“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is the perspective, not the truth.” Marcus Aurelius

I found it difficult to get out of bed in the morning.

I wanted to climb into a deep hole in the earth and never come out again.

I saw only the most dire future for myself after this divorce was completed.  It didn’t seem like life was worth living anymore.

If you’re facing a lot of challenges and difficulties right now, it’s easy to want to give up and throw in the towel. If you’re going through a divorce, a breakup or a loss of some other kind, it’s hard to stay afloat in the stormy waters of life.

Life’s traumatic changes often are often accompanied with grief and it’s difficult to keep our perspective. It’s difficult to get out of bed in the morning and difficult to show up in the world. Our thoughts overpower us and make us feel like we are specks of dust in an unkind world. It appears as though everything is out of our control when we are confronting challenging circumstances in our lives.

The good news is that you can shift your perspective. You can shift the way you view the events that are unfolding in your life no matter how daunting or negative.

Here are 9 ways to stay optimistic during your most difficult hour:

1)      Look at what can go right.

When things go wrong, our minds love to jump to conclusions and think of worst-case scenarios. We want to play out the worst possible outcome. We love to think that we are going to be homeless, alone and playing for loose change in the subway. This kind of catastrophic thinking isn’t useful. See what can go right for a change. Focus on what the best-case scenario can be.

How can circumstances break in your favor?

2)      Know that everything – good and bad – passes.

No matter how bad things are, they will pass. Has there ever been a life event or situation you’ve been in that hasn’t gone away? Either the situation will change, your perspective will change or your life will change. What the Buddhists say is true about everything being temporary and passing. You’re not going to suffer forever. You will see happiness again. You will jump out of bed again in the morning. Walking the path of the grieving process is necessary to letting go and moving on when facing loss.

3)      Imagine the life you want to have.

One way to keep your head and spirits up is to imagine what’s possible. Instead of focusing on things you can’t do anything about (the past), why not envision the life that’s possible? Why not go about setting intentions and desires for the changes you want to see? Don’t let current circumstances dictate the future. No matter how bad it is, it can get better. There is power in setting intentions and seeing a new picture in your mind’s eye. If visualization works for world-champion Olympians, it can work for you.

4)      Treasure the moment in front of you.

While it’s best to release the past and envision the future, the ultimate place of being is the present. See, in this moment right now, as you’re reading this, that everything is ok. You’re fine right now. You’re fine in each instant you pay attention to. This is what’s called mindfulness. If you can be completely in the moment at hand, you won’t suffer the pain of the past or get anxious about the unknowns of tomorrow. Strive through meditation, silence and awareness to bring yourself to the moment in front of you. It’s all you really have.

5)      Look for peace within, not around you.

You can’t find peace when the situation changes. You can’t find peace when a few years have passed. You must cultivate peace. It comes from within you. Peace resides within you at all times, but it’s how to access it that’s the question. We let our minds have a battle royale and entertain us with their wacky scenarios. We have to be the ringleaders who tame the mind and calm it down. Still your thoughts, become aware of your feelings and seek refuge in your calmness. When you tap into your peace within, the circumstances around you begin to shift. If there’s a peaceful river flowing inside you, the world will be more calm around you.

6)      Remember what is working in your favor.

There may be things you can’t do anything about, but what is helping you? Who is part of your support system? How can something develop more positively? What are the lucky breaks that may resolve the situation? Having a positive and high-frequency attitude towards the way things are going to play out will help move circumstances in a positive direction. Believe that the world is going to conspire to help you and support you. You’re going to come through and come out better off than when you went in.

7)      See life as an adventure – get excited about change.

One way to break out of the fear and frustration is to view change as a game or adventure. This may be hard to do, but if you can think of yourself as the protagonist of the game, you’re in charge. You’re in control and the joystick is in your hand. You may die or lose a life metaphorically, but in this video game it’s never “game over.” You have another chance. You have unlimited “lives” to keep getting it right. Go forth with adventure and optimism. Do not believe the game’s over. You are the hero! Look at how you can make change, shift the situation and win the day.

