Eight Steps to Squash Struggle Forever

Eight Steps to Squash Struggle Forever – Be Outrageous: Do the Impossible
By Jean Walters

Almost everyone struggles with something, whether it’s the kids going off to college, an unfulfilling job, divorce, looming retirement, or simply not having enough fun. All of these situations can lead to struggle, but what if it doesn’t have to be that way?

I believe that it is possible to face life head on, go through transitions, and actually become stronger and have more fun in the process. There are numerous action steps you can take right now that will help eliminate struggle and make your life easier and more fun!! Here are eight of them:

Step #1: Take full responsibility for your life. All of it. When you let external conditions control your destiny, you surrender your power and authority. By the same token, when you allow someone else to be in charge of your life, you keep yourself stuck. You are the victim and that is not a powerful position. The truth is you may not be able to control all your circumstances, but you have total control on how you respond to all them.

Action: First, get clear about what you want. Most people think about what they don’t want. “I don’t want to be poor,” or “I don’t want to be bored,” or “I don’t want to be alone.” Revise this list to say what you DO want. “I want to make more money. “I choose to have more fun.” “I am going to spend more time building and enjoying my relationships with others.” Now you have something to work with. Each of these items require NEW activities and new actions. It’s time to do something different.

Step #2: Don’t arbitrarily accept someone else’s beliefs and opinions. People project their own beliefs onto others. It is called transference. If someone thinks you are not making the best use of your talents, then more than likely, he is not making best use of his. Letting others tell you want is true reneges on your responsibility to draw your own conclusions and can definitely lead to struggle.

Action: Do your own homework. Whether it’s politics, news stories, or simply the best way to bake a cake, ask yourself what you believe about it before asking anyone else what they think. What makes sense to you? What do you think is the best way to balance the budget? Practice having an opinion and stating what that is without worrying what anyone else thinks. This is also a good time to weed out negative people, groups and thought systems. Give up the “Debbie Downers.” Don’t listen to the news 24/7. Do be selective as to what and who you listen to. Finally, find people who are happy and hang out with them.

Step #3: If you need to do it – do it. Take action and stand by it. That means leave a miserable job or relationship, relocate, take a class, start a new career – start over. Your life is your journey. If you are not growing, you are not going to be happy. Add to this the fact that the world is constantly changing and so must you. Don’t resist because that is what causes struggle. Embrace change.

Action: Make a list of things you want to do or change. Pick the first item and DO IT!! You can start with something small and work up to the bigger items. Maybe it’s as simple as always hanging up your clothes at the end of the day. Perhaps it is time to lose that extra 15 pounds you’ve been carrying around. Why not start a conversation with that good-looking guy you see in the coffee shop every other morning? If you want to develop a new skill, then find a mentor or take a class and learn something new. How about a class in computers, or take a foreign language course? Perhaps you’d like to learn about the travel industry, or how to start a bed and breakfast. Maybe you’ve always wanted to be an artist, so you could start with a beginner water color class. If you’re looking to reduce stress and anxiety, sign up for a meditation class, yoga, or Pilates.

Step #4: Acknowledge that you are valuable. Remind yourself of this daily. Talk to yourself out loud and affirm your value. Do not underestimate the power of what you say internally. In fact, how you talk to yourself is a make-it or break-it proposition when it comes to struggle. Many people say horrible things to themselves, “How could you have done that; you are stupid; you are unlovable; you will never amount to anything.” These are lies. They are generated from the ego that loves control. Paying attention to ego railings is like having a giant thumb pressing down on you. If you listen to the negativity, you will never step out of your box and investigate your incredible self. Again, decide who you want to be and find a way to be it.

Action: STOP your mind when it starts in on the negativity. Refuse to give it credence. It is your mind – you get to say what goes on there. Mental discipline is key to releasing struggle, so don’t let your mind run on automatic pilot. Be vigilant about it. Remind yourself daily – hourly, in fact — that “You are valuable.” To prevent becoming overwhelmed with negative self-talk, move. Get out into nature and take a walk while breathing deeply. Take action, such as cleaning out a closet or drawer. When you have calmed down, write in a journal to expunge fears, and then write about your desires, hopes and dreams. Clear your mind so that you remember that you are valuable — a unique piece to the universal puzzle that makes everything work.

