Are you a good person? I bet you are, no matter what your brain tells you from time to time. You don’t have to be perfect in your ethics or religion. You don’t have to be perfect in your body mass index, your sexuality, or your hairdo and make up. You don’t have to be right on trend, right on time, or right about anything. Good people are good because of the way they treat others. Good people know how to take responsibility for their actions when things don’t go quite right, and good people care about how their actions affect others. Good people aren’t perfect, they’re perfectly human with a goal of being a better human tomorrow than today. So – are you a good person? I know you are! PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Do you feel a connection to something greater than you? Most of us crave that feeling, finding it in spirituality, religion, or even looking at something that seems vast and endless, like the ocean or the star-filled sky. When you’re in a moment of feeling that deep connection, whatever it is for you, do you get a feeling of quiet, benevolent power? That power is your power – that is you, accessing your direct connection to the force or the source you believe in and allowing that power to flow in you. For most people, it happens by accident. For some, attending a worship service or spending time in nature or in meditation creates that feeling of connection.  Think about the times in your life when you’ve felt that – what were you doing when the feeling of happened? Once you’ve discovered it, create that pattern in your life regularly, because when you’re connected, you’re feeling love and loved. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Do you like to sing? I’m not asking if you’re good or not – I’m sure not, and I love to sing. I make up songs with my dogs’ names in them and sing to my dogs. If they care how bad I sound, they’re too polite to complain. Singing is a way to use your creativity in a way that connects it to your whole body. When you sing, you use your breath in a way that calms the stress hormones and eases your muscles. When you sing, you are arranging specific vibrations in a specific pattern, and the brain loves patterns. Those vibrations are felt by the whole body because they originate inside the body, creating a feeling of one-ness with yourself. You don’t have to be a good singer to benefit from singing – find a time in your day each day to make a joyful noise and see how much better you feel! PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

We’ve talked a lot about learning to forgive others, and I usually include a sentence about forgiving yourself. Today, let’s talk about you forgiving you. Can you forgive yourself for doubting your worth? Can you forgive yourself for criticizing your body or your choices? Can you forgive yourself for belittling yourself and assuming the world doesn’t need you and won’t miss you? Can you forgive yourself for being quiet when your voice would have made a difference? Can you forgive yourself for playing the victim role instead of standing up for your own power? In other words, can you forgive yourself for being human, because all those criticisms that rang true with you ring true for others, too. Life is too short to sell yourself short all the time – forgive yourself and step into the magnificence that is you. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

You know things and your well of knowledge is getting bigger every day. You’ve forgotten more than many people learn in their lifetimes, and that’s perfectly OK, because the truth is, once you know something you keep that knowing, whether you remember it or not. You know good things and not-so-good things. Some things that you know, like how to read and interpret language, help you learn even more things. You know things that can help you, and things you can choose to use to hurt someone else. Your heart and humanity keeps you from doing that, yet you know many many many things you could use to inflict serious damage. You’re not just smart, you are wise, which is why you choose not to use your knowledge to hurt others. Trust your knowing, and trust your wisdom to use your knowledge for good in your life and in this world. Trust yourself, because you know things! PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Have you ever seen a child get so angry and frustrated that they say something like, “you’ll miss me when I’m dead!” as they go stomping off? Feeling misunderstood, unappreciated, or unloved triggers a very primal need to be understood, appreciated and loved, and children often don’t have the nuances of language to adequately express what they’re feeling. Is there someone in your life who uses dramatic language? When an adult over-reacts out loud to something that doesn’t go their way, that’s your clue that you need to either help them express themselves better or exit the conversation. If you’re their manager, a private conversation is in order to help you understand what set them off, and also to help them understand their reaction wasn’t appropriate. You could say something like, “I’m sorry you’re upset – can you tell me more about what’s bothering you?” Trying to reason with someone in that situation won’t uplift them, it’ll just drag you down with them, and that’s not where you want or need to be. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Is there someone in your life who always seems to be angry? The tiniest little thing sets them off and there’s nothing you can do to soothe their anger? How much do you know about their back story? Often someone who shows the world an angry face is simply being aggressively defensive. They’re afraid of rejection or of being hurt, or they’ve had something that left them feeling so sad and so all alone that their defense is to push people away. Can you feel some compassion for someone like that, instead of condemnation for their out-of-control anger? I’m not suggesting that you should put yourself in danger, just that instead of judging them as lacking self-control, maybe just understand that they could be in great emotional pain. Unless you’re a therapist, you probably can’t help them very much. When you can show them that some people aren’t afraid of their anger, you might just light a tiny candle of hope and trust inside them that will make them want to behave differently. