Depression And How To Beat It

Even though the effects of depression may be all too real in your life, depression is simply not real. If believe yourself to be suffering from depression, it’s just your imagination because depression is the direct result of your subconscious mind’s obsession with useless thoughts that you took on board during your childhood years. It is normal for your subconscious mind to dwell on the past – everyone’s does – it’s simply that the nonsense that yours is paying attention to is evidently a little (or a lot) out of the ordinary. Of course, that’s not your fault – your subconscious mind was conditioned with these thoughts by others, people and events that made you feel worthless, guilty, dejected during those childhood years.

Even though it’s normal for your subconscious to dwell on past deeply-rooted memories, this obsession doing you damage – you can see it and feel it in your daily life. Again, mustn’t feel bad about this – everyone’s subconscious mind is doing them damage – at least you have the advantage over other normal people in realizing that you have a problem.

But that problem is completely down to what your subconscious mind is thinking about. You must tear your mind away from those self-destructive thoughts and redirect your attention to the one place and time that’s real, the only place and time that you can actually live – the present moment. If you manage to turn your attention to the here and now you will experience something that you probably have never experienced before – depression is an illusion, there’s no such thing as fear or worry, there’s only a world full of possibilities and opportunities – and quantum physics proves that that wonderful world will respond to your hopes and dreams.

Pills or medicine will not enable you experience the difference between reality and the fiction of stress – they might make the pain go away for a while but your subconscious mind will always wander back to those thoughts that are not real but just an imprint of your own ancient history. The only way in which you will experience reality – one cleansed of depression – is to learn how to clear your mind. No sweat! Because, as a child, you had a totally clear mind – that’s how those bad feelings were impressed upon you way back then. All you’ve got to do now is re-train yourself to pay attention to what your five senses are telling you, just right now – without putting your subconscious mind’s warped interpretation onto the facts.

I am convinced that the best way to relearn how to pay attention to the reality of your five senses is meditation – preferably, for starters, guided meditation. It will take you a while to get into it, it can be difficult, but a small amount of commitment will yield the wonderful benefit of your being able to live your life to the full.

Clearing Your Mind For Happiness

Are you happy with yourself and with your life? In all probability that there are things that you would want to alter about your life and you, yourself – I’ve rarely met anyone who’s unconditionally happy. People frequently believe that if they improve themselves, lose weight, buy a new car, have really cool holidays that, then, they’ll be happy. But, that happiness, however, is transient and superficial. True happiness has to be lasting and not dependant on having this or doing that.

The only place that you find happiness is within. Sadly, that is way beyond the range of protected from them by what psychologists call ‘The Sentry’, a defense mechanism that we all have that prevents others getting into our heads where they would then be able to brainwash us. The big problem is that this ‘Sentry’ keeps us out as well! For a very good reason – or, at least, it would appear reasonable until you take a closer look at how we operate – our beliefs about how the world operates and ourselves are stored in our subconscious. You wouldn’t want to go messing with that stuff, would you? Or would you? Because most of us believe ourselves to be inadequate at least in some aspect of our lives, most of us aren’t totally happy with who we think we are. That’s because our beliefs aren’t grounded in fact but on a build-up of what we call the conditioning or programming that we were subjected to during what you might call your formative years. This programming or conditioning is the source of both your unease with yourself and, just as importantly, everything that you believe to be wrong in your life.

What passes for reality is created by our beliefs – it is those beliefs that automatically dictate our behavior, our actions, our reactions and our interactions with everybody else. It is through this process that we, ourselves, create our version of reality. What’s going on in your head, at a deep subconscious level, literally creates your life. And it isn’t real, it’s concocted from what others did to us or for us during those formative years. So of course you’d want to go messing with your beliefs, because normal beliefs hold normal people back.

You need to mess with your beliefs. You need to get to the real, inner you, to find true happiness – that is where you’ll discover a you that is unstained by the crap of normal conditioning, unspoiled by the deeply held beliefs that mess up our so-called normal lives – silly beliefs that keep us in our place – like we should know our place, like you have to work hard to be a success, like pleasure/pain principle, that pride comes before a fall – fill in your own list.

Forget all that nonsense. Indeed, forget about who you thought you were and discover who you really are – and the kind of life that you can really have. Your mind’s obsessed with the normal crap – stop it. I teach my clients various forms of ‘mental calming measures’ – meditation if you will – you need to calm down, wake up and see the light. Only then you will find true happiness.

Self Help – Do Self Affirmations Actually Work?

