Monthly Archives: May 2020

Parenting

2 Wisdom Quotes That Will Help You Understand Parenting

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Under heaven, all can see beauty as beauty, only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. Being and nonbeing produce each other. The difficult is born in the easy. Long is defined by short, the high by the low. Before and after go along with each other. – Lao-tzu 2nd Verse of “Tao Te Ching”

1) We Live in a World of Contrasts

This verse from the book of wisdom teaches us about paradoxical existence. We live in a world of contrasts. To understand and appreciate beauty, we need to learn about ugliness. We can see white because we know what black looks like. The truth is born in lies. Pain makes pleasure so alluring.

As a mature parent, you know the harsh and bitter taste of betrayal. You learned about the spiritual agony of a suffering heart and the physical soreness of broken bones. Your desire to protect your child from all the hardships of this world is understandable. Is it possible to put him in the shell of your care and safekeeping? Yes, but this existence is miserable. He won’t be able to recognize genuine friendship and companionship without knowing how disappointment and treachery hurts.

Will he value and cherish his good health unless he knows how bitter the taste of medicine is and how sore is the bruise from a clumsy fall? The minute you are not around anymore… what do you expect him to do? To learn how to clear up the road without ever holding a machete in his hand? Now without your warning and mentorship he’ll cut and bruise his gentle hands severely because they are not used to hard work. 

2) Your Mission on This Parenting-Journey

To assist a child, we must provide him with an environment which will enable him to develop freely. – Maria Montessori

Your mission on this parenting-journey is to create an environment of trust and security so that your child feels love in the quantity he needs. Respect his emotions and value his innocence. Never ridicule his pure soul. Show an example of a principle-centered life. Do not think that if you teach him to trust, he may be too naïve when the time comes to stand on his own two feet. He will develop the intuition and sensitivity to read dishonesty if he knows the value of true feelings. Seeing your loving attitude, he will note any trace of betrayal ahead of time.

He will still make mistakes here and there, but they will be few in comparison with the disastrous consequences that could’ve taken place in a different case scenario. Imagine a child growing up in a family where he is scolded and misunderstood. The environment of selfishness and lack of love: where whatever love he gets is controlled and given in small amounts. Later in life he won’t be able to see white and black in people and relationships. He won’t be able to trust his friends or spouse. He will look for a deceitful motive in any person’s actions towards him. He’ll suspect unfaithfulness everywhere. And the pain of it he will taste in full because choosing the right person will be hard.

Without experiencing true love and care, he won’t know if what he’s got is good and worth cherishing. He will see a gaze of humiliation and think it may be a loving one because he saw the same thing coming from the very people he used to trust with his whole heart. 

Conclusion

Love is the key. Respect is the door. And happiness in life is the path that this door leads to. 

Your assignment in this journey of parenting life exploration is to be a guide, not a guard; to explain the nature of things, good and bad, not hide their existence. Do not try to clear the road but predict the stony ground or the dark path through a forest full of dangers and prepare him, equip him with the right gear for the hard trip.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

4 Questions You Need to Ask Yourself to Improve Your Relationship

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This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It’s knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work. – Mitch Albom

1) Why Do We Need Each Other? 

Have you thought about the underwater waves in the ocean of the union of two? Is it only to fill empty space that we are looking for a companion in our daily life? Most of us want and strive to find that one unique person created specifically for us. Some find peace in a lonely life. Their daily partners are objects, not people. Maybe books or paintings, work or traveling. The purpose seems to fill in space with someone or something.

2) What Does Family Mean to You? 

Do you want to live a peaceful life in a cozy house and bring up kids? There is meaning in everything and nothing happens without reason. What I mean by that is whatever you are looking for has its own spirit. It can be soothing and curative, treating your suffering soul. The joy you feel may help another being to learn to laugh and feel pleasure from life. There is a child that needs his mommy and there is a father that needs to be present for the wellbeing of a little guy. Spirit of love, care, companionship or healing spirit. There is for sure one that is determined for you and when you sense it, don’t let it slip away from your grasp, hold it tight. It is the one that carries your happiness in a backpack.

