing again in the possibility of God's existence because I understood that I was ignorant.

However, the fact that I admitted the possibility of God's existence didn't mean that I had faith. I recuperated my faith only when I became a dream expert (in 1988) and I translated the symbolic meaning of the book I had written after suffering from the tragic car accident when I was a teen.

I stopped being an atheist when I finished writing this literary book, which was inspired by the unconscious mind that produces our dreams and gives us artistic talents. God was guiding me during the six years of atheism that marked my life only thanks to my literary talent, since I abandoned my religion.

I gradually discovered the truth about my destiny, after studying various scientific subjects, after becoming a dream expert, and after understanding the symbolic meaning of my literary work, which contained numerous dream symbols. I saw that I was a prophet.

The book I had written with my own hands during six years was in fact written by the unconscious mind. I was not the real author.

After the tragic accident I became an aggressive atheist, but my arrogance disappeared with time. As I kept writing the strange philosophical romance inspired by the unconscious mind, I understood that there were many complications that I was not taking into consideration when I was judging God's decision.

I ignored the real reasons why someone had to die. I also ignored how the world functions. I was so ignorant that I couldn't criticize anything.

After translating the symbolic meaning of the dream images contained in the strange romance I had written after the car accident, I understood that I was absurd. This book was trying to open my eyes.

I verified that God didn't abandon me, even though I had abandoned Him. I recovered my faith, ashamed of everything I had said and written when I was an aggressive atheist.

I understood the meaning of the car accident in my life. I found many answers.

God told me that I was receiving grace because I wrote a literary book with the intention to put an end to poverty and violence.

Receiving divine grace? I felt so important! I couldn't believe this was really real. I felt proud of myself because I had written this literary book, even though it was in fact inspired by the divine unconscious mind.

I thanked God because he saved me thanks to my literary talent. Then, I asked Him if I could do anything to help Him somehow. He was always very serious and sad.

God told me that He couldn't save me with the information He gave me in my literary work. I had to pass through psychotherapy.

He also told me that yes; I could do something to help Him. I had to be crucified in His place, and imitate Jesus' example. I had to attain sanctity in order to face craziness like a hero, and prove His existence to the world.

What?

I hated my position. I didn't want to prove God's existence to the atheistic world.

Nobody would believe me. I hated my mission.

I obeyed the divine unconscious mind against my will only because I recognized my ignorance, my absurdity, and my evilness.

However, I felt that God was like a blackmailer. He managed to imprison me into a deep trap. First of all, He showed me that I was totally absurd and I needed psychotherapy. Then, He told me that the only solution to my problem was to obey his guidance and attain sanctity.

I didn't want to have the behavior of a saint. I had never had such intention.

God told me this was indispensable. I had to agree with His plan and stop complaining. Otherwise, I had to bear His punishments.

He sent me many diseases and pains. He treated me as if I was a monster.

God was right. I really was mean, cruel, indifferent, and absurd. My heart was frozen. I had no doubt that I had to obey His guidance if I wanted to escape craziness, terror, and despair.

Thanks to my obedience (always against my will) I could discover the existence of the anti-conscience; our wild and primitive conscience. The biggest part of our brain belongs to our anti-conscience, which has satanic characteristics. This is why we are absurd, violent, and idiotic. Our anti-conscience is Satan.

I didn't want to be the one who would have to prove this bitter truth to the world, and also prove that God produces our dreams in order to save our sanity.

It was already more than too difficult to attain sanctity, or fight craziness. I didn't believe I would ever be able to attain sanctity. I was an impatient dictator like my father. The process of transformation I had to pass through would never end.

I hated my existence. All the joy I felt because I could discover so much after better understanding the dream language became a nightmare.

I hated God, I hated the Universe, and I hated the human race. I hated my destiny. I hated everything.

Why me?

After calming down, I concluded that I really had to make my decisions based on the knowledge I had acquired after continuing Carl Jung's research. I couldn't ignore my absurdity and my dependence on a safe psychotherapy.

I knew I could trust the divine wisdom, but I couldn't trust human doctors. There was no second alternative for me.

I agreed with the fact that I had to transform my personality, but only in a theoretical level. I basically disagreed with God's method.

He demanded too much from me. I obeyed His guidance besides disagreeing with His plan only because I understood my position.

God gave me a heavy cross, telling me that I was a terrible demon. I had to pass through many crucifixions.

I had to learn how to be humble in order to escape schizophrenia. I had to prove to the world that only the obedience to God's guidance can save humanity from craziness and terror by fighting my anti-conscience and winning this battle.

I hated my existence.

I obeyed God's guidance against my will, writing many blasphemies in numerous notebooks.

God took advantage of my ignorance.

If I had to become a psychiatrist, why didn't I study psychiatry in a university?

Who would trust me?

I had many objections to this plan. However, God told me that I had to obey like a soldier, because there was no solution. My obedience was a miracle He was trying to make during billions of years without success. Only if a demon like me would accept suffering in His place in order to prove His existence to the atheistic world, would the world really believe in the truth.

I had to always remember that I needed psychotherapy because I was a terrible monster and stop complaining because this was my destiny. I would become schizophrenic like my father without the miraculous unconscious psychotherapy in my dreams.

I would be a cruel dictator and rule the world with my absurd ideas. God was giving me the chance to attain sanctity and find sound mental health only because He was sorry for my victims.

I was the worst demon existent on Earth. I would generate a third world war and kill all children. I would eliminate the human race with my evilness and absurdity. This is why God chose me for this difficult mission. This is why He was trying to convince me that I had to attain sanctity.