Step #5: Dump any emotional baggage. This includes memories of being hurt, offended, or criticized. Let it go! So your mother didn’t love you enough and your father wasn’t there. That is on them and not you. Forgive them and move on. While you’re at it, forgive your brother, your sister, your mean-spirited boss, your soccer coach, your nosy neighbors, and the rude store clerk. Let them all go. How? First, remember that what others project out is what is inside of them.

Action: Observing your thoughts for ten minutes a day. Take notes. When you have a “blaming thought”, stop and correct yourself. “Wait. I am responsible for my life.” If you find yourself feeling resentment or thinking, “poor me,” make an adjustment and change your thoughts. Sometimes we are tempted to ruminate, but it is exactly at those moments when you must catch yourself and interrupt your pattern. Deliberately think about something else: Bring up a pleasant memory. Remember a time when you confidently handled some situation in your life and you did it well. Keep correcting yourself and eventually the victim thoughts lesson. By clearing out the mental space held by grievances, you feel lighter and the payoff is huge… squashing struggle forever.

Step 6: Find a way to express yourself. Everyone is creative and creativity must be expressed. Build something. Write something. Learn to draw or speak. Everyone needs an outlet to express energy, one that is uniquely one’s own. Experiment until you discover yours. It is your gift to the world.

Action: Start with things that come easy for you — decorating cakes, coaching a soccer team, organizing, making friends. Then expand on that. If you’re not sure how to do that, then take classes until you discover a way that feels good for you. You don’t have to be a Picasso to paint or a Hemingway to write. Teaching, volunteering, sales, accounting, and business – these are all creative endeavors. Don’t worry about monetizing your efforts. Just do it for fun. You never know where this will take you. One fellow I knew visited junkyards and found interesting pieces of metal, which he welded together to create sculptures. He loved it. In time, he started a side business selling metal art.

Step 7: Become a possibility-thinker. When you look at a person, relationship, or opportunity, ask yourself, “What are the possibilities here?” Most people don’t see possibilities because they never ask the question. You must ask the question and seek possibilities. What if joining a study group opens up opportunities to learn new skills, meet amazing people, or start a new career? What if taking a new route to work reveals a short cut, a new restaurant in town, or a beautiful view. Be curious and try new things.

Action: Start by making a list of all the possible ways to do something. Pick a subject and write it down at the top of the sheet of paper, or on a document in your computer. For instance: If you want to go back to school and you need tuition money, what are some ways you could pay for it? Here are some ideas: You can take the money out of savings, get a school loan or grant, procure a home equity line of credit, ask someone to help you, put it on your credit card, win the lottery, trade services with someone for paying your tuition, get a job that subsidizes schooling, join the military so you can go to college, win a contest, find a benefactor, and so forth. These are a few possibilities, but you can come up with more. If you are saying to yourself, that won’t work; that won’t work, etc. Ignore them. Those thoughts keep you in the struggle.

Step 8: Turn failure into triumph. It is important to pay attention to what you have previously called failure because this is where you can slip into struggle. The loss of a job doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world; it is an opportunity to find a better one or maybe start a whole new business. When a relationship ends, it may leave you feeling feel lost and disoriented. However, the completion of a relationship may indicate you have outgrown it, learned the lesson it was to teach you, or someone new is waiting for you. By facing the unknown and turning “failure” into triumph, you discover more about yourself. Sometimes the gift is learning that quiet time alone can be restorative. It can be the beginning of new friendships, adventure, and a fresh, new life.

Action: Do an assessment and write out your conclusions. First, look back at your life and notice what “failure” actually led to a better opportunity? When did that unexpected turn in the road guide you to something amazing and wonderful? You took a detour only to discover your soul mate. You didn’t get into a certain school, only to discover a different learning opportunity that led to your dream career. Pause to ponder this: Is there anything in your life now that you consider terrible? And let me ask you this: Have you ever been wrong? Is it possible that this terrible situation is a lead in to a thrilling new escapade? If it’s happened in the past, it very likely will happen again. Do a personal audit and you will be amazed how failures were really just direction changes.

Whatever it is that you struggle with — an empty nest, an unfulfilling job, divorce, retirement or whatever, get busy. Reboot your perspective. Squash the struggle and you’ll have a lot more energy to create the life you want.