3) What Is the Purpose of Your Union? 

Human lives are not pieces of string that can be separated out from a knot of others and laid out straight. Families are webs. Impossible to touch one part of it without setting the rest vibrating. – Diane Setterfield

Two people decide to live together. Everyone has a calling that makes life inspiring. The two have a purpose to their union. The success of this newly created merger depends on the oneness of their mission. If one of them brings thoughts about status and acquisitions, and the other wants to serve people – do you think they will be able to maintain peace in their relationship? Each will be pulling in opposite directions their family-blanket and it will eventually tear.

4) What Does Make You Both Happy?

There is no happiness if each is driven only by egocentric ideas, without considering the needs and wants of others. When you create a family – you become one organism, living and breathing through one source, looking and moving in one direction. The meaning of the words of Dr.Wayne Dyer: “Remind yourself that there is no way to happiness; rather, happiness is the way.” – is deeply rooted in the understanding of the importance of every moment of your life. And the moment you decide to unite your life with another person, first you need to understand that he or she makes you happy now.

Happiness comes from inside not from the outside sources that you think may produce joy. The combination of you both, creating a universe of your own – this is the happiness of never being alone anymore. Your best friend and your lover will be pulling the carriage of your future with you. If every move you make brings you delight, the path to your ultimate goal will be easier. You will meet the right people on your way, great opportunities will open their doors and you will find yourself always in the right place at the right moment.

Conclusion

When you have the very person beside you and decide to be together and bring to this world a better version of you both – then you agree on a major transformation. This decision and the responsibility that comes with it will make you both change dramatically. Now not only does your happiness depend on the decisions you make, every turn you both take on your way to a family may lead to your child’s well-being or failure.

Do not fear the responsibility, but do not take it too lightly. The beauty of parenting and the prickles of it make your family’s journey fascinating. Very often you will be surprised by what you encounter on your way. You may feel sad and disappointed – do not let hardships scare you. Be brave and strong, flexible and open to change. You will be constantly adjusting yourself and learning every step of your fatherly/motherly way.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

4 Ways to Make Your Relationship Strong

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There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose. – Charles Dickens (“David Copperfield”)

1) Start Every Encounter With 100% Effort 

There is no such thing as “give-me-and-I-give-you” relationships. Start every encounter with 100% effort to do the best you can for the other party and that will transform your life. That desire to own someone completely settled in every heart. And from there this unruly longing puts together selfish schemes. It puts ‘must-s’, ‘has to-s’, ‘should –s’ in your way, so that you only give if you know that you will get something back. Stop thinking that the other person must, has to and should do this and that for you, because You did a good deed. Let your left hand create unconditional kindness and do not let the right one know about it. 

2) Do Not Expect Any Payback 

Either from that person or in any other form you will get twice as much. The universal law of boomerang doesn’t make mistakes. It regains more speed and comes back with much more force, good or bad – you decide. The same law governs the “country of two people”. If both of you give 100% of your love, care, attention, understanding, respect – you can get a hold of happiness.

3) When You Put Into Force the Power of Devotion and Unconditional Love

When you take the person beside you as a gift to you and you relish this gift with care and admiration; when you consider that person your soulmate, the one that is going to be always with you no matter what, in good or bad – then you will get what you expect. But if you ponder your relationships as something “not-for-ever”, “today-here-tomorrow-not”, and take it for granted – you also get exactly what you expect. 

George Eliot expressed the significance of this union like no other: “What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel they are joined for life – to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories.” 

4) When an Essential Ingredient for Your Happiness Is Missing 

Some people tend to anticipate a change to the worse in their partner and prepare themselves for it. This attitude serves as a protective mechanism: “When it happens – I will be ready, and it won’t be so painful, so I better love him/her less.” In this case an essential ingredient for your happiness is missing: the ultimate trust and belief in you both. 

