Dear Amanda, I love your Stress poem, I have read it three times already and with a bigger smile each time,

Roger just seems to know where to find the 'jewels' in the Adlandpro crown.

Thank you for sharing it with us all.

Peace Love and Light

Sheila

Just a note from me to add to all of the great input that there has been in the All about Stress forum. I received a newsletter today that I would like to share as it has some great information and some though provoking comments in it.

I have put the links to the site and to the newsletter at the bottom of this post, I have been on their free mailing list for a while and I can recommend it as a good option for those who are interested.

Peace Love and Light

Sheila

 

A lack of self-belief can contribute to stress and anxiety. Conversely, taking steps to raise your self-belief can make you less anxious and have a significant and positive effect on the way you handle stressful situations.

You have to believe in yourself. Whether you call it self-esteem, self-confidence, or self-assurance, it's a deep-seated belief that you have what it takes - the abilities, inner resources, talents and skills to handle whatever life throws at you, and create the results that you desire.

---

Believing In Yourself Is An Attitude

Believing in yourself is a choice. It's an attitude you develop over time. Although it helps if you had positive and supportive parents, the fact is that most of us had average parents who inadvertently passed on the same self-limiting beliefs and negative conditioning that they grew up with.

But remember the past is the past. There is no point in blaming them for your current level of self-confidence. It's now your responsibility to take charge of your own self-concept and beliefs. You must choose to believe that you can do anything you set your mind to -anything at all - because, in fact, you can. It might help to know that the latest brain research now indicated that with enough positive self-talk and positive visualisation, anyone can learn to do just about anything.

If you assume in favour of yourself and act as if it's possible, then you will do the things that are necessary to bring about the result you desire. If you believe it's impossible , you will not do what is necessary , and you will not produce the result. EIther way, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

See Your Troubles As Blessings

You would not have the wisdom and knowledge you now possess were it not for the setbacks you've faced, the mistakes you've made, and the suffering you've endured. Realize that pain is a teacher and failure is the highway to success. You cannot learn to play the piano without hitting a great many wrong notes, and you will never learn how to sail without tipping the boat over a few times. Begin to see your troubles as blessings, resolve to turn your stumbling blocks into stepping stones and vow to turn your wounds into wisdom.

Most people encounter problems as they advance along the path of life. It's important to remind ourselves that our character is shaped not through life's easiest experiences, but during its toughest ones.. It's during life's most trying and difficult times that we discover who we really are and the fullness of the strength that lies within us.

If you are currently facing challenges of your own, think about the following words from Rainer Maria Rilke.

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves liked locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They could not now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present, you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day."

Stop Worrying About What Other People Think About You

If having others believe in you and your dream was a requirement for success, most of us would never accomplish anything.

You need to base your decisions about what you want to do based on your dreams and your goals - not the goals, desires, opinions and judgments of your parents, friends, spouse, children and colleagues. Stop worrying about what other people think, and follow your heart.

Remember Dr. Daniel Amen's 18/40/60 rule : "When you're 18, you worry about what everybody's thinking about you; when you're 40, you don't care about what anybody thinks about you; and when you're 60, you realise that nobody's been think about you at all."

So there you are !. Most of the time, nobody's think about you at all ! They're too busy thinking about their own lives.And if they are thinking about you, it's only to wonder what you're thinking about them. People think about themselves, not about you.

Think about it. All the time you waste worrying what other people are thinking about you, your ideas, your goals, your clothes, your hair - all that time could be far better spent thinking about and doing the things that will achieve your goals.

Inspiration

There may be days when you get up in the morning and things aren't the way you had hoped they would be.

That's when you have to tell yourself that things will get better. There are times when people disappoint you and let you down.

But those are the times when you must remind yourself to trust your own judgments and opinions, to keep your life focused on believing in yourself.

There will be challenges to face and changes to make in your life, and it is up to you to accept them.

Constantly keep yourself headed in the right direction for you. It may not be easy at times, but in those times of struggle you will find a stronger sense of who you are.

So when the days come that are filled with frustration and unexpected responsibilities, remember to believe in yourself and all you want your life to be.

Because the challenges and changes will only help you to find the goals that you know are meant to come true for you.

Keep Believing in Yourself

----- Author Unknown.

LESSONS OF LIFE . . .

I feared being alone until I learned to like myself.

I feared failure until I realized that I only fail when I don't try.

I feared success until I realized that I had to try in order to be happy with myself.

I feared people's opinions until I learned that people would have opinions about me anyway.

I feared rejection until I learned to have faith in myself.

I feared pain until I learned that it's necessary for growth.

I feared the truth until I saw the ugliness in lies.

I feared life until I experienced its beauty.

I feared death until I realized that it's not an end, but a beginning.

I feared my destiny, until I realized that I had the power to change my life.