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Gossip. OMG, the horrors of gossip, and OMG, the fun of gossip. Wait – what? How can it be both fun and horrible? Human beings learn through stories. It’s been that way since the dawn of time, before the invention of the written word. Oral history was shared through storytelling, and gossip is simply malicious storytelling that some people are very, very good at. People who take a tiny kernel of truth and blow it way up are usually looking for attention, so they weave a whopper of a tale and tell it to a person or two. People who spread the tale are looking for inclusion – they want to feel like part of the group, and maybe even one of the in crowd. People who believe gossip as the gospel truth are gullible, naïve, or misguided. If you want to be an attention-seeker, an acceptance-seeker, or a dolt, then go right ahead and engage in gossip at whatever level you choose. If you want to be a better human being than that, now you know what to do. Leave gossip alone! PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Does this ever happen to you – a friend or relative calls, you see the call, and you choose to let them go to voicemail? It doesn’t matter why – in that moment that wasn’t a call you wanted to take or could take? Then you feel a little guilty and when you call them back later, you feel the need to explain yourself? It’s common to assume that the other person is irritated that you didn’t answer, and once your brain gives you that premise, it’s a very human trait that you go to MSU – making stuff up about how your friend or relative feels about landing in your voicemail instead of talking to you. And our brains are really creative – they can imagine all sorts of negativity and convince us that it’s real. It’s not, and you don’t need to explain yourself. Really – before you call the person back, remind yourself that everyone has a life and you’re entitled to have a life, too. You’re not the slave of everyone, expected to do their bidding on their timetable. A simple, “sorry to have missed your call” will do nicely, no explanation necessary. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Do you remember being a child and conjuring up an entire world in your imagination? Maybe you were creating a forest life for your stuffed animals, or maybe a fashion show with your dolls, or maybe you were a magical creature in the forest…whatever you created in your mind felt so real to you, right? As adults looking back on those times, we usually think we grew out of that kind of imagineering, when what really happened is that the adults in our lives slowly taught us to focus on the real world, not our imaginary ones. As an adult, spending time with your imaginary world is as important as it was when you were a child, and is just as much fun. Think about what you love to do that uses your imagination – for me, it’s writing and painting. What is it for you? Now, imagine yourself doing more of that. Put it on your calendar, at least once a week, to lose yourself in the world of your imagination. Your life is so much richer when you do! PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Has your heart ever been broken? If so, welcome to the human race! We love, therefore we suffer pain when love is unreturned or the one we love decides to leave. Recovering from a failed romance is something that some people just can’t do – they stay stuck in the unfairness, the loss of the fairy tale, and the unrealized dreams they had for their future. Moving on takes time for most people, some more than others. And choosing to never love again is a viable choice. Staying stuck in the emotional wreckage of a failed relationship is not. Stuck is never where you want or need to be, so if you’re working your way through the end of a relationship, know this: your emotional investment wasn’t in vain, even though it didn’t pay off the way you thought it would in this relationship. Every time you give your heart to someone, you take a chance. And every time you give your heart to someone, you grow. When we stop growing, we start dying. When it feels right to you, you’ll find love again. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

How was yesterday? Was it awesome, pretty good, so so, or did it suck? When your feet hit the floor this morning, how did you feel – mired in yesterday or ready for today? Especially if yesterday was less than optimal, it’s easy to let the disappointment and bad energy of a bad day leak into the next day. Don’t let it!! You have no power at all to change what happened in the past. The past is done. Finished. Over. You can’t go back and change things. If you need to apologize or make amends to someone you wronged, make that part of today. Then, get started on a brand new day without bringing yesterday’s energy to it. A great way to do that is with a morning routine centered on stretching, breathing, and prayer or meditation. Starting your day with a regular routine that grounds you in the present gives you the best chance to stop stress and anxiety before it gets started. Click the link in the show notes for the Mind, Body, Soul, podcast – successful people from all walks of life start their day with that 15 minute blend of gentle muscle toning, learning, and meditation. However you start your day, remember that you have no power in the past so let yesterday slip away as you enjoy today. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Do you often feel guilty for things you’ve done or said in the past? Let’s talk about guilt for a minute. If you were raised to adhere to a strict moral code and you go outside that code, it can trigger feelings of guilt. If you cause harm to another person, whether you meant to or not, it can trigger feelings of guilt. If you hold yourself to a high level of performance or achievement, when you miss the mark, it can trigger feelings of guilt. Guilt and shame are often the result of someone else setting the boundaries for your life, and you buying into those boundaries and trying to live within them. Feeling guilty can lead to feelings of anxiety, stress, and imposter syndrome, none of which are good for you. If you feel guilty often, examine why. Are the expectations you think you’re not living up to even reasonable expectations? Are they your expectations for your life, or someone else’s? If they’re yours, are the goals you’ve set for yourself realistic or pie in the sky? Examine your feelings of guilt every time they crop up – if they stem from expectations that don’t feel real and authentic to you, maybe it’s time to get a new set of expectations for yourself – a set you can happily live up to. It’s your life – live it in a way that feels good to you, not one that makes you feel ashamed all the time. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Quick – think about the kind of people you gravitate towards – are they the life of the party or the quiet observers? Take your best friend – not a romantic partner, a friend. When you’re with them, who does more talking – you or your friend? Who is the person that plans where you’ll go and what you’ll do? Who is the one most likely to be noticed by the others around you? I’m a former major market radio personality, a professional speaker, and someone who creates online courses filled with videos of me – would it surprise you to learn that I’m usually the quietest person in a non-work gathering? There’s no right or wrong about whether you’re the most outgoing or the least outgoing person in your circle of friends. The wonderful thing about the dynamics of friendships is that it’s the variety that keeps things interesting. Occasionally the differences can spark disagreements, and that’s OK. Both of you will learn and grow from those and your friendship will be stronger. Be who you are – there’s no need for you to try to be like your friends. The friendship will be stronger when you’re you, not a cartoon version of someone else. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Do you ever get impatient with where you are in your life? Maybe you think you should be farther along in your studies, or farther along in your career, or farther along in your finances. You have an imaginary yardstick you hold up for yourself and find yourself not measuring up. Stop for a moment and let’s think about the yardstick – does it even belong to you? What are you comparing yourself to on that yardstick? Is it a college buddy who seems more successful? Is it a coworker whose life seems more balanced? Is it a friend who seems wise beyond her years? When you feel impatient with yourself it’s usually because you’re using someone else’s definition of success to beat yourself up with. Can you stop doing that please? When you’re focused on some arbitrary scale that you’re not even in control of, you’re wasting precious time and energy that you could be putting towards your success. Starting today, try to catch yourself beating yourself up with that yardstick, and remind yourself that your path to success is on your terms and your timeline. You’re in control, not some stupid yardstick. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Is there something you reallyreallyreally want that’s not happening as fast as you’d like, or maybe not happening at all? Most people – myself included – were raised to believe that if we wanted something we had to work to get it. Maybe we had to work really hard to get it. That theory falls apart in the real world, where other people influence whether or not you get what you want. Especially if it’s a love relationship! Maybe you want the other person and they don’t know you exist or don’t find you a romantic match. If you’re working really hard to get that relationship, all you’re doing is alienating the other person and banging your head against a figurative wall. When you reallyreallyreally want something, remember this: everything happens easily when the time is right. Your job, when you want something, isn’t to work hard to get it. It’s to take the appropriate steps at the appropriate times and let what you want unfold in your life. Less struggle – more trust. Enjoy your life as you wait for what you want to come to you. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Have you ever thought about how you want to affect the world with your presence? People often spend time wondering what their purpose in life is, and at its most basic, each of us has the same purpose: to leave the world a little better than we found it. The details vary from person to person, and the easiest way to leave the world a little better than you found it is to leave each person you deal with better than you found them. Give them a smile. Teach them something they can use in their life. Give them reason to have faith in themselves when maybe they’ve only been taught how worthless they are. It’s human nature to believe that everyone we deal with has had a life very like our own, and that’s not ever true. Everyone has a different path on this planet, some quite challenging, and the very best thing we can do for each other is see them, hear them, and appreciate their presence in your world. When you can do that, you make the world a better place, one heart at a time. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

When someone is talking about you behind your back and you get upset and start defending yourself and trying to get people to see things the way you see them, not the way that other person sees them, you add fuel to their fire. Let me say that again – defending yourself against a gossip or someone who is trying to sabotage you only strengthens their position, not yours. That feels counter-intuitive, yet when you think of brain science and human nature, you’ll feel the truth of it. The other person is saying bad things about you. The people who hear it may believe those things, especially if they can’t see a good reason for that person to be undermining you. Then you come along and defend yourself, trying to convince people to like and trust you, and suddenly they see someone with a reason to be undermining the gossip. As you defend yourself, you raise doubts in the people who hear your defense. Being defensive is not a good look – ignore the gossip, go on with your fabulous life, and watch the gossip focus on someone else, because you’re no fun anymore. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Is there someone in your life who makes you angry? They screw things up, or they don’t do what they say they’ll do, or they fail to please you in some other way? If there’s someone in your life who upsets you often, guess what? The two of you are dancing a dance because you’ve agreed to dance with them. Wait – I’m not telling you that you have to kick them out of your life right away! I’m saying they can only make you angry if you let them. If it’s someone you have to deal with – a family member, co-worker, or friend – then you know who they are. Believe them. Understand that for this part of their life they’re not quite getting it right. Understand that maybe it’s your expectations that are too high. Understand that it’s their life and when they suffer the consequences of their failures, they have the opportunity to learn and grow. When you can look at their failures as steps to success instead of personal attacks on you, you take a bigger-picture view of the dance floor – one that allows you to sit the dance out for a while. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