8)      Look for ways to give.

When you get caught up in your problems, you tend to focus on yourself and become preoccupied with what’s happening to you. A simple way to break this pattern of self-sabotage and ruminating on your problems is to do things for others. Help someone. Be there for someone who is suffering a problem in their life. Do volunteer work. Take a friend out for lunch. Call a family member who might need to hear from you. Buy someone a coffee. Do something nice for someone. Be an agent of generosity and kindness.

9)      Use more empowering words.

The words we use reflect our thinking and our beliefs. The way you talk about a situation can impact how you see and feel about it. Talking too much about a negative life event or circumstance doesn’t help, either. Don’t spend hours sharing your negativity with everyone you know. Be mindful of your language and the words you use to describe the problems you’re facing. The more gentle you can be with your words, the better you will feel about the situation.

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Every adult person knows how can distract us traditional social media such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and other websites when you have to do your job in the Internet.

This article will tell you about 7 valid methods which will help you to draw special attention on work and not be distracted by time-sapping websites.

1. Find out who is your enemy.

Determine which services distract your attention while you are working in the Internet. The most common services are:

social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram;

• forums;
• e-mail;
• free chats;
• news websites;
• financial resources;
• online games;
• interactive websites such as Wikipedia.

2. Disable notifications from distracting resources.

Sometimes notifications (sounds, pop-up messages, etc) force you to return to the website and get away from work. Fortunately, in most cases, you can turn off notifications. For instance, here is how-to for Facebook. You need to click ‘Settings’, select ‘Account Settings’ then ‘Notifications’ and turn off all of them.

3. Define clear tasks in online.

It’s easy to be distracted, if your goals are vague. For instance, instead of thinking ‘I’m going to send my e-mails’, define the goal: ‘I’m going to send only 10 e-mails and to do it till 12 AM’.

4. Use distractions time after time as the best reward for yourself.

When you have formulated a clear goal make it a rule that you won’t open the distracting sites before complete the task. For example, ‘I can post new photo in Instagram after I finish with my essay’. Determine the tasks for the next 1-2 hours. When everything is completed, reward will be yours.

5. Set timer.

It is easy to lose track of time on such websites. If you don’t want to waste a valuable working time, set the timer. For example, give yourself 10 minutes to visit a news site. When 15 minutes will pass out, go to the next task. You can use software called the Toggl – it is one of such tools. Here you can read the full case of this application and find out did it bring any help.

6. Stop access to these sites.

If you can’t control yourself, can’t limit the time at entertainment sites, you must put such sites out of range. There are many browser extensions and tools that can prevent visiting entertainment sites. Train the willpower before you take to this step!

7. Teach your brain to focus.

You can put lots of effort to get rid of distractions. But your brain can still be your worst enemy. So if your brain jumps from thought to thought while working, you need to control it. The following advice may seem silly, but effective.  Put an elastic band on the wrist. Every time when distracting thoughts will occur, beat yourself this band. Read more about this method and decide should you use it or not.

But this does mean nothing and people must not be focused around the clock. Distractions are vital for a healthy lifestyle, it can stimulate creative thinking. Researchers insist that viewing web pages on the job help to make you more productive. But only if you did it at the right time.

So instead of letting your mind get distracted during the doing of an important task, determine a time for your brain to relax. This will give you the opportunity to find a time for yourself, consider about own future, relax, increase productivity and quality of your work. After all, your brain will rush to carry out the tasks quick and qualitatively.

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Roy Cleveland Sullivan was struck by lightning seven times. Eight, actually (if you believe him)—seven are documented.

Later in life, people began to shun him during thunderstorms, for obvious reasons. Or better said, perhaps, for obvious feelings. Anyone can understand why people felt the way they did, but were they being reasonable? Would you stand next to Roy during a thunderstorm?