He was in fact trying to prevent a big catastrophe. I was extremely dangerous.

God gave me a great literary talent in order to help me keep my sensitivity somehow alive, even though I was so cruel.

I had the impression that I was a good person because I was very generous when I was a child. My goodness was admired by the nuns at my school and by everyone around me. However, this generosity was the result of all the luxury I had. I lived like a princess.

I had the impression that there was goodness in my heart, but this was not true. When I became a teen my powerful anti-conscience provoked the tragic car accident with the intention to take advantage of my suffering, and generate a neurosis within my conscience. This is why I became so aggressive and cruel.

My destiny couldn't be different. I had inherited too many absurd tendencies and I was too violent.

My literary talent was very important for many reasons. It worked like psychotherapy for me, and it helped me continue Carl Jung's research. I had to be a literature writer in order to understand the meaning of craziness and logic. The cure for all mental illnesses depends on the elimination of hypocrisy.

As a literature writer, I learned how to criticize the human behavior. After the accident I started using irony to express my thoughts, while before I used to merely play with words and beautiful rhymes.

I started writing always with the intention to say something important. I was transformed into an authentic philosopher who was searching the meaning of life.

I used to criticize the human absurdity even before the accident, but after this shocking experience, my criticism became arrogant and offensive. The car accident made me understand the meaning of terror and uncover the global hypocrisy.

The unconscious mind made me criticize the human behavior with irony in order to help me easily identify the signs of hypocrisy. I also learned very well the meaning of logical thinking because I was an excellent writer.

I belonged to the introverted psychological type based on thoughts. I had great facility on analyzing what was logic or illogical.

However, I discovered that the cure for all mental illnesses is based on the development of our sensitivity, and not on our cruel rationalism. God showed me that without sensitivity, there is no balance.

I had to learn how to uncover the false logic contained in all types of absurd thoughts, which initially seem to be logical. This way, I would be able to denounce the false logic of the anti-conscience and show to the world the difference existent between the anti-conscience's thoughts, and the thoughts of our human conscience.

The absurd thoughts sent by the anti-conscience to our human conscience seem to be reasonable. We cannot perceive their evil and absurd side from the beginning.

God prepared me to be able to understand the absurdity of the anti-conscience in its early stages.

My literary talent and the observation of my father's behavior helped me clearly understand the difference between perfect mental health and absurdity. After curing many people through dream therapy for two decades I learned how to put a definitive end to the anti-conscience's tyranny.

If I would study psychology and psychiatry in the universities of the ignorant world, I would only waste my time repeating the common mistakes of the human race.

God's plan was perfect.

However, I couldn't agree with His plan even after understanding its importance because this plan was based on my suffering.

God was always reminding me that I should be grateful because I had the chance to prevent schizophrenia and learn how to be wise.

Today I'm more than grateful for the psychotherapy of the divine unconscious mind. I'm also grateful because I can cure invincible mental illness based on the unconscious guidance in dreams.

Today I agree with God's plan because I saw that His plan is really brilliant.

However, when I had to bear being humiliated, condemned, and despised by everyone, I believed that God's plan was ridiculous.

Whenever I would mention what I had discovered after continuing Carl Jung's research, everyone would tell me that I was probably wrong and I didn't know what I was talking about.

Nobody respected my research and my studies.

Nobody would ever recognize the fact that I was a dream expert, and everything I had discovered. Nobody would ever pay attention to my existence. Nobody would even give me the chance to prove the value of my work.

Fortunately, even though I basically hated God's plan, I was extremely obedient. I understood that I was in danger. I knew that I could trust God's wisdom, but I had to be afraid of my dangerous ignorance.

Then, a big miracle happened.

The computer was invented!

The internet united all countries of the world.

The internet was especially created for me. It was the best way to transmit to the entire world the knowledge I had acquired after continuing Carl Jung's research, without depending on anyone's recognition.

However, who said that those who had top rankings would simply let my websites take their place?

I had numerous enemies. They tried to kill me from the beginning of my adventures as an online business owner.

Who sad that internet marketing was simple?

First of all, who sad that I remembered the English lessons I had when I was young?

I had to rewrite in English the scientific book I had written during 19 years in the complicated Greek language.

Who said that the world would believe that a simple woman like me could discover the cure for all mental illnesses after continuing Carl Jung's research?

Who said that the world cares about God's existence or about reading His words in their dreams?

The world keeps being ruled by atheism, materialism, violence, immorality, hypocrisy, and greed.

When will my work put and end to craziness and terror?

When will the world pay attention to the meaning of dreams?

I'm still trying to prove to the world that only Carl Jung managed to really decipher the mysterious meaning of the symbolic dream language. Nobody understands the difference existent between dream theories and real discoveries.

Christina Sponias continued Carl Jung's research into the human psyche, discovering the cure for all mental illnesses, and simplifying the scientific method of dream interpretation that teaches you how to exactly translate the meaning of your dreams, so that you can find health, wisdom and happiness. Learn more at: scientificdreaminterpretation.com.

Visit to download a Free Sample of the eBook Dream Interpretation as a Science (86 pages!). Providing useful self development and improvement articles, hynotherapy and counselling writings and other mind help resources online.

Family and Systemic Constellation Therapy

The Constellation process creates living models that disclose the deeper forces that can influence our thoughts, behaviors and emotional experiences.