With all the emphasis on positivity, some people might get the opinion that negative emotions are bad. Negative emotions are normal. Negative emotions are human. Negative emotions are real. You just don’t want to spend your whole life feeling them, right? Things happen and we feel what we feel because of heredity, social conditioning, and societal expectations. When something hurts, it’s OK to cry, whether it’s crying over a broken bone or a broken heart. Just as the physical pain eases, so will the emotional pain…when we let it. If you keep brooding over the event, keep what-if-ing and why-me-ing, then you’re choosing the negative emotions over the easing of the pain. In the aftermath of a painful chapter in your life, you will hurt and you will heal. You have a choice about how long it takes to get to the healing part. Just as no one can tell you not to feel the heartbreak, don’t let anyone tell you how long that heartbreak has to last. You decide how long you want to live in it, and when you’re ready, move out and into a beautiful new chapter in your life. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Are you around someone who complains about almost everything? It’s exhausting, right? Nothing is ever warm enough or cold enough or soft enough or … whatever. They keep up a running commentary of not-enoughness, and if you love them you learn to tune it out. If you don’t love them, chances are you physically remove yourself from their presence as much as possible. Have you ever thought about whether you might complain too much? You don’t want to be “that person” that others avoid, right? Today, try to catch yourself complaining, and keep count of how often you notice your negativity. The first step in making a positive change in yourself is considering the possibility that change might be needed. The second step is to observe yourself and assess the need for change. If you hardly complain at all, yay. If you catch yourself complaining more than you’d like, time for step 3 – as soon as you notice a complaint coming from your mouth, laugh at yourself and remind yourself that it’s an old habit and you don’t want to be that negative anymore. Then watch yourself transform and grow! PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

How do you respond when something you really wanted doesn’t happen the way you thought it would or hoped it would or wanted it to? Do you feel badly for a few minutes, put it into perspective, and move on, or do you wallow in pity and sadness for hours, days, or even weeks or years? When something disappoints you, you have no way of knowing if that’s the end of that story or just an interesting plot twist. Your mind will feed you all the bad possibilities, but they’re not reality. That’s just a guessing game you and your brain are indulging in and you can stop that once you realize how bad it feels and how stuck it keeps you. The game of life is the epitome of the long game. You’ve already lived a long time and if all goes the way you’re planning, you’ll likely live a long time more. Stop treating minor setbacks like they’re major roadblocks. Repeat after me…life is a long game…life is a long game…life is a loooooooong game. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Have you ever felt like life was ganging up on you? Like there was far too much to do, far too little time, and you were far from able to manage it all? Yet you soldiered on, determined to get it all done, even if it killed you. There’s a much easier way through times like that. Is there someone else on your team or in your family that you could turn to for help? Before you say, “it’s easier if I just do it myself,” remember it’s that attitude that landed you in this overwhelmed spot to begin with! Even if they’ve disappointed you before, ask for help from someone who will benefit from the learning experience. When you teach someone to do something, it not only lightens your load in that moment, it empowers them with knowledge and empowers you with new-found confidence in them. Isn’t that a win-win worth considering, especially right now, when you’re so overwhelmed? PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Sometimes life hands us gifts we don’t think we deserve. A promotion when a co-worker has been there longer and does a good job. Winning a contest that felt more like dumb luck than skill. Attracting your ideal partner, who feels like they attracted the perfect partner, too. If you’re like most of us, there could be some mixed feelings around the receiving of those gifts – feelings of happiness, for sure, and maybe also feeling like you don’t deserve what’s just happened to you. When you question the good things that come to you, you gut your own sense of self-worth. When it’s a daily occurrence, it’s often referred to as imposter syndrome. You are where you are because of the things you’ve learned, the choices you’ve made, and your own determination. You deserve the good things that come to you. Say it aloud with me: I deserve the good things that come to me. Whenever you catch yourself beating yourself up, say it again: I deserve the good things that come to me. Because guess what? You deserve the good things that come to you!   PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Let’s talk about thinking outside the box – who put that box there, anyway? In almost every circumstance, you did. I put the box there for me, and you put the box there for you. Beliefs form the boundaries around our lives, and when what we want to do bumps up against what we think we should do based on beliefs we have, that’s when you realize that you’re living your life inside a box. That phrase “thinking outside the box” is usually meant to describe a state of creativity. What if you got creative about the beliefs that make you bump up against the box? It’s very common to pick up beliefs in childhood that are wrong because you didn’t have the life experience to correctly assess the situation. Next time you find yourself wanting to do something you believe you can’t, think outside the box: is the belief that’s stopping you true or can you disregard it? Releasing old, incorrect beliefs will let you soar way outside that box! PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Let’s