About Jean Walters:
Jean Walters is an internationally-known teacher, transformational coach and Akashic Record reader (psychic) who designs and presents classes and workshops in empowerment, meditation, building communication skills, universal laws, dreams interpretation, strengthening intuition, and creating spiritual connection for many organizations including colleges, universities, spiritual groups, and businesses. She writes for numerous major newspapers and publications and hosts a nationally syndicated radio show called Positive Moments. She is a favorite featured guest on other radio and television programs. Her books include “Be Outrageous: Do the Impossible”, “Set Yourself Free: Live the life YOU were meant to Live”, and “Dreams and the Symbology of Life”. She has performed over 35,000 readings with the emphasis on providing insight regarding personal growth, life purpose, strengthening relationships, and moving through obstacles.

Learn more at http://www.spiritualtransformation.com.

Geek Month in Review: May 2015

By JB Sanders

May flowers!

We Are Truly in the Future
Let Pancake Bot draw whatever shape you want your pancakes in, then cook them for you.

What Do Tree Rings Sounds Like?
Oddly ethereal. See scientists take tree rings and treat them like they’re special long-playing vinyl.

The Forgotten Pyramids of Meroe
Along the Nile, in the Sudan, there are some 200 pyramids left — not by the Egyptians — but by the Meroitic Kingdom. They’re not as big but they are very cool looking. In fact, I suspect some of the artists drawing tombs in various fantasy games over the years saw these.

Cube inside a Cube inside a Cube
Which is not not the remarkable part — no, because any idiot with a 3D printer and the right file can make one of those. This guy did it with a block of aluminum, some hot glue, and a lathe. Not a CNC reduction machine. No! An honest-to-Pete lathe — spinning in circles, crank-controlled, and computer-free.

Artificial Lava
Want to experiment with lava flows, but live in upstate New York? Melt some basalt and make your own!

The Quiet Zone
Imagine a place with no cell phones, no radio broadcasts, not even any microwave ovens (unless they’re in a Faraday cage). That place is the Quiet Zone, an area of 13,000 square miles that is forbidden by law from having any radio interference.

3D Interactive Map of the Universe
Yup, time to break out your holoprojectors. It’s a full 3D map of the known universe and you can monkey around with the view.

Hyperloop Test Track in the Works
The Hyperloop is a train, set in a near-vacuum tube, which — if the theory proves correct — could travel faster than an airplane. Yes, Elon Musk, super-villain in training (or a hero using the villain playbook, which one is unclear) is making another of his wacky ideas a reality. Giant pneumatic tubes could some day criss-cross the country, or even under the oceans. If you’re wondering why anyone would want to use or build something like that, let’s lay down the travel times: Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes. Yeah. Anyway, they’re actually building a test track now.

How to Make Stackable Edible LEGOs
Want to build amazing structures or spaceships (spaceships!)? LEGOs. Want to be able to eat them after the inevitable fiery comet of doom? Look no farther.

Micro-Living Pod
It’s a super-tiny house that can accommodate up to 2 people, runs off wind and solar, and even collects its own rain water in a cistern below the living space. Looks like a futuristic egg, but the interior is actually kinda cool. Coming in 2016.

Wait, the thing has its own website:

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog:http://www.glenandtyler.com/

Geek Month in Review: March 2015

by JB Sanders

Snow, snow go away…

Jurassic Park Computer System
So, there’s this website out there that simulates the computer control system in the original Jurassic Park movie. Give it a whirl.

Low-Tech Old-School Secret Drawers
Lovely antique small writing desk, with a TON of secret drawers and hidden compartments.

Oldest Surviving Movie Footage of New York City, Annotated
Great video showing what appears to be the oldest movie footage of New York City, from May of 1896. Annotations show a map of the current NYC on the left. Pop-up highlights over the video call out landmarks and other points of interest. There’s movie footage from 1896 to 1906, going backwards in time from newest to oldest. Fascinating stuff.

Geek Makes Secret Door Into His Home Theater
But that’s not the best part — the awesome thing is that it’s a secret door, modeled on the secret back entrance in Moria. Yes, that Moria — as in, Mines of Moria, Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, etc. It even — oh, but I won’t spoil it. Suffice to say it has features.

That’s Not a Table! It’s a Machine!
Watch this crazy complex table go from a small size to a larger size simply by turning. It’s based on an 1835 patent.

Easily Build a Hidden Safe
Ok, it hasn’t got a TON of room, but it’s got the nice benefit of being difficult to spot. Plus who doesn’t like hidden drawer-type-things that you can do yourself for $3?

