Living with Serenity!

What is Serenity? I have one definition that says “free from stress and negative emotion”.  I lke that one. Living with a sense of serenity and happiness is probably a goal that just about anyone would desire. Sometimes we are so busy that it seems impossible to slow down enough to really enjoy what life has to offer. I read in a book entitled  ”LIving the Serenity Prayer” by Jeanett Gardner Littleton and James Stuar Bell , about a group of people who used the popular “Serenity Prayer” to help them live life in a fuller way.

I love the idea of people using “techniques” and “reminders” to live a better life. Now True, I know you don’t have to have a catalyst to be happy. But, what is wrong with using something that works? Catalysts or  structured methods help to keep us on track, to be congruent, to remind us who we really are. I know that happiness and serenity is an “inside job”. The reason for the catalyst is not the reason we become happy and live with with serenity. The reason for the catalyst is to remind us who we are, to remind us that we have the choice, the choice to have serenity and happiness.

3 Methods to Cultivate Serenity

1. Take 5 to 15 minutes at the beginning and the end of each day to focus on how you want to feel. Not what makes you feel that way, but the feeling itself.  Explore the feeling of serenity. Make it a part of your life.
2. On extremely busy days, take at least a 10 -15 minute break every 2 hours. Daydream about what makes you feel happy, then feel the serenity permeate through your body.
3. Take time at least once a week to be in nature. Feel the serenity that is naturally there. Enjoy it. Bathe in it.

Happy Manifesting,
Tom Troughton
www.BeClearToday.com
“Clearing the mental blocks on Your Road to Success”

7 Simple Steps to Revitalize your Relationship

Sometimes it is easy to take our relationship with our partner for granted, instead of viewing our relationship as something that needs to be tended and nurtured. Taking a relationship for granted is often common when stress and the business of life have our focus and attention. However, even if a relationship seems flat and routine at this point, there are simple steps that you can do to revitalize and renew your relationship. You and your partner can start to clear out the “staleness” and bring back vitality by utilizing some of these 7 simple steps.

1. Find something to appreciate about your partner each day and tell your partner what you appreciate about him or her. Often it is easy to take each other for granted in the day to day hustle and bustle of life. If you are the person who has not been appreciated, resentment can set in. Stopping to appreciate your partner sends the message to them that they matter and are a valuable part of your life. Even just a genuine “Thank you so much, you make a huge difference in my life,” feels wonderful to a partner.

2. Sometime it can feel like life is so busy, that it is hard to find time to be with your partner. Finding time to connect on a daily basis is important. One way is to turn off the television and talk to each other during dinner. Another way to connect is by exercising together.

3. Decide not to criticize your partner. This does not mean you avoid communicating with your partner if there is something that is bothering you, but communication does not need to take the form of criticism. For example, instead of saying, “You are such a slob, you always leave the bathroom so messy,” you might say, “Hey, I know if might seem like such a little thing, but would you mind putting the toothpaste cap back on and putting the toothpaste away after you have used it? Thank you, this would make me feel so good!”

4. Ask your partner how you can support him or her this week. A simple inquiry such as, “Is there anything I can do to make your week go more smoothly?” This might be picking up the laundry for your partner or going to grocery store.

5. Do something playful together. This might be taking a walk to a local park and swinging on a swing set, or going sledding in the snow. The activity is not that important as long as it is something that is fun and will encourage you both to laugh.

6. Start a new hobby together. Taking an art class together or taking ballroom dance lessons together are two possibilities. Doing an activity together where the focus is on sharing an experience together is the key.

7. Ask your partner when he or she feels most loved by you. Don’t anticipate the answer you will receive. Instead, try being open and listen fully to hear your partner. Likely, he or she will tell you one or two things that you have done – whether these gestures were writing an “I love you” note, bringing in firewood, or having a good conversation. This answer you receive is a clue that you can then follow. You can enrich your relationship by showing more love and affection to your partner in similar ways.

Even by trying one or 2 of these simple steps it can make a vast improvement in your relationship. Let me know what you try and how these steps work for you!

Deborah Barnett, Ph.D.

www.ManifestingWellBeing.com

Manifesting Well-Being for Health and Success

Gratitude, Thanksgiving and Happiness

Thanksgiving Day! I think it is great that we have a day to celebrate being thankful and grateful for all the treasures we have in our life. I read recently that people who are regularly thankful actually live healthier and longer lives.  “Imagine that”! It makes total sense to me.

I have found that happiness is totally relative. It is a state of mind. I often hear people say things like:

1.  If I could have that car I would be happy
2. If I had more money I’d be happy
3. If I had a soul mate i’d be happy
4. if i lived on the beach I’d be happy
5. If my children would listen to me
6. if, if, if …

In some places in the world, all it would take to be happy is to have a bite of food to put in your mouth. In other places, a gift of a palace wouldn’t suffice.

So what is my point? The point is that we can choose to be happy no matter what the circumstances.  Happiness is a state of mind, not an effect of what we have or what we want to have.

Choose wisely, choose happiness and enjoy your life!