talk about mind control. It is a thing and you can learn how to do it. As a matter of fact, most of these Tiny Bite podcasts are about mind control – your control of your own mind. This is a concept that many people resist – they believe that their brain is them and they are their brain. It’s a bit more complex than that – your brain is part of who you are, and you can control it if you’d like. Today, make a list of the thoughts that go through your head a lot. Recurring thoughts might be helpful to you or they might not – go back and highlight the ones that aren’t supporting your success or happiness. Thoughts like “I can’t do this” limit your ability to learn new skills, so if something like that is on your list, highlight it and target it for removal. Then, each time that thought crops up, double-dog-dare yourself to do what you just told yourself you can’t. Beginning to challenge your not-helpful thoughts is the first step in being in control of them. And when you control and can banish non-helpful thoughts, you open new doorways to success in your life. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Do you strive to be the best? Many people do, and having a target to shoot for is one of the ways of staying on task and moving forward. Goals are good and it’s good to review those goals now and then to be sure they still align with who’ve you’ve grown to be. We don’t see it in ourselves because the changes happen slowly over time – we change a lot! We learn something that might cause us to have more compassion towards others. We experience something that might cause us to reevaluate a career path or relationship. We lose something that sharpens our knowledge of what we want next. Even the smallest life events cause course-corrections and attitude adjustments inside you as you move through life and time. Today, think about what your goals are, and consider whether they’re still a good fit or whether they might need a bit of a tweak. Because this is true for most people who strive to be the best – one day they realize that it’s better to be the best version of themselves they can be, and leave everyone else out of the equation. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Are you in a new relationship? Yay, you! Make yourself a promise – you will not make excuses for misbehavior from them. What kind of misbehavior? You give them a gift and they point out what’s wrong with it. Nope – no gratitude + no compassion = no excuses. They make plans with their friends weeks ahead of time and can’t make plans with you for this weekend. Nope – not a priority is what we call a “clue” so no excuses. They expect you to socialize with their friends yet they won’t socialize with yours. Nope – ignoring your life outside of theirs is what we call a “red flag” so no excuses. I’m not saying you need to break off the relationship, I’m just asking – well, ok, begging – you to keep your eyes as open as your heart is. You deserve their focus, respect, and to be their priority. Maybe they can grow into those expectations – don’t lower your expectations to hold on to someone who doesn’t deserve you. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Have you ever owned a dog, and as it approached the end of life, you wondered how you’d know when it was time to say goodbye? If your experience was like most peoples’ you were told “you’ll know when it’s time.” That was a very unsatisfying answer, wasn’t it? You wanted something concrete, not something woo-woo. And then, it happened – you knew. Your dog told you, though not with words. Once you’ve had the experience, it becomes easier because now you can trust what others shared with you – you will know. All you have to do is trust yourself to hear your dog’s unspoken message and love your dog enough to act on that message when you get it. That works in other parts of your life, too. When there’s something you’d like to understand, remind yourself to tune in to it. Trust yourself enough to pick up the information you need, and trust yourself to act on that information when you get it. We understand things at many levels, some that science doesn’t yet understand. Trust yourself. You’ll understand. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Are you a “why me” kind of person? Maybe you don’t even say it out loud, but regular phrases that get said inside your brain include things like, “why does bad stuff always happen to me” and “what did I do to deserve this?” If that doesn’t sound like you, then yay, you! You have the emotional maturity to understand that you’re not being picked on so you don’t focus on normal life events as if you’re being victimized. If it does sound like you, then yay, you! Now you’ve got an idea of some personal growth that will make you feel SO much better. Here’s an idea you can use to banish those “why me” feelings: catch them as fast as you can and laugh at them. They are the 6-year-old version of you who never grew out of focusing on bad things and taking them waaaaay too personally. Getting in the habit of laughing at those non-productive thoughts will help you get out of the habit of thinking them. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Are you satisfied with where you are in life right now? Are you living the life you want to be living, or is there something that feels missing? It’s not uncommon to just go through the days in a routine kind of way, not thinking about where you are and where you’d like to be. Today, give yourself 10 minutes to think about your life and how you would make it different than it currently is. No beating yourself up, please – this is a mental exercise that’ll help you spot the pathways to your new life now. No matter how old you are, no matter your economic circumstances, no matter your partnership status, no matter your current responsibilities – think about what your life would look and feel like if you could wave a magic wand. Write down where you’d be, what your home would look like, and how it would feel to be living that life. Start a document or a journal or a diary, and every day, take 10 minutes to re-read what you’ve written and add details to it. When you focus, you teach your brain to focus on it, too. It’s not too late. You’re not too old. Dream the life you want to lead into being, ten minutes at a time. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