Zombie Infection Simulation
Watch as zombies spread out from the point of infection, in hour-by-hour time, until they engulf the US. You can even slider-bar the parameters to make zombies faster or slower, and more or less infectious. Science!

Comic Book Cartography
Some 4-color plates of famous geography from yesteryear. Browse the contents of the Bat Cave, or the hidden secrets of the Baxter Building.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog:http://www.glenandtyler.com/

Gaiam TV Goes Video on Demand

PHILADELPHIA, PA and BOULDER, CO, Immediate Release — Comcast and Gaiam TV, an innovator of online streaming yoga and inspirational video content, announced the launch of Gaiam TV Fit & Yoga, a subscription-based Video On Demand service providing Xfinity TV customers with access to premium yoga and fitness training directly on the TV.

Gaiam TV Fit & Yoga offers customers access to fitness programs from the world’s best yoga instructors and fitness trainers, including Jillian Michaels, Rodney Yee, Leslie Sansone and Shiva Rea.

“Consumers today are seeking specialized workouts and greater convenience to work out on their own terms. Our customers are constantly on the go, and need access to their fitness programming wherever they are and on any device,” said Andy Hunter, VP of Programming for Comcast Cable. “Gaiam TV’s comprehensive collection of programming is a great complement to our existing cross-platform Sports and Fitness On Demand programming, and this partnership represents another way we are innovating to deliver the content our customers want, when they want to watch it.”

“We strive to offer our members the world’s best yoga and fitness content to keep them strong and centered every single day,” says Jaymi Bauer, Gaiam TV CMO. “Partnering with Comcast to make a premium selection of this content available to their vast subscriber base enables us to reach millions of people who might be searching for ways to stay fit and balanced in the convenience of their own home.”

With more than 100 programs available, Gaiam TV Fit & Yoga offers something for all fitness levels, interests and demographics. Program choices include cardio, pilates, yoga, meditation, pre and postnatal exercise, sculpting and toning, walking, circuit training and dance, as well as programs tailored for certain health conditions including arthritis and stress-related illnesses.

“We refer to yoga as a practice because it requires us to be always evolving and growing, yearning and learning while being patient with ourselves. To be able to guide people in their practice right where they are, even if they can’t be in the studio with me, gives me great joy,” says internationally renowned yoga instructor Rodney Yee. “I’m very proud to be a part of Gaiam TV Fit & Yoga.”

The collection of content will expand throughout the year, and is accessible via Xfinity TV Go mobile platforms. Xfinity TV Digital customers with Xfinity On Demand can subscribe to Gaiam TV Fit & Yoga for $6.99 per month. There will also be a collection of free content available On Demand, enabling customers to sample the programming.

About Gaiam TV:
Gaiam TV is a streaming video subscription service that offers exclusive, ad-free streaming of over 7,000 films, documentaries and original programs dedicated to transformational media, alternative knowledge, personal growth and spirituality, featuring luminaries like Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, the Dalai Lama and renowned yoga, fitness and wellness instructors like Rodney Yee, Jillian Michaels, Seane Corn, Mari Winsor and more. With the MyYoga channel, Gaiam TV is the world’s largest online yoga and fitness resource. Gaiam TV is a division of Gaiam, Inc. (NASDAQ: GAIA). For more information, visit www.GaiamTV.com.

Living Simply…No Matter Where You Are

By William Powers

In 2007, I lived for a season in an off-grid permaculture cabin in North Carolina. No Name Creek gurgled through a lush forest, and I befriended the eclectic neighbors — organic farmers, biofuel brewers, eco-developers. I discovered a sustainable but imperiled way of life, and wrote about in my memoir “Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream”.

Alas, the book triggered angry questions. “It’s easy,” one Twelve by Twelve reader wrote, “to find minimalism, joy, connection to nature, and abundant time in a shack in the woods. But how the hell are the rest of us supposed to stay sane in our busy modern lives?” This question was the genesis of my new book: “New Slow City: Living Simply in the World’s Fastest City”.

I received — in fact — a hundred variations of this question after lectures and on radio interviews, and always answered by saying I was living 12 x 12 values… but in Queens, New York, the home to which I returned after my time in the cabin. But as each year passed, the reader’s doubt increasingly became my own as overwork, material clutter, and the lack of contact with nature — “civilization,” in short — brought me to a point of extreme unhappiness in Queens. Eventually, I too doubted it was possible to live 12 x 12 in a city, and I felt an urgent need to decamp far from urban life.

