Warmth of a genuine smile rubs off instantly. It gives new meaning when life seems impossible. The power of a smile is tremendous, almost magical. A smiling face can ease tense moments. Transformation and emotional healing attributes itself to a smile. There is not a person in this world that does not complain about life. Everybody in this world has their share of sorrow. When we face problems and worries it’s our inner self that is hurt most. Remember, we are a creation, and no creation has a solution for the inner self. Self realization through meditation and prayer is essential for every human. A meaningful life is what you perceive it to be. Every individual holds their own reins to happiness.

The greatest gift our creator has given us is the freedom to choose. The choices you make in life determine the absence or presence of a smile on your face, choose wisely. Every individual in this world should find inner peace. Search for peace not outside, it lies within you, connect with it. When teachings in every religion talk about love, why make room for hate. Do not harm your inner consciousness for moments of pleasure. We fail to smile when the balance of inner consciousness is disturbed. Your heart will crave for everything that fades away. Your weapon to encounter every situation in life is self-belief. Negativity grows when you lose self-belief. It’s you that makes life meaningful or meaningless. Our world requires smiles. Spread smiles and witness a miracle happen. Let us be childlike, let us smile.  If you haven’t realized the power of a smile, you soon will.

Read More

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 (A moment of peace, image from Google Search)

1. Library

Many libraries have a good interior design with comfortable seats. Commonly understood, entrants must be silent and do not disturb others. You can sit quietly to mediate or read a book with subject that is totally different from the daily matters.

2. Self-study room

If movements in the library distract you, stay in a self-study room instead. Entrants are expected to sit still and focus on their own materials here. Hopefully you will find the scene monotonous and be able to work on your own peace.

3. Bookshop

Bookshop is a good substitute for library. Take a book from the shelf and pretend to read. You can stand here and lapse into your own peace for a while without being disturbed.

4. Café

Have a nice tea can be a good break. Skip noisy Café. Look for café with a refined style or book café that is more likely to offer a relaxing and quiet environment to facilitate your pursuit of peace.

5. Church

Church is a serene place that welcomes everybody. It has a certain kind of solemnity. Entrants will automatically quiet down to show some respects. Pray only if you like. As long as the place is open to the public, feel free to go inside and sit for a while to enjoy a moment of tranquility.

6. Mountain

Nature is a substantial provider of harmony. If you can afford more time and travel a longer distance, have a hike to the mountain. Go out on a sunny day and let the natural scenery stun your restless mind.

7. Seaside or waterfront

A pleasant walk at the seaside or waterfront, especially at sunset, can often calm people more than they imagined. The sound of wave can work like a magic tune, drowning the noises in our busy life.

8. Park

When you cannot go far, but still want to embrace Nature, a walk in the park will be a handy solution. Take a seat on the bench when you get tired. Stay away from children’s playground if you want less human sound.

9. Transport

Take a window seat and away from other passengers, a ride in bus, train, tram, ferry and cable car during the non-rush hours can also work well to provide a moment of peace.

No driving, some people just sit in their own car to do some mediation, or relax a little bit by enjoying some music from the car radio.

10. Home

At daytime, sit in the backyard if you have one. Inside the house, you may stay into your own room. Put a “Do not disturb” sign at room door to enjoy a private moment. If you don’t have your own room, stay in the kitchen or bathroom, but make sure you are ready to give up the place when other family members want to use it.

If there is space in the shared room, you can set up a mini tent on the floor. You can also retreat to your own bed with an addition of mosquito net.

Whatever choice you made, the time-out is to refresh oneself within a short period of time. You have to go back to the busy life afterwards. Do not misuse these places and extend the temporal cut off with others. This will upset people around you. The moment of peace is supposed to benefit you rather than call for troubles and unhappy interventions after all.

