Best Weekend Ever

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Best Weekend Ever – YES to Zebras, NO to my To Do List

I have a list of “to-do’s” a mile long.  I’ve decided to ignore the list completely for the WHOLE WEEKEND.  And I’ll bet the world will twirl on its axis just fine 🙂  Instead, my plans are to absolutely savor:

  • a long, leisurely walk with my dogs
  • reading a non-business-related book
  • dancing to a Zumba DVD
  • a long bubble-bath with an audiobook playing…heaven!
  • going on a special outing with my sweetie and son…to an exotic animal park!
  • going to our little country church and enjoying the “Norman Rockwell-ness” of connection both to people and to heaven
  • smiling at everyone I meet and encouraging those who need it

That is all. I smile just thinking of it!

I hope you enjoy your weekend, too!

 

Worry – Art Form or Life Drain?

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It is SO helpful to worry – I feel SO much better after a good worry session. ~ said NO ONE EVER.

Do you ever lose perspective, sinking into worry and exhaustion?  Me, too.  I honed worry into an art form until I finally discovered that negative thoughts are habit-forming.  (Thankfully, so are positive ones!)  With just a little practice, we can form the habit of focusing on balancing our priorities and possibilities.  When we do, we just might find that we spend less time stressing about our challenges and draining our life away.

Steps to eliminate (or at least reduce!) worry:

1.  Use the power of distraction. Use a meditation or guided imagery app on your smartphone or computer. Try deep breathing, counting 1-2-3-4 while breathing in, holding your breath to the count of 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, and gently blowing your breath out to the count of 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.  Repeat 2X.

2.  Awfulize. Make your worry the worst thing in the world until it’s so ridiculous you have to stop.

3. Play the opposite game.  What if the opposite of your worry happened? What would that bring to your life?

4.  Did I mention distraction?  🙂

Attitude is the mind’s paintbrush, it can color any situation. Barbara Johnson

 

Keeping It Simple

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“Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.” — Oscar Wilde

We live in a world where simplicity is scarce. Think for just a moment about how busy our everyday lives are now, and compare it to our great-great grandparents’ lives. We have the benefit of a LOT of technology (love it!), but wow, there’s a price to pay for complexity, right?

From the minute we open our eyes (and look at our phone/computer/TV to see what happened while we were sleeping) until we shut them again to sleep, we are barraged with information. And most of it is advertising, intended to convince us to buy things we don’t even know we need (and probably don’t!)

Add to that all the responsibilities we have, from billing to banking to health care to home ownership to driving, insurance, family, friends, church…(add your additional roles). It can all be too much! I say we fight back! We can be overwhelmed by complexity or we can take control of our lives.

First step: Decide just what do we really want to focus our lives on? What have we been told we are “supposed” to be, have, do? Does that picture ring true for us? Is it worth the price we’re paying? Simplifying our focus on the key values we hold dear can help reduce the “noise” we hear daily.

Second step: Once we know what is super-important to us (we don’t want to live without it), we can look at some specific strategies that simplify and balance the significant areas of our lives.

There is joy in living simply, and I believe we should. Simplicity is genius.