I am often a victim of the inner voice that shouts "YOU CAN'T!" This negative inner voice is present in many people, not just those who suffer with OCD or similar disorders. Somehow, no matter how many times we hear positive things, the inner negative ones stick harder, zapping our confidence and enthusiasm.
Looking around the web, I came across this great site, How to Stop the Negative Inner Voice in our Heads by Catherine Pratt, which I found very helpful, not only for stopping negative thoughts, but it can be applied to OCD intrusive thoughts as well. There is the inspiring story of a famous person who just didn't take NO for an answer...
Here is the article:
Silencing the Negative Inner Voice
by Catherine Pratt
www.Life-With-Confidence.com
"Usually somewhere along the way in our journey of life, we have come across someone who tells us that we’re not good at doing something. It could be writing, or singing, or dancing, or speaking. Anything. And, we believe them. The tragedy can come from not following our dreams because we always hear that one negative voice telling us that we’re no good. It doesn’t even matter how many other people we come across who will tell us yes we are good at doing something, we always remember that one negative voice. It’s time to move past the negative voice. Here’s how:
1. Do it anyway — do you love singing? Then sing. How about writing? If you love it, do it. That’s the only reason. It brings you joy, do it. Life is too short to not do the things we love because some misguided person told us not to do it.
If we all listened to these negative people then some of the greatest life stories would never happened. Take this for example:
"Many years ago a young man mustered enough courage to ask a young woman to dance. After he danced with her for a few minutes, the woman told him he was a lousy dancer. She complained that he danced like a truck driver.
To be sure, this bad experience would be enough for most people to quit dancing for good. Watching television or sitting around being bored would be more appealing than dancing again. Yet this man developed a passion for dancing and continued to dance for many decades.
In fact this man became known as one of the great dancers of modern times. By the early nineties, when he died, he had 500 dance schools named after him. At one time, he had been on television for eleven years straight, showing people from all walks of life - including truck drivers - how to dance."
(excerpt from The Joy of Not Working by Ernie Zelinski)
Who was this man? None other than Arthur Murray. Luckily he didn't let that one woman's comment stop him from doing what he loved.
Or did you know that George Lucas spent four years shipping the script for Star Wars around to the various studios and racking up numerous rejections in the process? If he'd let his negative inner voice get to him he would never have ended up having the highest grossing film of all time.
2. Brainstorm and Break Apart — Think of all the steps you will need to do to accomplish the one thing you really want to do above all else. Break the ultimate end goal into smaller tasks and then just start plugging away at them. It’s far easier to take one small step and to keep going than getting frustrated because you haven’t managed to fulfill the ultimate goal yet.
3. Take small steps — so you want to write the next great American novel but your English teacher told you that a three-year old could write better than you. Or maybe they told you not to waste your time doing something that you’ll never be able to make any money at. To get past this, take small steps. Instead of getting frustrated because you can’t write your novel, write a short story instead. Write articles. Write, write, and write some more. Each time you write you will be gaining confidence in your ability. You’ll soon be able to see that you are able to write because you have actual examples. Each step you take will also bring you into contact with new opportunities and new ideas and one step closer to your ultimate dream. Just keep doing whatever it is that you love doing. You will also find that you are happiest when you are doing whatever it is that you love doing. This will also encourage to keep going.
4. Remember the big picture — whenever you get bogged down by the day to day issues, think back to the big picture. What is it that you want to accomplish in the end? What is it that you really, really want to do? Think how great it will feel when it actually happens. Focus on that. Ignore the little things. They’ll soon be in the past.
5. Reflect — Think back on how far you’ve already come. You’ve taken great strides already. Think how great it felt when you were able to accomplish some of those small steps.
6. Focus on something else —whenever you hear that voice, tell it to “shut up” or think of putting up a Do Not Disturb sign for your inner critic and then think of something positive in your life. Think about a loved one, your dog, a funny joke, anything to get yourself back in a positive mind set. Also, instead of that inner critic create for yourself an Inner Supporter.
7. Go for a walk — sometimes just getting up and doing something physical gives us enough endorphins to actually feel better about ourselves. When we feel better about ourselves, it’s easier to accomplish our goals.
8. Listen to your heart — whatever it is that you really want to do with your life, it’s not going to go away. It will always be there. It will also kill you to see someone else doing that thing you really wanted to do with your life. The tragedy is when it turns into a regret that you never took the chance to even try.
9. Greatest Critic Becomes Greatest Supporter — remember when you finally do succeed that most negative person who said you could never do it, will probably be the loudest person to say, “I knew they could it”. It’s human nature. And if you have no idea where your 4th grade English teacher is now, just think what great revenge it is when you know they’re going to read your novel and just say, “Wow”. Maybe you could even send them a copy.