Developed by Bert Hellinger, Constellations often disclose the hidden elements and dynamics behind suffering that results from grief, loss, tragedy and violence. Constellations can provide healing for self, family and ancestors. Constellations are used by psychotherapists, alternative healers, shamans and energy workers around the world.

Constellation Facilitators believe that each of us is surrounded by a "knowing field" that contains the unresolved issues or imbalances inherited from our families and ancestors as well as the wisdom to transform them.

Creating a living model of these deeper realities can give us the perspective to make new choices or follow unforeseen pathways.

Hellinger believes that each family (also tribe and nation) has a conscience at a deep level of the system. This conscience does not tolerate a member being excluded, shunned or forgotten. To correct this imbalance younger members of the family system are likely to identify with the missing family member.

This is often the source for "entanglements" with family and ancestors. Entanglements are defined as when one individual becomes entwined in the events of the past, thereby experiencing and feeling the fate of another as his/her own.

Constellations can be done in group workshops or in private sessions. In Family Constellation theory, psychological states, feelings, and physical illness are often seen as disturbances in the individual's family system. During the group process volunteers are asked to "represent" individuals from a family system.

While the individual watches the representatives move, speak and react to other representatives (with the help of the facilitator). Representative do not "act" the part. They are asked to allow what is present to emerge. Hidden connections, issues and confusions are revealed and explored. When representatives for the family system are finally in their correct position and excluded or unacknowledged elements are revealed and accepted, the energy of the system can begin to flow naturally.

The Family Constellation process creates an opportunity to move forward into our lives. It can support us in:

- Receiving the love of our parents and ancestors
- Being fully present to our resources and strengths
- Seeing how we can bring familial dynamics to our work environments
- Living our lives with dignity
- Releasing physical pain or illness

Private constellations may use wooden figures and/or visualization techniques to reveal family dynamics. The Facilitator may also take on one or more representations for the client.

Increasing, practitioners are calling this work "Systemic Constellations." This broader view of the work values the impact of the constellation process on many different types of systems large and small. Constellations can be done for trauma, illness, dreams and more. New ways of setting up constellations that are different from the classic setup are emerging as well.

Barry Krost facilitates Family & Systemic Constellations private session and groups in Chicago, IL, (including phone/skype sessions).

Learn more at Healing Family Constellations. Providing useful self development and improvement articles, hynotherapy and counselling writings and other mind help resources online.

Erasing Joint Pain: Energy Clearing

Wouldn't it be nice if you could take an eraser and rub out your pain?

Like a pencil mark on a paper, pain is very noticeable. But once you erase that mark, you can forget about it completely. It no longer grabs your attention. And when a pain goes away, we easily forget it was ever there.

But how can you erase a pain?

One way, which is probably the most popular one, is to mask the pain with drugs. But that does not really solve the problem.

Another, which is our subject here, is to remove the cause of the pain and then the pain must vanish.

The Cause of Joint Pain

In order to remove the cause of the pain, you must know the cause of the pain. And this is where it gets interesting!

You may think of the cause of your joint pain as an athletic injury or the repeated stress and microtrauma of sitting at a computer or standing for long hours. You may say you cannot undo the injury and you cannot go back and undo all your years of typing or working on your job. And you can't even stop now or you would lose your job. So how can you remove the cause of the pain?

The Hidden Cause

While you may not be able to stop or reverse the mechanical cause of your pain, there is another approach that can help. There is another cause of pain which usually goes undetected and unaddressed. It is a more subtle cause and so it requires a more subtle technique. But the results are often as dramatic as taking a painkiller.

This hidden cause of much of your pain is conflicted energy. Like static on a radio or a virus on a computer, energy conflict within a system causes that system to fail. It simply cannot function properly. But once you tune in that radio station or clean up those computer files, everything can go back to optimal functioning.

A Viable Alternative

There are many energy workers using a variety of techniques that can help you with your joint pain. They can open the way for true healing in your joints. Find someone who inspires confidence. You will probably do best when you work with someone with whom you resonate well. Once the dynamic life force flows through you in an unconflicted way, you may very well notice an instant diminishment of your pain. In time it can completely disappear. For some, this process is very fast. For others it can take an extended period of time.

Erasing the Pain

The joints of the body create the most exquisite movements of human expression. But when they hurt they can cause some of the most excruciating moments in your life.

When you seek out an energy worker to help you with your joints, you are not masking the pain. You are erasing the pain by correcting the cause. And when you're dancing again, you probably won't even remember the pain at all.

You can experience an energy clearing session first hand. Will it work for you? You now have an opportunity to find out. Get your Free Guest Pass to the next YOFA Energy Clearing Session at InnerAlignmentSessions.com. Providing quality counselling articles, hynotherapy writings and other mind help resources online.

Why Is It Important to Be Physically and Mentally Healthy?

Why is it important to be physically and mentally healthy? Why should people bother with exercising, dieting and making sure that both their bodies and their minds are in their most ideal states? There are many benefits to being healthy, and there are many reasons why people choose to ignore them. However, some facts are just too true and too serious to ignore.

Why Should You Be Physically Healthy?

• Reduce risks of diseases. There's no way this could be denied. People who are healthy have better chances of fighting off cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and, as some researchers suggest, even cancers. Numerous studies have found the link between physical activity and lowered risks for diseases to be quite strong. This is probably the best benefit that good health can provide.

• Weight control. Being healthy means that you might have better control when it comes to how much you weigh. Healthy people are, most of the times, disciplined people who have learned to say no to heaping second servings and to say yes to exercises even if it takes them hours. All of these and more are why is it important to be physically and mentally healthy.

