 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:
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
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.
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 Please "Like" and comment and share :-)
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 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 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 Please "Like" and share :-)
“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  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.
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:
Wait for it... Love and blessings, Aunt Laya Please "Like" and share.
Leave comments! :-)  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. Please "Like" and share. :-)
 Sometimes life sends you a whammy and it doesn't feel good at all! Someone says something that hurts, or looks at you in a way that stings. Sometimes people are rude, or the project you're working on isn't working out. Or maybe you worked hard on something and it seems like every obstacle that could possibly show up, does--and then some! Hard stuff.
Hang on! Take a deep breath. This is a test, it is only a test. The purpose of the test is to help you grow. The 'Universe', God, Spirit, your Higher Power, what ever you want to call it, is sending you a lesson so that you can become stronger and grow. It doesn't matter who you are, what you do, how much you weigh, how tall you are, male, female, or how old you are. It doesn't matter if you are experienced or not. Life will send you lessons and they will NOT be comfortable. And guess what? That's OK! It really is. Because if you're reading this right now, I'm here to tell you, you can get through this test and you can use this experience to make you stronger. You can use any experience to your advantage and flourish in AMAZING ways. Amazing! Do you hear me? Amazing! I'm not exaggerating. What ever tests life presents you with are there for a reason. In the end even the hardest stuff will turn out to be for the best because you'll be a better person. You can learn and grow and you are always stronger in the end, even if it doesn't feel like that's possible right now. When you find yourself in one of the 'tests' of life, hang in there. If you don't 'get it' the first time around, it will come around again and you can catch the lesson the next round. All along the way, remember that you are not alone. Everyone else is being tested, sometimes the same tests, sometimes different, but we're all tested. Even the people who look like they have it all together... you'd be amazed at the stories each one of us carries. You can handle anything that comes your way. Keep breathing, ask for help when you need it. Be good to you and those around you. With lots of love and some cyber (((((hugs))))) too! Aunt Laya  Ready for a little game? What if you had all the money you could dream of? What would you be doing differently in your life? What would you spend that money on? A wonderful exercise to do is to make a list of all the things you would do. There are two ways to play with on this one. First of all, if you plan your finances well (would you like a link to a program that will help with that?), you can do anything you want. Not everything you want but pretty much what ever goals you have, you can save for the top most important or fulfilling money goals. Also, if you play this out, you may notice that there's a pattern of a kind of experience you want in life. You might find a pattern that leads you on a creative path. Many people find that they are interested in leaving a positive mark in the world with some kind of service. As you look at each item on your list, ask yourself what the experience is that you're looking for. Then ask yourself, "How can I achieve that experience in my life right now?" As a young woman I had an experience of giving that changed my life. I didn't have a lot but I had more than a young couple I met and I was able to give to them in a way that was sweet and surprising to them and at the same time, something that I could afford. It changed the way I looked at giving. You don't have to wait "until" you have enough time, money, energy or what ever. You can start right now, right from where you are. The idea here is to fine tune what would mean the most to you and then go for it. It doesn't happen all at once. But one step at a time and you'll be living the life of your dreams. So what's one small step you can take right now? love, Aunt Laya Please "Like" and share :-)
 My father at his 90th birthday party My father lived to age 95. He was often asked for his advice on living a long and good life. Here are a few nuggets of the beautiful wisdom I garnered from the things my father taught me and lived.
The most frequent response I heard from my father in response to the question about living a healthy, long life was “Be positive.” What does that mean? Respond to every situation in life looking for the good. Look for the good in others and speak to that. Looking on the bright side will change your physiology and actually promotes health. So, backed by science, a good key to a long, healthy life is to be positive. What ever else was happening around him, my father tried to respond with patience and kindness. My father was born in New York in 1915. When he was a little boy, he was swinging his feet while sitting on a bench and the old man sitting next to him on the bench snapped at him to sit still and stop banging on the bench. At that moment, as a little boy, he put himself on a trajectory of kindness. He decided right there to be nice. Being nice will always serve. Some may mistake kindness for weakness. Be kind anyway. My father took vitamins and ate well. He also ate cookies regularly. He never overindulged, just a couple at a time. If he drank alcohol, it was one shot. The great Rambam was a doctor and a sage. He teaches moderation. My father walked the walk: Be moderate: enjoy what life has to offer without over doing. After moving away from my parents’ home, whenever I came to visit my father would check to make sure my windshields were clean. He’d clean them if they weren’t. He taught me: keep your windows and the headlights of your car clean too; you’ll have better visibility. It’s safer to drive when you can see clearly. It’s a great metaphor for all of life. Keep your own perspective clear and you’ll see what’s happening around you more clearly. Each one of those tips has served me well. I share them with you today, the anniversary of his passing, to lift our spirits a little bit, and in so doing, honor his memory. |
Live the extraordinary life you deserve.
Aunt Laya
Aunt Laya inspires and encourages you to live the life you want for yourself! She'll tell you the truth, even when it's not always so easy to hear so that you can learn to handle the hard stuff of life and be your best, happiest self. Always with love and caring. Archives
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