Imagine how you would feel if your alarm only failed to go off when it really mattered. Or you could never find a parking spot when you were in a rush. Or you got dumped the same day you got fired the same day you got sick. How did you get sick? Because you got a flat tire, and your phone died right then, and you had to walk to find a phone. And then it started raining…

Bad karma! The universe is out to get you! You’re cursed, you have the worst luck, etc… After all, which is more likely, that these are all just coincidences, or that they aren’t coincidences, because destiny has its hands in your life?

Well, let’s check! There are seven billion people on earth. So, every day, there are seven billion different days lived. One of those seven billion days has to be the most improbable day of all, a day so improbable it only happens once out of every seven billion days lived.

To put that in perspective, there are about 30,000 days in the life of a 90 year old. One of those days will be the most improbable of the 30,000, a day so improbable it only happens once in 30,000 days of life, once in a 90-year lifetime. Imagine the most improbable day you’ll have in your life if you live to 90, the absolute craziest! More mind-blowing than any day of your life so far. That’s a one out of 30,000 kind of event.

Well, that’s nothing compared to a one out of seven billion kind of day, and one of those happens once every single day. It’s a day more improbable than the craziest day of your life, more improbable than the craziest day in the life of anyone you know. If 200,000 people lived to be 90 years old, only one of them would have a day this crazy!

And yet, one such day happens once a day, somewhere on earth, like winning the weird lottery.

You kinda have to feel sorry for that one person. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, life conspires against her to blow her mind with how ridiculously, impossibly bad (or good) a day can get. And then the next day, and for the rest of her life…? Nothing. Perfectly normal.
Nobody she talks to has ever had something like that happen to them. Some people think she must be being punished for being a bad person and avoid her, like people avoided Roy Sullivan when he kept being stuck by lightning. What would she think? Would she be able to realize it could just be chance? How would she feel? That’s the kind of thing that can really mess with your head…

Just by chance, amazing, crazy things are supposed to happen. How often do one out of a million days happen on earth? 7,000 times a day. If you’re 30, your life so far has about 10,000 days in it. Imagine the most amazingly improbably day of your life so far, one you might be sure can’t be just chance. Well, just by chance, a day like that should happen on Earth 700,000 times a day.

If more than chance is at play, then maybe these days happen more than they’re supposed to. If 700,000 people a day have a one out of 10,000 kind of day, we might say “Eh, that’s just what chance would predict.”. If we get more than that, then we can say that it can’t be just chance.

Interestingly, if we saw these days not happening at all, we would also wonder if something more than chance was at play. Maybe destiny, or aliens, or conspiracies to make people’s lives weird, or conspiracies to make people’s lives normal..

Does that seem strange? Imagine a 6-sided die. Generally, it should roll a “3” about one out of six times. If instead, we got a “3” five out of six times, we’d know that it wasn’t just chance. Probably, someone loaded the die to land on “3” a lot. But if we rolled the die a hundred times, and never once got a “3,” we’d be suspicious then, too. If we rolled it another thousand times, and still never got a “3,” we’d know that something more than chance was at play; the die was probably loaded not to land on “3.”

So, according to chance, crazy coincidences have to happen a certain amount. If they happen more than they should, or if they happen less than they should, we can guess that it’s not just chance, something else is affecting people’s lives.

But we certainly can’t just point to any ole crazy coincidence and say, “Look! Proof that there’s a government conspiracy. There’s no way this could just be the result of chance!” Well, no, because it very well might be the result of just chance.

Sometimes, surviving a disease is a one out of a million chance. But that just means that it is going to happen one out of those million times. We wouldn’t point to that and say that destiny saved that person or something. One out of a million means that one of those million people is supposed to get better!

This should make us question testimonials of miracle cures due to prayer or other forms of spiritual intervention. After all, we don’t get to see the millions who prayed and didn’t get cured. We only hear about the one case where someone prayed and then got better. Yet was it due to prayer or due to chance?

