"Stoicism" by Mimi Stuart Live the Life you Desire
So what I really meant was…
“It’s not my favorite job, but I need the work. So I intend to do it the best I can with an excellent attitude. I’m also going to start looking for a way to transition into something more to my liking.”
You’ll not only feel great satisfaction for a job well done, you may also get promoted or receive a good recommendation in the eventuality you find other work.
"Thrust of Imagination" by Mimi Stuart Live the Life you Desire
We take specific events from our childhood and create a story around them. However, our interpretation of what happened is partly a work of fiction as we view events through our own limited lens. Notice how different siblings experience their parents and upbringings in vastly different ways.
Our childhood experiences can affect us in a variety of ways. When we repeat the same dead stories to ourselves and others, we trap ourselves into being victims of our past. By living our past forward, we avoid taking responsibility for our future.
Once we grow up, we have the choice to let go of the stories we cling to. Psychologist Dr. James Hillman suggests that the soul wants fiction that heals, and that we should take our personal history literarily rather than literally. This means seeing the depth and mythological proportion of the underlying forces that move the people and actions in our story.
For example, rather than thinking of yourself as a victim of your parents’ dysfunctions, you could think of yourself as someone who has found inner strength, unknown capabilities, and a desire to seek new dreams. You could view your experience of pain and hardship as the way in which you found those strengths and dreams you never knew you had.
Instead of locking yourself into the limits of your past, you can use your creative imagination to look at your life through a new prism. When you change your own stories about your past, you create an opportunity to direct your future. By becoming one who has successfully overcome past challenges, you invite inner strength and vitality and can find your soul’s purpose.
"Why?" — Einstein by Mimi Stuart Live the Life you Desire
This kind of thinking is a pathway to disappointment. Nobody is perfect and no relationship is all-encompassing.
You don’t have to have problems to be able to gain deeper psychological understanding and thereby improve your life and your relationships. The more insight you gain into the human psyche the more fulfilling your life can become.
You can avoid big problems by becoming more aware of your personal tendencies and relationship patterns before they lead to trouble. It’s often the people who don’t question themselves and examine human nature who become blind-sided by unexpected disaster, such as the unforeseen affair, children with addiction, or financial problems.
We’re all human, which means we all have contradictory drives and motivations striving to get our attention. For example, we want to achieve and we want to relax. We want to have fun and we want to be responsible. We want to please others and we want to follow our own heart.
By recognizing our underlying drives we can see how we unconsciously favor certain motivations — the root of many problems. We can then become more objective and exercise our real power by truly having choice. We can also be better prepared for the winds of change.
"Serendipity" by Mimi Stuart Live the Life you Desire
Research shows that lucky people are more relaxed and open than unlucky people. You limit your ability to notice people and opportunities around you if you are overly anxious and concerned with doing things just so. Being relaxed, on the other hand, leads to the following essentials for good luck:
1. Awareness and curiosity: Being relaxed and open to new possibilities allows a person to notice and act on chance opportunities.
2. Approachability: Luck often originates from random encounters with other people, and being relaxed makes a person more approachable.
3. Flexibility: While trying too hard, being particular and “perfect” can lead to being inflexible, being relaxed often leads to varied and flexible life experiences. Being open to wide-ranging experiences and knowing diverse people in your life fosters creativity and openness.
There is more to being lucky than being relaxed and open. However, these qualities are key to developing creative, open thinking, which can turn incidental events into serendipitous good-fortune.
"Impeccable" -- Freddie Couples by Mimi Stuart Live the Life you Desire
“I never thought about losing, but now that it’s happened, the only thing is to do it right.”
~ Muhammad Ali
The most inspirational moment at the National Water Ski Championships last week for me was seeing a top-seeded Men’s Slalom skier display amazing sportsmanship after having his entry gates called on his first pass. Rather than showing anger or complaining, he shrugged it off, knowing he would do better next time.
That’s not to say that he isn’t very competitive and didn’t really want to win the tournament. But once the call was made, he was able to handle himself with integrity, rather than displaying defeat and aggravation — and this at the age of 20!
To me, this young man’s ability to maintain perspective about his performance was at least as impressive as the 180-foot ski jumps and multiple back-flip trick runs exhibited at the site.
by Alison Poulsen, PhD
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career, lost almost 300 games, missed the game-winning shot 26 times. I’ve failed over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed.”