Conclusion

Think about it for a moment: your kids will love you – yes, but they will have their own lives with their own spouses and children. You need someone who will be with you forever. Someone who won’t care how your looks change, as you get just more beautiful with the years going by, accumulating wonders inside.

To grow together, to prosper, share ups and downs, support each other every step of the way… Don’t you want that to be your reality? Let it be. Be ready to give 100% of yourself to a loved one.

Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead out daily life too often as if we take our family for granted. – Paul Pearsall

Don’t take it for granted. Say thank you every day and not just once.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

4 Things You Need to Know to Attract True Love

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When you can feel someone else’s pain and joy as if it’s your own, that’s when you know you really love them. – Ann Brashares

1) We Judge People 

Is this right? No. But this is the way it is. The looks play an important role in creating the first impression. Often if to take only appearance the judgement we make is wrong. True values of the heart are not seen right away and take only second place in our people-scale.

Whether you have a lifelong partner or are waiting for one, what does your ideal look like? What personality traits should he or she possess? What is the most important for you? Think these questions over but remember you can go just as far by only looks. You may already have learned the hard way that pretty face may carry emptiness inside. And some time after you discover that you have nothing to talk about.

2) When You Take Enough Time to Learn About the Person 

When you like what is inside, you start to see that face in a different light. No rush. Take time and pay attention. Life may be short or long, and no one knows how much time you have. Who is the one to share it with you? Who will become your soul mate, your trusted friend, love of your life? Patience in every aspect of this process is crucial. 

3) Learn to Live With Yourself in Harmony 

You will be able to attract the right person to be your companion, your lover, and your friend when you feel love and acceptance toward yourself. You should receive sincere and handsome compliments self-compliments every day. This will teach your heart to beat in a rhythm of love-attraction.

Family can be the most magnificent experience of supreme understanding and affection. This is the most nourishing and fulfilling relationship that can help you to grow and prosper. Just think about the purpose of a family partnership. What does it mean for you?

4) You Have to Know Exactly What You Want 

Know where you want to go in your relationship. Know the end point of this joined voyage. You will find yourself in a place you’ve created in your mind and believed in. If you are looking for a person to smooth over your loneliness – you will get that kind of a person that can just be there, present but meaningless. And you will get tired of each other at some point. Nothing to talk about and no need to spend time together. And here you are: scheduling and overscheduling yourself just so that you don’t have to come home. People you don’t really want to see, but the more the better – no need to think of the gloominess of your life.  

But you can come to a more certain ground if you are more specific about what you expect from your significant other. Think about everything from outside decoration to the filling inside. Be precise about what you expect from your partner and what You are ready to lay on the table of this partnership feast. There is no way to get a delicious culinary masterpiece that will make others marvel at your skill unless you put effort and creativity into it. You will have the most delicious love experience when you get ready for it with loving anticipation, take time to choose the perfect ingredients, and cherish every minute of the process of union-creation. 

Conclusion

Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future. – Gail Lumet Buckley 

The effort you put into making the defining decision in your life will pay you tenfold. You are the most important ingredient in this universe-recipe. You influence people around you and when you get better, someone beside you advances to a different level as well. Very often to bring fresh air to your relationship you need to start with yourself. And if you are alone at this very moment – the effort in altering the usual course of your thoughts, and consequently behavior will attract feelings you’ve been longing for. 

“Happiness unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.”

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

I Stopped Blaming Others. Now Nothing Can Stop Me From Being Happy

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You have the power to adjust the course of your life

Let an exceeding sweetness of this life take you a prisoner by stamping it with heartfelt poetry about people you love. – Olya Aman

I stopped blaming everything and everyone for the mistakes I made.

I used to look for weaknesses in other people to justify myself. I considered it to be a simpler path toward a contented life. I realized that it is the longest road to happiness, and it may not even lead me to the right destination — too many distractions on the way.

Looking for someone’s shoulders to put the weight of my mistakes on was impairing my intelligence and vivacity. My regrets haunted me. I wanted the people I blamed for my mistakes to run away from my life. These thoughts and feelings were taking the leading depressing role in my life.

