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Emotions

Should you control your reactions?

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familyEverything you see happening is the consequence of that which you are.  Dr David Hawkins.

This quote appeared on a Facebook page I follow a little while ago.  It’s a very succinct quote which covers a huge area of our lives and I think warrants exploring a little deeper, as its true meaning can be difficult to understand and most importantly, to accept.

In essence, what this quote is telling us is that we are responsible for all the things we experience in our lives now, have experienced in the past and will have and experience in the future.  No matter what has happened to us right up until this point, good or bad, we are responsible.  Harsh, eh?  After all, there will be things that have happened to us over which we had no control.  Examples where we may not feel any responsibility could be a car accident where the other driver was at fault, or the death of a loved one.

In these examples it’s difficult to see how we could be responsible for the outcome, but this isn’t really what the quote is trying to convey to us.  The reality is that in whatever situation we find ourselves, we are responsible for our reaction, and that’s it, in a nutshell.

There’s a further difficulty with this concept and that is that we believe that our reactions are justifiable, and this may be true, but, the point we often miss is that our reactions will create our ongoing reality.  To put this another way, the thing we need to understand is that we are our behaviour, which is the same as saying we are how we react.

But, just to confuse things a little further, believing our reactions to be justifiable doesn’t mean that those on the receiving end have to or will accept them in the way we intended.  That’s down to their perception!  If you think back I’m sure you will have experienced situations where misunderstandings arose between yourself and someone else because others’ perceptions of our behaviour may not be in line with what we intended for them to understand from our personal conduct.  Frankly, it all sounds like a nightmare!

Take a look at this simple multiple choice question, and choose which response you would be most likely to follow: [Read more…] about Should you control your reactions?

From Funk To Action: A Case Study!

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penholderI’ve woken up this morning in the doldrums, this is at best inconvenient (I have a blog to write today and a myriad of domestic chores to finish before the working week descends once again), at worst it could potentially leave me moping, lethargic and unproductive all day.  My only salvation is that I hate to let people down, and, although for the most part I can probably pass up the domestic chores without it causing too much damage (although it will result in lots of rushing around to catch up as the week progresses), I cannot avoid addressing the issue of writing the blog.  This is a *good thing* I tell myself…

So today will be about tricking, cajoling and generally compelling myself to complete the work.  This won’t be easy, but it will get the work done and I also know that by the time I finish, I will be feeling much better!  What I don’t fully understand is why I feel like this in the first place, although I guess we can’t be upbeat, enthusiastic and raring with energy 365 days a year…I just wish we could!

So, with Wayne Dyer’s words ringing in my ears… “Be miserable.  Or motivate yourself.  Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”  it’s time to get to work.

First port of call is to sit down at the computer, open the page, and start typing.  Unfortunately for my readers, today it’s the trials and tribulations of a would-be writer, but hopefully I’ll be forgiven for baring my oh-so-human weaknesses. [Read more…] about From Funk To Action: A Case Study!

Are Groundhog Days Holding You Back?

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Are Groundhog Days Holding You Back?

Some time ago, I blogged about the importance of persistence in the battle to achieve our goals.  One of the things that I mentioned in that blog was that I, like everyone else, often succumb to my old bad habits or old ways of doing things at the expense of maintaining my new good habits.  I will have seen progress whilst instigating these new good habits, but, for whatever reason, I fall off the wagon and slowly, or sometimes quickly, drift back to my old ways.

I also went on to tell you that these days, I am much better at getting back on the wagon sooner, so, even though there may have been some ‘damage’, this can be limited by my ability to get back to my new good habits sooner rather than later.

And this is where I found myself recently.  In the last few months I’ve fallen off the weight control/healthy eating wagon.  Consequently I’ve gained some weight, lost some (read ‘a lot of’) muscle tone and am generally feeling more lethargic.  My clothes are tighter.  It then dawned on me that it was time to face the situation and get back on that wagon.

So, in the last few days, I have re-subscribed to myFitnessPal, which is the app I use on my phone to keep track of my food and exercise calories.  I’ve also been out for a few long walks and have been careful about what food I’ve allowed to pass my lips.  Everything has been recorded in the app. [Read more…] about Are Groundhog Days Holding You Back?

Using My Emotions!

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boredmanAre you a slave to your emotions, or are you cool, calm and collected in all situations?  Do you react, or are you proactive?  Does life happen to you, or do you happen to life?

I’m guessing that, like me, you probably fall somewhere between the two extremes of each of these instances, with different stimuli causing varying degrees of reaction, some of which you comfortably control and others raising reactions which can even cause you to be surprised.

The dictionary definition of emotion is (taken from Oxford Dictionairies):

  • a strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others
  • instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or knowledge

The first definition I think we can probably accept without argument, although I find the second definition slightly more challenging as it suggests that we are victims of our emotions with limited capacity to control them, and that’s a notion that I find difficult to accept.

Sometime ago I seemed to come across different versions of the following quotes almost on a daily basis:

“Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but how we react to what happens..”   Wade Boggs,

and this one from Mia Hamm:

“Failure happens all the time.  It happens every day in practice.  What makes you better is how you react to it.” [Read more…] about Using My Emotions!