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Other self-help articles you may be interested in reading:

Self-Help: Be Firmed to Say No

Self-help: What Life Means to Me

     Achieving freedom (of thought, of action, of purpose) can be seen as the ability to perceive reality through an over-riding paradigm, that one is only able to be truly one’s Self when serving others, or at minimum serving the common good.  The Universe is too big, and we’re too little, at least on this plane of reference, to do or be less.  It can be construed an advantage that our minds are not little, nor is our self, if we but learn to harness them in tandem.  My own experience has shown me that Life is much more enjoyable, much smoother, and much more satisfying when my actions are predominantly involved in helping others.

     Living up to this principle can be painful, and I speak again from experience. It can be more than just simply emotionally draining to give of one’s self, and have those efforts disparaged because the recipient is viewing events from the Self=Image perspective.  I’m still trying to recover my own equilibrium after just such an experience, and will attest to the difficulty of avoiding feelings of resentment.

     And therein lies the trap; resentment is only produced in us when we make it all about us. Allowing feelings to determine how we view the events we experience is fraught with peril. We want respect from others, but self-respect is more important to a healthy outlook, and allowing how others see us to affect that is giving up control over one’s own life and sense of well-being.  In order to keep control, it becomes essential to disallow such attempts to gain ascendance over our self, which would certainly cause further damage to our self-image.

     And how do we do this? How does one keep feelings from affecting our personal serenity? For myself, it’s important to maintain an introspective view; examining my feelings objectively gives me the mental and emotional space to ascertain just how to approach the person or event that caused the feelings without giving up control. It’s important to me to retain that control, and doing so is the best way to maintain the image of ourselves that best serves our purposes in life.

     This works for me, but everyone is different (thanks for small favors). Each and every one of us has to find inner balance on our own, and we really only pay attention when the universe forces us to look at how or what we are doing, and learn for ourselves what we can do to be successful.

     And there is another question to throw into the mix….what is success? Who decides? If one tries to use what other people think to determine how successful they are, they are falling right back into the Self=Image trap. It all boils down to one idea, and that is that we are on our own in this universe, and we have to decide for ourselves how to approach Life. Like Popeye says, “I yam what I yam, and that’s all what I yam. I’m Popeye the Sailor Man!”

Daily Inspiration

Remember when you settle for mediocrity in the small things, you will also begin to settle for mediocrity in the big things. And anything less than a conscious commitment to extraordinary personal performance is an unconscious commitment to ordinary personal performance.

 When you devote yourself to excellence in everything you do, you begin to feel a greater sense of positive pride about the way you are conducting days. This in turn increases self-respect and confidence, which in turn release greater energy and passion. You begin to feel good about yourself. People who feel good about themselves do great work and create remarkable things. This makes them raise their standard of excellence even higher. It’s an upward spiral that takes people to ever increasing places of joy, meaning aand internal peace. 

Self help books are loaded with tips on how to have a positive attitude.  Self improvement classes abound, but still people are not getting the message and the stress of our lives becomes a burden.

If you are struggling to find inner peace you must ask yourself what is holding you back.  What are you being a slave to?  Are you a slave to regret?  Are you a slave to self doubt?  Are you a slave to money?  Are you a slave to being told you are not good enough?

These chains are the demons that keep us from finding inner peace and happiness.  People tend to dwell on the negative and do not celebrate the good in their life.  It is time to set yourself free. 

Start a gratitude journal.  Write down everything you are happy about.  Each day add to the journal.  The things you can celebrate might be the love you have for your family, the cat you adopted, the penny you found, or the compliment you got at work.  Dismiss the negative things from your mind or memory.  If you keep a diary rather than recording any bad events in your life, ignore them, maintain only the positive.  If you must write the negative things down to release them, do so but then destroy the paper on which they are written.

Learn to live with what you have not to dwell on wanting more.  While it is fine to want more, and to work towards getting more, you must love what you have now.  So many people were brought being told they could be this or that, and feel like failures at not even coming close to being the President.  We must not let these woes stifle our enjoyment of life.  We need to be happy for what we have, and who we are.

Put self doubt and negative thought aside.  Rid your life of toxic people, misery loves company, so when you find yourself around such people, leave them.  They only serve to stir up the demons of self doubt.

When we have found true joy in our lives, the secrets of the universe will fall into place and we can be happy.