To end this personality-ruining tendency, I made it my custom to look in the mirror and with affection in my eyes admit my blunders, own them, and learn from them. I am rather proud of the power I hold in my hands. My decisions, my choices, and my actions made this happen.

I have the power to adjust the course of my life.

There are so many things in life I did not notice. Losing beloved people taught me not to be so mindless. Because one day my play will be over and I will not have all the time in the world as I used to think I had. While I’m still here, present in the lives of people I care about, I want to hug our joined experience as much as possible.

I will not postpone the time to be with people I love, no more ‘later’, no more ‘another day’. I will not delay the meeting with an old relative. I will find time to ask the right questions and find out about the roots of my family tree. No more ‘now is too late’. I won’t reschedule that vacation I dreamed about for so long. No more ‘next year’. I will do all the travel while I am healthy enough to enjoy it.

I won’t feel ashamed of the strange excitement that childish activities can gift. This nervous, restless, and passionate kid is in me and I love this creature. I want to be silly sometimes, funny often, and wise now and then. Today I give voice by my pen to the fantasies of my brain, not afraid of ridicule, not letting the negative judgment of others kill my work.

How great a privilege is mine to be my unique self, to have so much to say, to make my life unbroken. My fortune is enormous. I spend it entirely on doing good for others and myself. I want my kindheartedness to be even greater than my generously. Because the first one knows no bounds, while the other, although great, has its limits.

Don’t make your life a sad play. Take these life lessons into your breast pocket, close to your heart:

  • Some folks neither see though they are looking, nor hear though they are listening. These people exist, they do not live. Be present every minute of your life. Speak with superb animation, listen with passionate interest, ask questions with a magnificent sparkle in your eyes. It will be as impossible to stop you from being happy as to stop the Rhine at the Falls of Schaffhausen.
  • Eliminate any negative influences and impressions (TV-horror movies, people that make you feel miserable; places that bring bad memories — anything that can change the state of tranquility). All these activities have a peculiarly damaging effect on the nervous system. To recruit your strength, you need to be picky with the things that make you happy and express thorough censure toward things that can upset you.
  • There are circumstances in which men are powerless. When, for example, unchained elements cannot be combated by human power. Like a dream, fiction, or chimera — these situations should be read through and put aside. Sometimes we encounter ill-will coming from men. Do not waste your time in breeding revenge thoughts. Use your intelligence, energy, and decision-making ability in thinking of the present. The past is gone, but the future is yours.

A dull, dreary life is your destiny if you let a succession of victimizing thoughts dominate in your life. Blaming others is like living in some imaginative whirlpool. It is easy and makes you feel not as vulnerable. But it deprives you of your inner power, which stops your personal growth. You cannot embrace life and other people fully if you are constantly trying to find faults in others.

Finding yourself tipping, own it. Be master of yourself. Triumph over your mistakes. No bleating, bellowing, neighing — only self-acceptance, -respect, and -love. Don’t breathe a word of reproof, rather self-talk about lessons that can be learned, and experiences that can be implemented.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

Valuable Tips on How to Build Tireless Habits in Sport  

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The strength was always in you. All you had to do was find it. – Katherine Givens

1) Sometimes the Fastest Way to Get to Your Destination Is by Slowly Taking Small Steps 

There is no need to hurry if it leads to a complete stop in the middle of the road. Let’s say you want to exercise and get in shape. But you have not been to the gym in a couple of years. So now if you decide to go every day and invest an hour and a half or two hours in your workout – you may continue for a week or two, but you end up exhausting the resources of your body and spirit. One day you will find some excuse to not go. The same will happen the next day and as a result you will stop fighting with yourself. But if you take a different approach you will get into the positive habit of physical exercise and eventually you’ll crave that feeling of healthy energy in your body. 