Not so fast. As I reached this point, my newlywed wife, Melissa, was offered an excellent job that demanded we stay put in New York City, and I suddenly had no choice but to figure out how to take what I’d learned in the 12 x 12 — about the Leisure Ethic, connecting to nature, and living simply — and somehow make it work in the real-world context of a marriage and two careers.

In an attempt to do this, Melissa and I embarked on an experiment. We sold or gave away 80 percent of our stuff, left our 1,600-square-foot Queens townhouse, crossed the Williamsburg Bridge, and moved into a tiny rental: a 340-square-foot “micro-apartment” — roughly two 12 x 12s — in downtown Manhattan.

Melissa and I approached our thimble of an apartment through the ideas of philosopher Thomas Merton, who called his stark monk’s chambers “the four walls of my new freedom.” We stowed a minimal kit of kitchenware, toiletries, clothing, and books as if equipping a houseboat’s trim hull. It was a refreshing purge; the apartment seems to expand with each tweak.

We began to feel our well-being rise in proportion to what’s been shed. A slim metal table in the kitchen welcomes the cutting board; jackets laze on his-and-her hooks; sandals snuggle in their micro-shoe-apartment beside the door.

Beyond this minimalist freedom, I discovered that being “Slow” is not at all Luddite. Slow means cultivating positive qualities — receptive, intuitive, reflective— instead of the fast qualities so common today: busy, agitated, acquisitive.

I began living and working smarter instead of faster. Borrowing from author and entrepreneur Tim Ferris, I spent my Slow Year practicing two principles at the same time: 80/20 and the Hodgkinson’s Principle.

The 80/20 principle says that we accomplish 80 percent of work results in just 20 percent of our time. Conversely, we more or less waste the other 80 percent of our time on a paltry 20 percent of the results.

Dutifully, I 80/20ed my life and find that the principle holds true. In one particular week, for example, I looked at all the potential work streams — in international consulting, writing, and speaking — that I could pursue, and distilled out that week’s most strategic one in terms of income-to-time-invested and my current level of enthusiasm: a high-end magazine article. Then I overlaid the Hodgkinson’s Principle. Hodgkinson’s says that work expands to fill the amount of time available to accomplish it.

Thus, having chosen the one most critical work activity, I corralled it into a tight timeframe, and found it works: I condensed what might have been five days of work into two!

This approach spawned “reverse weekends” for me, where I worked smarter for two-days and took five-day weekends. This is not a utopian idea. Even Carlos Slim, the world’s richest person, recently called for a 3-day work week and Google is increasingly experimenting in lowering hours and thus increasing employee creativity and efficiency.

Other Slow City tools my wife and I discovered in our year’s experiment are:

• Urban sanctuaries: Melissa and I began spending more and more time in natural and reflective places right in Manhattan, like Central Park’s Ramble and the tip of Pier 45.

• “Living at the third story”: I discovered I only need half my attention on the street level. As the rest of my focus rises up, I notice nut-brown oak branches and green leaves fluttering with white butterflies. An off-turquoise sky. Stretchy clouds. Ciao stress!

• Technology fasting. We “fasted” from our gadgets for stints, disabling our phones and setting email to vacation mode. This helped quality of our relationship because we had more time focused on each other.

• Silent meals. Even in Manhattan’s fine restaurants, we’d sometimes eat in total silence, deeply savor the food, scents, soundscape, and visual beauty of the restaurant in a meditative manner.

Though not everyone will live twelve-by-twelve, all of us can ask: What’s my twelve by twelve? We can find the elusive contours of enough—and live there. Enough is the sweet spot between too little and too much. It starts with each of us creating space to slow down a little and ask the core questions, like: How do we find balance in a world that is changing more quickly than ever before in history? And how can we incubate a New Slow City that’s saner now and fit for the future?

About William Powers:
Born and raised on Long Island, William Powers has worked for over a decade in development aid and conservation in Latin America, Africa, Native North America, and Washington, DC. He is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute and is on the adjunct faculty of New York University. A third generation New Yorker, Powers has also spent two decades exploring the American culture-of-speed and its alternatives in some fifty countries around the world. He has covered the subject in his four books and written about it in the Washington Post and the Atlantic. An expert on sustainable development, he is a freelance writer and speaker. More information at www.WilliamPowersBooks.com.