• Improves balance and widens range of activities. As you age, you may feel that you are being limited about the things that you can do. The things that you might have done for hours when you were young, you may not even bear to do for a minute. Daily activities might tire you right away. Exercises and many other physical activities can not only help strengthen your muscles and bones, but can also improve balance and prevent falls.

Why Should You Be Mentally Healthy?

• Reduces stress. Stress, in moderated amounts, can be beneficial to health. Stress can give you energy, and makes you productive and more alert. However, stress in excess can be severely damaging. It can increase the risks of certain cardiovascular diseases, and can get in the way of the body's natural rate of metabolism, thus leading to weight gain. Stress has also been linked to absenteeism and accidents in the workplace. If it can be effectively managed, your chance of getting promoted also increases.

• Improves mood and overall quality of life. Too much anger, confusion, fear, irritability and anxiety may be signs of mental unhealthiness. Happiness may be more easily attained if a person is mentally healthy. People who are mentally healthy will have healthier relationships, and have better physical health. They can also manage their problems better and can make better life choices.

Conclusion

Why is it important to be physically and mentally healthy? It is important because it can give you a longer and more fruitful life. If you get all these benefits from being physically active, how much more can it help if you are mentally active as well? Mental health and physical health are undeniably interlinked. Physical activities help manage stress and pressure better, while mental health improves the effectiveness of physical activities.

If you are looking for information on physically and mentally healthy, click on the link. Or visit lifestylesecretreview.com. Providing quality counselling articles, hynotherapy writings and other mind help resources online.

How to Boost Your Energy Levels in Just 5 Minutes

If you want more energy to remain active and enjoy your day, you can make use of the following tips to give you the extra boost that you need to conquer all the challenges that you will face during the day:

Tip 1-Make your bed

Even though this sounds small and insignificant, this 'small' ritual helps to create a calm atmosphere in your bedroom. This calm atmosphere causes a soothing feeling to permeate through your bedroom which helps you to relax and sleep better when you are in your room.

Therefore, if you are able to use this it will help you to sleep very well at night so that when you wake up in the morning, you would be highly refreshed and strong enough to face the challenges of the day.

Tip 2-Prepare and pack a snack before you leave the house

Prepare a healthy snack to take with you before you leave your house in the morning. You can make use of fruits, unsalted nuts, and vegetables to make healthy snacks. If you have your healthy snacks ready in the afternoon, you will not be tempted to eat junk foods when you start to feel hungry.

Tip 3-Tidy your desk

Remove all the stray papers, scattered coffee mugs and all other things that clutter up your desk. If you can tidy up your external environment, you will be more organised and focused.

Tip 4-Listen to music

Good music helps to lower your blood pressure and your stress levels; it also helps to elevate your moods and keep you upbeat more easily. Download as much music as you like into a playlist on your MP3 player which you can listen to when you are at work and when you are exercising.

However, make sure you don't set the volume of your earpiece to a very high volume so that you don't end up damaging your eardrums.

Tip 5-Sniff soothing natural scents

Some fruits like lemons, basils, junipers, and lavenders have natural stress relieving scents that you can sniff to calm down your nerves.

Tip 6-Gentle stretching

Engage in gentle stretching exercises. You can stretch your arms over your head, and you can also raise and lower your shoulders gently a couple of times. These stretching movements help to improve the circulation of blood in your body and they also help to relax muscular tightness that is caused by the effect of stress.

Tip 7-Meditation

You can take out time to ponder upon bible verses that talk about the goodness and the faithfulness of God; you can meditate on inspiring bible verses from the book of psalms.

Tip 8-Count your blessings

Count and keep a record of every good thing that has happened to you. If you keep your mind constantly thinking about the all the negative things that are happening in the world around you, you will be drained of all your energy.

However, if you (and you can) choose to deliberately keep your mind on only the good things that are happening to you, you would experience higher levels of inner energy as you give thanks for all the good things that has happened to you.

Tip 9-Turn off your gadgets

Take a break from your tablet, personal computer, flat screen television, and mobile phones from time to time. Just switch off everything and unwind especially at night before you go to bed.

Even though the world is on for 24 hours every day of the week, you should switch off from time to time.

Tip 10-Set your priorities

You cannot do everything that you want to do every time. Make a list of all the things that you want to do and arrange them in their order of importance and then you can start doing them one after the other as you start from the top of the list.

If you do this, you will gradually do most of what you want to do after some time.

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How to Approach an Energy Clearing (or Energy Healing) Session

We all sat in that classroom as little kids.

We learned that "energy cannot be created or destroyed." We also learned that it can change its form of expression. This is a lesson we can call upon now and use it every day of our lives as we consider energy and healing. Of course, in that science classroom, they talked to us about light and heat, etc. We are going to apply this principle in a way that transforms pain into joy, misery into ecstasy, and anger into love.

Recycling Energy

If you've ever had a garden, you might have found that the energy of the previous year's waste could be turned into the next year's nourishment through a method of composting. And recycling in general has become a major part of our culture and a household word.

As you ponder these methods of taking things that are old and unwanted, and putting them through a process of transformation to bring forward something helpful, useful, and advantageous, you begin to see into the power of the energy clearing session. This is what those who are called "energy healers" facilitate.

