Hello,
and welcome to our last issue of this year!
We've had a difficult and trying
year, and we truly do appreciate your presence with
us over the last twelve
months. We hope that you end your year well,
and that your next year is
one of the best years you've ever had!
Self-esteem is an issue that receives a lot of
attention in many areas. Perhaps that is
because in today's world of communication, we
know that reasonable self-esteem has much to do
with one's overall happiness in life and that it
is important for our achievement and
success. Low self-esteem has been shown by
various psychological studies to be a key factor
in a wide range of emotional problems. So
what is self-esteem? It includes
the beliefs and attitudes we hold towards
ourselves, in thought, feeling, words, and
actions--both consciously and
subconsciously--and the expressions in our lives
that those mental responses engender.
Self-esteem plays this key role in our life
because thought and faith are creative.
Because self-esteem is so very much a part of
our mental attitude, the basics for
strengthening this part of ourselves can begin
with the awareness that we have the power to
direct our mind as we choose. Let's look
at some techniques we can work with that can
help us strengthen our own self-esteem.
1. Develop Your Spiritual Nature.
You can find your rightful place in the world
when you give up your belief that it is hidden
from you or that you are unworthy of
success. Believe that the Spirit of God
[whatever you perceive God to be] is
within you and that the light of his presence
reveals the way to you.
2. Think
Positively! Decide to develop a
positive sense of who and what you are by
translating negative thoughts and feelings into
more positive or neutral alternatives.
Remember, you tend to become what you think.
3. Value Your Emotional Nature as
you would a faithful friend and servant.
Use your feelings to enhance growth, express
love, facilitate communication, empower action,
visualize your goals, and strengthen your
capacity to live fully each day. Respect
your feelings and be understanding and
supportive and a good friend to yourself as
well as others.
4. Review and Release Negative Past
Programming. Confucius said
"Settle one difficulty and you keep a
hundred away." Let go of feelings of
guilt through the power of forgiving yourself
and others. Be aware that habits are not
something that you are but something you do.
Those that are less than positive can be
released, if that is your desire. The
decision to change a habit is conscious, and
your ability to change a habit relates to your
skill in mastering your own subconscious mind.
5. Re-evaluate where you presently
are according to your own highest sense of what
is true, helpful, and productive. Believe
that peace exists within you and that you don't
need to get caught up in the turbulence of
others or of outer circumstances. Build
your faith with the following "bricks"
of repeated belief:
* you are filled with amazing life and
health
* you have plenty for all your real needs
and desires
* you are infolded in divine love
* you are being awakened to infinite joy
and usefulness, and the light of God within is
your source of inspiration and guidance.
Now, rest for a while in contemplation of these
things and write your thoughts, feelings,
awarenesses, and experiences of inner promptings
in your journal. God bless you.
We
have some
inspiring and motivational books that may interest you. Our main way of supporting this site is
through the sale of books, either physical copies
or digital copies for your Amazon Kindle (including the
online reader). All of the money that we earn
through them comes back to the site
in one way or another. Just click on the picture
to the left to visit our page of books, both fiction and
non-fiction!
Do
not begin the new year by recounting to yourself or
others all your losses and sorrows.Let the past go.
Should
some good friend present you with material for a
lovely garment, would you insult her by throwing it
aside and describing the beautiful garments you had
worn out in past times?
The
new year has given you the fabric for fresh start in
life; why dwell upon the events which have gone, the
joys, blessings and advantages of the past!
Do
not tell me it is too late to be successful or happy.Do not tell me you are sick or broken in spirit; the spirit
cannot be sick or broken, because it is of God.
It
is your mind which makes your body sick.Let the spirit assert itself and demand health
and hope and happiness in this new year.
Forget
the money you have lost, the mistakes you have made,
the injuries you have received, the disappointments
you have experienced.
Real
sorrow, the sorrow which comes from the death of dear
ones, or some great cross well borne, you need not
forget.But
think of these things as sent to enrich your nature,
and to make you more human and sympathetic.You are missing them if you permit yourself
instead to grow melancholy and irritable.
It
is weak and unreasonable to imagine destiny has
selected you for special suffering.Sorrow is no respecter of persons.Say to yourself with the beginning of this year
that you are going to consider all your troubles as an
education for your mind and soul; and that out of the
experiences which you have passed through you are
going to build a noble and splendid character, and a
successful career.
Do
not tell me you are too old.Age is all imagination.Ignore years and they will ignore you.
Eat
moderately, and bathe freely in water as cold as
nature's rainfall. Exercise thoroughly and regularly.