The funny thing for me is that before today day had even started, I was already in the place of knowing and choosing this particular outcome – so the news was no surprise. No, the news was just the natural tidy up of lose ends, burnt and beaded threads that had been flapping in the wind, slapping frantically against my bare skin, urging me to wake from a dream that had turned in to a nightmare.

Like I said – a weird one. The signs are always here. There’s always something going on. Always a truth that rumbles gently – or finally crashes around using every available method – until it’s noticed, and actioned. Co-incidence and serendipity – being in the flow – allowing and enjoying – when those are the kind sensations and experiences that fill my time, then I know I’m acting from my own inner wisdom. When there are struggles and difficulties, that’s when I know there’s a lesson to be learned – but it can sometimes take a while for me to heed the lesson, however good the outcome will be! Change, you see – even the good stuff can be daunting!

On Saturday I enjoyed a particularly helpful Skype conversation with a friend of mine (thanks, Grasshopper, you know who you are!) – one of those so called happy co-incidences, because we hadn’t spoken for ages and yet he’d popped in to my head just half an hour or so before I received his call. Concerned that I appeared somewhat troubled, he offered to take me through a new coaching process he’d been learning. Of course I agreed – I love this stuff, and was also keen to quieten the inner battles that had been tiring me. So, with his help, and with him acting as my guide and my witness, we walked through some of my core beliefs. To my surprise, it turned out that I still had the last vestiges of an old and deeply engrained parasitic belief that for years had been burrowed tick-like in to my being. The old and worn-out song that I’m not good enough. Small – tiny, in fact – but there none the less. So through our honest conversation, and following this new process, he helped me to at last release myself from the remaining defiant pincers that had, until that point, still kept a part of themselves embedded in to my flesh. Gotcha you sneaky, slippery little sucker! Phew. That feels better!

And, out of the blue, another co-incidental bit of help came my way this afternoon when I dropped in to see another friend on my way back from town. I’d expected to share a coffee and the usual welcoming, questioning female chats I enjoy so much with his wife – but she was out. So instead he and I sat in the sunshine discussing life, the universe and all that is – or was, or could be, or might still be. It was a delicious and most unforeseen pleasure I was least expecting – perhaps we drank too much of that really strong coffee – or perhaps it really was serendipity. I don’t know for sure. But the resulting free-flow of conversation was both surprising and enlightening – and a most unexpected gift.

He spoke to me, quite candidly, about the ‘inferno’ that he (and others) recognise burns within me – insistent, voracious, and on occasions somewhat threatening to others. He spoke about my constant drive to search, adventure, test, push, overcome and bloody well ‘do’ more than is necessary. He pointed out that (my nature being as it is) I am likely to always continue along that path in one way or another. I spoke about the concept that we all seek ‘witnesses’ in our life – people who can share our experiences, people who validate our opinions through agreement or variation. We both explored the idea that without feedback and conversation (listening, speaking, sharing, comparing) we confine ourselves to a grey, one-dimentional palette that limits our experiences. He also threw me some facts and posed me some questions, likening the human journey to the swinging of a pendulum.

Enjoying the coffee and sunshine, together we discussed the notion that, like a pendulum, when we surge in positivity (or negativity) the natural course of nature’s law is that we’ll experience the same in the alternate spectrum – the equal and opposite natural swing and balance of life. Indeed, a notion that for years I’ve shared with those who care to listen – and also with those who (in my younger years when all this inner-game stuff was a new obsession) I would corner and pester until either they understood the point I was making or would simply walk away. Yup, I guess you could say I’ve always been a little intense!

My friend gave me some wise and honest advice, based on his observations of me over the eight years that I’ve lived here in France and had the honour to call him my friend. Not usually one for speaking out, it came as a welcome surprise to hear his well thought out opinion. He suggested that my challenge is to find the normality within the wild swinging of the pendulum that has, until now, been the blueprint of my existence. To seek the normality as the pendulum speeds over it again and again. To notice exactly what normality is, and to enjoy it. The wry and knowing smile spoke volumes “those who find it say it’s much closer than most people think… isn’t that the stuff you study and teach Mel?”

