Martin Seligman is a psychologist who is considered the father of modern positive psychology. This is what he has to say about what we choose to focus on: "When we take time to notice the things that go right - it means we are getting a lot of little rewards throughout the day." - Martin Seligman Think about how many times we tend to focus on what goes wrong, on how the weather is not co-operating, on how someone else's behaviour has the ability to sway our mood. We often tak

Yesterday's post featured a helpful tip in dealing with negative thoughts that came from Russ Harris and his book "The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living." Based on ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) principles, Harris also featured a term that resonated by way of adding a layer to action. We know and can appreciate the importance of movement forward in order to live a life fulfilled. We can sense when we are feeling stuck or lost, or when we have

Because we feel the most secure when we are safe, our brain is designed to look for danger. This was great when we lived on the plains and every day was a matter of survival; today, we live with a negative bias, which can lead to an automatic lean into negative thoughts. In the book "The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living" by Russ Harris, he writes: "Whether a thought is true is not that important. Far more important is whether it's helpful. Truthful

Something that I recently heard Oprah Winfrey say is "You are not your circumstances. You are your possibilities." - Oprah Winfrey It struck me that we can fit this thought into just about any context: It can be in reference to childhood and how many people have come from a painful and chaotic past. We can choose to heal from the trauma that accompanied it, creating resiliency and spiritual strength. It can be in reference to a break up or separation. Sometimes when in the

I often talk about the benefits of walking - not only from an exercise perspective, but also from one of movement - as well as the mindful and purposeful seeking of peace. This is what Sarah Ban Breathnach has to say about walking in her book "Simple Abundance;" "My desire to walk increases a hundredfold by beautiful settings - particularly rural ones." She goes on to explain how she felt when moving from the charming English countryside to the Western landscape of New Mexi

In his best selling book entitled "The Seat of the Soul," Gary Zukav has this to say about intention: "When an intention comes from your heart, it brings the energy of your heart into your action and creates experiences for you. When your intention is not from your heart, it brings fear into your action and creates your experiences. You must be aware of what you are feeling and thinking in order to recognize the difference."  He goes on to mention that we can ask ourselves

The 14th Dalai Lama and spiritual leader of Tibet has said: "When you think everything is someone else's fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself , you will learn both peace and joy." - Dalai Lama How many times are we quick to perceive that someone or something is to blame for our misfortune? How many times are we quick to make a judgement about someone else, especially in our perception of that person in relation to us? How

Dr. Will Cole is an American functional-medicine expert who specializes in the underlying factors that cause chronic disease, autoimmune conditions, and the like. In a podcast episode I was listening to, he made two very enlightening comments about our intention to heal. He noted that: "You can't heal a body you hate." "You can't shame your way to wellness." Isn't it so true that when we think about our bodies or our appearance, we often focus on the things we don't like? We

In his famous book "The Road Less Traveled, " M. Scott Peck has this to say about the work of attention: "The principal form that the work of love takes is attention. When we love another we give him or her our attention; we attend to that person's growth. When we love ourselves we attend to our own growth. When we attend to someone, we are caring for that person. The act of attending requires that we make the effort to set aside our existing preoccupations and actively shif

Daniel Goleman is a best selling author, well known for his books on Emotional Intelligence. He often writes about how having an EQ is just as important as your IQ; and how our emotional abilities are an important part of growth and strength in relationships. He writes: "In a very real sense, we have two minds; one that thinks and one that feels."  "If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing em

I often listen to Oprah's podcasts and one of the things I have heard her say that resonates with me is: "We are spiritual beings having a human experience."  - Oprah Winfrey When we are caught up in the busy activities of daily life; when our feet hit the ground running and we don't take time to pause, spirituality gets set aside. If we spend a lot of time in a negative head space, or get caught up in the drama of others, we may not be connected with the spiritual side of ou

Yesterday's post featured an excellent book by Dr. Edith Eva Eger entitled "The Choice." She talks at one point about deriving her own approach to therapy and I quote: "If I had to name my therapy I'd probably call it Choice Therapy, as freedom is about CHOICE - about choosing c ompassion, h umour, o ptimism, i ntuition, c uriosity and self- e xpression. And to be free is to live in the present. It we are stuck in the past, saying, "If only I had gone there instead of here..

If you listen to Dr. Phil at all, you will often hear him say "We create our own experience." On the one hand, this refers to the active decisions we make in our daily life. It aligns with the goals we have, how we want to proceed, move forward, and purposefully ' design' our lives so that we feel fulfilled at the end of the day. But it also includes our reaction to challenge and hardship. Those are the things we don't always have control over. None of us expected 2020 and