2) By Just Taking It Easier and Giving Yourself Rewarding Gifts You Will Get to the Desired Goal

In the beginning  you force yourself to go twice a week for thirty minutes, promising to get a healthy ice-cream on your way back, which is not the same as the one you used to treat yourself with, but is pretty darn close. Next week you add one more day, in a month you sometimes feel like adding fifteen more minutes, and already after a year you wait for your gym day, you enjoy your hour training and have a couple of sets of very nice looking sportswear.

Conclusion

If you take the same approach in almost everything, having the ultimate goal of creating a habit, you will go very far by moving slowly.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

3 Reasons to Welcome Changes and Self-Change

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Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. – George Bernard Shaw

1) People Change 

It is normal to think one way today and to have a completely different point of view the next day. You may have in your circle of friends and acquaintances some people that always keep their old beliefs strong as a brick. These people do not even question the validity of those beliefs and don’t consider any judgments, believing, that just the idea of obtaining extra information (to clarify and make sure what they think is true is still this way at present) is an offense. If you have someone like that around you, you know how hard it is to talk with that kind of person. And you most likely try to either not even talk on that matter or do your best not to be left alone with that person at all. 

2) It Is Normal to Change Your Mind 

There is a ton of new information circling around us every second. And something we believed was good yesterday is not that way anymore today. Look at the medical world: a few years ago mothers were made to believe that breastfeeding is not as beneficial for babies as the formula was. But scholars changed their minds and revealed the undisputable benefit of mother’s milk. 

3) We Should Grow and Growth Requires Change

Without growth, life is not sweet at all, and growth requires change. The same is true with the people that surround you. You may find comfort in the company of a few select friends mostly because at this very moment they think in a similar way and you share similar views. And you still can be close, although your life path leads you to a different destination. You find new people to share your thoughts and to teach you new skills. 

Conclusion

It makes life an incredible adventure when you let in new impressions that new people bring. You may not be as open to taking the first step and saying “hi.” That’s not a big deal. There are plenty of people that enjoy doing it, so you just need to welcome that approach. The more people you meet, the more you listen to them – the more receptive your brain becomes to the “people reading” skill. And to develop it is one of the main keys to success in life.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

3 Success-Defining Reasons to Listen Empathetically 

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Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know. No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone. – Mitch Albom (“The five people you meet in heaven.”)

1) The Very Success-Defining Skill 

There are many things that we learn early on but think insignificant and omit in the process of our upbringing. One of them is the very success-defining skill – empathetic listening. That skill involves all our senses: ears, eyes, posture, mimics. It is vital to learn to listen using all of them, and not just to “listen” without even capturing the meaning as we think at this very moment about what we are going to say next. Most of us do that. Pay attention next time and you’ll see the living proof.

2) We Need to Listen Twice as Much as We Talk

We have two ears and one mouth. Isn’t it a sign to be more attentive when someone is sharing information with us? But here again we need to rein in our egos. We think that no one can give us anything valuable, which is such a big mistake. Every person in our lives comes with a definite purpose and you just miss it when you do not pin your ears back and give yourself in full to this moment of shared wisdom.

3) The Art of Asking Questions 

Imagine a foreign language course in your curriculum. And you decided to skip a lesson or two. How hard is it to stay at the same level of knowledge as your more responsible classmates? You feel you need to put so much extra work in now to acquire the same speed they learn with. Of course, in a classroom environment it is easier to grasp the meaning of some rule that is difficult to understand, as there is always someone who will ask the right question that will cause you to understand the teacher’s explanation. The same thing in life: you may miss that particular opportunity to listen, think, and ask the right question and the life you want to live becomes a few steps farther from your reach. We need to master the art of asking questions. And to do that we need to listen and think. And, of course, to have the end result in mind (I mean “why I need to listen” and “what I need to learn”).