Most doctors never get a one out of a million cure. If they do, it might be the craziest thing to happen in their life and they might think destiny is intervening. But doctors don’t know everything (in fact, doctors’ grasp of probability is surprisingly poor).

And now, you know better than them.

So! The next time something crazy happens to you, remember:

Life is allowed to (occasionally) be crazy. Life is supposed to be crazy. Life is naturally crazy. One-out-of-a-thousand days will happen in your life every few years.

And the next time you hear about something crazy happening to someone else, remember: one-out-of-a-million days happen 7,000 times a day, somewhere on earth.

Is it destiny? Maybe. Karma? Aliens? Time Travelers? Maybe…but maybe not. It might just be chance.

Learn to look at the improbable and say “Maybe” to its face. And if your friend ever gets struck eight times by lightning, maybe you’ll know not to think they’re a bad person.

Questions to Consider:

• Suppose something is so rare as to only happen once every thousand days. How many of those things would have happened so far in your life?
• Why would it be weird if a one out of a thousand day never happened to someone?
• How many one out of a hundred days would a normal year of life have? How many have you probably had in the last year? In your whole life?
• What past events have you thought are too incredible to be just chance? Do any of them now seem like they might have just been coincidences after all?

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We all try to live a balanced and wholesome life. None of us walk through each day thinking that we will do half our best to be ourselves – and part of that is being proud of who we are. When we behave in a way that doesn’t feel like our best, it reflects on our pride and confidence in who we are, and we start thinking – “oh, why did I do that!” or “that wasn’t like me at all!”

In this way, we are constantly trying to be represent our best self, to take pride in what we do and support ourselves confidently around our peers. When we have off days we take it to heart and tend to think about it too much. It distracts us for the rest of the day and bothers our mood.

I want to talk about quickly recovering from these moments; this is something that affects sensitive people the most. We’ve all done stupid things at parties and around people we shouldn’t make faux-pas’ around, but when we do something that doesn’t feel like us in our day to day living, we tend to dwell on it – and we don’t want to do that!

1. It’s just a snapshot

When a manager walks by and berates and employee for, say, slacking off or playing on his phone, he is seeing a snapshot of the moment. He knows that the guy is a good employee and works the rest of the time, but simply caught him at a bad time – unfortunately, responsibility is responsibility and consequences are in effect.

For both people to leave without a bad taste in their mouth, they both must recognize the “snapshot” moment and leave it be. When we make a mistake in casual life around people, it’s important for both parties to remember that it’s just a snapshot. We all make mistakes. Sometimes it’s relieving to see other people recognize this! No one is perfect all the time.

2. Keep learning about who you are

We change a lot throughout our lives, and it’s a rather exciting thing! Scientist say that every 7 year cycle, all of our cells in our body have changed and been replaced by new ones including in our organs, our heart, or brain. They also say that we will change our jobs 7 times in our life…

What a great opportunity we have then, to continue to grow, evolve, and discover who we are, become better people, become better at who we are. When we make a social faux pas, we are not making any mistakes, we are just continuing our evolution as our own person. We are not born with a personality or identity – we grow into it slowly over time and through our environment. It’s a pleasure to discover new things and new ways to be better at life.

3. Don’t worry about what they think

We know that no one is perfect. Everyone slips all the time. Whether we live in a big city or small town, people and events occur around us at an alarming rate, all day long, and if someone wants to make a big deal about your behaviour, they can talk to you about it. The point is, don’t worry about what other people think – let bygones be bygones and enjoy life. You know who you are best and if part of that is getting mixed up every now and then, so be it.