A dear friend had a minor incident between her new car and the garage door. Her husband was with her and had directed her to pull into the garage farther - she was pretty sure the car was in far enough. Oops. Her husband was not amused. He yelled and I told you so’d and had a meltdown over the scratches and dents in the rear bumper that the garage door kissed. It would have been easy for my friend to fall into the very human trap of self-recrimination. My friend is very wise. Yes, she felt awful and it hurt her heart to damage her pretty new car. No, she didn’t own her husband’s bad behavior. She knew he was pre-irritated for her convenience – the ball game he was listening to wasn’t going well for his team and he was already mad about that. His tantrum was about him and who he is when he’s upset. My dear friend went into her office and closed the door to let him have his own space and time to get over it and get himself back under control. Don’t I have a wise friend? Next time something like this lands in your life, be like my friend – don’t own someone else’s failure to control themselves. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

We’ve talked about love before – it’s such a rich topic, let’s talk about it again. That brand-new-love feeling is downright intoxicating, right? You wake up enraptured, daydreaming about the next time you’ll be together. You check your phone 100 times a day to catch the latest text or DM or social media tag. You feel the feelings of love so much that it feels like you are love. Guess what? You are. When a human is loving another person, place, or thing, that human is producing the love cocktail – dopamine, oxytocin, and norepinephrine. Dopamine makes them feel good, oxytocin makes them feel connection and love, and norepinephrine makes them feel aroused and excited. Falling in love is a chemical condition that happens inside your body – isn’t that great to know? That means you can feel the feelings of falling in love any time you want. Simply practice feeling like you’re falling in love and soon you’ll learn to produce the love cocktail inside you whenever you want! PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Have you ever had this happen – you had a friend you thought was a friend, and suddenly they turned on you? When my marriage ended, a friend made sure I wasn’t alone on what would have been my 30th anniversary. She threw a party filled with girlfriends, food, and fun. I showed up early to help set up and prep the appetizers, brought desert, and had a lovely time. The next day she treated me like I killed her dog – I’ll probably never know what set her off, but we haven’t talked since, and that was 8 years ago. Have you ever had a friend treat you like that, too? Think about it, though…is that how a friend acts, really? No. They showed you, like mine showed me, that there never was a real friendship there. Move on…their bad behavior isn’t about you and doesn’t deserve another minute of your time. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Do you sometimes have little stabs of jealousy when someone has something good happen to them? Congratulations – you’re human. Because our brains have a negativity bias, if we just go where it goes, it goes to feelings of loss and lack and jealousy. In some neanderthal part of your brain, you’re feeling jealous because you think there’s not enough good for everyone, and when someone gets some, that’s less for you to get. That might have been true with cave men and food – it’s most certainly not true anymore. There’s plenty. Really. Trust that – there’s plenty. Next time you feel the neanderthal in your brain getting green eyes, tell it to sit down and shut up because you have some celebrating to do. Make a big fuss of your friend or co-worker who had good fortune, secure in the knowledge that they’ll be celebrating you next. Because there’s plenty. And it’s yours, too. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Oh, the drama that surrounds an unhappy person! Most of us learn to manage our own unhappiness – some people displace it. Instead of feeling it and dealing with it, they live by the motto, “when momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Maybe you’ve been the target of that? A friend from the past contacted me, asking if I kept in touch with someone she met through me. The person she asked about passed away a couple of years ago, and she was so relieved to hear that! She had reached out via text to invite them to a launch party and gotten cussed out! Apparently the person who has that phone number now isn’t happy, doesn’t know how to deal with that and fix it, so they “if mamma ain’t happy” all over everyone who crosses their path. When someone like that dumps their unhappiness on you, remember – this is their drama. You don’t have to be part of it. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Do you feel anxiety, depression, or a fear of rejection, either occasionally or daily? A lot of people do, and those feelings are helpful to let you know that you’re focusing on something that’s not helping you. Maybe you’re comparing your makeup to that TikTok influencer. Maybe you’re worried about a report that’s due that you haven’t started yet. Maybe you have a crush on someone and are scared to let them know. At the base of all these seemingly different worries is one commonality – the need for validation. Through social conditioning and a desire to feel seen and heard, at some point in our lives most of us seek validation. Listen to me – validation is only for parking. When you need someone else to value you in order for you to value yourself, you give all of your power to that other person, and that’s a recipe for anxiety, depression, and rejection. If you don’t want to feel those feelings, validate yourself. Yours is the only opinion of yourself that matters. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

A friend has been waiting to hear about an application she submitted. It was taking a while…longer than she thought it should, and we were comparing prior experiences with this process. She was worried about so many layers of so many possibilities – reasons that maybe kinda could be coming into play that might be slowing down her application. My friend went deep into MSU – not the college or university, the mental state of Making Stuff Up. Humankind learned and passed on knowledge long before the invention of printing presses and written language through stories. Our predecessors used storytelling to share wisdom and warnings and to entertain each other. Our brains love stories, and in the absence of direct proof, our brains can make up some incredible stories! Usually when we go to MSU, our brain is making up a story that’s far worse than any eventual reality turns out. When something not optimal is happening in your life, resist the temptation to make up stories about what might be behind it – focus on something that’s within your control and let the other thing play out as it will. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