His advice beautifully mirrors that of a conscious and very personal intention I made public a short while ago – my decision, my choice, my declaration to now live my life for me - for Mel Pledger, age 46 and a quarter. To find out, from a place of safety, who I really am. To put myself first and to heed my inner self. To let my intuition grow, thrive, and guide me. Because, no longer willing to play “the fighter” or “the survivor”… I’ve realised that I’ve finally “done it”. I’ve made it through. I AM enough (I always was - doh! - don’t you hate it when that happens?) and now my  conscious focus is to enjoy my life. To appreciate the here and now. To wake up and smell the coffee, or slow down and admire the roses – whatever phrase we choose… whatever pace we enjoy.

My friend, today, was advising me just to be me – to enjoy the ‘normality’ that is actually what life is about. I shared with him my understanding of who I think I really am, how I really choose to enjoy my live – which is to live a simple life, to love and to be loved. My friend smiled.

And guess what, as I’m typing these words, the track that’s just started playing in the background right now (as if by coincidence?) is one of my all time favourite tracks that alway signals forward movement for me – Eddie Reader’s “I’m In The Right Place Now”… as I said at the beginning, funny ain’t it?

I have a feeling that I’ll always be an adventurer. I’ll always seek more from life. I’ll question, I’ll analyse, I’ll push, I’ll prod, I’ll poke… I’ll piss people off – and help others to find their pathway… and you know what? I’ll always keep finding more to excite and engage me. I already have the best memory albums of life’s travels – and there’s plenty more space to fill. Bring it on – gently and steadily from now on please.

The news I started this post with, is that the Journeyman I spoke of in a previous post has gone his own way. It’s certainly true that he has taught me much – mainly that I’m worth so much more than I would have settled for. So, to you, Journeyman, I thank you, I release you, and I set you free. Class complete. See you in another lifetime my friend – our work here together this time around is done.

I am a firm believer that everything could always be worst but I’d rather make the best of a bad situation than make a bad situation worst and he just couldn’t be left at home alone any longer.  He was an accident waiting to happen.  If I did not have inner peace and inner strength I would not be able to care for him the way that I do.  I bathe, shave, and dress him.  I even wipe his behind.  My husband has many health challenges and takes 18 pills a day.  He is a diabetic, on dialysis thrice weekly, bedridden and wheelchair bound at the age of 56.  If I did not have inner peace I would be crazy.  He has right side weakness due to a stroke in 2004; he had a heart attack a couple of years later; and he has nerve damage in his left hand which occurred when the dialysis access graph was inserted in his arm. I recently told my gravely ill husband that he has to stop interrupting my sleep because it is affecting my inner peace and my inner peace enables me to be his loving, strong, supportive, tolerant and patient, full-time caregiver.   As a caregiver, I cannot stress enough how much I need my sleep.  Sleep brings me peace and gives me endurance. 

Peace is also a mental and spiritual balance and if you have mental and spiritual balance you will be happy and happiness is what you make it.   Peace is being in control and staying in control of your own destiny at all times.   In essence, peace is a choice that is available to all who will receive it.  You can choose to be scared, a liar, thief, cheater, negative, nervous, anxious, passive, a worry wart, unpleasant, weak, annoyed, upset, angry, jealous, provoked, impatient, and egotistical, or you can choose to be at peace.  In any case, inner peace is essential to everyone’s life.

how are you?

im going to say some nice exercises to relax yourself and find inner peace =)

its something that u can do at morning,when u wake up,and at night when u sleep =)

in the morning,without hurry,close your eyes and feel the rising of a new day,feel the gentle warmth of the sun heating u.Still with eyes closed,imagine the sun rays coming into your body,energizing you for this day.The ray that have the rainbow colors.Take a deep breath,hold it and imagine the ray color entering your body,then let the breath go.repeat this with all the rainbow colors.After this nice ritual u would feel really relaxed. =)

and at night repeat the ritual,before sleep,close your eyes and thank our moon for its sweet white light,and the stars that shine watching our lives here,protecting us =).Take a deep breath,hold it,and imagine the protection from stars entering your body,and the imagine the white ray of the moon as a blessing . =)

i hope this article could help u guys

peace!