Be
alive, from crown to toe.Breathe deeply, filling every cell of the lungs
for at least five minutes, morning and night, and when
you draw in long, full breaths, believe you are
inhaling health, wisdom and success.
Anticipate
good health.If
it does not come at once, consider it a mere temporary
delay, and continue to expect it.
Regard
any physical ailment as a passing inconvenience, no
more. Never for an instant believe you are permanently
ill or disabled.
The
young men of France are studying alchemy, hoping to
learn the secret of the transmutation of gold.If you will study your own spirit and its
limitless powers, you will gain a greater secret than
any alchemist ever held; a secret which shall give you
whatever you desire.
Think
of your body as the silver jewel box, your mind as the
silver lining, your spirit as the gem.Keep the box burnished and clear of dust, but
remember always that the jewel within is the precious
part of it.
Think
of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled
success.A
whole, clear, glorious year lies before you!In a year you can regain health, fortune,
restfulness, happiness!
Push
on!Achieve,
achieve!
* * * *
From The Heart of the New Thought, 1902.
Ella's book is available for
download on our free
e-book page!
Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week.
The object of a New Year is not that
we should have a new year. It is
that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new
backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular person made
New Year resolutions, he or she would make no resolutions. Unless
one
starts afresh about things, that person will certainly do nothing
effective.
G.K. Chesterton
Strategies for
Starting Your Year Well
(and Keeping
It Going Well)
Another new year is almost
upon us, and we're in a short period of time when we often start
thinking about what kinds of changes we'd like to see in our
lives--and what kinds of changes we would have to make in our
behavior and our thoughts in order to make those life changes come
to be. Each year we have this opportunity to step back and
observe our own lives, to think about the things that we have done
and haven't done, and then adjust our lives so that we may be a
bit happier or more fulfilled in the year that's coming.
But how do we do this? Traditionally, there has long been
the practice of making New Year's resolutions, which are promises
that we make to ourselves about changes that we plan to make--we
can lose weight, take those classes, write that novel, be nicer to
animals, or whatever else we feel would make our lives better and
make us better people. But resolutions, as we all know, tend
to fall by the wayside. We give up on that diet the first
time we see a piece of cheesecake, because once we cheat that
first time, we abandon the promise altogether.
Every new year people make resolutions to change
aspects of themselves
they believe are negative.
A majority of people revert back to how
they
were
before and feel like failures. This year I challenge you
to a new
resolution. I challenge you to just be yourself.
Aisha Elderwyn
There are,
though, ways that we can make the new year better
for us. There is no magic formula and it isn't
always easy, but if we really do want to make
changes in the coming year, we can do so. It
takes a bit of effort and it definitely requires
vigilance and follow-up, but it can be done.
For me, such a process involves writing things
down--that's just the way I learn and think the
best. For making changes and improvements in
my life, I find it important to write down first
what I think isn't going well (I haven't spent as
much time on my novel as I've wanted to) without
getting into a self-bashing session. This list
is usually fairly short, because I do realize that I
try my best at what I do, and if I'm falling short,
it's not a crime against humanity, but just
something that needs to be adjusted.
Then I write down goals for the coming year. I
want to take a good vacation in the summer, I want
to volunteer more time with charity organizations in
my town, I want to run a 50-mile race in less than
eight hours--whatever comes to mind. Once I do
that, it's important to winnow the list down to the
few that are most important to me as a person.
For example, volunteering time is more important to
me in the long run than my time in any race, and the
amount of training I would need for that race would
seriously diminish the amount of time available to
me for volunteering, so my revised list would
include the volunteering but not the race.
I'll definitely still run it, but I won't worry
about time at all.
Once this is done, and I have a good idea of the
concrete things I most hope to accomplish next year,
it's time for a "passion" list, a
"no-limits" list. What am I the most
passionate about? What would I do with the
next year if there were no limits on time or money
or resources? This list helps us to
dream--because dreaming is an important part of who
we are as human beings, and it's important that we
allow ourselves to dream as much as possible.
What you more than likely will find on your dream
list, though, is something that's actually possible
if you make only a few minor changes.
We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We
are going
to put words on them ourselves. The book is called
Opportunity
and its first chapter is New Year's Day.
Edith Lovejoy
Pierce
Many people
will tell you that it's important to enlist the help
of a trusted person to keep you on track, to help to
remind you of your promises and your desire to stick
to them. While this can be a very effective
way to stay focused on your goals, I personally
don't consider it to be extremely important.