I feared hate until I saw that it was nothing more than ignorance.

I feared love until it touched my heart, making the darkness fade into endless sunny days

I feared ridicule until I learned how to laugh at myself.

I feared growing old until I realized that I gained wisdom every day.

I feared the future until I realized that life just kept getting better.

I feared the past until I realized that it could no longer hurt me.

I feared the dark until I saw the beauty of the starlight.

I feared the light until I learned that the truth would give me strength.

I feared change, until I saw that even the most beautiful butterfly had to undergo a metamorphosis before it could fly.

And ..... AFTER A WHILE.....

....you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul

And you learn that love doesn't mean leaving that company doesn't mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises;

And you begin to accept your defeats with your head held up and you eyes opened. with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child

And you learn to build your roads on today because tomorrows ground is too uncertain for plans

After awhile, you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much;

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers;

And you learn that you really can endure... that you really are strong and you have worth.

---- Author Unknown

www.Meditations-UK.com,

newsletter@meditations-uk.com

Dearest Sheila & Roger,

You both are really doing a great service to our community by this forum. THANK YOU !!

STRESS.....wish more people would stop and realize how much stress they take on in a day...for some its just become part of them!! almost they dont realize it they are stressing and how much damage it causes them physically and mentally.

I have a dear younger sister who is all the time stressed out over all and sundry and I fear for her, no matter how much I try to show her the evil of this thing called stress it has become so much part of her that without it she feels lost and as if something is amiss if she isnot stressing ..!!

I on the other hand have understood and realize the moment stress is taking over...walking is my remedy to destress, besides music and writing ....its amazing how well it works when you can identify it in time.

Hopefully I will be around more often now that my computer problems seem to be fixed for time being :-)

Thank you again for what you both do for us.

Blessings

Pauline

Dear Pauline, thank you for your kind words, and also for the invitation to visit the best Forum Award Newsletter which I will admit to not having visited before.

I really have not discovered all of the amazing things on offer at Adlandpro and I am constantly surprised by the depth and the quality of the forums and of the friends I have made here.

One of my realizations some time ago was that many people had what I call anxiety from conception, and because they have lived with it all of their lives they have never known any different, I will add a piece from my web site which explains it quite siimply.

Some years ago I realised that a large percentage of my clients had or suffered from what I call anxiety from conception, that is, at your conception, from a single cell to a foetus, your Mum and Dad were worried about you, very possibly without even knowing about it and that put everything in your body under pressure, just  like being in a vice. Since that time every cell, fibre, nerve, muscle, and organ within your body has been working overtime because of this “anxiety”.  So I created a series of words, which when spoken in my head as I rang a specific set “tinsgshaw” bells, relieved these levels of "anxiety from conception" from my clients.

These “anxiety” sounds had a profound affect, with many people reporting immediate results and others within just a few minutes commenting on the differences in how they felt.  My clients typically report feeling “Lighter, I can breathe easier or I haven’t got that feeling of a weight on my chest any more".

The 'Anxiety sounds' as I called them became a foundation part of much of my other work, and are a part of many of my 'sounds' programs. Anxiety is in many instances just another word for stress, and like pain can become an 'old friend' or a comfortable slipper, who we may not welcome into our lives, however we may feel lost or bereft without it as it has always been around or a part of US.

Stress I believe may shorten our life span up to 15%, and we are often indoctrinated into accepting the statistics of anticipated life spans for women and men despite the fact that we actually have the ability to live a long life should we so choose. My late husband who was affected by stress all of his life and who worried about everything passed away at age 50, some 17 years ago now and was still a young man

I personally plan on having a 150th birthday party and have been inviting 'friends' to attend for more than 30 years now so I hope that you will join us.

Roger covered breathing in an earlier part of the forum, and many people 'forget to breathe' through stress, and their breathing actually becomes more shallow and fills less of the lungs, which in turn leads to less oxygenated blood in the body.

Often replacing the stress as you say with an other activity such as walking, music, exercise, or a short visualization can be not only beneficial but also replace the need for the stress over a period of time.

I have said for many years that 'Nature abhors a vacuum', and that she will fill it with whatever is available, so it is important in removing some thing even stress that we replace it with a 'positive' which can be a thought, idea or an action.

Roger is working on offering my 'Stress' sounds for people to be able to download and use at home for themselves, he is obviously more computer literate than I am as I would not know where to start.

I too have had computer problems and I know Sara did also at the Poet of the Month forum so there seems to have been a rash of it around, and all around the world.

Thank you again and I look forward to seeing more of what Adlandpro has to offer.

Peace Love and Light

Sheila

Sheila,

There is some very good stuff in that newsletter.

There are lots of little gems there.

Many of these use pictorial images, something that I combine with stories.

Roger