10. Have Faith — it’s your life not someone else’s. So, LIVE IT! You can never make someone else happy by living the way they want you to live. You’ll only end up making yourself miserable and that person will never be satisfied. You have to listen to your heart and do what is best for you".
I hope that this makes you realize that the only one you really have to listen to is YOU!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
OCD and Lift the Fog of Depression
It may hit like a thunderbolt or it may slowly creep up on you, but depression is one of the worst feelings there is. For all of you who have never felt the horrors of depression, you are gifted. Depression takes a huge toll on the body, both mentally and physically. It may help if you notice your physical symptoms. You may get body aches, headaches or stomachaches which you may not realize is depression-related.
Depression is like living in an exhausting, smothering gloom. It is caused by an imbalance of brain chemicals and often co-exists with OCD and many other mental disorders. It can be triggered by sudden life changes (30% of new college students have reported being depressed), staleness of routine (when life becomes dull and the mind gets bored), and also, not having job or relationship satisfaction.
Depression feels as if all joy and the meaning of life has been stripped away, and all that is left is a fog-like trance. It may take all the energy you have to just get out of bed. All too often, depressed people don’t have the energy to seek help, and when they do, they are prescribed prescription drugs which may often only mask the symptoms and do nothing to help underlying cause. Also, there are the unwanted side-effects, some of which are low libido and weight gain.
Physical exercise and being absorbed in a cause can help. Another way out of sadness is to force yourself to go out on a beautiful day and commune with nature. If you live near a beach, make the effort to go by the water, as it has been shown that negative ions help mood. Go to a park, to a garden, notice the clouds, watch the sunrise─all these things may help to brighten the mood.
In researching natural remedies, I came across a few interesting things that may also be helpful. I found out that depression may also be a sign of low-thyroid function, especially if you have gained weight, have dry skin, and are sensitive to temperature changes. Low thyroid, or hypothyroidism, can be a sign of low selenium, which is a mineral that helps brain function. I researched natural sources of selenium and found that Brazil nuts are just about the best natural source. Other high-selenium foods are egg yolks, tuna, kelp, seaweed, watercress, parsley, oatmeal, bananas, apples, brewer’s yeast, and Hawthorne Berry and Peppermint teas. Perhaps adding some of these selenium-rich foods may help. I will be incorporating them into my diet for sure.
I hope this helps some of the depressed people out there. I wish you happiness, light, and sunny skies forever!
Depression is like living in an exhausting, smothering gloom. It is caused by an imbalance of brain chemicals and often co-exists with OCD and many other mental disorders. It can be triggered by sudden life changes (30% of new college students have reported being depressed), staleness of routine (when life becomes dull and the mind gets bored), and also, not having job or relationship satisfaction.
Depression feels as if all joy and the meaning of life has been stripped away, and all that is left is a fog-like trance. It may take all the energy you have to just get out of bed. All too often, depressed people don’t have the energy to seek help, and when they do, they are prescribed prescription drugs which may often only mask the symptoms and do nothing to help underlying cause. Also, there are the unwanted side-effects, some of which are low libido and weight gain.
Physical exercise and being absorbed in a cause can help. Another way out of sadness is to force yourself to go out on a beautiful day and commune with nature. If you live near a beach, make the effort to go by the water, as it has been shown that negative ions help mood. Go to a park, to a garden, notice the clouds, watch the sunrise─all these things may help to brighten the mood.
In researching natural remedies, I came across a few interesting things that may also be helpful. I found out that depression may also be a sign of low-thyroid function, especially if you have gained weight, have dry skin, and are sensitive to temperature changes. Low thyroid, or hypothyroidism, can be a sign of low selenium, which is a mineral that helps brain function. I researched natural sources of selenium and found that Brazil nuts are just about the best natural source. Other high-selenium foods are egg yolks, tuna, kelp, seaweed, watercress, parsley, oatmeal, bananas, apples, brewer’s yeast, and Hawthorne Berry and Peppermint teas. Perhaps adding some of these selenium-rich foods may help. I will be incorporating them into my diet for sure.
I hope this helps some of the depressed people out there. I wish you happiness, light, and sunny skies forever!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
OCD and Tuning Your Inner Radio Signal
The mind is really no different than a radio. On the web site, “Big Site of Amazing Facts,” This is this description of how a radio works…
”At the radio studio, the sound waves of a program go into a microphone that has electrical current running through it. These sound waves create vibrations in the current as they travel through wires to a control room.
There, technicians control their volume and send them out through a transmitter. An antenna on the transmitter sends these electrical waves out through the air as radio waves. Radio waves travel through space in all directions, just as waves of water spread out when a pebble is dropped into it.
Each radio station is assigned a particular channel, or electrical path, by the Federal Communications Commission. This channel, called the station’s frequency, must be followed exactly.
