Sunday, August 31, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
The 10 Secrets of a Happy Relationship
The statistics on relationships are depressing: in California
alone, the average marriage lasts just 5 years. Nationwide,
43% of marriages end within 15 years. Second and third
marriages end in divorce 60-70% of the time. Clearly, how we
handle our relationships is not working. And yet, 94% of young
adults in one study said that having a good marriage is
extremely important to them. So, what can you do?
We researched much of current the literature on relationships
and have condensed the results into just a few key concepts.
These principles seem to be the common denominators in
happy, successful marriages. See how many you can identify
in your relationship.
1. It starts with you
To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, you are as happy as
you make up your mind to be. Research has shown that
happiness is a state of being, not of having or doing or
achieving. Nor is happiness a destination. People often
say, "I just want to be happy" or "I just want to have a
happy marriage" as if that is a future goal or place in
time. The problem is, they never get there. That's
because the future is... in the future. And the only true
destination is your final day on earth. And then it's too
late. So make the decision to be happier starting today.
There's a relationship benefit as well. The happier you
are with yourself and your life, the more attractive you
are to your partner. Another way to look at this is: if you
were someone else, would you marry you? Start today to
work on being the kind of person you would want to
know, to date, and to marry. If you're not that kind of
person now, how can you expect your spouse to stay
attracted or stay passionate?
2. There's you, there's him/her, and then there's "we".
You don't have to give up your identity or be known
solely as your spouse's partner.
It also doesn't work when two people each do their own
thing without regard to their partner's wishes and
feelings. Marriage is, and should be, more than
cohabitation. As the marriage vows state, "two shall be
as one". That "one" is neither you nor him. The "one" is
a third entity: the relationship, the marriage, the "we".
The "we" is what you share, what you have in common,
the support and nurturing that you cannot give yourself.
Think companionship, intimacy, and sharing.
3. You leave behind your emotional baggage
Are you really over your previous relationship? If not, you
can't fully commit to your spouse. Likewise, if you are
still Daddy's little girl or Mommy's boy, you are not in
control of your own life. Therefore, you cannot fully enter
into an adult relationship of mutual sharing and support.
You can't be accountable to your spouse if you still have
to please Mommy or Daddy.
You can't reach new heights as a person as long as
you're dragging around your emotional suitcases. And,
it's not fair to your partner. If you're dating but not in a
committed relationship right now, consider a time out
while you unpack those bags and resolve those issues
that keep you from being your own man or woman. If
you are committed, a relationship coach can help you
stow your baggage so you can be there completely for
your partner.
4. The marriage comes first
Marriage is supposed to be the strongest bond between
two people. Parents come and go; children grow and
leave. Your spouse is only person to stay with you the
rest of your time on this planet.
Women who say their children come first, usually can
never let the children grow up and become independent
adults because then the primary relationship in these
women's lives would end. So the children never
emotionally leave home and are forever dependent on
the parent. This delights the women because they are
not willing to have their children grow up emotionally and
become independent adults.
Women who say their children come first also seem so
surprised when their mates eventually decide to leave for
someone else who WILL put them first. And finally, when
children are the center of a women's life, and the
children eventually leave, the woman typically feels lost.
Her reason for existing the last 18-22 years has just
moved out. And if she should turn to her partner after a
20 year emotional abscense, it's like going to your high
school reunion. You used to know them but its not the
same now because they've changed.
When partners put the marriage first, friends, relatives,
and acquaintences are still important but they're not
primary. The man and woman, as the principals in the
relationship, are the combined heads of their household.
As such they look to eath other-and no one else-for their
primary comfort and support.
5. Your marriage is your top priority.
You didn't get married to commute two hours a day,Read Full Article
work at the office 60 hours a week, and pay on a
mortgage for 30 years, did you? You probably got
married to share your life-not your bills-with that special
someone. During life's ups and especially during life's
downs, keep in mind why you married in the first place.
It wasn't so you could get a better job, buy a better car,
or obsess over your favorite sports team. Once upon a
time, your partner was the most important thing in this
world to you. If you value your relationship, he or she
still is. Start acting like it again today and every day.
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Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Definition of Friendship - A Few Facts
Friendship is a personal relationship shared between each friend for the welfare of other, in other words, it is the relationship of trust, faith and concern for each other feelings. It is a relationship of mutual caring and intimacy among one another. A friend is one who knows you as a person and regards you for what you are and not what he or she is looking in a good friend. Best friend is one who accepts the good as well bad qualities of his friend and also takes an initiative in correcting and mending them. Friendship is a distinctive kind of concern for your friend, it is a relationship of immense faith and love for each other.