Here are the top ten most loving things you can say to yourself.

What do I feel? Listen for that response and treat the self as a dearly loved friend.  

What do I need? Pay attention to your needs because they are about caring for yourself.

Good job. Congratulate yourself–even if it’s just for mowing the lawn or cleaning the bathroom.

I apologize. Saying “sorry” for the wrongs we have done can be the first step toward healing.

Hey! Let’s Play! Be mindful of the first thought that comes up when you say these words. Lighten up and have some fun.

Breathe.  Breathing helps to center ourselves. Sometimes we just need that moment.

I forgive you.  To have closure and move on, we often need to forgive ourselves.

Let go. If you release worries, resentment, anger and fear, you make room for growth.

Be present. Stay aware of the moment and you will feel truly alive.

I love you. We say it to others, why not to ourselves? Say it again.

Just putting a voice to your inner self can help to enhance self-awareness and allow you to live life as it happens.   

An area that has been a challenge for me in manifesting what I desire is in the area of self-love. Intellectually, I understand its importance, yet emotionally, I find that this is the one area where I have the most resistance.  I know this as I used to be the person who couldn’t even accept a compliment without first discounting the beautiful words with something negative or even degrading towards myself.  Looking back, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if I’d just said, “Thank you!” instead? Deep down, I think I believed that I would be judged as “selfish” or “conceited” if I agreed, as I was taught it was important to be humble.

While I now gladly accept compliments with an appreciative “Thank you!,” I still find that I sometimes engage in self-talk that is counter-productive to deliberately creating what I want for myself.  I also know that I’m not alone. One just has to listen to people talk and you hear examples all the time of people saying things about themselves that would be considered mean if they were saying them to someone else. It they are saying these terrible things about themselves publicly, just imagine what they’re saying to themselves in the privacy of their own thoughts!

So once I “got it” that my resistance centers around self-love, I purposefully went in search of more materials to study how to master self-love. Out of this study, I took an inspired action from Jeannette Maw’s “The Art of Self-Love.” I began a routine of “making love” each day as I did my bathroom routine. My routine does not involve a partner, (although that would be a good thing, too!), and it doesn’t require extra time at all, as it’s part of what one would normally do, anyway.

In Jeannette’s series, one of the ideas she talks about is putting lotion on her body and imagining that she is putting love on her body instead. She even labels the lotion “love” to get the full effect. After regularly practicing getting up in the morning with gratitude, I was inspired one morning to take this and other concepts that Jeannette suggests in her ebook further and apply it to my entire morning bathroom ritual. So here’s an idea of how I do it.

Anything and everything that flows into any of my senses, and particularly with my body, is love. That means things I see, touch, feel, smell, hear, speak and taste. In essence, I am “making love” with all aspects of my daily morning bathroom routine. I start right as I get up and before I get into my bathroom, but the majority of my love-making takes place in my bathroom.

I am conscious of everything that is part of my senses while I’m in that bathroom. I am present. My mind is not thinking about what I have to do, but present with all that I see, touch, feel, smell, hear, speak and taste.  This includes the lightswitch that I touch that turns on the light, the mirror that I see reflecting myself back at me, the wash cloth that I use, the toothbrush, the toothpaste, the hair dryer, the razor, the soap, the toilet, the towel, the lotion, the water, the candles, I also re-name all of these things or the experience and say them out loud in my bathroom. (I have found that I seem to give more attention to the water as I find that particularly powerful.) Here is an example of how it may look on any given morning:

I start by turning on my love faucet and drawing up a full glass of love water to start my day. I bless it and thank it for the love and then feel the love glass hit my lips and swallow every drop of that nourishing and nurturing love water. I sense the love as it travels within my body and I walk into my love bathroom.