Happy Thanksgiving,
www.BeClearToday.com
“Clearing the mental blocks on Your Road to Success”
Tom Troughton

Tom Troughton

Change Your Environment to Clear Your Mind

I’m not, if I were to classify myself, what I would consider a “tree-hugger” type of person. However, I do love

Dr. Deborah Barnett

nature, and yesterday when I was taking a walk I nearly found myself running to hug a beautiful maple tree. It was gorgeous. The individual leaves had spread of color that began with a deep salmon and moved into a brilliant golden yellow. I was taken with the majesty of the tree and all thoughts or any concerns of the day disappeared as I drank in its beauty.

During that walk yesterday I took myself out of my home office, where I was working on a project at the computer, and it cleared my head. A change in environment can be a tremendous aid to releasing worries or thoughts that pull us down. A location can help to anchor and then later re-trigger thoughts, whether up-lifting or of concern. So if you are worrying in your office, take a break and go to something else for a while. It is helpful to get out of the office at lunch, even if briefly, to clear your mind. If you are home on in the evening or on the weekend and feeling down or concerned, resist the urge to flop on the couch and call a friend to complain about your troubles.

The initial sympathy your friend might offer may feel soothing for a bit, but ultimately it will keep you stuck. The key is, to change your environment. At night, if thoughts are keeping you awake, don’t lie there for hours. Your bed is for sleeping and you don’t want to associate it with worrisome thoughts. So if your mind is keeping you awake, get up, go into another room and write down whatever is worrying you. Also, write down one proactive thing that you can do to soothe yourself in the morning. Leave the paper there and then go back to bed.

I love ballroom dancing. One way I change my environment and clear my mind is by dancing at least 2 times a week. After working all day, dancing for 1 to 3 hours clears my concerns and brings me joy. Exercise is a great way to reduce stress and it changes your environment by getting you out of your office and out into nature or to the gym.

A wonderful example of nature’s ability to soothe and bring perspective happens when you visit the ocean. Any worry or concern just shrinks in comparison to the grandeur of the ocean. So the next time your find yourself worrying or feeling down, try to change your environment for a while. The worries will just waft away. . .

Deborah Barnett, Ph.D.
www.ManifestingWellBeing.com
Manifesting Well Being for Health and Success

Putting off Happiness?

Are you putting off happiness?
It is so easy to put off doing the things that make us happy until a later time. (procrastination) I believe the reasons we do this is that we feel:

1. Other personal things may seem more important in this moment.
2. We will have plenty of time in the future to persue happiness.
3. Happiness may not seem as important as getting are jobs and chores accomplish.

How can you make happiness a priority in your life?

The first and most important step is to acknowledge that if you don’t make being happy a priority, then you can’t really expect to be much happier than the average person. You have to make a decision – the decision to not be average, the decision to do what it takes to live a happy life.
Here are a couple of tips to remembering how to be happy! (we were born with this wonderful feature and may have lost it due to influences of our culture as we age).

1. Watch Children. Observe how to let go and have fun.
2. Set time aside each week for something you love to do.
3. Make having fun a priority.
4. Watch fun and happy movies. (comedy)
5. Make of list of things that you enjoy. Do one of them immediately.
I hope you will take the time to put a little more happiness in your life!

www.becleartoday.com
“Clearing the mental blocks on Your Road to Success”
Tom Troughton

Clearing Worry for Greater Mental Peace

Worrying is easy to do when there are a lot of unknowns around you, such as a shaky economy or the fear of whether or not you will be down-sized out of your job. -Deborah Barnett, Ph.D.

Dr. Deborah Barnett

Stopping your habitual worrying is not easy, but a few simple techniques can help you. If it is a specific event or situation that you are worrying about, write down on a piece of paper the desired outcome you would like to occur. How you will feel as the situation unfolds in this way? If you are worrying about a loved one, realize that dwelling on the negative aspects of a person or worrying about them is not helpful. It simply wears you down emotionally. As an alternative, try writing down the positive qualities of the person and the strengths you see in them.

Many times people mistakenly feel that they can somehow control a situation if they worry about if enough. One of the most helpful things you can do is let go of the illusion of having control. There is very little that you can actually control in life. You can’t control the weather, the flow of traffic, or what a person thinks about you. The only things you really have control over are the thoughts you think and the actions you take In truth, worry doesn’t change a thing. Worry is focusing on the negative “what ifs” about a situation or person. Instead, try focusing on what you can do to improve the likelihood of a positive outcome. This may consist of simply sending good thoughts toward a person, or taking steps toward improving a situation. Whether thinking uplifting thoughts or taking action, as a result your mind will be more clear and calm. Moreover, when you are in a better frame of mind not only will you feel better, but you will be more creative and insights and solutions for a situation may come to you more easily.

Deborah Barnett, Ph.D.

www.ManifestingWellBeing.com

Manifesting Well Being for Health and Success

Today, I’m introducing a new category to www.BeClearToday.com

Today, I’m introducing a new category to www.BeClearToday.com

Tom Troughton

- NLP Neuro-Linguistic Programming. In the near future, we will have an expert in the field of NLP giving our readers helpful hints.

