Aunt Laya - Blog

Aunt Laya

Shine on, you!

8/30/2017

No matter how you happen to be feeling, you are a bright, shining star!

The recent solar eclipse was all the buzz. I was talking to a friend who saw the eclipse at 90% and she commented that even with only 10% of the sun, she was surprised that it wasn't darker. With only 10% the whole world was still lit up.

What about you? What ever is going on in your life, even when you're not feeling your best--even at 10%--you still light up the world and the lives of those around you.

No matter what or who steps in your way or tries to block you (hey, even if you're getting in your own way which is most of us most of the time) you still light up this world.

Shine on!

Much love,
Aunt Laya

Photo by Andrew Preble on Unsplash

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Be Happier and More Effective

7/30/2017

What you say and how you say it matters. Your facial expression matters. You impact your own happiness and the happiness in others with the way you speak and the way you use your smile. This is something real and the following Ted Talk by Vanessa Van Edwards will give you some interesting info on the topic.

If you want to be better at something (from riding a bike to speaking a new language to being happier), you practice. After watching the video, you can see that even science is behind this concept.

You can make your corner of the world a better place by sharing your smile, your excitement, and asking great questions.

You can do this!
Love,
Aunt Laya

What You Need to Know About Suicide in the U.S.

7/25/2017

Guest post by Jennifer Scott

Over a quarter million people lose a loved one to suicide every year in the United States, but this public health crisis rarely gets the attention it deserves. Here are some facts you need to know in order to understand this growing problem.

What to Do if You’re Feeling Suicidal
If you’re thinking about hurting yourself, reach out to a crisis hotline for someone to talk to. While suicide may seem like an option in this moment, it’s a decision you can never take back.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255 (English), 1-888-628-9454 (Spanish), 1-800-799-4889 (deaf and hard of hearing), or online chat.
IMAlive, 1-800-442-4673 or IMAlive chat.
Crisis Text Line, text HOME to 741741.

You can call a crisis hotline for yourself or if you’re worried about someone you know. And crisis hotlines aren’t only for moments when self-harm seems imminent; you can call a crisis hotline any time you need support.

Facts About Suicide in the U.S.
It’s easy to think that suicide could never affect you or your loved ones, but the reality is, suicide is a leading cause of death in the U.S. Here are some numbers to know:

Suicide is the number 10 cause of death in the U.S; among youth ages 10 to 14 it’s the third leading cause of death, and among teens and adults ages 15 to 34 it’s the second.
Four percent of all American adults have thought about suicide; among adults aged 18 to 25, that rate more than doubles.
Each year over 44,000 Americans die by suicide, and the suicide rate is increasing.
Men are nearly four times as likely commit suicide than women. Women are most at risk between the ages of 45 to 64, while men over the age of 75 are most vulnerable.
American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Whites commit suicide at more than twice the rate of Black, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Hispanic individuals.
Firearms are used in almost half of all suicide deaths.

Risk Factors, Warning Signs, and Prevention
There’s no denying that suicide is a major problem, but what can you do about it? Preventing suicide starts with recognizing the risk factors and warning signs that can lead to a suicide attempt.
Risk Factors

A mental health condition like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia.
Addiction to drugs or alcohol, including prescription medications.
A recent loss, be it the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, or a job or financial loss.
Lack of social support or an isolated lifestyle.
Access to lethal means.
Previous suicide attempts, a family history of suicide, or exposure to the suicide of others.

Warning Signs

Feelings of hopelessness or a lack of purpose in life.
Changes in behavior, such as increased irritability, agitation, anger, mood swings, or reckless behavior.
Substance abuse, such as alcohol, illicit drug, or prescription medication abuse.
Giving away possessions or taking measures to say goodbye.
Talking of wanting to die or kill themselves.

If you notice these signs in yourself or someone you know, it’s critical that you take action. Ask these questions to find out if someone has the intention, plan, and means to carry out a suicide attempt.

Are you thinking of killing yourself?
Do you have a plan?
Do you have access to a suicide method (firearm, pills, etc.)?
Do you know when you plan to do it?

While it may be uncomfortable, being direct is the best way to assess suicide risk without making the person feel stigmatized or as if they’re not being taken seriously.

If a person in crisis has both the intention and the means to commit suicide, call 911 immediately. Never leave a suicidal person alone.

If a person is thinking about suicide but doesn’t have a plan, emergency response may not be necessary. Instead, encourage the person to reach out to a crisis hotline for urgent support and find a mental health professional to provide ongoing treatment.

It’s possible to build a healthy, happy life after suicidal ideations, but it requires ongoing support, love, and compassion from family, friends, health care professionals, and oneself.

