Tag Archives: understanding

Thoughtful Thursday #307 Love and Other Things

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In today’s unsettled times, we can all love each other by simply trying to understand one another.
It is not hard to do if we just listen without judgement and an open heart.
Image result for understanding is loves other name
At the heart of Nhat Hanh’s teachings is the idea that “understanding is love’s other name” — that to love another means to fully understand his or her suffering. (“Suffering” sounds rather dramatic, but in Buddhism it refers to any source of profound dissatisfaction — be it physical or psychoemotional or spiritual.)Mar 31, 2015 (Google)
Understanding someone's suffering is the best gift you can give ...

A Healthy Lifestyle for Good Mental Health

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This information is from MentalhealthAmerica.net, take a moment and read up on how to help your mental health and the mental health of others.

Mental Health Month 2018 – Toolkit Download

Full Toolkit

Full Toolkit (PDF 39.4 MB)

Full Toolkit Zip (zip file – images included)

Mental health is essential to everyone’s overall health and well-being, and mental illnesses are common and
treatable. So much of what we do physically impacts us mentally –it’s important to pay attention to both your
physical health and your mental health, which can help you achieve overall wellness and set you on a path to
recovery.
This May is Mental Health Month; purelysimplewords.com  is raising awareness about the connection between
physical health and mental health, through the theme Fitness #4Mind4Body. The campaign is meant to educate and
inform individuals about how eating healthy foods, gut health, managing stress, exercising, and getting enough
sleep can go a long way in making you healthy all around.
A healthy lifestyle can help to prevent the onset or worsening of mental health conditions like depression and
anxiety, as well as heart disease, diabetes, obesity and other chronic health problems. It can also play a big role
in helping people recover from these conditions. Taking good care of your body is part of a before Stage Four
approach to mental health.
Getting the appropriate amount of exercise can help control weight, improve mental health, and help you live
longer and healthier. Recent research is also connecting your nutrition and gut health with your mental health.
Sleep also plays a critical role in all aspects of our life and overall health. Getting a good night’s sleep is important
to having enough physical and mental energy to take on daily responsibilities. And we all know that stress can
have a huge impact on all aspects of our health, so it’s important to take time to focus on stress-reducing activities
like meditation or yoga.
purelysimplewords.com wants everyone to know that mental illnesses are real, and recovery is always the goal. Living a
healthy lifestyle may not be easy, but by looking at your overall health every day – both physically and mentally –
you can go a long way in ensuring that you focus on your Fitness #4Mind4Body.

For more information, visit http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/may.

Fact Sheets/ Poster

Fitness 4Mind4Body: FACT SHEET Diet and Nutrition (PDF)

Fitness 4Mind4Body: FACT SHEET Exercise (PDF)

Fitness 4Mind4Body: FACT SHEET Gut Brain Connection (PDF)

Fitness 4Mind4Body: FACT SHEET Sleep (PDF)

Fitness 4Mind4Body: FACT SHEET Stress (PDF)

Fitness 4Mind4Body: POSTER Take the Challenge (PDF) Meant to be printed 11 x 17 paper

Worksheets

When Changing Diet is Hard (PDF)

When Changing Exercise is Hard (PDF)

When Changing Sleep is Hard (PDF)

When Managing Stress is Hard (PDF)

Social Media Materials

Sample Social Media Posts (PDF)

Images (To download, right- click the image and select “Save Image As.”)

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Screening Call to Action Button (PNG 250 x 250 px)

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Thoughtful Thursdays #132 – Taking Care of Yourself

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It’s the easiest thing to get distracted with day to day activities and forget about yourself.

Here’s some simple things to do:

  1. Drink more water.
  2. Take the stairs.
  3. Seek out positive people.
  4. Meditate
  5. Avoid mood altering substances.
  6. Sleep
  7. Write
  8. Do art.
  9. Listen to Music.
  10. Be Peaceful.

Feel free to add more. It’s your time and your life. You are worth the effort.

Uncertainity

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There is a huge amount of uncertainty in living.

In a moment your life can change for better or worse.

Sometimes there are situations beyond our control.

Uncontrollable situations arise out of nowhere sending us into despair.

Even if the situation is painful,

space is being made for something better.

Space is being made for insight, intuition and understanding.

Go gently.

Align yourself with what is important to you.

You will find your way.

Thoughtful Thursdays # 88 – Sit With It

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I had a very interesting experience this week. I was extremely emotional. I had racing thoughts and crying outbursts. This experience was brought on by a series of events that tapped into my fears.