The other day a new person showed up in a mastermind group I’m part of. We meet once a week and many of us have been part of the mastermind for years. I don’t run the group and yet when a new person shows up, they might come to the conclusion that I do because of how I treat them. Dad was career military – we moved a lot, and I was the new girl in school every year or two. It’s an uncomfortable feeling for most people to be the new person in an established bunch of people, and might be shy about being the one to reach out so friendships can begin. I set an intention at the beginning of this year to make it easy for the “new girls” in the mastermind. Maybe you can do something similar? If there’s a pain you’ve personally experienced, how can you help others not need to experience it the way you did? PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Do you enjoy the feeling of regret? OK, that’s kind of a dumb question, right? What is regret, anyway? Regrets are nearly always about the choice not taken. The simple version is we wish we’d gotten chocolate instead of vanilla ice cream. In everyone’s life there are more complex versions – words we’d like to take back, a bad career move, or a relationship we jettisoned and now, in hindsight, think maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. No one enjoys the feelings of regret, yet when you pay attention to your thoughts, you might be surprised at how often your brain beats you up over events from the past. When regret creeps into your mind, that’s the moment to shift your perspective on that past event. Reframe it in a way that allows you to recognize your growth and your ability to make good decisions. In the ice cream example, remind yourself that vanilla is the most popular ice cream flavor in the world for a reason, and you can always choose chocolate next time. Catch yourself when you feel regret bubbling up and kick it to the curb – regret is a powerless emotion and you are NOT a powerless person. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Have you ever faced the end of a pet’s life? If you’ve ever had a pet, chances are you have, and the more physical interaction you had with that pet, the more it hurt to watch their life slip away. And the anguish of making the loving decision to put an end to their suffering is pain some people never want to repeat. Pets are wonderful additions to our lives. They give us so many opportunities for fun and learning and growth, yet their lives are so much shorter than ours that we walk through those endings so many times. The longer you live, the more pets you share your life with, the more often you come to the end of another love story. Yet most of us choose to do it again. Why? Because pets give us focus and purpose in our lives. Pets give our lives structure. Pets give us learning opportunities. Pets give us love, and they give us the opportunity to love, and it’s in the giving of love that we humans are at our very best. Even when it hurts so much to lose them, we still choose pets because by doing so, we’re choosing to love. That says something wonderful about the people who love pets. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Do you want a sure-fire way to lower your stress level while you build your leadership skills? Build creativity into each day. It doesn’t matter what kind of creativity, and yes, being more creative will help you be a better leader and also be less stressed. Creativity is just your playful nature coming out where you can see it, and when you allow yourself to be creative, you super-charge your problem-solving skills. Curiosity, creativity, and problem-solving are all controlled in the same area of the brain, so when you make time for creativity each day, you access resources that help you be more innovative as you manage change more easily. When you can do that, your team feels empowered to do it, too. Creativity could look like journaling or other writing, doodling, singing or playing a musical instrument, or learning something new that you’ve been interested in learning. Think about what you loved to do before adult responsibilities limited your time for it – that’s where your wellspring of creativity is just waiting for you to rediscover it. Build time for creativity into every day and watch yourself grow and bloom! PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Think about the person you like and admire most. It could be anyone in your life besides you – who do you hold in high esteem? Take a few minutes today to write down all the positive attributes you can come up with about that person. Write until you can’t think of even one more thing. Then, make a separate list of all the negative attributes they have. Compare the lists – I’m guessing that their positive aspects outweigh the negatives, right? Do you see words like “smart” “wise” “loving” “kind” “wise” “helpful” on the positive list? Most people admire people who have traits like that. On the list of negatives, are there any really strong words like “hate” or “evil”? Probably not, or you wouldn’t be feeling admiration for them. Yes, we’re all human, and we all have plusses and minuses in our personalities and skill sets, and that’s OK. You’ve just shown yourself that you can overlook the negatives in someone you care about, so I want you to think about this: why are you so hard on your own negative aspects? Instead of looking at them as character flaws, can you look at them as opportunities for personal growth? PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Have you ever heard the phrase, “wherever you go, there you are”? It may sound absurdly simple, yet it’s one of the most complex lessons we must learn, and there are a lot of people who never actually learn it. Maybe you’ve seen someone who keeps changing jobs – they’re excited about each new job at the beginning, yet within a few months they’re complaining about co-workers or their boss, and you’ve heard it all before. It’s not that every job they go to has the same type of badly-behaved people, it’s that this person is taking their lack of coping skills with them to each job. The best gift you can give to yourself is the gift of self-awareness, with a side of willingness to learn and grow. If there’s something not-optimal in your life that happens again and again, examine what part you may be playing in that toxic vicious cycle. Because if you don’t recognize your contribution to the problem, you’ll keep contributing to the same problem for the rest of your life. And aren’t new mistakes more fun to make than the same-old, same-old? PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