You cannot see, hear, or feel radio waves in the air, but the radio in your home, which has an antenna either on the inside or outside, picks up these waves from many stations at the same time. By turning the tuning dial, you can select the station you want to listen to.
What happens is that the current in your radio tunes in to the same frequency as the radio waves sent out by the station you have chosen. An amplifier in your radio strengthens these radio waves, and the speaker changes them back into the original sound waves that went into the microphone in the studio."
The same laws of the universe that apply to radio waves apply to all thoughts. The mind, both conscious and subconscious, is just like radio - it picks up the vibrations from our thoughts and translates them into emotions, which will then dictate our life experiences. Once we feel an emotion from a thought, it affects us in much the same way we feel when we hear happy or sad music. The only difference is that many of us know how to tune a radio to the station we want, but don’t realize that we can also tune what is in our subconscious and conscious minds, which will create better moods and life experiences.
Why walk around with a sad song playing, or even the blank static that we hear on the radio when nothing is on? Be mindful of what “station” your mind is tuned to, and if you don’t like it, change it. Read inspirational writings, watch uplifting movies, put nurturing quotes where you can see them. And most importantly, seed your mind with what you want right before falling asleep- that is the most important time for subconscious tuning. Often, what we hear, read, or see as we fall asleep, ends up in our dreams, which affects us upon awakening and can make or break the entire day.
I hope that this helps, and that everyone is tuned into exactly the station that will make their own inner beautiful music!
”At the radio studio, the sound waves of a program go into a microphone that has electrical current running through it. These sound waves create vibrations in the current as they travel through wires to a control room.
There, technicians control their volume and send them out through a transmitter. An antenna on the transmitter sends these electrical waves out through the air as radio waves. Radio waves travel through space in all directions, just as waves of water spread out when a pebble is dropped into it.
Each radio station is assigned a particular channel, or electrical path, by the Federal Communications Commission. This channel, called the station’s frequency, must be followed exactly.
You cannot see, hear, or feel radio waves in the air, but the radio in your home, which has an antenna either on the inside or outside, picks up these waves from many stations at the same time. By turning the tuning dial, you can select the station you want to listen to.
What happens is that the current in your radio tunes in to the same frequency as the radio waves sent out by the station you have chosen. An amplifier in your radio strengthens these radio waves, and the speaker changes them back into the original sound waves that went into the microphone in the studio."
The same laws of the universe that apply to radio waves apply to all thoughts. The mind, both conscious and subconscious, is just like radio - it picks up the vibrations from our thoughts and translates them into emotions, which will then dictate our life experiences. Once we feel an emotion from a thought, it affects us in much the same way we feel when we hear happy or sad music. The only difference is that many of us know how to tune a radio to the station we want, but don’t realize that we can also tune what is in our subconscious and conscious minds, which will create better moods and life experiences.
Why walk around with a sad song playing, or even the blank static that we hear on the radio when nothing is on? Be mindful of what “station” your mind is tuned to, and if you don’t like it, change it. Read inspirational writings, watch uplifting movies, put nurturing quotes where you can see them. And most importantly, seed your mind with what you want right before falling asleep- that is the most important time for subconscious tuning. Often, what we hear, read, or see as we fall asleep, ends up in our dreams, which affects us upon awakening and can make or break the entire day.
I hope that this helps, and that everyone is tuned into exactly the station that will make their own inner beautiful music!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
OCD and 15 Famous People With Personality Disorders
If anyone reading this has felt the horrors of depression, you know it is really difficult to accomplish anything, let along something of great importance and significance. All to often, people with mental disorders are ridiculed as insane, or not taken seriously, which is a shame that they have to live with this stigma.
One of my blog readers, Anna Miller, works for The company which published this article,"15 Famous People With Personality Disorders."
Here is the article...
15 Famous People With Personality Disorders
"At the risk of sounding like the awful US Weekly segment devoted to showing how stars are just like us because they also buy gasoline and eat food (who knew?), famous people are, well, people. They're no better or worse than anyone else, and no less susceptible to things like personality disorders or emotional or mental instability. Unfortunately, problems like that tend to be pretty heavily stigmatized in Hollywood, which drives those who suffer from them to ignore or hide their problems, which only makes them worse. If there's anything to be gleaned from the collective stories of these famous people who've suffered from personality disorders -- some of whom are famous because of those disorders -- it's that it's never too late to get help, and it's always OK to be honest with people about what you're going through.
1.Carrie Fisher: Carrie Fisher has made no secret of her struggles with substance abuse and bipolar disorder. Stephen Fry (who appears later on this list) also suffers from the disease, also known as manic depression, and Fisher appeared on a TV special he did about the disease and its various stigmas and myths. As Fisher said a few years ago, "It is really important to see a doctor, particularly a psychiatrist who specializes in mental illness."