To me, it's much more important to keep my goals
visible so that I can see them regularly; perhaps
I'll post them on the refrigerator door on a piece
of very bright-colored paper. And if they're
personal, I may simply write "Goal Number
Two" on the paper without any details--as soon
as I see the sheet, I know what it means.
Asking someone else to help in some cases could put
extra pressure on another person that he or she
doesn't really want to deal with. And think of
this--you haven't exercised in a week though your
goal was to do so every day. How easy is it to
rationalize your behavior by telling yourself that
"he didn't remind me"? You don't
want to fall into that pattern.
The main strategy that I would suggest, though, is
to be realistic. It's very easy to make goals
that can't be kept, or even that shouldn't be
kept--if your goal is to not miss a single day of
work next year and you come down with a bad cold, is
it worth the risk of infecting all of your
co-workers and getting even sicker yourself just to
meet a goal? Definitely not. Should your
goal be to start working as a welder if you have no
training at all in the field? On the other
hand, improving your cooking skills by attempting
one new dish a week is possible--and by the end of
the year, you'll have tried 52 new dishes, and that
experience really can't help but make you a better
cook.
Another fresh new year is here . . .
Another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt, and fear,
To love and laugh and give!
This bright new year is given me
To live each day with zest . . .
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!
I have the opportunity
Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
And sing more joyful songs!
William Arthur Ward
The most
important strategy of all, though, is this:
Once you've made your lists and set your goals, you
must keep in mind that life is a day-by-day process,
not a series of results. If your goal is to
become kinder and more compassionate, then you must
make an effort every day to be so. If your
goal is to be more forgiving, then you must focus
each day on forgiving people their trespasses and
letting go of your own resentments. One way to
do this is to write a set of goals for each day and
commit yourself to reviewing them each
morning. For example, you might write,
"Today I will be kind and generous and loving,
and I will write one page of my novel."
If you read this each morning to remind yourself of
what's important here and now today, then you'll
increase your chances of actually fulfilling the
goal.
Of course, the most important advice of all is to be
yourself, follow your dreams, and explore your
passions. At the new year, though, we tend to
take stock of just how little we've been doing these
things, and we try to promise ourselves that we'll
do them more next year--but we don't always come
through on those promises.
Our goal, then, is not just to set the goals for
ourselves, but to make sure that we follow through
on them; not just to make promises about our
futures, but to make decisions each day that will
help us to fulfill those promises all year long.
We find by losing.We hold fast
by letting
go.We become something
new
by
ceasing to be something
old. This seems
to be close to the heart
of
that mystery. I know no more now
than I ever did
about the far side
of
death as the last
letting-go of all,
but now I know that
I do not need
to know, and that I do
not need
to be afraid
of not knowing.
God
knows.That is
all that matters.
To
"let go" does not mean to stop caring.
It means I can't do it for someone else.
To
"let go" is not to cut myself off.
It's the realization that I can't control another.
To
"let go" is to admit powerlessness,
which means the
outcome is not in my hands.
To
"let go" is not to try to change or blame another.
It's to make the most of myself.
To
"let go" is not to care for, but to care about.
To
"let go" is not to fix, but to be supportive.
To
"let go" is not to judge, but to allow another to be a
human being.
To
"let go" is not to be in the middle, arranging all the
outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their own destinies.
To
"let go" is not to deny, but to accept.
To
"let go" is not to nag, scold, or argue, but instead
to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
To
"let go" is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
To
"let go" is not to regret the past, but to grow and live
for the future.
To
"let go" is to fear less and to love more.
(from his book Thoughts of the dreampoet : vol. 1.)
Life is short.Each year passes more quickly than the previous one. It’s
easy to
deny yourself many of life’s simple
pleasures because you
want
to be practical. Forget about practical and decide instead to become
a
joy
collector.Always be
on the lookout for gifts without ribbons.God
is
strewing them across your path
right now.His gifts come tagged with
a note: “Life can be wonderful.Do your
best not to miss it!”Enjoy what
it is before
it isn’t anymore. . . . Dare to
slip on
a pair of bunny slippers
once in a while! Surprise yourself!Enjoy the little
things because one
day you’ll look back
and realize they were the big things!
Yes, life
can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's
actually rather dependable and reliable. Some principles apply
to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called
universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use
them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever
learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning. I use it a lot when I
teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to
the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.
What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or
generous, compassionate or arrogant? In this book, I've done my
best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life,
writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.
Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too! Universal Principles of Living Life Fully. Awareness of
these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration
out of the lives we lead.
Explore all of our
quotations pages--these links will take you to the first page of each
topic, and those pages will contain links to any additional pages on
the same topic (there are five pages on adversity, for example).
™