Based on the book “New Slow City”. © Copyright 2014 by William Powers. Reprinted with permission from New World Library. www.NewWorldLibrary.com

The Yoga of Cleaning

What if I told you that you could combine yoga and cleaning? You’ll be happy to know it doesn’t involve contorting your body and then attempting to dust your ceiling fan. In fact, it’s not strange at all. Jennifer Carter Avgerinos, author of “The Yoga of Cleaning”, makes it seem fairly common sense, and like something you should start doing today.

How does someone end up in the position of being able to write a book bringing together the worlds of yoga and cleaning together? I found myself wondering that as I started to read “The Yoga of Cleaning”. I was amazed to learn that Avgerinos is not only a certified yoga instructor, but she has worked in the consumer packaged cleaning tools industry for the past several years. This indeed gives her a unique perspective on these two seemingly divergent topics.

Avgerinos talks about cleaning as karma yoga, or selfless service – “the desire to serve the divine in everything and become one with everything (yes, even the toilet).”, or cleaning as bhakti yoga or pure love and devotion, or cleaning as plain old healthy exercise. You don’t need to know how to do yoga to use or enjoy the book, and she does show the reader some basic poses. (Fun fact: Her husband, musician and longtime friend of The Buffet Paul Avgerinos is featured in the book doing all the poses!) She also discusses Ayurveda, a natural healing system from India, as it pertains to cleanliness, vatsu, which is an ancient architecture school that for the purposes of those who are not building their home from the ground up is being modified to a system of room design, how to make your own cleaning products, and more. For Averginos, the health you gain from yoga extends to the health of your home and vice versa.

Jennifer Carter Avgerinos has written a book that inspires you to create a healthier home and a healthier you. At $14.99 “The Yoga of Cleaning” is a book that should be in everyone’s home.

Writing with Nature

By Tina Welling

The author didn’t exactly have writers in mind when he put forth his idea, but being a writer that’s how I translated his work. Ralph Metzner in his book “Green Psychology, Transforming Our Relationship to the Earth”, discovered that tuning into the four different elements of nature – air, earth, fire, water – produces an experience of consciousness that is associated with the qualities of each element.

For writers this is a valuable tool.

When we align ourselves with the element of nature that meets our writing needs we dip into a vast inventory of inspiration and insight.

For example, if we offer our attention to the element of air, we align our body rhythms to the wind or breezes, breathing deeply if the winds are strong, quietly if the breezes are soft. We follow cloud movement across the sky, offer our full attention to the birds, butterflies, airborne seeds.

As writers we may be especially comfortable here. We enjoy soaring through the skies of our imagination, darting quickly from thought to thought, winging it. When we need such qualities in our writing as lightness, humor, change, we align with the element of air. This also works well for fast lists, witty dialogue, and overviews. Experiment with solving these writing problems using the qualities of air.

• Need surprise? Offer a sudden shift in direction that follows the dive of an osprey, which is a brief, almost imperceptible halt, before the abrupt change.
• Looking for patterns in plot or character? Get some distance on the problem with a “bird’s eye view” which allows us to note only the most prominent aspects.
• Does the pace plod? Storms are preceded by mounting energy that gathers toward resolution. Quicken the winds of your writing.

The element of earth is considered the practical realm. This element creates a mood almost the opposite of air. When our writing needs foundation, when a character needs to be strong-willed we go outside and sit on the ground and become conscious of how each thing including ourselves is rooted to the earth, that this is the source of sustenance for the trees around us, the animals passing nearby. These smells and textures and sounds need to be found in our language. The element of earth is helpful when we consider:

• Storylines that depict slow-moving, stuck, immoveable, or stubborn qualities. Those grounded in history or culture.
• Conveying simple, basic moods and emotions, such as long-suffering, generosity, attachment, fear, envy.
• The foundations of life – food, shelter, mates, heritage, religion, family, organizational structure.

The element of fire is the realm of energy, that often unseen activator of actions. Creative energy itself belongs to the fire element. We notice fire itself immediately. It excites us. In our writing when we want to set the scene for conflict, anger or passion we may have someone light a cigarette or a candle or fondle a gun. To create tension we may use the fire element emotionally as well as environmentally to underline the mood, foreshadow a plot, define a character. The element of fire is helpful when writing about:

• Flashy personalities.
• Abrupt resolution in story or character.
• Mounting tension, disaster, conflict, passion.