Image via Unsplash

For more resources click here
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Mindsets and Skills for a Happier Life

7/13/2017

Creating the life of your dreams is something each of us can accomplish. The foundation of a healthy mindset opens possibilities and opportunities for building success in any area of your life. These skills breakdown into two categories:

How you perceive: the way you look at the world around you, specifically, how you process the situation, feedback, events, or information that comes your way. How you choose to see the way things unfold around you will create your inner environment. If you like beauty, look for the beautiful aspect of what is without. If you want to increase the love in your life, look for loving experiences. Nothing is too small, every nuance counts.
Actions you take: What you say, the feelings or thoughts you run with, and what you do (actual deeds) all add up and make an impact to direct your life.

Experiment with the following concepts. Don't try to do all of this at once. Make any one of these a daily practice or habit and your life will change; they are that powerful.

Take responsibility for your own mood. This principle is about you keeping the quality of life you want to live in your own hands. We’ve all had the experience of someone yelling or saying something sharp or cutting. How fast will you regain your composure, how fast will you rise back to your feet, brush yourself off, and step back into the mood you want to live your life with. If you let your mood be dependent on the circumstances around you, if you can only be happy if things are going the way you want, then you’re giving up on way too much of the goodness in life. You cannot control most of what goes on around you in this world, but you can control what goes on inside. How different would your life be if you choose to rise every day? Choosing your own mood is something we all have the power to do. Choosing happiness and gratitude is a habit that will bring incredible quality to every day.

Take responsibility for your relationships. You have a real choice about how you relate to those you are closest to. “What if you were 100% responsible for all your relationships?” Not 50/50, it’s all you, baby. That means that you can use tools like

Giving the benefit of the doubt—trusting that those who love you (and who are trustworthy) have your best interests at heart
Talking things through to find the compromise that works for all involved
Setting the tone and direction you want to promote in your relationships
Letting go of having to be “right”
Being the first to give
Asking for what you need (without getting snotty when the other can’t give you what you want)—which leads us to…

It’s not about your “rights;” you’re not entitled. It’s all a gift. This is not simply about saying, “thank you” when you get something. When you view everything you have as a gift, your appreciation and pleasure in life will soar. Think about this: Would you rather be with someone who is demanding of you or who appreciates what you do? What’s the attitude that would open you to give more? Seeing all of life as a gift is a mindset that strengthens you in several ways.

When you let go of the idea that your way is the “only” or “right” way (a rigid way of being) and replace it with the idea that there are multiple ways to get the same outcome, you become more expansive and free.
Thinking that you “should” have something, or someone else “should” do xyz for you, is a set up for disappointment.
Don’t limit your positivity (your reactions and responses) according to what whether or not you get what you want and expect. No one in life ever gets all they want all the time.

Keep your hopes high and your expectations flexible. There’s an expression that may help with balance in the way we react to things. “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.” We want life to go well, and sometimes we have those days when all seems right. “This, too, shall pass.” It’s not just the hard stuff that will pass; the juicy stuff has a pulse of expansion and contraction also. This mindset helps you take action toward the best results and at the same time gives you the power to release what didn’t happen the way you wanted. When you can let go of the expectations of what “should” happen, your mind is free to explore a different route and instead of getting stuck in disappointment, your mind is free to take in the learning and your emotions are free to choose joy or gratitude, or both.

Be grateful—especially when things are not going your way. Gratitude is actually a doorway to receiving more. This works in two ways, from the inside (how you feel about what you receive in life) and from the outside (givers are gratified when receivers are grateful). The inside job is where you train your own attitude every day in the smallest and grandest of ways to say thank you for what is. This doesn’t mean you are complacent, it means you are content. You still take action for building the life you want and at the same time you enjoy the process instead of demanding that things must be a certain way in your timing. There’s a big picture that we don’t have access to. From the outside: Have you ever given someone a gift and they tossed it to the side in disgust? It doesn’t make you want to give them more. You don’t have to fake liking something if that sends the wrong message, but expressing sincere gratitude for the effort and love that went into a gift is, at the very least, good manners. Everything you have in life is a gift, from your Creator and from the people around you. Whether it’s a meal, a smile, or knowledge, the mindset of gratitude will open you to receiving more and will put you in a place of peace. Extra Credit: try to be grateful for the negative experiences too. Experiment with that and watch your joy grow even more exponentially!

The world is plotting to make you better. Some people start with the assumption that everyone is “out to get them.” It’s likely they’ve been hurt or taken advantage of in the past so they live life in a defensive way. Assuming the world is plotting to make you better is not about closing your eyes and abandoning your boundaries. Coming from the place that you assume the world is out to make your life better is about looking for—and attracting—more good into your life. Even when a situation seems to go all wrong, you’re actually being given a life lesson. If you are willing to receive even the hard lessons life brings as gift, if you’re open to understanding and learning, you will see new ways to make the choices that will serve you in creating the results you truly want.