Friendship is all about how much you care and understand each other. It is a pure relationship, which would make your friend smile, feel good as to how much you love him and care for him. It is all about talking, listening and building up a strong relationship loyalty among each other. It is string of love which develops gradually with each others involvement. In certain cases friendship may not last for a longer period and might end up or lose its prime importance of love and regard for each other. There are some friendships which might end with unresolved conflicts and tiffs which means that these type of relationship were not so strong that could hold on their own in adversity and bad times. Friendship is not about merry-making and fun it involves equal loyalty from both the partners.
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Thursday, August 21, 2008
Is Faith Important to Successfully Achieve a Set Goal?
When setting goals, is faith a part of successfully achieving the goal? Does anyone succeed without the need for faith? What is faith exactly, and if it is a part of success, then why do some people still fail, and so few succeed.
Many people think that faith is believing in a God, believing in a higher being, a deity. However, faith in its true sense is the belief in those things unseen. Faith includes the belief that the Sun will come up tomorrow, that when it is winter, it will become summer at some point.
A person who is an atheist can also succeed. This article is not concerned about the spiritual aspect, but it does concern faith. The faith that our deep down desires in the heart will be realized. That those goals you set will materialize, this is faith.
Believe as though you receive, and you will receive. This statement is fundamentally correct. But, how is it correct? A look at success stories, and failed stories, we find that the successes believed.
This is not like winning the lottery. I have yet a person in business to turn around and get as excited at being worth a million. Generally a goal needs us to grow. A goal which we set everyday, like getting a cup of coffee is not a goal. Though we have to function as a goal achieving being, these goals are nothing new.
Faith to get a cup of coffee is not as pronounced as a goal you set and worked for, for many years, possibly even decades. Yes, you get excited at achieving such goals, however, soon as it is done, it is time for the next goal or we could simply drift back.
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Use the Law of Attraction With Unconditional Love
The secret to life is immersing yourself in unconditional love. Use the tool called the law of attraction to attract unconditional love into your every experience. Call forth spirituality information that allows your spiritual growth to expand exponentially.
Everything that exists, including you, came from the source of everything. This source has been called many names. God, Allah, Jawah, Jehovah, Brahma, Nature and Elohim are just a few of the names or labels that we have attached to this idea or concept we have about the source of all that is.
These names and labels are a way of identifying this something that is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. This omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent thing that we are labeling is the concept that rules and binds the universe and everything that exists, seen and unseen, and this thing we are talking about, that we label with the word "God," is love.
Unconditional, unbounded, all-powerful love is the force behind the source that we call God. When you come right down to the bottom line of our existence in this physical relative universe, our only reason and purpose for being is to experience love in all of its different infinite perspectives.
This is the easiest thing in the world to do because everything we experience is an experience of looking at love from a unique perspective. Everything that exists, seen and unseen, is an aspect of love. This includes the concept and emotion we call fear.
Fear would not exist except for the idea that this universe of relativity was created as an ideal stage in which we could experience in the physical all that we know as concepts in the absolute. The only thing that exists in the absolute is love. The only way to experience love is to experience the opposite of love, which is fear.
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Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Love and the Expansion of Creation
Until several years ago, I used to believe that when I met somebody and had even a short conversation with them, it was meant to be a conversation that covered spiritual topics. It was almost like I had an obligation, a burden from God, to do this. And sometimes I resented that. I believed that I could help them and that it was for their own good. What a false belief that was! I won't say that it came from arrogance, but it came from a belief that I had something special, something that others did not always have.
This was a belief that was inseparably linked with my belief in separation. I saw everyone as separate from me, and I also saw a distinction between spiritual and non spiritual. By talking to them I was bringing them in to the spiritual realm. Our belief in separation from each other and from God has roots that extend out to the farthest reaches. The good news is that we have only one belief to release, that belief in separation. When we release that belief, it solves all of our "problems." Instead of all of those roots extending off a weed, they extend off a trunk of Love. Remember, one "problem," one answer.
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Thursday, August 14, 2008
How Do I Know I'm in Love - And With the Right Person?