Do Please Login or Register to see the link. actually work? The short answer is ‘No’ – unless you have a few years to spare and a serious supply of perseverance. The problem is that self-affirmations are address at your conscious mind and, unfortunately, your conscious mind has absolutely nothing to do with how you behave, how you react to others and situations, how you view life in general or, most importantly, the way in which you view yourself. However, as I said, if you throw enough muck at your conscious mind, sooner or later – in fact, definitely later – some of that mud will eventually stick and make some kind of positive impression on your subconscious mind. However, you’d have to stick with it religiously and, even then, you’d be faced with an uphill battle because your subconscious mind simply won’t believe what it’s being told if its view of reality is the opposite. How come? Your subconscious mind controls your beliefs, behaviours and reactions and actually creates your own personal version of reality. Self-affirmation is like trying to having a snowball fight in hell’s fiery furnace!!

That said, if you’re really determined to Please Login or Register to see the link., some area of your life, or change yourself, your own self confidence or some unsavoury behaviour or bad habit, it’s your subconscious mind that you will have to impress. It holds all the keys, has its hand on all the levers and its feet on all the pedals that either get your life moving forward or, more often than not, grind to a complete and shuddering full stop.

In order to Please Login or Register to see the link., you’re going to have to become like a little child again – not childish but childlike. When you were a child you paid full attention to the reality of the here and now, using each of your five senses – that is how you learned your current set of beliefs about the world and who you believe yourself to be. Consequently, you now pay little or no attention to reality today – your subconscious mind pretty much makes your reality up for you as it goes along! – with all the usual consequences. You need to come back to your senses, to relearn how to pay more attention to what’s actually happening around you, instead of paying attention to the subconscious baggage that’s weighing you down.

The normal subconscious is living in the past. And the key to your future is to be found in the present. After all, the present moment is the only place and time where life is actually lived. As such, you’ve got to re-learn how to pay attention to what is actually going on, not what your subconscious mind, peering out through its dirty lens of past events, thinks is going on. This re-learning process means training yourself how to pay attention to what you see, feel, hear, smell and taste. This training has to be practiced in peace and quiet so that, when the wheels starting coming off in the so-called real world, you’re equipped and ready to perform in a way that will lead you onwards and upwards to the life that heart desires.

Personal Growth – The Link Between Body, Mind And Spirit

I often find it difficult to explore some of the key ideas in what I might call Please Login or Register to see the link. given that ordinary language and words prove far from adequate. By way of example, do the words ‘universal energy’ adequately explain the reality that you and I are energy, we live in a world and universe made up of vibrating energy and that energy responds to our input? Does the sobriquet ‘Please Login or Register to see the link.’ mean different things to different people? And where do the limits lie between Please Login or Register to see the link.?

Of course, in fact, there are no boundaries between mind, body and spirit in the same way that there are no limits between us individually and the universe of which each of us comprises an indispensable and intergal part. We are not just part of a whole, when it comes to us individually, there is just one – mind, body and spirit are simply different aspects of the one. It’s important to understand this because, when one looks at the facts in this way, it becomes obvious that what we’re thinking has an immediate impact on how we feel physically and mentally. For example, when one examines the apparent reality of stress and its all too real physical consequences, we realize that our thoughts directly cause shifts in body temperature and heart rate, changes in the creation and distribution of a whole range of chemicals all of which, if unchecked, lead to serious illnesses – such as heart attack and stroke – and, if seriously out of control, result in premature death.

The point that I am making is this. Our mental state has a direct influence on the state of mind of others around us – this has been proven many times by research in the field of psychology. How much more does our state of mind affect us, ourselves? Your fitness, health and wellness are all directly related to your state of mind. Even your weight – your inclination to gain too much of it or a variety of dietary disorders from bulimia to anorexia – is a direct consequence of what you’re thinking.

And what you’re thinking is directly within your own control – or can be if you make the effort to make the simplest and, ultimately, most liberating decision that any one of us can make as grown ups – choosing your own thoughts. The normal mind is plagued with toxic thoughts, most of which come from the subconscious. Research concludes that the normal subconscious is focused on the events of our childhood years and is predisposed to focus on the more negative events. That is our default mental state. That is not to say that we cannot choose as to what we will pay attention to, however.

You are your own master. Your life, every part of it, is dictated by what you’re paying attention to – whether you’re aware of it or not. This ultimate and powerful decision that I’ve just mentioned can be taken, each day, each moment, by deciding to pay attention to the actual reality of the here and now. That’s the only cast-iron way of stopping your own subconscious dwelling on self-destructive thoughts. No other mechanism is more effective, no other way has the power to absolutely transform your health, your fitness, your wellbeing, your personal effectiveness and, most importantly, your ability to have a life of peace, happiness and incredible success.