This is the definition of “NLP” from Wikipedia:

“Neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP) is an interpersonal communication model applied in psychotherapy and other contexts of communication and change. It is based upon the observation of naturally self-taught expertise, and modeling the processes and habitual patterns such experts intuitively use which seem to be responsible for the results they obtain. As such, NLP has its own methodology and philosophical approach towards being effective within the human world, born of pragmatism rather than theory. Much of NLP’s philosophy, worldview and approach, and discussion of their basis, was laid out in its early books, such as Structure of Magic vol. 1 + 2 and Frogs into Princes.

It was initially co-created by Richard Bandler and linguist John Grinder in the 1970s based on the communication and behavioral patterns acquired from gestalt therapist Fritz Perls, family systems therapist Virginia Satir and psychiatrist Milton H. Erickson. The originators emphasize modeling of excellence as the core methodology of NLP, that is, the methods they used to imitate and produce the models of exceptional communicators. They also claim that the basic assumptions of NLP draw from aspects of neurology (“neuro-”), transformational grammar (“linguistics”) and cybernetics (“programming”). It has often been promoted as an art and science of effective communication and defined as ‘the study of the structure of subjective experience’. Others put more emphasis on the tools, techniques and applications specific to contexts such as psychotherapy, business management and communications training, motivational seminars, personal development, and teaching.”

www.becleartoday.com
“Clearing the mental blocks on the Road to Success”
Tom Troughton

Rekindle a Hobby to Reconnect with Happiness

Rekindle a Hobby to Reconnect with Happiness.

Dr. Deborah Barnett

What an important and valuable point that Tom shared yesterday on happiness. Not only does wishing and regretting hinder the experience of happiness in the present, it also contributes to stress.

When I ask a client, “What are your hobbies?” I am always surprised when a person says, “I don’t have any.” Not one? How sad. Often I find that most people once had a hobby, but they stopped enjoying it sometime along the way when they got “too busy.” By depriving ourselves of engaging in enjoyable activities we shut down energy and vitality from flowing through us, which can ultimately lead to some degree of depression. So for those of you who once had a hobby that you let “drop away,” I urge you to pick it back up. If you can’t think of a recent hobby you enjoyed, think of what you enjoyed when you were a child – collecting toy cars, coloring, making model airplanes, dancing? If you want to increase your happiness it may be time to revisit this activity. It doesn’t matter what the activity is as long as it is fun and enjoyable. Plus, when you are engaged in an activity you enjoy you will most often find yourself less stressful, fully present in the moment and feeling very happy. For more information on happiness, see the resent post on my Blog http://manifestingwellbeing.com/eft-emotional-freedom-technique/the-benefits-of-being-happy/

Deb Barnett, Ph.D.
www.ManifestingWellBeing.com
www.DeborahBarnett.com

Happiness

Happiness is what everyone is looking for. Right? I believe we all are looking for happiness, but one of the major problems is that we are looking for it; we are thinking that it is some time in the future. . We aren’t living it now, we are only wishing and regretting. I know that may sound a little wierd until you think about it for just a second. When you are “looking for something”, you are living in the future…YOU can’t be happy living in the future, you can only be happy in the NOW! So, if you would like to be happy, then one of the secrets, is to find something that makes you feel happy in the present moment.

Now, I’m not advocating living only in the now. I do believe in setting goals. If you want to set goals, definitely do so, then enjoy the journey. I know you have heard that a thousand times, but what does that mean?… It means enjoying the step you are working on right NOW! Make this first step toward your goal as enjoyable as possible.

Make this step you are working on one of the most enjoyable events possible. By doing this, you will become super productive and more importantly, you will be Happier!

www.becleartoday.com
“Clearing the mental blocks on the Road to Success”
Tom Troughton

Hypnosis … a Way to Clear Roadblocks to Success?

Hypnosis … a Way to Clear Roadblocks to Success?

Is hypnosis a good way to clear roadblocks to success?
Hypnosis is widely misunderstood and has much benefit
once one understands that it has little to do with the stage acts
that are commonly associated with it.

I love the definition on a post in Dilbert’s Blog:

We talk of people “going under” hypnosis, or “going to sleep.” Both are misleading. A subject under hypnosis is fully aware of his environment. He’s awake, for all practical purposes, and can ignore any suggestion that might be objectionable. In the history of hypnosis, there’s no reliable record of anyone following a suggestion he thought would be harmful to himself or someone else. The subject doesn’t lose control.

So what does happen?

I describe the state of hypnosis as acquiring a power. The subject has all of his regular faculties operating plus he gains some more, if he has no objection to those new powers. For example, a subject under hypnosis would get a little extra power in one or more of these areas:

1. Extra relaxation
2. Extra imagination
3. Extra focus

Those extra powers don’t sound like much, but they are. In my experience, every person can be hypnotized, at least to the degree of getting some of those extra powers. People who say they can’t be hypnotized don’t understand hypnosis.

You can read the whole article at http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/hypnosis.html

We will be discussing a few of the techniques and styles of hypnosis and how to use them to enhance our lives. This is one of the most popular “clearing techniques” available today.

www.becleartoday.com
“Clearing the Roadblocks on the Road to Success”
Tom Troughton