2.Herschel Walker: In his autobiography, former running back Herschel Walker revealed that he suffered from dissociative identity disorder, or what used to be called multiple personality disorder. As a result of the warring personalities, Walker says he doesn't remember the moment or even the season that he won the Heisman Trophy. "I feel the greatest achievement of my life will be to tell the world my truth," he wrote.
3.Howard Hughes: In his prime, Howard Hughes was known for being a pioneer in business, aviation, and filmmaking -- three skill sets that merged when he designed a new cantilevered bra for Jane Russell -- but now he's sadly remembered as a recluse driven to crippling depths by obsessive-compulsive disorder. Yet even his fixation on Russell's physique was a sign of his mind's inability to let things alone. In December 1947, he spent four months in his private screening room, holed up like an animal. He spent most of the end of his life hiding from public view and addicted to various medications.
4.Paula Deen: Paula Deen is known to TV viewers as a cook unafraid to use staggering amounts of butter on everything, but she's also struggled with anxiety disorders. A bout of depression in her early 20s led to an onset of agoraphobia, and she became basically housebound for close to 20 years. She spent most of her time cooking for her family because it allowed her to pursue a skill without having to set foot outside her home. She didn't even know much about her agoraphobia until learning about the disorder on an episode of The Phil Donahue Show, which encouraged her to re-examine things. Her approach worked for her, but most people are better off talking with a professional.
5.Elton John: A persistent but dangerous myth about bulimia nervosa is that it only affects women, or teenage girls. In truth, it can affect people of both genders and all ages. In a 2002 interview with Larry King, Elton John revealed not only that he'd been aware of Princess Diana's struggles with the problem but that he had battled it, too. He eventually found treatment in a Chicago clinic.
6.Brooke Shields: In 2005, Brooke Shields went public with her battles against postpartum depression, which had wrecked her after the birth of her first child in 2003. The depression manifests itself in fatigue, diminished sexual urges, erratic eating patterns, and an inability to stay emotionally balanced. It's a common problem for many women (and occasionally a few men), and Shields' problems were likely complicated by personal stresses including a previous miscarriage and the death of her father shortly before the birth. As many people remember, she was subsequently blasted by Tom Cruise for seeking psychiatric help to overcome the problem.
7.John Nash: John Nash's lifelong struggle with paranoid schizophrenia was ably documented in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind. Although the man was a mathematical genius who was wooed by the Ivy League and who eventually won a Nobel Prize, he began to believe that a shadowy group of men was chasing him with the intention of starting a new government. Some medications worked better than others, and through sheer perseverance, Nash eventually began to climb out of the mental hole he'd dug.
8.Michael Phelps: Amid the insane number of world records and Olympic gold medals, Michael Phelps is just another guy who's had to deal with a problem that's confronted many other people: attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. After an inability to concentrate led to the diagnosis when Phelps was in middle school, he worked with his parents and teachers to impose a better structure on his life and learning habits. Coupled with the right medication and dedication, he was able to overcome the issue.
9.Stephen Fry: Stephen Fry's been making fantastic comedy since the early 1980s, but it wasn't until years later that he discussed his struggles with bipolar disorder. His documentary, Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive, examined his ups and downs while also interviewing other celebrities who've dealt with the issue. Fry even attempted suicide at one point, but he's been able to push through and take a dryly positive on the affair: "I rely on it to give my life a sense of adventure, and I think most of the good about me has developed as a result of my mood swings."
10.Richard Dreyfuss: Richard Dreyfuss was one of the many who appeared on Fry's documentary, and he spoke about his own battles with bipolar disorder. Before being diagnosed, Dreyfuss would often lose control of his emotions, but work and medication have turned him around. "I reclaimed a career," he says of his ability to not only live with the disease but thrive.
11.Billy Joel: Billy Joel's latter-day battles with alcohol were popular tabloid fodder, but the man had some serious issues with depression when he was younger. Career setbacks in the early 1970s led to an onset so severe that he tried to kill himself by drinking furniture polish. The only thing that saved him was being taken to the hospital by his drummer. He was eventually able to bounce back and resume his musical career.
12.Drew Carey: For all his outward good humor, Drew Carey's dealt with some serious problems in his day. His 1997 autobiography revealed that he was once molested and that he later suffered bouts of depression and even attempted suicide (twice) by swallowing copious amounts of sleeping pills. It was his time in the military in his 20s that helped him discover purpose and direction and helped shape the personality he'd eventually use in his stand-up comedy.
13.Brian Wilson: Beach Boy Brian Wilson's mental health issues aren't news -- there have been songs about them -- but they serve as a reminder to everyone else that the earlier you seek diagnosis and help, the better. His creative worries and despondency deepened when the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band forced him to abandon his band's own Smile, and he spent years locked away in his home. He was later diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, as well as hints of other ailments. Thankfully, he's made improvements, even releasing Smile after decades of getting it just right.