4. Find growth potential everywhere

Doing something strange is an opportunity to both make sure we don’t do it again and also see what happens when we’ve already done it. Let’s say you’ve had an awkward encounter at a line in a coffee shop. You’re too tired this morning and you’ve accidentally been cutting in line without realizing it. You wouldn’t do that normally, but you haven’t had your coffee yet! Say sorry and shake it off, then take note of people’s reactions. It’s a light example, but any opportunity for a little social anthropology is a chance to learn more about people’s reactions and concerns, and how you can respond to it next time it happens to you.

5. Saving or losing face?

In many cultures in Asia, this type of situation is called saving or losing face. It is upholding your personal reputation to avoid shame or embarrassment. With this kind of culture in mind, it keeps the people from doing foolish things or things that might cause some loss of dignity.

In the western world then, perhaps we have a different approach to the topic. We are able to laugh off faux-pas, put things behind us and move on easily. Luckily for us, it means that if we’re all on the same wavelength, we don’t have to be as concerned about social anxiety! We are free to live our lives however we see fit and without such crippling concern about public shaming. So, enjoy the freedom and keep growing as a person!

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You wake up in the morning with a sense of dread, another day.

You have no energy for anything.

When you look in the mirror you don’t always like what you see.

Sometimes you have such little confidence you feel uncomfortable around people who have confidence coming out their ears.

You wish you had more to offer; you wish you were more Zen and spiritual.

You simply feel that you are worthless.

This was me, (and still is some days)

Oops I Got What I Thought

When I was a teenager, I LOVED T.V. doctor dramas. I’d binge watch until I thought my eyes would fall out.

I imagined myself in the hospital with a mysterious disease that no one could figure out, with my family all around and, of course a worried love interest by my side.

What I wanted was the attention, the romance, the fantasy and drama of these shows.

What I got was the disease, the near death, the hospital, the kidney failure and the pulmonary hypertension. Oh, and let’s not forget the mysterious disease that no one can figure out.

Turns out there was no romance, no fantasy, no T.V drama; just awful sickness.

It was literally “what you think is what you get.” Nowadays I have to constantly remind myself to think healing thoughts.

Recently, I was going through a tough period of depression after my second near-death experience -yes, it happened again- when someone told me to talk to myself. To tell myself uplifting statements during the day.

Even if it is just “Breathe,” or “Sleeping is OK.”

I started talking to myself as if I was talking to another person and giving myself encouraging thoughts.

Which helped remove the cloud hanging over my head.

But it took a while. My thoughts continued drifting back to thoughts of disease, weakness, ugliness, etc.

And some days they still do. I am a work in progress -aren’t we all? – but I’d like to share what I have learned with you.

Are your thoughts keeping you from achieving your highest potential? Try these…

1.You Are Beautiful

With the media bombarding you with preconceived notions of beauty, it is all too easy to forget that you are beautiful.

I find that I need to remind myself every day. This is not a narcissistic statement. It has nothing to do with being obsessed with yourself.

It is about self-love, loving yourself for who you are and knowing that you are beautiful inside and out. I know that’s a cliché, but sometimes we need a little cliché in our lives.

2.You Are a Divine Being

This one is important to understand and can sometimes be hard to wrap your head around.

ESSENTIAL DISCLAIMER: I talk about God, but if that word does not float your boat feel free to insert one of your choice. Example: The Divine, Higher Self, Light, Love, Life Force, Formless Substance, Cosmos, Universe etc..

Anyway we are all made from God or (insert word here) and therefore we are all divine beings, so remind yourself.

3.I Love You, I’m Sorry, Please Forgive Me, Thank You

In their book, Zero Limits, Dr. Joe Vitale and Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len discuss this ancient Hawaiian practice of forgiveness and healing called Ho’ponopono.

It turns out that loving yourself is the easiest way to heal yourself.

These are its principles:

Tell yourself you love yourself.

Tell yourself you are sorry, sorry for any negative thoughts or emotions you may have or had.

Ask for forgiveness.

And always say: “Thank you.”

Give it a try!

Side Note: Dr. Len healed a whole hospital/prison of criminal insane people in Hawaii by repeating this mantra to the photos of the inmates.