I turn on my love switch as my feet walk across the love floor, seeing my love mirror I say, “I love you” to me, smile at myself lovingly, sit down on my love commode and lovingly let go. I use my love paper to clean and flush using my hand to move that love handle on the love commode, take off my love pajamas and step into my love tub/shower, turning on the love water.

In my love shower, the blessed water is soothing, massaging, and so gentle.  The love water is soothing me all over with love, flowing lovingly in every inch of my lovely body. I grab my love soap to smooth some love on my hands. I love my love shower! I use my love cloth and my love scrubber, smothered with love body soap that loves me so much! I smell the love scent of my love body soap as it softens my lovely skin. The water lovingly rinses me. I love that water! That love water drenches my hair and nourishes every strand, as I reach for my love shampoo to massage my scalp. My love shampoo and love conditioner leave my head and scalp feeling so good! I love their smell, too as I take a moment to really be present with all of this love. I feel the outpour of love as the love water hits my body and bask in the love of it all. I could stay here all day! I sigh with an ‘Aw, that feels so good’ and I do a few turnarounds and let the love water hit my love pores of my skin and I soak in a few extra cherished moments. I so appreciate my love water!

Turning off the love faucet, I reach for my love towel and really feel the love within its softness for me and marvel at how wonderful a creation of love that was for someone to make such a loving, soft and cuddly towel like that. My love towel pats me dry gently and I step onto my love rug, feeling the love under my feet.  I see myself in my love mirror again, and I’m really smiling back at it now, saying, “I love you!” It’s as if I can hear it mirroring the love back at me, too.

I decide this is truly a love fest, so I light some love candles for added ambience, while I get my love lotion to smooth all over my body. As I do so, I’m saying “This love is so divine. Thank you, love lotion, for loving my body. I’m putting love on my _____, love is all over me and it feels really good!” I repeat saying out loud the part of my body where I’m smoothing my love lotion until I’m thoroughly drenched in love lotion.

By now, I’m really smiling and feeling so high that I look into my love mirror again and shout, “You are gorgeous! I love you!” I giggle (and even laugh) as I reach for my love deoderant, my love powder and my loving underwear and love clothes. As I get dressed, I am conscious of each piece of love clothing I put on and announce that “I am putting love on myself.”

I reach for my love brush and gently brush through every loving stand of my beautiful hair. Then I take my hair dryer and let that love air do its loving magic.  It feels so lovingly warm! I love how my hair looks and thank my love tools for their awesome work. In fact, I look around my love bathroom, at me in my love mirror and really feel the entire room filled with a presence of love that it feels like such a sacred place now. It’s truly my sanctuary of love and every element here has come together perfectly to make love with me!

By the time I leave my love bathroom, I am really in a state of joy and on such a high that I know I’m vibrating a high energy for the day! I have carried this energy into the kitchen, where I eat my “love breakfast” and am finding that I am becoming more conscious of what I’m eating as a result. When I’m done with breakfast and go back to my “love sanctuary” to get my love toothbrush and love toothpaste to brush my teeth, I can totally feel the loving energy of this area of my home.

Throughout my day, I’m reminded of my love-making technique and have begun to use it on other areas of my day as well (e.g. my love car, my love chair at work, my love lunch, etc.) My intention with this technique is to become more consciously aware as I go through my day, everyday, so that I am radiating love as much as possible.

While it may sound silly, it really doesn’t matter and besides, what’s wrong with silly? Silly is fun, exciting, and makes us feel good!  One of the best ways to release resistance is to find a feeling of relief and for me, this feels really good! Laughter, play, and fun are great ways to get yourself into alignment with what you truly want. There’s nothing better than love and joy everyday!  And by staying in a longer period of this higher vibration, I’m practicing “love” as in 68 Seconds of Pure Thought, a process from Abraham-Hicks, which is allowing a lot more of all kinds of good things to come!

So go ahead and don’t be shy! No one is looking–make some love! You don’t have to tell anyone (although I just did)! You can silently make love to yourself everyday, with minimal effort and no increased time commitment but the benefits will surely be “out of this world” fantastic as you’ll be loving yourself and others in ways you never imagined! Don’t you just love the thought of that?