14.Jim Carrey: Extreme moods are no strangers to comedians, and Jim Carrey's no exception. In 2004, he revealed that he's had problems with depression, and took medication for a while before trying a regimen that mixed dietary restrictions with spiritual focus.
15.Mike Wallace: Legendary journalist Mike Wallace was frank about his depression in a recent interview, saying, "There's nothing, repeat, nothing to be ashamed of when you're going through a depression. If you get help, the chances of your licking it are really good. But, you have to get yourself onto a safe path." Wallace sank into depression in the mid-1980s, spurred by a libel lawsuit filed by Gen. Westmoreland about a piece Wallace had done on Vietnam two years earlier. His keys to survival were the same ones for everyone: treatment and support."
I hope that people with disorders such as these will realize they are certainly NOT alone! We need more people like Anna Miller to foster awareness and send the message that fantastic things can be accomplished despite mental hindrances. Thanks Anna, and I look forward to more articles from you!
Design by Xyclops
Sunday, December 12, 2010
OCD and Good Luck
Sometimes it seems as if the Universe is against me. This past month was one of those times. Besides the mad shopping rush and long retail hours in my store of 7am to 11pm, shopping for gifts and general holiday running around. I had a really bad cold which turned into a sinus infection. This caused a severe nosebleed which caused me to pass out. When I went to the doctor (besides a course of nauseating antibiotics) he sent me to a cardiologist. Diagnosis- stress, wow, what a surprise. Then, there was a blackout in my neighborhood which blew out all my phones and cable boxes. Coming to work the next day, I was greeted by a downed phone line in my store which disabled my charge machine on the three busiest days of the holiday shopping season. Heartburn soon followed- I became the proud owner of a bottle of Nexium and a box of Gelusil. One the one night that I had a chance to sit, just as I turned on "The Sound Of Music," my Christmas tree flared up very brightly and promptly all the lights blew out.
It felt like there were forces out there conspiring to get me. After all that, I began waiting for other things to go wrong, expecting more to come. I woke up saying, "what rotten luck- what else is going to happen"? As I focused on the next wrong thing, I found my mood changing for the worse.
Then I realized that perhaps it was the way I was viewing these circumstances. It hit me, these things were crazy and annoying, but many people have it much worse- they would trade places with me in an instant. These were not terrible things, just temporary glitches. It was a wild string of events, but not horrible, just irritating. Perhaps I didn't have the right attitude. In the big picture, I was really pretty lucky.
If you believe success and luck evade you, no matter what you do, maybe it is your attitude. Like I did, perhaps you expect things to go wrong. Maybe you are focused on negativity. This fascinating article from Richard Wiseman just might shed some light on luck...
= = = = = = =
"I set out to examine luck, 10 years ago. Why are some people always in the right place at the right time, while others consistently experience ill fortune? I placed advertisements in national newspapers asking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me.
Hundreds of extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research and over the years, have been interviewed by me. I have monitored their lives and had them take part in experiments.
The results reveal that although these people have almost no insight into the causes of their luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for much of their good and bad fortune."
Take the case of seemingly chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not.
I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in their ability to spot such opportunities. I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. I had secretly placed a large message halfway through the newspaper saying: ‘Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $50′.
This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than two inches high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.
Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected.
As a result, they miss opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and miss other types of jobs.
The 4 Principles of Generating Good Fortune
Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for. My research eventually revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
I wondered towards the end of the work, whether these principles could be used to create good luck. I asked a group of volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person. Dramatic results! These exercises helped them spot chance opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect to be lucky, and be more resilient to bad luck. One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic: 80 per cent of people were now happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier.
4 Tips for Becoming Lucky
The lucky people had become even luckier and the unlucky had become lucky. Finally, I had found the elusive ‘luck factor’. Here are four top tips for becoming lucky:
1) Listen to your gut instincts — they are normally right.
2) Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine.
3) Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well.
4) Visualise yourself being lucky before an important meeting or telephone call.
Have a Lucky day and work for it.
The happiest people in the world are not those who have no problems, but those who learn to live with things that are less than perfect."
Besides this article, I have also realized that there will be times when things are out of our control. A sense of humor will help, as well as an attitude of rapidly adjusting to the changing circumstances without resistance- a rolling with the punches mindset.
Let's all make an effort to look for luck in 2011!!
It felt like there were forces out there conspiring to get me. After all that, I began waiting for other things to go wrong, expecting more to come. I woke up saying, "what rotten luck- what else is going to happen"? As I focused on the next wrong thing, I found my mood changing for the worse.