Make someone else happy. Service will lift you. Service, thinking about others and the difference you can make in their lives will get you out of the dumps in your own world and gives meaning to life. That could be to your family, friends, or community. Service can be a kind word, and helpful action, or a monetary donation. Service can be helping someone with their groceries, or giving an apple or a protein bar to the beggar outside the grocery store. Service can be listening to a friend, just listening. The idea is getting outside of your own situation, stepping about from your own frustrations or challenges in life and giving to someone else. Volunteer possibilities abound. Contribute. No matter how down or troubled you may be feeling, look outside yourself and find a way to give to others. Don’t expect gratitude; just serve because while you’re bringing goodness to those around you, you’ll find you’re building yourself at the same time. Taste the pleasure of making someone else happy.

You can do this!
Love,
Aunt Laya

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The Balance of Humilty

6/15/2017

So often life is about the balance. The balance about the ego is that if you think about your self all the time whether you think you're the greatest or the worst, you'll find yourself out of balance. It's human nature to think mostly about yourself. We worry what other people are thinking when usually they are thinking about themselves.

It's a great idea to shift away from the popular "It's all about me" and widen your perspective to give your talents, light, donations, smile, or smile to others. The funny thing about that is that when you are able to give in a balanced way, it has a way of coming around to grow you, heal you, or lift you in one way or another.

Love,
Aunt Laya

How to Block Unwanted Thoughts

8/23/2016

Everyone has negative or unwanted thoughts that come to mind. The thing is, you don't have to let your thoughts run away with you!

You get to be in control of your own thoughts. You can invite and allow thoughts that serve you, that inspire you, that ignite the sparks of joy, that motivate you to move forward or to build your dreams. And you can reject or block the negative thoughts or "voices" (you know what I mean, like when you hear the voice of some bully who put you down going into re-play mode in your mind).

One technique you can uses is to relate to these thoughts the same way you might if it was a sales call coming in on your cell phone. You can see the caller ID and you don't have to waste your time on it. Just don't answer.

Another technique is to visualize something like what The Good Witch of the North said to the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. "You have no power here. Be gone!"

Just say it over and over.

It's a good idea to have a few positive thoughts or visualizations to fill in the place of the thought you're shooing away. How about picturing (or actually eating!) your favorite fruit? How about remembering that beautiful note that your dear friend wrote you in junior high, or last week? Or the smile of someone who loves you. Or... you fill in the blank.

You can do this!
Love,
Aunt Laya

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The Purpose of Life

7/26/2016

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

What do you mean the purpose of life is not to be happy? I am so glad Emerson said this and that I can quote him. It's not enough to just be happy. If you're only in this life to make yourself happy, you will never find true happiness. The truest happiness comes when you have touched another. Maybe through your smile, your help, your art, your kindness, or your encouragement.

Here's the tricky part (there always has to be a tricky part, right?), as you reach out beyond yourself, do it with true joy. If you're not sure how to do that, pretend to be happy while you do good. You'll soon see that it becomes true joy, and it will deepen as you grow.

Many blessings!
Love,
Aunt Laya

Sweetest Picture Book

7/4/2016

I How many ways can you tell your child "I love you"? Everyone needs love and connection. Every child needs and wants to hear they are loved, over and over again. This book will give you the words to open imaginations and hearts. In print at last, you can order your collectors, hard cover copy today. Check it out here.

Waiting is Good

3/28/2016

Someone posted this quote in a hospital's emergency waiting room. This is called a "paradigm shift." What does that mean? Someone could sit in the emergency room and complain about how no one is attending to them. OR, the same person might sit in the emergency room and feel grateful that their injury is not worse!! What a powerful way to tweak our experience of life.

Sometimes it seems like we are in such a get-it-NOW world and that if you have to wait for anything it's cause to get impatient. Of course you have every right to be impatient, but how will it really serve you?

Think about some things that are really good to wait for:

When a baby is gestating in his mother's belly, we don't want him to "hurry up." We want him to stay put until those lungs are fully formed and really ready to do their job.
In wanting love in your life, you can rush into relationships or connections that leave you feeling emptier, or you can wait until you really find a partner that you can build a life with.
Financially, the people that wait and save up their money for the big purchase, live with deeper peace because they paid cash and have no debt hanging over them.

Self restraint can be a great thing. How can you apply this to your life? What do you get impatient about? How can waiting be a good thing?

Wait for it...

Love and blessings,
Aunt Laya

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A Picture Book Worth 1000 Snuggles

2/20/2016

Share the love!

Here's my newest book!! This sweet picture book brings comfort and gently, joyfully builds bonds. Everyone loves to hear how much they are loved. Toddler, parent, and grandparent tested, this book guarantees smiles.

Follow Frog and Duck throughout their day from the morning sunshine to sweet dreams.

I invite you to help bring this book to into your home. Head over to the Kadina Press website for your very own copy. Some people are saying it's destined to be a classic.

I appreciate your help in sharing this special book with people in your circle who would love to have a snuggle and a smile with the little ones in their lives. Click the button below to learn more about I Love You So Much.

I want to see more!

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best life!