The element of water can douse fire or it can be churned to its own peak images of crashing waterfalls, stormy seas, beating rain and hail, as well as soothing pools and cups of tea. Water carries the symbolism of emotion, ranging from sorrow to joy, tears to moist lips. It is the realm of sensitivity and spirituality. Try aligning with the element of water when addressing these writing situations:

• Reflections of a character or narrator.
• Amplify tempo and pace using water’s vast spectrum, which ranges from seeping to surging, dripping to flowing.
• Emotion involves water in our bodies – tears, saliva, phlegm, gall, sweat, blood.

The rhythms and moods of the four elements support our personal energy and expand the field of choices in our creative work.

And one more benefit: Partnering with the natural world offers us language that holds universal resonance. Everyone on the planet can identify with our writing, because we all experience the same four elements.

About Tina Welling:
Tina Welling is the author of “Writing Wild: Forming a Creative Partnership with Nature” and three novels including “Cowboys Never Cry”. Her nonfiction has appeared in “The Sun, Body & Soul”, and a variety of anthologies. She lives in Jackson Hole, WY. Her website is www.TinaWelling.com

Based on the book “Writing Wild”. Copyright © 2014 by Tina Welling. Reprinted with permission from New World Library. www.NewWorldLibrary.com.

Craftivism Now!

Are you ready to be inspired? Like let’s go out and change the world right now, this minute, level of inspiration? Then pull up a chair because have I found the book for you and it is all about crafting. Yep, like needle and thread, yarn and bead, clay and paper crafting. The book is called “Craftivism: The Art of Craft and Activism” and it was edited by Betsy Greer, author of “Knitting for Good!: A Guide to Creating Personal, Social, and Political Change Stitch by Stitch” and she also runs the blog Craftivism.com.

What is craftivism? It’s a term for crafting that is motivated by social or political activism. Greer explains that “the creation of things by hand leads to a better understanding of democracy, because it reminds us that we have power.”

“Craftivism” is divided into four categories: Personal Threads, Refashioning Craft, Craft as a Political Mouthpiece, and Activating Communities. Personal Threads features personal approaches to craft including the concept of guerrilla kindness and some really badass cross-stitchers and quilters. Refashioning Craft discusses how you can use craft for clothing that can reflect beliefs by crafting resistance or making a statement such as a jewelry maker who creates in public and gives away the result. The next section, Craft as a Political Mouthpiece, includes the AIDS Quilt, a knitted mouse activist, the work of the Adithi collective, and more. Finally Activating Communities which shows how crafting can improve and empower communities be it by updated suffragette banners (there’s one for Robyn!) or making handmade basketball nets.

“Craftivism” is a fascinating look at art, politics, crafts, and fashion. The interviews and stories are inspiring and at times emotionally moving. You’re going to want this book and then get ready to get engaged.

Ask What is Working for Greater Results

By Jim Donovan

You’ve probably been to business meetings when the person leading the meeting said something like, “Chantal, sales in the Southwest are off 23% from last quarter. Frank, production orders in the Northeast are off 9%. What’s wrong guys?”

At this point both Chantal and Frank begin to defend their position and rattle off a series of “reasons” as to why things are the way they are. Weather delays, late deliveries, the flu, and the economy, are all blamed for the lackluster performance in both cases.

I remember back when I was in door-to-door sales, barely out of my teens, sitting with small groups of salespeople huddled together in diners, continuing on the conversation that started at our mandatory morning sales meeting, about why sales are down.

In these conversations you typically hear every excuse on earth except the one in which people take personal responsibility for the poor sales numbers. If you’ve ever seen the 1992 movie “Glengarry, Glen Ross,” with Jack Lemmon and a cast of other great actors, you may remember the scenes with all the salespeople blaming their lackluster performance on “the leads.” They go on and on about how, if the leads were better, they’d all be selling more.

One of the keys to achieving higher levels of success is to give up blame all together. When you take personal responsibility for the conditions in your life you are then empowered to change them. Until you are willing to do this you remain a victim of circumstances.