Personal Development And Wasting Your Time And Energy

Right now, you’re living new day – a day that’s never happened before, a day that will never be repeated. Now is a new moment. And, in each new moment, you have a choice. And on your choice depends your personal development. You have a choice in regard to the thoughts that you are paying attention to just at the present moment. Are those thoughts simply random? Perhaps they’re negative thoughts? Have they anything to do with what you should be doing at this moment in time? Are they positive thoughts (better than negative ones but they’re still just thoughts). The thoughts you’re focused on are distracting you from doing. Don’t waste your energy, ignore your thoughts, but leave space for the flights of fancy to surface – because they are not thoughts, but inspiration and inspiration only comes to the clear mind.

In this new moment, it’s your choice as to your behavior and actions (more commonly reactions) too. And, depending on what you choose, you can quite literally change your life. How much energy have you simply thrown away already today? How much time have you squandered sitting in front of your PC’s screen, staring blankly? How much of your precious and vital energy have you wasted gossiping about and delighting in the misdeeds or misfortune of others? You’ve probably misspent some precious time shuffling you’re “To Do” list until there’s no time left to do! Or how much of your time and energy have you mis-invested in doing things you just should not be doing – like surfing the net for things that have nothing to do with anything important, reading emails that were copied to you to cover someone’s backside, wading through the sordid details of domestic violence that pad out each day’s newspapers? Every moment that you waste is a moment that you will never have again. And what we achieve in life is the sum total of how we spend each precious moment.

At least, in reflecting on some of these searching questions you might begin to realize just how much of your life is misspent on doing things that are holding you back from living the life that you want. But these are energy-wasters that you’re aware off – there’s something even worse going on. How much energy are you wasting and you don’t even know? Because, unless your subconscious mind is immersed in profitable activity in the present moment, it is still happily wandering around your childhood years, thinking that those childhood events are actually happening now – and you’ve no idea whatsoever that that’s what’s actually happening. And this is the waste of energy that divorces us all from the opportunities of the now, from the reality of the now, from the abundance of the now.

So, ask yourself this question. Do you want to change your life? Then ask yourself if what you are doing now, in the context of what you really want out of life, is the very best investment of your energy. If it isn’t, don’t do it.

The Importance Of Relaxation

I find it bizarre. I know lots of people who tell me that they do not know how to Please Login or Register to see the link.. One client told me that he gets guilt pangs sitting doing nothing on a Saturday – he feels compelled to fly around the house and garden determined to find something to occupy him. Another friend recently revealed that, whilst Saturday morning is golf time, and although he actually goes out for his eighteen holes, he doesn’t actually play! He can’t – his mind is wandering back to everything that happened during the previous week or what’s going to happen the following week. He’s playing golf but, not only is he not chilled, he’s not even all there! Even better, a guy who doesn’t have a care in the world – great job that he’s really on top of, great personal life, great everything, tells me that when he’s playing golf he cannot prevent himself feeling guilty – feeling that he should be in the office or at home!

Modern living pretty much demands of us that we must be constantly on the go. But there’s a big difference between filling your day with activity and getting the really important things done. And one of the important things that you must have as an integral part of your life is time to chill. A New York Times article a some years ago explained that native tribes in the Amazon basin have the lifestyle that every New Yorker wants – seven hours work each week, the rest spent at leisure. However, the average New Yorker simply wouldn’t know what to do with all that leisure. Sure, there’d be plenty of activity crammed into it – but what about Please Login or Register to see the link. (like the Amazonians)?

You need to find yourself an easy chair, sit down and do nothing for half an hour – you’d be surprised where your mind takes you. Or find a shade tree, spread out a rug and just lie there. This is the quality space that we need in our lives – not to recharge our batteries, but to clear our heads, become inspired and discover the crucial things that we need to take action on to be happy and successful. Sir Isaac Newton was sitting under a tree when the apple fell for him – find your tree and you’ll realize that pennies will drop for you. A little Please Login or Register to see the link..

Practical Personal Growth Tips: Take A Breather

Almost as soon as our day gets going it’s very easy to be overwhelmed by the routine, the urgent (not necessarily the important), this morning’s crisis or, most prevalent of all, unproductive thinking. Even if you have started your day properly, it is all too easy to become submerged and revert to our default state of unfocused mindlessness.