This morning a friend and I were talking about the clutter in our lives. She has lifetimes of paperwork, photographs, and ephemera from parents and grandparents to wade through, and I have lifetimes of collectable objects, and some paperwork and photographs, too. Does any of this sound like you, too? My friend and I talked about how giving things up can feel like losing the person who loved it or wrote it or is pictured all over again. Here’s a way to honor the memories while clearing out the clutter that’s easier on your heart. If you have a box of old photographs you inherited, set aside time once a week to go through part of the collection. As you go through the pictures, make two stacks – special and not special. Put the not-special ones in a box to be donated to the historical society in the town where the photos were taken. Scan the special ones into your computer, or use a service that will scan them in for you, then add the special ones to the donation box. You can do this with paperwork and with collectables, too. In this way, you’re honoring the memories without having to hold on to the things. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Do you ever feel like you’re having an argument with yourself and that you’re losing? You might not ever have thought of it that way, and that internal tug-of-war can show up in a lot of ways. There have been times in my life that I did something because I thought I was supposed to do it, not because I wanted to do it. Not only was there no joy in the doing of the thing, I often accidentally injured myself in the process! Maybe your inner self is more subtle than mine – I sure hope so! Once I noticed that pattern, I made it a point to examine whether what I was about to do was really for my best and highest good. When I stopped doing things for the approval of others and started doing things that felt right to me, the accidents stopped. Today, think about the times you’ve done things you didn’t really want to do – were you courting the approval of someone, or you felt like you had to do it, no matter what? Think about your inner tug-of-war and how it affected you at the time, and how it feels now. Can you stop losing arguments with yourself, starting today? PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Have you ever lost something and been frantic to find it? You can’t, right? The harder you look, the more frantic you feel, and that makes you look even more furiously, tossing things out of the way as you desperately search for what’s missing. And then, chances are, you’ve said something that nearly every human has said, too: “Why is it always in the last place I look?” The smart-aleck answer is “because you found it so there’s no need to look anywhere else” and I won’t insult you with that. When you’re in the mental space of desperation and frantic searching, your brain is about as far as it can get from problem-solving mode. It literally fails to consider anything except the desperate need to find whatever you’re looking for. Stop. Take a breath. In order to take in your entire surroundings and conduct an effective search, you have to access your brain’s creativity, and that doesn’t happen when you’re stressed. Take a break. Take a few long, slow, deep breaths. If you have time, take a bath and think about something else. When you feel centered and balanced, think about the last time you saw or used whatever is missing. That train of thought should lead you right to the thing you’re looking for. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Can you manage your own disappointment? One of the toughest things for most people to do is to find a way to be OK with a non-optimal outcome. It seems like it should be easier for us, because non-optimal outcomes happen all the time. You walk across the room and stub your toe on the table leg. You park your car at the grocery store, come out after shopping and see that a shopping cart has dented the side door. You fall in love, think it’s forever, and find out it’s not. When I was a senior in high school there was an art contest. All the finalists got to have their work displayed in the local mall, and I was thrilled that my sculpture was chosen. Before the judging panel awarded the prizes, someone vandalized some of the art and stole some of the pieces. My sculpture was stolen. Not optimal, and I was so disappointed to lose my creation. Mom taught me a great life lesson that day, and I want to share it with you: can you fix what has happened? If yes, fix it. If no, roll with it. Railing against it only makes a bad situation worse and prolongs your own grief. Roll with it, let it go, and move on with your fabulous self. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing

Do you ever feel like the bit-player puppet in some bizarre show starring every other puppet but you? Does it feel like the puppeteer is letting the rest of the puppets have way more fun than you? Do you know where those feelings come from? They come from you comparing your life to the lives of others. Not only is this kind of comparison unfair to you, it’s unfair to the others, too. It’s unfair because you know for sure what you’re living and you have no idea what’s going on in the other peoples’ lives. You know what you see, and you fill in the blanks that you don’t see, making assumptions about how they live and whether or not they’re happy. Then you go about your daily life beating yourself up about not having as good a life as they have, and without knowing it, you treat them as if they’re causing you harm. They’re just living their lives – it’s you causing your own harm by making assumptions and behaving as if they’re true. Live your life. Enjoy your life. Resist the temptation to compare your life to any other – yours is uniquely yours. Make it what you want it to be. PS...want more? Subscribe to the Mind, Body, Soul Sessions podcast, a weekly mental spa treatment for your total self! #success #leader #lawofattraction #personaldevelopment #mentalwellbeing