I remembered Pema Chodron’s suggestion. Sit with it. Sit with the feelings that are troubling you without picking up food, a drink, or any other distraction.

I did sit with the feelings and it hurt really bad. I wanted to run away, disappear, die, dive into a pie and surf the web, cry and throw up.

But I didn’t. The troubling feelings lasted about three days.

The fear I was feeling was from a past trauma. Each event reminiscent of the trauma flashed before my mind and it all made sense. All the times I ran away from feeling the fear, all the times I distracted my self, all the times I made excuses, basically to protect myself.

The fear left because I faced it. My feelings are still raw but the intensity of the fear on a scale of one to ten is a one.

Next time you are emotionally out of control, depressed, sad or troubled. Just sit with it. Don’t run away. Feel everything.

You will expand your understanding of how you operate. From understanding and knowledge about yourself changes your entire life for the better. That’s a guarantee.

Happy exploring.

OM

Fate

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do not resent the heavens for ones’s fate.

do not blame our problems on others.

realize the negative cause

lies within us,

was created by us,

can only be changed by us,

resolved by us with

understanding,

diligence,

love.

Shi Wuling

Thoughtful Thursdays #70 Projections

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Projections, not the kind that are astral. The kind that come from your mind.

The times when the thinking habits of the past
present themselves in the moment.

In other words, if you are wondering why your relationships are a battle ground, they are probably reminiscent of the past.

Good or bad.

Mark E. Smith, of Family Tree Counseling explains it well. I am paraphrasing here.

All relationships, especially the closest will reveal all of our dark side. The hatred, jealousy, pain, abaondonement and rage just to name a few. This happens because it is Mother Nature seeking balance.

This is true, think of a time when some serious thing went wrong. The wrong played itself out and balance was restored.

It is the same in nature. The destruction of hurricanes, fires and floods wreck havoc. But the chaos is short lived. Balance is restored, flowers grow, animals return , people come back to rebuild. It is the same thing with our emotional life.

It is the same in every encounter, there is a need for balance. Feel what works, what doesn’t work. What is smooth, what is jagged. The smooth takes care of itself. Hence the reason for staying calm and seeking detachment.

Don’t react to what is jagged, you will get cut. Detach be objective, this is what wins over chaos. Chaos is temporary it will fizzle out.

Out of every tragedy comes strength and understanding. That is the point. It is to make you aware, awake and whole again, and knowledgeable to become a guide to others.

These things don’t happen unless you are strong and able to look at what is going on. Accept what happens, seek change, don’t run away from it. It is your trademark of adaptation.

Those who adapt survive and prosper.

Relationship Truths

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“There cannot be a relationship unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is understanding, patience, and persistence.”
―Cornel West

Relationships – of all kinds – are like sand held in your hand.
Held loosely with an open hand,
the sand remains where it is.

The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on,
the sand trickles through your fingers.
You may hold on to some of it, but most will be spilled.

A relationship is like that.
Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person,
it is likely to remain intact. But hold too tightly, too possessively,
and the relationship slips away and is lost.

by: Positive Thoughts

Other People’s Behavior

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Trying to understand the behavior

of some people

is like trying

to smell the color 9.

The Mind Unleashed.

Thoughful Thursdays #53 Unconditional Love

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I regularly read “positivethoughtsforyou.com and today Mr. Stephen Levine wrote about unconditional love. Here’s an excerpt:

“When we say love we usually mean some emotion, some deep feeling for an object or person, that momentarily allows us to open to another.  But in such emotional love, self-protection is never very far away.  Still there is “business” to the relationship:  clouds of jealousy, possessiveness, guilt, intentional and unintentional manipulation, separateness, and the shadow of all previous “loves” darkens the light of oneness.

But what I mean by love is not an emotion, it is a state of being.  True love has no object.  Many speak of their unconditional love for another.  Unconditional love is the experience of being; there is no “I” and “other,” and anyone or anything it touches is experienced in love.  You cannot unconditionally love someone.  You can only be unconditional love.  It is not a dualistic emotion.  It is a sense of oneness with all that is.  The experience of love arises when we surrender our separateness into the universal.  It is a feeling of unity.  You don’t love another, you are another.  There is no fear because there is no separation”.

My understanding of this is if we feel love on an emotional level there are conditions, desires, expectations. With conditions, desires and expectations there is the risk of squeezing the life out of relationships.

When we have unconditional love it is not a feeling but a state of mind of openness and accepting everything as it is.  No conditions no desires no expectations  create unlimited possibilities in relationships.

That works for me.

How about you?