So, first things first, what does Please Login or Register to see the link. mean? Well, we make certain that we don’t leave the house physically unprepared for the day ahead. We shower and dress ourselves – shaving or applying the odd dab of make-up as appropriate! On the other hand, we unwittingly leave the house every morning mentally unprepared for what lies in store. Starting the day properly means making sure that, before leaving home, you’ve taken the appropriate step or steps to clear the mind and focus your energy. I suggest five to ten minutes Please Login or Register to see the link. for the day ahead. Find somewhere where you won’t be disturbed, sit and focus on your five senses – one sense at a time. This will enable you focus on what is really going on as distinct from the subconscious programs that otherwise run your life – the latter being your default state of mind.

Right, let’s say that you’ve Please Login or Register to see the link., you’re switched on, fully focused, alert and primed for action. Little things like a delayed train, like heavy traffic, like somebody asking you to do something unexpectedly – so many little things can upset us. And we haven’t even mentioned the big things! It can be so easy to wander automatically into mental oblivion as the day unfolds. What we’ve got to do is ensure that, throughout the day, we pause to catch our breath – literally.

Ancient wisdom places great store on the opportunity that our breathing offers us to clear our mind of useless nonsense and distraction and, in doing so, focus our energy. So, here’s an easy, quick and very practical tip – because, after all, you’ve got to breathe anyway! Take a couple of moments – moments is all that’s required – during the day to pay attention to the reality of the moment as you inhale and exhale. Pay attention to what it feels like to breathe, how your body responds with each breath in and out, how the air passes through the left, right or both nostrils. Give thanks for the reality that you are alive and breathing. Attend to nothing else for these few moments. If the hassles or useless thoughts of the moment start crowding your mind, take three deeper breaths to refocus your attention. With each breath, realize that whatever might be driving you crazy right now will be completely forgotten in months, weeks, days or even hours. Realize that, with an alert, focused and ready mind, all things are possible.

Personal Development: How To Handle The Crap In Your Brain

Do you have crap in your head? Undoubtedly you have – we all have. However, if you’re paying attention to the crap in your head, you are just creating the crap that you have in your life. You are what you’re thinking. Unfortunately, it’s not just the thoughts that you’re aware of that create your life, it’s just a bit more subtle than that. Actually, more than anything else, you are what you’re thinking subconsciously. Your subconscious mind runs – or ruins – your life. All of your behavior, everything that you do, all your reactions and all your interactions – with those who are close to you, friends, colleagues and even with people who you don’t even know – are all dictated by your subconscious. And the big problem is that, because of the way your subconscious mind is wired, it all just happens automatically.

However, there’s an even bigger problem. Your subconscious mind is full of crap. It’s crap because it has nothing to do with who you are or what you’re supposed to be doing right here, right now. All this crap is a hangover from your childhood, when you were young and impressionable – from your formative years. And, even though all the automatic behavior happens subconsciously, every so often you’re actually aware of the crap. at times you might feel down, stressed, negative or depressed. You might believe that you’re useless, uneasy or inadequate. Sometimes, or in some situations, you might feel nervous or anxious. Maybe you feel that you lack self-confidence or that you’re suffering from low self-esteem. But this is just crap created by crap! This is the crap that has your life on hold – and you let this happen by paying attention, whether you’re aware of it or not, to the crap that’s buried in your head.

All this crap won’t go away – but you can choose whether or not you pay attention to it – either consciously or, in actual fact, subconsciously. That’s what personal development or self improvement is all about. You see, as a grown adult, you can actually take control of your subconscious mind – choose, in each moment, what you’ll pay your attention to. So you’ve got to decide to turn your attention to something real instead of letting your subconscious mind just lead you by the nose into an ever deepening vortex of crap. The only thing that’s really real in your life – the here and now. This is where you can really be the very best you if you could only stop paying attention to all the crap. Pay attention to now – to what you see, feel, hear, smell and taste. This focus will drag your subconscious (sometimes kicking and screaming) away from its natural obsession with all the unreal crap. Normally you don’t actually experience anything real because you see it through the fog of crap. You’ve got to clear the fog – it won’t clear on its own because it’s your personal fog. Clear the fog by realizing that it’s not there at all! There is no fog.

All that’s here is what is here just now. So teach yourself to experience your five senses – make sense of the here and now instead of nonsense. It’s life changing.

Self Help Looking At Life In A Different Way

The truth is that normal people view life through dark glasses and, consequently, everything looks gloomier than it should. This is the norm because the subconscious mind is hard-wired to look at reality through our conditioning and it is more likely than not that our mind will dwell on negative rather than positive programming. This mental shortcoming is what is keeping your life on hold.