Conclusion

The vital ability to think requires some training and a lot of practice time. You go to the gym to make your body fit and strong, and in the same way you need to train your brain to think consciously on subjects of everyday life. I know it is insane to force your mind to think: “take a toothbrush in your right hand and brush the upper left side…” and so on. Our subconscious mind keeps us sane by relieving us of the necessity of tracking every routine movement. But simply by trying to use your left hand more if you are right-handed and vice-versa makes a world of a difference. Small steps like that create a habit of using our thinking muscles more frequently and making them all-weather resistant. Every achievement starts with the unremarkable little steps that we take every day in the direction of our ultimate goal.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

2 Simple Things That Will Teach You to Enjoy Your Life

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Gratitude is the heart’s memory. – French Proverb

1) We Do Not Control When the Last Day, the Last Hour, or the Last Moment of Our Life Will Be

By some odd universal law, we are not taught to appreciate what we have and should cherish. Interesting fact: we do not control when the last day, the last hour, or the last moment of our life will be. So why not make this day, this hour, this moment special. And it might not be any different day from yesterday and the day before. But it is in your power to make this moment singular by enriching it with thoughts You pick, feelings You define, and images Your eyes want to see.

If you set yourself up to see the bare tree and a foggy gloomy day with no sun in the sky to brighten your “now” – you exclude yourself from the beauty of the smoky-bluish-grey sky, the freshness of misty-dewy air, the soft whispering of the wind and the magnificence of sleeping nature getting ready, growing strength to bloom with colors in spring that is just around the corner. 

2) You Can Consciously Fine-Tune Your Inner Radio-Wave

Enjoy the little things for one day you may look back and realize they were big things. – Robert Brault

You have the control and you are able to consciously fine-tune your inner radio-wave to a “happy-sunny-mood” station. Every breath is precious, every sound is unique, and every glance is dear – love yourself and love every moment. Before you open your eyes after leaving the warm embrace of sleep think about the good you want to bring to this day. Think about the person you want to make happy and what can you do to bring a smile to this lovely face. 

Conclusion

Gratitude is your playmate in this happy-game of life. There are so many things we take for granted and this is the biggest mistake ever made. You are given sight – say “thank you”, you can walk – be appreciative, you are healthy – that is the greatest gift anybody can have. There is no need to go far in search of a brave heart that despite physical limitations or severe health issues inspires people by the example of unconditional love and beauty of their souls. Look around and you may find such person living just a few steps from your threshold. Open your eyes and ears to the messages these people share by an example of their life. 

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

3 Ways How You Can Invest in Yourself

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When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching – they are your family. – Jim Butcher

1) Take a Good Book and Take Some Time to Think

John C. Maxwell said: “Thinking is hard work; that’s why so few do it”. Become one of the few. Replace the TV-hungry guy with a friendly educational-video buddy. It is another way to fill in your brain with useful information and ideas for self-development. Make conscious choices when you are going to feed your mind.  This is crucial, eliminate controlling forces from outside and take the reins into your own hands. Do not just turn on the TV and allow yourself to take what you are given without your sensible approval first.  You will find by doing so how growth begins.

2) The Effect of Building Slowly Will Work Its Magic

You cannot build a castle in one day. It takes small steps to create a piece of art. Your mission is to invest your time and energy in building a mansion of unseen beauty that will be able to withstand any weather. This architectural masterpiece is you. When you make that decision, life changes and people suddenly want to confide in you and ask for your opinion. Provide your expert advice with thoughtful appreciation.

3) Your Circle of Friends Will Change Considerably

People you surround yourself with are supposed to help you accomplish your goals. They make you or break you, so choose wisely. You will be amazed to find out that people you thought “fly-too-high and out-of-the-way” are actually very responsive when asked to help out.

Successful people have gone through a lot of hardships on the way to the top. Now they know the path and can tell you the shortcut. It is vital to frame your life in a “better-people-around-me” way. Your social environment is as important to your mental health as nature (the outside environment) is to your physical one. It literally determines the trajectory of your life. Why?

Conclusion

“Eventually, we start to eat what they eat, talk like they talk, read what they read, think like they think, watch what they watch, treat people how they treat them, even dress like they dress.” Darren Hardy gives enough reasons to be selective in this respect. Do not let yourself just drift with a stream of life, paddle the way You want to go.

Stay tuned…