The Value Hidden Within Pain

Every pain, misfortune, or mode of suffering, represents a field of conflicted energy. When that field is harmonized, when it is restored to its original state of clear energy, the power locked within the conflict is released and becomes available. That energy can then nourish the soul and move you forward toward the desires of your heart. You may experience this as a feeling of lightness, happiness, inspiration, or a burst of creativity. These are the markings of a spiritual healing.

The Past Lives Within the Now

Energy patterns can trace immeasurably back in time. You can see them running through distant events of your personal history, woven though your ancestral lines, and echoed in the remnants of past lives. Whether or not you believe that you have had past incarnations matters little because it is your current vibration that is being cleared. You may hear this described differently in the context of different energy healing techniques, and that is why it is helpful to understand that the past lives within the now. And this is where it must be harmonized in order to free your now and roll out the red carpet for your future (which also lives in your now).

Pains Gone, Relationships Restored, Happiness Flowing

Regardless of the reason you seek energy clearing, whether it is a body issue, a financial worry, a painful relationship, or anything else, it is best to come to the session with a willingness to let go of your problem and to allow it be transformed into something wonderful. With this spirit of openness, and an honoring of your essence, the energy clearing session can amaze you with the power of its results.

You can experience an energy clearing session first hand at no charge. Bring one issue to the call. It can be about your body, emotions, relationships, finances, or anything else that is causing you pain. Be prepared to let it go and have it transformed into something wonderful in your life. Get your Free Guest Pass to the next energy clearing session at InnerAlignmentSessions.com. Providing quality counselling articles, hynotherapy writings and other mind help resources online.

Ignore Your Prophetic Dream At Your Own Risk

Premonitions, prophecies and precognition all refer to an experience, (dreams, waking thoughts, visions, etc.), which anticipate a future event that can't reasonably be gathered from information available by usual means prior to the event. These prophecies (or premonitions or precognitions) come to us most often through our dreams and are no more paranormal than are dreams themselves.

Since ancient times the belief that dreams are either warnings or prophecies has been very common. The Talmud, the Hebrew sacred book of practical wisdom, reveals that the Jews gave great importance both to the dream and the interpreter of dreams. There are at least fifteen references to dreams and prophecies in the King James Bible, and this idea has also been supported by non-religious texts, by oral traditions and in books such as the Artemidorus Oneirocritica written around 140 AD.

There are a number of recorded instances wherein prominent individuals have had prophetic dreams that have impacted history in one way or another. In some cases, like with Abraham Lincoln, the dream was ignored with dire consequences, while others were more cautious and heeded the nocturnal message.

About two weeks before John Wilkes Booth fired the fatal bullet that struck Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theatre, Lincoln dreamt the details of his own funeral. In his dream, he entered the East Room of the White House where he saw a coffin lying on a platform. Soldiers, acting as guards, were stationed around it where a crowd of mourners were gathered. When Lincoln demanded to know who is dead in the White House, the soldier replied, the President. He was killed by an assassin. After Lincoln's assassination, his casket was placed on a platform in the East Room of the White House where it was guarded by soldiers.

One of the most dramatic examples of prophetic dreams, and dreams that would have had the power to change the world if only they had been taken seriously and acted upon, was a dream recorded on the morning of June 28, 1914, by Bishop Joseph Lanyi of Grosswardein, in Hungary. The bishop dreamt the entire scene and details of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife. This dream is of considerable historical significance because the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand set off World War I.

In 1959, Rita Dwyer was working for an aerospace company as a research chemist when an experimental rocket fuel exploded in her lab. She was instantly engulfed in flames and would have died if it weren't for the fact that a co-worker had had recurring dreams of the event and knew exactly what to do to save her life.

When the fuel exploded in Rita's laboratory in waking life, step by step, her co-worker re-enacted his dream. Heroically, he ran into the blazing laboratory, grabbed Rita by the only part of her body not on fire -her foot- and dragged her to safety. She's alive today only because her co-worker and friend remembered and took his dream seriously -and then acted on the information it contained. Had he dismissed the dreams, like so many do, his friend would not have survived.

Robert Van de Castle reported this heart breaking account in his book, Our Dreaming Mind: In October, 1966, in the Welsh mining village of Aberfan, a massive coal-tip slid down a mountainside killing 144 people, mostly school children. A young girl, Eryl Mai Jones, told her mother about a dream she'd had where she does to school but there's no school there. "Something black has come down all over it." "I'm not afraid to die," She told her mother, "I'll be with Peter and June." When the huge slag deposit slid down on the school two days later, Eryl Mai, Peter, and June were among the 118 children crushed or buried alive.

In 1999 a then, sixteen year old girl, woke up from a dream one morning terrified. In her dream she had hit and killed a young boy while driving her car on a back road. The dream so disturbed her that she related it to her mother, who, as do most people, dismissed it as just a dream. A few days later, the girl was driving down a quiet rural road when she had a nagging feeling that she should put her seatbelt on and slow down. She ignored her intuition. However, only moments later a voice told her to put on her seat belt and watch her speed. The voice was so loud and so strong that she buckled her seatbelt and kept an eye on the speedometer.

Before she knew what had happened, she saw a tuft of brown hair in front of her car. Horrified, she watched and heard a seven year old boy roll across the hood of her car, fly over the roof and land on the asphalt behind her. She stayed with the child as he died. After thirteen years, the young lady, who now has a son of her own is suffering from PTSD and is terrified to let her child out of her site.

Had she taken the dream seriously, or heeded its warning, she may have made different choices. Perhaps she wouldn't have driven down that particular road. Maybe she would have been more diligent and alert while driving. Or perhaps she might have asked someone else to do the driving for a while.