You’ve got to alter the way you look at your world – this is at the very heart of Please Login or Register to see the link.. Don’t get me wrong, I am not proposing that you look at life through rose-tinted glasses – that will prevent you from seeing potential pitfalls or warning signs. This attitude disables people from knowing when to quit something that isn’t working for them – for example, a toxic relationship or a floundering business. As such what is widely called Please Login or Register to see the link. or a Please Login or Register to see the link. is truly dangerous and often leads to the biggest cop-out: “I’ll do nothing because I know that things will get better!”

Something different, even innovative, is required. I am suggesting that you see life for what it is – the reality of the here and now. It is only in the present moment that you can see the upside of opportunities that you might otherwise altogether fail to notice with your dark glasses on. Similarly, you will be acutely aware of downside of what you’re doing or thinking about doing – something that you will not otherwise see if you’re looking through those rose-tinted glasses.

However, the reality and opportunity of the present moment can only be experienced, appreciated and capitalized upon if you ignore your hard-wiring – something that doesn’t come naturally if you’re a normal adult. But it came naturally to all of us as children. Indeed it was that clarity of mind that enabled us to be programmed in the first place. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to relearn how to fully be in the here and now without adding your own personal spin or preconceived notions into the mix. You’ve got to stop making a nonsense of the present moment by relying on your programming.

This can be achieved by coming to your senses – I mean that quite literally. You’ve got five senses – you need to start paying attention to what they’re actually telling you. Psychology tells us that, as normal adults, we pay precious little attention to what our senses are really telling us. Instead, our programming has lulled us into a false sense of security that we know best. We don’t – how could we, we’ve no perspective on the bigger picture of what life might be like if we let it.

Coming to your senses requires that you spend a little time each day, preferably early in the morning, training your mind to notice what you actually see, feel, hear, smell and taste, without interpreting, without analysing, without jumping to your habitual conclusions. Start working one sense each day and discover where it takes you.

Personal Development And The Extraordinary Power Of Now

If you’re keen on personal development or self improvement, you’ll have some understanding of the importance placed by many experts on being focused in the present moment. Ekhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’ emphasizes the virtues of what might be described as presence of mind. However, Tolle, together with other personal development ‘gurus’, doesn’t either adequately explain why ‘Now’ is just so important or, indeed, give practical advice on being more present.

First off, now is the only place and time that actually exists – the past is what you learn from (although psychology proves that most of us don’t learn but subconsciously live there) and the future is something that will only transpire the way you want if you’re prepared to be focused and effective in the here and now. Also, quantum physics tells us that the universe only exists now – and it confirms that universal energy responds to our energy – now. In simple terms, it is vital to be present. Being present gives you ‘presence’ – the hallmark of all successful people.

The big problem is that we’re not present. Our subconscious is focused in our so-called formative years, whilst our conscious mind is plagued by useless thought – thoughts tending towards negative self-doubt and worry. As a result it’s little surprise that research suggests that the normal mind is only one percent present. If that’s true you’re extremely unlikely to elicit much response from an otherwise responsive universe.

In short, it’s vital that you become more present. But how? Being present means being focused on what you’re doing and where you are now. The majority of, according to many surveys, are not focused on what they’re doing, preferring instead to do what they’re doing whilst thinking that they don’t like what they’re doing! Also, most of us haven’t understood the simplicity of what focus actually is. Focus means paying attention – nothing else. It means tuning into the reality of the moment, using the only mechanism that’s available to you to do this – your five senses. These are your sole interface with the world. Yet we pay little attention to what our senses are telling us, we prefer to let our subconscious put its own interpretation on reality. We all use our preconceived notions to make sense of now and, as a result, make utter nonsense of it.

You’ve got to relearn how to pay attention. We were all expert at this when we were young children. The simplest way to start re-learning is to set some time aside to re-focus one sense at a time. I suggest that you find somewhere quiet to sit tomorrow morning. Close your eyes and notice how all the sounds around you become more pronounced. They’re not, of course, you’re just paying more attention. Notice your body’s sensations – feelings that you wouldn’t notice when you’re normally inattentive. Next morning you might spend a few minutes noticing how your body reacts when you breathe. Five minutes each morning will vastly affect your ability to pay attention for the rest of the day – you’ll be more present, more focused, more tuned into what’s going on and the opportunities the moment offers.

Then you can start measuring your improved focus by reference to your results. You’ll be more responsive to situations and people that they might otherwise fail to see or avoid completely, you’ll be more open to doing things that you wouldn’t otherwise do. And, on the basis that the one thing that has your life stuck in a rut is the fact that you rarely do anything different, bold or courageous, this can only be a good thing. Through your presence you will not just be open to new opportunity – you’ll actually create your own opportunities. The net result is that, at least, your life will move forward – for the better. At most, your life will never be the same – you will achieve effortless and measurable, success and happiness.

Next Page »