4.Pause, Take a Deep Breath and Smile

Do you ever forget to breathe? Yeah, me too!

Remind yourself to take a moment, breathe and smile. Especially on days that you are feeling down, overwhelmed or done.

Even just moving your lips into a smiling position can bring out a real smile and make you feel better.

Smile to yourself!

5.It’s OK if You Need a Break.

Give yourself a break. You don’t need to be able to “do it” every day.

Allow yourself to not be super human every day.

Sometimes what your body needs is for you to tell yourself that it is OK to watch a little television, take that nap or read that book

You don’t want to burn out, and resting is as important as doing.

6.You are Strong

We all need to remember this. Tell yourself that you are strong! Strength comes in all shapes and sizes.

I’m a tiny little thing of 5 feet and all I ever hear people say about me is that I am strong. But I need to remind myself, I need to hear it from me.

7.You Have the Right to be Rich

I recently read a book that changed my outlook on this. We are told not to be greedy and you must understand the difference. I am not talking about greed or desire for more material objects.

What I am talking about is everyone’s right to be rich because you can’t grow and evolve physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually if you don’t have resources.

In his book The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace D. Wattles explains that wealth is infinite and the “Formless Substance” that creates the world, wants us to be rich because by being rich we evolve and that’s what life is about.

He explains that we must think in this way and always remember that there is plenty for everyone. He calls it thinking creatively not competitively. I obviously can’t explain the book as well as he does so I highly recommend it.

But the premise is that we all have a right to be rich and we should remind ourselves every day, going back to the concept of what you think is what you get. Think wealth and you shall get wealth.

However, you must also put your thoughts to action. While you are thinking about getting rich you must do whatever your current work is with excellence.

And always remember to be grateful.

8.The Principle of Life is Health

Wallace D. Wattles also wrote a book called The Science of Being Well. I found this one particularly interesting because I am in the process of healing my body and reversing all the negative thoughts about disease.

He explains that the Universal Principle of Life is health, meaning that our original state is health. Everything is meant to be healthy.
The problem came when humans began to think of disease and of problems with the body.

He explains that medicine and cures work because the patient, whether consciously or unconsciously, believes that it will work. But the key is not just believing that it will work; it is believing that it will work on you.

That is why some systems of healing work on some people while other systems work on others.

But really all there is to it is remember that your true nature is health, which leads me to the next point.

9.Your Truth Is….

This is my favorite thing to repeat to myself daily. Right now my truth is health. I find it helpful for shifting my thoughts to health.

For example, if I tell myself “you are healthy,” and I don’t feel healthy that day, it may seem like denial.

The purpose is not denial. Denial is bad.

The purpose is to realize where you are at and move your thoughts to where you want to be. By speaking as if you are already there. And BELIEVING you are already there.

If I tell myself that my truth is health, I definitely believe that and I know I am already there because it is my true state.

10.You Are Grateful

Always remember and remind yourself to be grateful for everything that you have been blessed with in this life, because life is a precious gift.

I constantly say that I am grateful for being alive. I thank myself and my body for fighting to be here and for putting up with my thoughts.

And I thank the universe for blessing me and for everything.

Change Your Thoughts and Change Your Life

Having no desire for anything sucks!

Especially when the people around you seem to be delighted souls with plenty of confidence.

But these simple thoughts repeated often and with belief can dramatically improve your self vision.

Whether you are trying to heal, don’t have enough money, simply don’t have enough energy or even have been feeling ugly, it starts with the mind.

Even though we often forget, we are all so worthy and we must help each other feel it.

Imagine looking at yourself in the mirror every morning and loving what you see. Finding yourself smiling at nothing at all during the day

To start just try one of the statements above, pick your favorite and tell it yourself often, as often as you can.

Put the statements on sticky notes and post them all over your room or home. Remind yourself that you are the best you and that is all that matters

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