​Stress - the way your thoughts make you ill and eventually kill you.

If you don’t make a constant effort to choose thoughts that bring you joy and peace, it is likely your thoughts will focus on the stresses in your life.
I love how Louise Hay says, “Stress is having faith in fear.”  

Indeed, stress is the feeling, the emotion and accompanying physical effects that result from thoughts of frustration, anger, all fearful thoughts.

Yes, it’s constant work, especially at first, as you develop a new habit of declining negative, upset, fearful thoughts.  How about asking your family to say kindly to each other when one is feeling “stress”, “NEGATIVE ALERT!”  That can be a nice reminder to immediately and quickly accept responsibility and change your thoughts, your words.  

When you feel stress, ask yourself, “What is scaring me?”

And, work HARD (because it takes a lot of work,) to think instead, positive, happy thoughts.  It’s easy to fall into negative.  Climb out, dust yourself off and think happy thoughts!

Don’t let stress cause your physical body to become ill.  Negative thoughts increase stress hormones and eventually make you ill, wear you out, take away your good life.

They're your thoughts.  Change ‘em.

To happy thoughts,

​Being grateful for the tiny things which make up the huge reality of our lives, is a wonderful way to live, and it creates an even more spectacular reality.

This morning I feel grateful for 

- Claude having ground and brewed some freshly roasted coffee beans,

- the bit of dark chocolate stirred into the coffee and the tiny peppermint candy cane dropped in,

- the moments of enjoying the aroma, the warmth, the mingled delicious tastes and the company, as we sit together to enjoy our morning cuppa.  

For your morning, you could have your coffee and think of your gratitude for the wonderful day ahead and for the five senses involved in your enjoyment.  
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Happy coffee, happy day, and love,

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You can start late, and be scared, and still succeed!

​But - you’ve got to start.

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start, to be great!" ~ Zig Ziglar

If you think you’re too late, you’re right (because you won’t start).

If you think it’s too scary, you’re right (because it scares you enough to keep you from starting).

Start.  

Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times before he created the light bulb.

Harland Sanders, at age 65 and facing the sudden loss of his and wife Claudia’s business (the new Interstate ran right over and past the restaurant, stopping customer access to it), began going restaurant to restaurant to see if they needed a great fried chicken cook.  After many “no’s”, he started offering to sell his recipe for his fantastic fried chicken. It is reported that he heard 1009 “no's" before he heard his first "yes". He is now known as Colonel Sanders, and the rest is history.

Start.  It’s never too late.

If you stop and think about it, your mind’s meanderings often find their way to people, happenings, things which you would love to experience.  

Good for you.  

Your life is defined and becomes what you think about.  Thinking about your goals, your desires, your plans, helps bring them to you.  Little actions toward those goals start to become clear.  You begin “doing things” in the directions of your goals.

The Infinite Intelligence of God, it gave you the desires, and guides, directs and reveals to you the perfect plan for the unfolding of those desires.  

So let your thoughts meander all over those desires, your goals, your needs.  BUT - not from a perspective of lack.  Thoughts of gratitude and joy over your goals, and reaching them give you a MUCH better chance of success. 

And negative "lack" thoughts  (like, “I am never going to…", "I feel desperate…", "I am too old - too young - uneducated - incapable…", "How will I ever?…") pretty much guarantee you won’t succeed.

Here’s a good one for you: “I am grateful for all I have had, all I now have, and all I shall have.”  
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Spend a few minutes a day in your thought meanderings, gratitude and watch what happens!!!

Think about this:  It’s not the actual happening that affects you, but your “take” on it.

Your perception and resulting thoughts and feelings about things that happen to and around you is the source of your emotion and sometimes longterm reactions and effects from the happening.  

So what is reality?  Is it the happening? 

Or is it your perception of what happens?

It can be an important question, as we can change our perception by widening it, by evaluating it, by working to see the positive in things that at first seem negative.
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Funny thing to say, but let me say it:  Change your perspective to change your reality.
Give yourself the gift of grace - grace of peace of mind, grace of gratitude. 

Besides the things you commonly hear about that are supposed to suppress virus transmission, here are four more things you possibly haven't heard about.