Many men and women of all ages are postponing marriage because of their fears of choosing the wrong person and making a lifelong mistake. Since most important decisions in life are made with incomplete information, choosing the wrong partner is always a possibility. People can hide their worst behavior-from themselves as well as their partners. Here are some relationship tips and relationship and marriage advice about how to know you are in love and whether the person is right for you. But remember, this relationship advice is only a guide, and, although using it cannot guarantee happiness, it can increase your chances of choosing wisely.
1. You are both over 21. When one or both partners are under the age of 21, the chance of divorce or unhappiness increases. However, there are couples who met in high school or earlier and have long-term, mutually satisfying relationships!
2. Before you get married, you have dated for around two years. The brain's "love chemical" of oxytocin and the brain's dopamine levels are elevated when you feel you are in love. This elevation can last up to about two years. No wonder marriages fail frequently after two years! Wait until you are no longer in "brain la-la land" and see what your relationship is like.
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Wednesday, August 13, 2008
I Love You, You Love Me, We're a Happy Family
All you need is love- The Beatles
When my nephew became a father, I told him that I think we bring our children to life to learn to love ourselves.
The birth of our first child is always the greatest opportunity to live our life again - a second childhood, only this time we're taller, more coordinated and a bit wiser. I remember looking at my newborn daughter with my heart full of feelings I'd never had and loving her with every cell of my body. She did nothing. She was tiny and her eyes were closed most of the time. She just had to be there for me to have that feeling. I remember Gal holding her the first time and saying, "I don't know you, but I already love you so much". It's funny how babies don't need to do anything to be loved. They just need to be.
I wonder when this rule fades or when we, parents, forget it. I remember in those moments I imagined my mum and dad looking at me like that and I knew, with 100% certainty, that love is born with the birth of your child and that I was loved, very much loved.
The perception of love, you see, changes when you become a parent. For me, it was a great realisation mixed with sadness. It was a great feeling knowing how much my parents loved me and it was sad that I only realized it when I became a mother. I couldn't stop thinking of all the previous years, when I needed that feeling during my schooling years - my fights, challenges, obstacles, my fears, failures and disappointments. Realizing my parents loved me when I was an adult was not enough to change the past. It's as if their "love account" was full but I didn't have the "access card" or they didn't provide a "withdrawal facility". In other words, I wasn't able to see it or they couldn't express it. Maybe because they didn't have the skills to withdraw from their parents' love...
Can you see the cycle? Love was there all around, but no one knew how to pass it on.
Do your children know how much you love them?
Do you ever say, "If they only knew how much I love them"? Especially in times of conflict, many parents feel like their kids just don't know, even though they love them dearly. The difference between parents' and children's definitions of love is natural. People form their definition of love thanks to their life experience and closest life agents - parents, family, friends and teachers. There's a 20-year of cultural, generational and experience gap between parents and children and the question is actually who is responsible? Do we need to give or do they need to receive?
Love is a give-and-receive relationship. Assuming the love account is full, the giving and the receiving must match. Yes, loving somebody else is not enough if they don't feel it. Frustrating as it is, knowing how to receive love is not genetic and it is also our responsibility to teach. So when you ask yourself "if they only knew?" think of the answer. How would their life be if they only knew? Just imagine them knowing you love them throughout their life, their challenges, their failures and fears.
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Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Create Your Personal Plan For Progressive Success
If a new business is to have any chance of succeeding, the proprietor must create a Business Plan and follow it. Without this long range plan, is like a ship on the ocean without a rudder. It would be moving but in no particular direction.
Similarly, every person should develop a personal [business] life plan - short and long term- to map out the direction for their goals. While most people nowadays know the value of a personal business plan and have knowledge of what a business plan should accomplish, but very few translate it to a personal business plan. So, what should be in your personal business plan?
Like a Business Plan for a business, you must identify and target your personal internal goals in broad terms. This will provide general guidance only and not identify how the goals established will be accomplished. These long range plan that show how the goals will be met are called STRATEGIC plans.
The broader view-personal business plan-- identifies space and time for accomplishments for certain tasks you have identified for your life span. For the long term goals, you could look at every five years periodic time. In the shorter term, you could be looking at every year within the five years time blocks. You may write it up to show that by the first five years you would accomplish whatever you have established as a worthy goal-the next five years-ABC etc., until you have accounted for your entire life span.-say 100 years. I hope you live longer than that. You should use a spreadsheet to do this and review it every year or whenever you want to see how you are progressing. By looking at it at regular intervals keeps you focused and provide you the motivation to stay on course and on track.