Then I realized that perhaps it was the way I was viewing these circumstances. It hit me, these things were crazy and annoying, but many people have it much worse- they would trade places with me in an instant. These were not terrible things, just temporary glitches. It was a wild string of events, but not horrible, just irritating. Perhaps I didn't have the right attitude. In the big picture, I was really pretty lucky.
If you believe success and luck evade you, no matter what you do, maybe it is your attitude. Like I did, perhaps you expect things to go wrong. Maybe you are focused on negativity. This fascinating article from Richard Wiseman just might shed some light on luck...
= = = = = = =
"I set out to examine luck, 10 years ago. Why are some people always in the right place at the right time, while others consistently experience ill fortune? I placed advertisements in national newspapers asking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me.
Hundreds of extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research and over the years, have been interviewed by me. I have monitored their lives and had them take part in experiments.
The results reveal that although these people have almost no insight into the causes of their luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for much of their good and bad fortune."
Take the case of seemingly chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not.
I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in their ability to spot such opportunities. I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. I had secretly placed a large message halfway through the newspaper saying: ‘Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $50′.
This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than two inches high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.
Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected.
As a result, they miss opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and miss other types of jobs.
The 4 Principles of Generating Good Fortune
Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for. My research eventually revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
I wondered towards the end of the work, whether these principles could be used to create good luck. I asked a group of volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person. Dramatic results! These exercises helped them spot chance opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect to be lucky, and be more resilient to bad luck. One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic: 80 per cent of people were now happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier.
4 Tips for Becoming Lucky
The lucky people had become even luckier and the unlucky had become lucky. Finally, I had found the elusive ‘luck factor’. Here are four top tips for becoming lucky:
1) Listen to your gut instincts — they are normally right.
2) Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine.
3) Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well.
4) Visualise yourself being lucky before an important meeting or telephone call.
Have a Lucky day and work for it.
The happiest people in the world are not those who have no problems, but those who learn to live with things that are less than perfect."
Besides this article, I have also realized that there will be times when things are out of our control. A sense of humor will help, as well as an attitude of rapidly adjusting to the changing circumstances without resistance- a rolling with the punches mindset.
Let's all make an effort to look for luck in 2011!!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
OCD and Your Mind is Like Your Living Room
Remember when you moved into your home and decorated your living room? At first there was only empty space, but slowly you filled it up until you were satisfied it looked the way you wanted. You may have installed new carpet or flooring, painted and went shopping for some great new things that made it pleasing, like comfortable couches or a cozy fireplace. You may have brought in a cool entertainment system for your video games, movies, and TV’s. You made it a place to go to unwind, relax, and enjoy.
If you neglected it, after awhile the carpet and furniture became dirty and worn, the paint chipped, and the electronics became useless or outdated. You may have realized it was time to update things, and if you did, it was like a great new room again.
Our minds are exactly like our living rooms. At first there is only empty space. As we go through life, it gets filled with all kinds of thoughts which make us either comfortable or uncomfortable, happy or unhappy, affecting our emotions and ultimately, our bodies.
When a room gets destroyed, what happens to the room? The answer is – nothing. The walls, floors, and furniture are not part of the space. The space is still there, it can never go away. Same with our minds, our minds are permanent, and our consciousness will last forever─ it is the thoughts that come and go, let in from outside sources. Therefore, we are Not our thoughts!
If we are not our thoughts, why are we often controlled by them? It is because we may not realize that thoughts are the furniture of our minds, and we can decorate our minds just like we decorate our homes. We have the ability to pick the thoughts we allow to nestle and reside with us. At times, we forget that we can pack up the bad thoughts and discard them and remodel.
Would you go into a store and pay a huge sum of money for furniture you hate? Why then, do we pay huge emotional sums to decorate our minds with thoughts of fear, anger, hatred, or any other destructive thoughts which entrench themselves and remain indefinitely?
The best way to redecorate the mind is by constant awareness. Focus on what you want, not what you don’t have or don’t want. Dust off the good thoughts of love and gratitude and put them in a prominent spot. Look around in your mind and see what thoughts are controlling your mood--you can develop the ability to throw out bad thoughts just like you discard old, useless furniture.
If we give our thoughts the same consideration that we give our furniture, our minds will be a place we can rely on for comfort, security and pleasure. It is time to redecorate!
If you neglected it, after awhile the carpet and furniture became dirty and worn, the paint chipped, and the electronics became useless or outdated. You may have realized it was time to update things, and if you did, it was like a great new room again.
Our minds are exactly like our living rooms. At first there is only empty space. As we go through life, it gets filled with all kinds of thoughts which make us either comfortable or uncomfortable, happy or unhappy, affecting our emotions and ultimately, our bodies.
When a room gets destroyed, what happens to the room? The answer is – nothing. The walls, floors, and furniture are not part of the space. The space is still there, it can never go away. Same with our minds, our minds are permanent, and our consciousness will last forever─ it is the thoughts that come and go, let in from outside sources. Therefore, we are Not our thoughts!