The types of meetings described above begin a steady stream of “reasons” (excuses) why things are not better. People begin looking for ways to place blame wherever they can and the entire conversation turns into a negative, finger-pointing exercise that produces little, if any, useful result.

The meetings continue along in this manner, with each department head explaining why business is not better and trying to find someplace to assign blame until, sufficiently demoralized, the managers return to their respective departments vowing to do better, feeling defeated, and sometimes not caring whether or not they do better.

While on the surface this seems quite normal, in practice it does little more than leave people feeling depressed and dejected. Yes, there is value in examining mistakes and learning from them, however, if you accept the centuries old idea that, “our minds move in the direction of our dominant thoughts,” as it was expressed by motivation legend Earl Nightingale, you will soon realize that these meetings cannot possibly result in anything but a negative outcome.

You can beat a problem to death in endless meetings but it will not alter the fact that something is not working. Why would you want to invest any more time in talking about things that do not work?

Yet, that’s exactly what’s taking place in meeting rooms and on shop floors in companies all across America everyday. With a steady barrage of negativity being dispersed at them, it’s no wonder that the level of employee engagement is at an all-time low. One the other side of the coin we have the employees themselves carrying this negative tone throughout the entire organization. These people are, according to Gallup, “The eighteen percent who are actively engaged in spreading ill-will throughout the company.

Simply replacing the “What’s wrong” question, with “What’s working,” will cause your mind to search for things that are going right and, as a result of the law of attraction (like attracts like), you will begin finding more and more things that are working. In the case of discussing strategies and activities, starting with what’s working enables you to build further improvements on a solid foundation that is already producing the desirable results. By focusing brainstorming sessions around what’s working and drilling further into that is what makes achieving quantum results possible.

In business meetings you can use this type of questioning to identify the actions and activities that are producing positive results and build upon that. You may be surprised to learn that some of what you’ve been doing does not work and, most likely, never will. Knowing this enables you to invest your time and resources in those activities that are working and stop wasting valuable assets on those that are not.

A law firm following this procedure, for example, may learn that the pile of money they’ve been sinking into Yellow Page advertising is not paying for itself while their YouTube and social media activity is going gangbusters. Knowing this enables them to reallocate marketing resources where they will do the most good.

If you consider the amount of time spent thinking, worrying and talking about what’s wrong you’ll soon realize it’s one of the most destructive things any organization can do. By changing your focus to what’s working, what’s going right, and what’s positive in a given situation, you’re in a better position to access your best and brightest ideas and take the actions that will produce the results you desire.

Following along this line of thinking, you can make a practice of noticing and commenting when people are doing something right. Be a value finder and, as the late motivational legend Zig Ziglar said, “Catch people doing things right.”

All too often the only time people are recognized at their job is when they’re being criticized for not reaching a goal or making a mistake. Unproductive practices like this contribute greatly to the frustrations and unhappiness people experience at work. I’m not suggesting that you ignore missed revenue targets or allow sloppy work to continue but, when at all possible, focus on what is working and the value the person brings to then organization. We all need to be recognized for the contribution we’re making at work.

Changing the tone of the conversation in the workplace in a more positive direction will go a long way toward increasing employee engagement and, as a result, increase productivity and happiness throughout your organization.

About Jim Donovan:
Jim Donovan speaks regularly to employees and executives at small business and large corporations. He is a frequent media guest and expert source on personal development, business success, and the spiritual laws that develop both. He lives in Bucks County, PA. His website is www.JimDonovan.com.

Based on the book “Happy @ Work: 60 Simple Ways to Stay Engaged and Be Successful”. Copyright © 2014 by Jim Donovan. Reprinted with permission from New World Library.www.NewWorldLibrary.com

Feng Shui Your Love Life

I received this fun, and informative, little video from Tess Whitehurst. In 2 minutes and 30 seconds she manages to drop a lot of Feng Shui knowledge! I think you guys are going to love it!

About Tess Whitehurst:
Tess Whitehurst is the author of “Magical Housekeeping”, “The Good Energy Book”, “The Art of Bliss”, “Magical Fashionista”, and the “Magic of Flowers”. She’s been practicing feng shui professionally in Los Angeles since 2005. Visit her online and sign up for her free monthly newsletter at www.tesswhitehurst.com, read her blog at www.enchantingtheday.blogspot.com, and connect with her on social media at facebook.com/TessWhitehurstAuthor and twitter.com/tesswhitehurst.