One dreamer had a recurring dream every night for a week. In the dream her mother, who was deceased, paid a visit and told her that she would not see her brother and sister-in-law again and that they would not be "here long." The dream was very disquieting and she wanted to warn her brother but her husband told her not to be so 'silly.' Two days after the last dream she picked up the local newspaper and on the front page were her brother and sister-in-law. They had been killed flying to Spain. The dreamer had had no idea they had even gone on holiday.

Although prophetic dreams can address anything from what you're going to wear to work next Wednesday to a devastating earthquake, they're generally classified into specific types or categories:

Apparitions: These are dreams wherein the dead appear in order to deliver an important message.

Clairaudient Dreams: These types of dreams involve hearing voices or sounds that are extremely distinct and clear. The voice seems to come from nowhere. You usually don't know the source of the voice or sounds. It's imperative that you pay attention to the message in this kind of dream.

Clairvoyant Dreams: These are dreams where you're dreaming of something that's happening in waking life at the same time as the dream.

Empathic Dreams: In these types of dreams you're generally moved by an event in the dream but aren't sure why. You experience clear and sympathetic feelings and sensations. You "feel" something is going to happen.

Telepathic Dreams: You're able to connect to someone else's thoughts through a dream. These dreams usually occur between close individuals.

Warning Dreams: As the description suggests, these dreams forewarn of impending danger, disaster or death. These types of dreams often give you the opportunity to alter the outcome.

In ancient Egypt several papyri have been discovered which relate to prophetic dream interpretation. They specifically note the appearance of 'opposites' in dreams. Thus, the suggestion is that to dream of a birth could refer to an imminent death. To dream of winning the lottery could signify a financial loss, etc.

In an ancient Indian book of wisdom, the Artharva Veda, dating from about 3000 years ago, it's stated that the time of night that the prophetic dream occurs gives a clue as to when the dream event will transpire. A dream occurring early in the night, for example, will be realized later than one occurring near dawn.

Psi researchers have discovered that prophetic dream information often comes to us in the form of some kind of publication such as a TV or radio announcement, broadcast or news flash, in a newspaper, email, or nowadays, a text message, etc.

There will always be exceptions to the rules, but generally, I've found that most people report prophetic or precognitive dreams as being very sharp and clear. In fact, it's often reported that the dreamer seems to be in the dream rather than just watching it. Colours are usually reported as being enhanced, crisp or bright. Sounds tend to be exceptionally clear and loud and the overall dream is often reported as being hard to distinguish from waking reality.

The best way to identify that you're having prophetic dreams at all, and the most effective method for recognizing the elements of a precognitive dream is, as I've said many times before, to keep a dream journal. As you start recording and re-reading your prophetic dreams you'll notice which elements are or aren't present in them. By doing this, you'll also encourage more prophetic dreams.

It's sad that in modern Western societies, we have fallen into the habit of speaking of dreams as "only" dreams, as something less than real. The materialists of the Victorian era dismissed dreams as uncivilized yearnings and repressed desires never to be discussed in polite society. The reductionist scientists of our era try to convince us that dreams are merely the product of random neuronal firings or the brain's way of cleaning out unneeded and unnecessary information picked up throughout the day. When I read research reports along these lines, I wonder how much time the authors have spent with their own dream journals.

More often than not, it takes something shocking or unbelievable to shake us out of our comfort zone and our entrenched belief systems. Many, many people refuse to accept that dreams are even "real," let alone able to change our lives. Thousands of years of data have proved that they are. However, no amount of evidence, or anecdotes, or reports will ever change a hard-nosed skeptic's mind. It takes a experience to alter concepts and beliefs, and this goes for dreams as well.

I believe that the majority of us have the ability to become practicing prophetic dreamers. We're all capable of receiving life changing information and assistance from our dreams for ourselves as well as for other. However, we must be willing to set aside self-limiting beliefs and practice.

Terry Gillis is a dream investigator, researcher and author and would like to invite you to participate in her ongoing research and become a part of the growing dream community by posting your dreams on her blog. Providing quality counselling articles, hynotherapy writings and other mind help resources online.

Revitalize Your Energy for Fall

As we go into the Fall season, so much about Nature begins to slow down after the hectic Summer months. As the days get shorter, our bodies want to revert to our natural inclination which is to prepare for Winter and Winter's hibernation time. Because of this, it's possible for our energy levels to begin to drop.

But we, unlike Nature's animal kingdom, have our busy lives and it's necessary for us to keep up our energy and vitality at the highest and best levels possible.

Here are a few tips to help you accomplish this:

1 - Turn on more lights - Whether at home or at the office, turn on more lights. This helps ward off the natural sleepiness that darkness brings. Also, if you have access to and can use light bulbs which give off a natural light spectrum, these are most helpful. If you are prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), this type of light bulb is most important for you to counteract your condition.

2 - Go outside and breathe deeply - The cooler, dryer air of Fall can be stimulating. Breathe it in deeply to invigorate yourself and to clear out your lungs and other toxins from your body.

3 - Stick to a healthy diet - We are fast approaching the holiday season with all its candies and rich foods. By eating healthy now, you can enjoy a few more indulgences later. Also you will help avoid many illnesses that start going around this time of year. And don't forget to drink plenty of water and take your vitamins and supplements.

4 - Stick to you are exercise regimen - Exercise gets your metabolism fired up and contributes to improving your overall health, immune system and stamina.