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Monday, August 11, 2008
Creative Flow - The Secret to a Happy Creative Life
Whatever your preferred forms of creating, there's one thing that we all need in place to enjoy creating at its fullest, and to be able to reach close to our full creative potential time and time again.
It's not about talent or ability. It's not about materials or equipment. It's simply about finding your unique creative flow.
What does this mean, this creative flow?
It means finding, and making the most of, the natural patterns and rhythms of creating that work best for you.
There's not a single "one-size-fits-all" solution you can learn and instantly be fully in the flow of your creativity. Finding your creative flow involves a number of elements, and takes practice, commitment, experimentation. Put the effort in though and the rewards and invaluable.
Where to begin?
Finding your creative flow starts by building an underlying level of creative "fitness". This means creating regularly so your creativity is in good shape, and gets used to the habits of creating often.
If you create only once or twice a month then on those occasions expect to come out with some effortless masterpiece, you're setting yourself up for a major disappointment.
Create everyday though, and it becomes easier and more natural to create on demand.
In fact you become so used to thinking and being creative, you can't actually switch it off. This is state to strive for, so wherever you go, ideas pop up, and you're seeing things you've never seen before, and you feel tuned in to some internal creative well spring you thought had dried up years ago.
Once you reach this kind of level, beginning new projects becomes far easier, you just ease into them. It becomes like simply dipping your hand in a stream to redirect the flow of water to where you want it. Whereas if you don't have this underlying creative fitness, beginning a new project feels more like searching for an oasis in the desert! Even if you DO find one, you'll be so exhausted having spent days trying to find it, you'll not have any energy left for the creating itself.
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Thursday, August 7, 2008
4 Tips on Being a Happy and Relaxed Person
Being a happy and relaxed person these days has become more and more difficult with financial and other issues to deal with which prevent us from doing life's important things. Stress and general ill-health brought on by psychological disorders are more prevalent today than at any other time in history. Now is the time to look at yourself honestly and ask exactly what is it do you want from life that will make you a more happy and relaxed person?
Really focus on the things that will make you happy and more relaxed until such time as they become reality for you. The only difference from people that do and people that don't is the state of their mind, period. The good news is that we all have the choice to change it whenever we really want to. Just changing this one aspect of your life, albeit a powerful one, will make you a happy and relaxed person, guaranteed.
I hope that the few tips below on being happy and relaxed will assist in helping you to decide to change for the better and forever:
Tips No. 1 - Being As relaxed and happy as you want is a personal choice
The song "don't worry be happy" is very difficult to listen to and stay miserable at the same time purely from the tone of the music. Music is therefore a great way to not only make you more relaxed but to put you in a happy state of mind. Music has been scientifically proven to assist in this area for many years. It is to do with the tone and the way they act on your brain.
Tips No. 2 A Happy And Relaxed Person = A Person Who Lives Longer And Livelier
Visualization of all the good things in your life will, over time, change the way you thing about life resulting in a happy and relaxed disposition. Stop focusing on those things that make you miserable and start to stop taking the good things in your life for granted i.e. source of income, family friends and pay them as much attention as you do to news and gossip about what is wrong with the world. What the mind focuses on and therefore believe in becomes your reality. You choose. Staying relaxed and to some extent happy has great medical benefits in reducing stress, strokes, high blood pressure, gastric problems etc etc.
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Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Living Your Life And Loving It! – 3 Enabling Steps to Happiness
To quote the revered and his holiness, the Dalai Lama, “Life is suffering. Our purpose in life is to seek happiness”.
What if there is a choice that we can make to turn things around? What if the unpleasant events and circumstances that we faced in the drudgery of living can be mitigated, lessened or dissolved with efforts on our part? Is hardship and adversity seems insurmountable? Can destiny be altered in our favor?
Yes!
The answer to all the above may shock you but just thing for a minute – Why is it that God made us the way we are? Each of us is unique and yet we are all the same – nobody’s perfect! Do we wait for divine intervention or some miracles to happen before we hope to see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?
Not if we can help it!
At birth, we are given a set of pillars to be our foundation and it is up to us to build upon them. Our destiny code is ingrained in these pillars but the power to steer the hands of destiny is within our control albeit measured.
Herein unfolds the 3 steps to strengthen our pillars.
Get Empowered!
We empower ourselves by knowing our
- strengths and weaknesses
- affinity and detachment
- characteristics and eccentricities
Our pillars of destiny contain the hidden factors that govern our success in life and how the above are played out depends on how we make use of these factors:-
- Self
- Output
- Wealth
- Influence
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