If we are not our thoughts, why are we often controlled by them? It is because we may not realize that thoughts are the furniture of our minds, and we can decorate our minds just like we decorate our homes. We have the ability to pick the thoughts we allow to nestle and reside with us. At times, we forget that we can pack up the bad thoughts and discard them and remodel.
Would you go into a store and pay a huge sum of money for furniture you hate? Why then, do we pay huge emotional sums to decorate our minds with thoughts of fear, anger, hatred, or any other destructive thoughts which entrench themselves and remain indefinitely?
The best way to redecorate the mind is by constant awareness. Focus on what you want, not what you don’t have or don’t want. Dust off the good thoughts of love and gratitude and put them in a prominent spot. Look around in your mind and see what thoughts are controlling your mood--you can develop the ability to throw out bad thoughts just like you discard old, useless furniture.
If we give our thoughts the same consideration that we give our furniture, our minds will be a place we can rely on for comfort, security and pleasure. It is time to redecorate!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
OCD and Anxiety Stops Good Luck
"Be lucky - it's an easy skill to learn.
Those who think they're unlucky should change their outlook and discover how to generate good fortune," says Richard Wiseman
This interesting article was first published on 1/09/2003 in The Telegraph.co.UK, and was written by Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire.
It occurred to me that people with OCD are generally more anxious and tense than a lot of others and this may interfere with their “luck.” If they were aware of this, perhaps it could help – it certainly helped me!
Here is Mr Wiseman’s article….
"A decade ago, I set out to investigate luck. I wanted to examine the impact on people's lives of chance opportunities, lucky breaks and being in the right place at the right time. After many experiments, I believe that I now understand why some people are luckier than others and that it is possible to become luckier.
To launch my study, I placed advertisements in national newspapers and magazines, asking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me. Over the years, 400 extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research from all walks of life: the youngest is an 18-year-old student, the oldest an 84-year-old retired accountant.
Jessica, a 42-year-old forensic scientist, is typical of the lucky group. As she explained: "I have my dream job, two wonderful children and a great guy whom I love very much. It's amazing; when I look back at my life, I realise I have been lucky in just about every area."
In contrast, Carolyn, a 34-year-old care assistant, is typical of the unlucky group. She is accident-prone. In one week, she twisted her ankle in a pothole, injured her back in another fall and reversed her car into a tree during a driving lesson. She was also unlucky in love and felt she was always in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Over the years, I interviewed these volunteers, asked them to complete diaries, questionnaires and intelligence tests, and invited them to participate in experiments. The findings have revealed that although unlucky people have almost no insight into the real causes of their good and bad luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for much of their fortune.
Take the case of chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not. I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in their ability to spot such opportunities.
I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. On average, the unlucky people took about two minutes to count the photographs, whereas the lucky people took just seconds. Why? Because the second page of the newspaper contained the message: "Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper." This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than 2in high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.
For fun, I placed a second large message halfway through the newspaper: "Stop counting. Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win £250." Again, the unlucky people missed the opportunity because they were still too busy looking for photographs.
Personality tests revealed that unlucky people are generally much more tense than lucky people, and research has shown that anxiety disrupts people's ability to notice the unexpected. In one experiment, people were asked to watch a moving dot in the centre of a computer screen. Without warning, large dots would occasionally be flashed at the edges of the screen. Nearly all participants noticed these large dots.
The experiment was then repeated with a second group of people, who were offered a large financial reward for accurately watching the centre dot, creating more anxiety. They became focused on the centre dot and more than a third of them missed the large dots when they appeared on the screen. The harder they looked, the less they saw.
And so it is with luck - unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and as a result miss other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for.
My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
I wondered whether these four principles could be used to increase the amount of good luck that people encounter in their lives. To find out, I created a "luck school" - a simple experiment that examined whether people's luck can be enhanced by getting them to think and behave like a lucky person.
I asked a group of lucky and unlucky volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person. These exercises helped them spot chance opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect to be lucky, and be more resilient to bad luck.
One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic: 80 per cent of people were now happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier. While lucky people became luckier, the unlucky had become lucky. Take Carolyn, whom I introduced at the start of this article. After graduating from "luck school", she has passed her driving test after three years of trying, was no longer accident-prone and became more confident.
In the wake of these studies, I think there are three easy techniques that can help to maximise good fortune:
• Unlucky people often fail to follow their intuition when making a choice, whereas lucky people tend to respect hunches. Lucky people are interested in how they both think and feel about the various options, rather than simply looking at the rational side of the situation. I think this helps them because gut feelings act as an alarm bell - a reason to consider a decision carefully.
• Unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine. They tend to take the same route to and from work and talk to the same types of people at parties. In contrast, many lucky people try to introduce variety into their lives. For example, one person described how he thought of a colour before arriving at a party and then introduced himself to people wearing that colour. This kind of behaviour boosts the likelihood of chance opportunities by introducing variety.
• Lucky people tend to see the positive side of their ill fortune. They imagine how things could have been worse. In one interview, a lucky volunteer arrived with his leg in a plaster cast and described how he had fallen down a flight of stairs. I asked him whether he still felt lucky and he cheerfully explained that he felt luckier than before. As he pointed out, he could have broken his neck."
I hope this brings you all increased luck!
Those who think they're unlucky should change their outlook and discover how to generate good fortune," says Richard Wiseman
This interesting article was first published on 1/09/2003 in The Telegraph.co.UK, and was written by Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire.
It occurred to me that people with OCD are generally more anxious and tense than a lot of others and this may interfere with their “luck.” If they were aware of this, perhaps it could help – it certainly helped me!
Here is Mr Wiseman’s article….
"A decade ago, I set out to investigate luck. I wanted to examine the impact on people's lives of chance opportunities, lucky breaks and being in the right place at the right time. After many experiments, I believe that I now understand why some people are luckier than others and that it is possible to become luckier.
To launch my study, I placed advertisements in national newspapers and magazines, asking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me. Over the years, 400 extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research from all walks of life: the youngest is an 18-year-old student, the oldest an 84-year-old retired accountant.
Jessica, a 42-year-old forensic scientist, is typical of the lucky group. As she explained: "I have my dream job, two wonderful children and a great guy whom I love very much. It's amazing; when I look back at my life, I realise I have been lucky in just about every area."
In contrast, Carolyn, a 34-year-old care assistant, is typical of the unlucky group. She is accident-prone. In one week, she twisted her ankle in a pothole, injured her back in another fall and reversed her car into a tree during a driving lesson. She was also unlucky in love and felt she was always in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Over the years, I interviewed these volunteers, asked them to complete diaries, questionnaires and intelligence tests, and invited them to participate in experiments. The findings have revealed that although unlucky people have almost no insight into the real causes of their good and bad luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for much of their fortune.
Take the case of chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not. I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in their ability to spot such opportunities.
I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. On average, the unlucky people took about two minutes to count the photographs, whereas the lucky people took just seconds. Why? Because the second page of the newspaper contained the message: "Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper." This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than 2in high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.
For fun, I placed a second large message halfway through the newspaper: "Stop counting. Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win £250." Again, the unlucky people missed the opportunity because they were still too busy looking for photographs.
Personality tests revealed that unlucky people are generally much more tense than lucky people, and research has shown that anxiety disrupts people's ability to notice the unexpected. In one experiment, people were asked to watch a moving dot in the centre of a computer screen. Without warning, large dots would occasionally be flashed at the edges of the screen. Nearly all participants noticed these large dots.
The experiment was then repeated with a second group of people, who were offered a large financial reward for accurately watching the centre dot, creating more anxiety. They became focused on the centre dot and more than a third of them missed the large dots when they appeared on the screen. The harder they looked, the less they saw.
And so it is with luck - unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and as a result miss other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for.
My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
I wondered whether these four principles could be used to increase the amount of good luck that people encounter in their lives. To find out, I created a "luck school" - a simple experiment that examined whether people's luck can be enhanced by getting them to think and behave like a lucky person.
I asked a group of lucky and unlucky volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person. These exercises helped them spot chance opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect to be lucky, and be more resilient to bad luck.
One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic: 80 per cent of people were now happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier. While lucky people became luckier, the unlucky had become lucky. Take Carolyn, whom I introduced at the start of this article. After graduating from "luck school", she has passed her driving test after three years of trying, was no longer accident-prone and became more confident.
In the wake of these studies, I think there are three easy techniques that can help to maximise good fortune:
• Unlucky people often fail to follow their intuition when making a choice, whereas lucky people tend to respect hunches. Lucky people are interested in how they both think and feel about the various options, rather than simply looking at the rational side of the situation. I think this helps them because gut feelings act as an alarm bell - a reason to consider a decision carefully.
• Unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine. They tend to take the same route to and from work and talk to the same types of people at parties. In contrast, many lucky people try to introduce variety into their lives. For example, one person described how he thought of a colour before arriving at a party and then introduced himself to people wearing that colour. This kind of behaviour boosts the likelihood of chance opportunities by introducing variety.
• Lucky people tend to see the positive side of their ill fortune. They imagine how things could have been worse. In one interview, a lucky volunteer arrived with his leg in a plaster cast and described how he had fallen down a flight of stairs. I asked him whether he still felt lucky and he cheerfully explained that he felt luckier than before. As he pointed out, he could have broken his neck."
I hope this brings you all increased luck!
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