5 - Get plenty of rest - Even though you want to be energetic, you also need to balance with good, restful sleep to maintain your body's equilibrium. One without the other can cause health issues.

6 - Make plenty of R and R time for you and your family - Get out and enjoy the benefits of the season; attend a Fall Festival or carnival, take walks and enjoy the colors that Nature provides this time of year. These add happiness and joy to your life to lift your spirits and your energy.

7 - Open up the windows - Our homes need to breathe too. Open up and let the air in to clear out all the old energy, mustiness, smells, etc.

8 - Meditate and bring the energy in - During your daily meditations, see yourself pulling in bright, energetic light; see it replenishing your natural batteries. Spiritual energy is just as important as physical energy, so welcome it in daily.

By using these tips, you will have an energy filled, joyful, and productive Fall season.

Please leave a comment and tell us what works for you to increase and maintain your energy levels? Providing quality counselling articles, hynotherapy writings and other mind help resources online.

How To Become What You Think About

Whether you want to lose weight, build muscle or just improve your cardiovascular health, the mind plays a huge role. The mind gets and keeps you motivated, it develops those good habits and it lets you see your goal before you achieve it. I believe the biggest reason for people failing to achieve their health and fitness goals is down to lack of knowledge of how the mind works. You either control the mind or it controls you!

The mind hates change. It has a world view which has been built up throughout your life. It knows pigs don't fly and money does not grow on trees. If you were to see a flying pig or a money tree, your mind would reject it instantly. Your mind would be racing to try and find a logical reason to justify why this can't be real, so it fits into its world view. That's why when we try to make a change our mind try's to resist it. Our habits are formed by our past experiences, family and friends. If you understand how this works then you can beat it! To change your bad habits you must replace them with good habits. How do you change a habit? You must repeat the new habit 30 times, so around a month for it to become a new habit. Your new habit will then be formed, replacing the old one.

Let me give you an example. I developed the habit of having porridge oats with kiwi fruit for my breakfast every morning but I wanted to add blueberries as well. To be honest I was not too keen on blueberries to start with but they have so many health benefits, I wanted to include them. It was hard at first to get used to eating them as part of my breakfast routine. I knew it would be at first. I knew if I did this for the full 30 days it would become a habit. After the 30 days it was formed as a habit. I now have blueberries every day with my porridge!

Our daily thoughts about our self, define who we become. They make up our self-image. What is a self-image? The self-image is your view of yourself. The person who you are and the person you think others think you are. You cannot outperform your self- image. If you don't think you can do something, I can guarantee you won't do it. If you don't think you are worthy of something you won't get it or keep it.

If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right. - Henry Ford

The good news is we can change our self-image. You need to spend about 5-10 minutes twice a day to picture how you want to be. Picture yourself with bigger arms, a six pack or a slimmer you. You have to feel it. Feel the emotion and the great feeling it gives you. You must do this daily. You need to train your mind daily, just like a sportsman would practice his sport daily. Every top sports person visualizes how they will perform. They see themselves winning and at their best. If you do this for just one day you will see a difference for just that day. If you do it every day you will see the difference for the rest of your life.

Most people see an old friend or a family member they have not seen in a while. The friend or family member say's your looking really well or they may say you have put weight on. The majority of people will take the compliment of looking well and feel good for a short while and forget about it. The very same people will take in the negative comment about putting on weight and hold on to that image. They spend the rest of the day feeling down. Looking in the mirror seeing themselves larger than they really are. They may head to the kitchen and grab some junk food to make themselves feel better because they can only picture themselves as being overweight so what is the point. If that one person thinks so then I must be. Right? THIS IS TOTALLY THE WRONG THINKING!

You must hold the picture of yourself with that body you desire. Remember you are doing this twice a day. When you look into the mirror see that new body you want. This will make you feel good. Hold on to that feeling throughout the day. That feeling will keep you on track. Don't allow any negative thoughts about your body enter your mind. If someone makes a negative comment just accept that it is only there view. Everyone one has different views. If you asked a hundred people there favourite food. Would they all say the same thing? No they wouldn't. So just accept that you will always get negative comments but you don't have to accept them! As soon as you feel yourself having a negative thought, think back to your image of that body you desire. This will make you feel good about yourself again. Once you build this momentum and learn to eradicate negative thoughts about your body, nothing will stop you!

You will feel more confident, you will feel in control. This thinking will smash through any of the training or nutrition obstacles you may come across. If you don't control your thoughts, the nutrition and training will always breakdown when those negative thoughts pop up and you hold on to them. So remember, "You Become What You Think About."

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Happiness, Play And Be Happy

Happiness has been described as an illusion, a warm bath, a bowl of cherries, and many other things by many people throughout time. It is not an abstract concept but there are many descriptions which make the feeling of happiness an individual experience. Since the concepts of happiness are reliant upon the mindsets and emotional states of each person who experiences them, there is a "fuzzy logic" kind of feel to it. Often people attempt to describe their state of mind and body as being directly related to an experience. People say that they are happy for many reasons, and for the most part will attribute those reasons as mirrored expressions of their physical and the emotional state which they experience as a result.

In an attempt to nail down the truth about what "being truly happy" means, it is essential to examine the basic needs that have to be met for people to feel that they have reached this euphoric state of mind. The basic needs of all human beings are water, food, shelter, companionship, and health. If any of these are missing it becomes difficult to maintain a happy disposition. Considering that most of these conditions are met, generally people in the modern world can achieve "happiness" on a regular basis. In considering the state of childhood and infancy, babies and small children according to several studies, smile 62 percent more than their adult counterparts. The rationale as to this deficiency in adult levels of happiness can only mean that at some point people become less happy as they get older. If all of the basic needs are still being met from child to adulthood, one must assume either "something has been taken away" or "something else has been added". In either case in order to change these levels of happiness, something must have "changed" to subsequently reduce smiling capacity by 62 percent. If something got changed, then in theory it can be changed back again!

In people's adult lives, things do change as they get older. Increases in responsibilities and requirements to earn an income, greatly detracts from the leisure of "playtime" that most people experienced as children. The action of aging itself has become a condition that for many reasons adds to a persons unhappiness. The evolution from child to adult and then to parent is a journey of increasing responsibilities and diminishing play time, compounded with a sense of becoming older and less likely to participate in play of any sort. People are living longer but attitudes towards well-being as the population ages are not promoted equally.

There are preconceptions regarding "older people who play", but does it have to be this way? Could this increase in responsibilities and accompanying stresses be the reason for the decrease in levels of laughter and happiness? Most likely this is a key reason why most people become "less happy" as they age. They have forgotten how to play. It would seem that the stresses and lack of playtime greatly detracts from a person's ability "to deal with the stresses" they are accumulating as they grow up. As children we could "laugh and forget" about the injustices and mishaps encountered on a daily basis. As adults we don't shed the "feelings of unhappiness" quite so easily.

The solution isn't necessarily to merely take on fewer responsibilities; rather it makes more sense to increase our playtime and "happy state of mind". As small children, the imagination makes up a huge part of our psychological "well-being". The ability to dream up ideas and creatively play with the idea of things used to make our existence more meaningful. As adults we are told often "to grow up and stop behaving like children", perhaps the opposite is what we should be telling each other. While it's true we must take on many more responsibilities, we can still keep some of the key attributes we had as children. Of these, the values of friendship and "fair play", and how to make others laugh are important functions in the transition from our young lives to our maturity. If somehow people could merge the games and imagination used in their youth with the daily requirements of adulthood, perhaps their lives would be happier.

Since there are times when play is not recommended, by finding things "we like to do", people can establish hobbies and pastimes that enrich their lives at the end of the work day. Simple things like drawing and pottery or a martial arts class can mean the difference between being able to shed the stresses of the day and "carrying them over" to the next day. Parents can join in more of the games that their children are playing, even if it does take them a while to catch on to the rules! The bonds that this will help to form and the resulting energies exchanged by getting down on their level, will go a long way to promoting a much better perspective on life.

As time passes and the memories of childhood fade, so too does our memory of what it felt like to "laugh out loud" in the very realest sense of the now much over used text abbreviation. Instead of allowing our lives to become chaotic pits of desperate and relentless stresses, we must continue to play our games and laugh with our friends. Barring the loss of the essential basic needs of survival, we must strive to use our imaginations and come up with new ways to truly "enjoy our lives". By pursuing happiness we are extending our journey here, not only for ourselves, but for all who are within earshot of our infectious laughter. Remember the old Chinese proverb, "where there is laughter, happiness likes to be!"

Author's Website Link: illipharrison.com. Happiness Links: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness. Providing quality counselling articles, hynotherapy writings and other mind help resources online.

The Impossible

I'm sitting at my desk staring at my diploma that arrived today. I had just got out of the shower when my husband walked in and showed me the package. He opened it and we both sat there just looking at it. He laughed as he said "Master of Science. All I can picture is you in a white lab coat working with chemicals". I remember when I thought I would never even complete my Associates degree, no less a Masters degree. When I finally completed my Associates degree, I thought to myself "I could get my Bachelors degree. I don't want to waste my GI Bill". Through pregnancy and the birth of my son I completed my Bachelors degree. I will never forget sitting in the hospital doing college algebra online, after having my son who was very sick. You want to talk stressful- that was stressful, and I'm good with numbers. I would have paid someone to complete that class for me, but I pushed through and completed it.

My associates and bachelors degrees were both in business and I really wanted a degree in my first true love, fitness. I decided to go for my Masters so I could have a degree in the field I was working in. Not to mention, I love to learn. There is a never ending flow of information available to us, especially in my line of work. In July I completed my Masters program and I am so proud of myself for achieving my education goals while owning a business, being a military wife, and having a child.

There were so many weekends I stayed home while others went out, in order to complete homework assignments. I spent countless hours studying and trying to balance life in the process. The saying "do now what others won't, to live a lifetime as others can't" rings very true to me. I'm thankful for the sacrifices I made and I'm so thankful for the people who supported me a long the way, specifically my husband.

I am now starting my Doctorate program. This is something I never in a million years thought I could do, but I'm doing it. If you would have told me I would have a Doctorate degree 5 years ago, I probably would have gave up before I even started because the thought was to overwhelming and too far out of reach.

You have to take the first step in your journey no matter what it is. Set goals you feel are attainable and move in that direction. The more you accomplish, the more empowered you will feel. I feel that there is absolutely nothing I can't do now. If I want it, I know that I can make it happen. The same is true for you. Embrace your gifts and invest in yourself!

To you health,

Jessica Summerall: This is the motto I choose to practice to make sure that I am doing everything I possibly can to ensure someone is successful, long term. My job is to educate, support, train, teach, and encourage the people who come into my life. Their job is to use those tools to achieve the success they desire, whether it be financial or physical. Providing quality counselling articles, hynotherapy writings and other mind help resources online.