Daily Affirmation 25th January

Reflection on an Affirmation

It is no secret I am going through a bad patch right now so it was lovely to pick this card today.

affirmation card

Peace can be hard to come by especially when the person you are at war with is yourself.

Inner peace though - is only a breath away.

My Daily Affirmation January 23rd

Reflection on an Affirmation

Affirmation Card

I haven't posted in the last few days largely because I was upset. It doesn't take much to shake my confidence so my mood dipped into its usual spiral. So when this card turned up today I had to wonder just what constitutes the past - is it your childhood, years ago or could it be as recent as yesterday? I think it can. Affirmations aren't a cure-all but they are a welcome tool in living.

I know the person who upset me had no intention of doing so, she was just thoughtless, it is MY reaction that is my problem. Am I so low in self-esteem that I still need other people's approval? I suppose I have to be honest and answer yes so today I am using this affirmation to work through my reaction. The hardest person you need to forgive is yourself. So today, I am forgiving myself for my past.

Forgive the past Affirmation Card

My Daily Affirmation 19th January

Reflections on an Affirmation

I've just finished posting my article on Signs, Symbols and Sychronicity and this is the card that turned up:

affirmation card - listen

And I do! I think I have always had a need to share what I learn and learning to listen to the whispers life sends is just one thing I am passionate about. I love the idea that, as Gill Edwards says, we can live magically, just by paying attention. 

Of course as always I ended up making a card of my own - with a promise to myself and to the Universe

My affirmation card: Today I will listen

What does it mean for you? Are you lending a listening ear to a friend or something else?

SIGNS, SYMBOLS & SYNCHRONICITY

SIGNS, SYMBOLS & SYNCHRONICITY

affirmation poster from annmackiemiller

There is a saying in metaphysics, if you listen to the whispers life won't have to shout at you. 

I believe that all around us are messages, whispers sent by the Universe as hints and clues to help and guide us. 

If our role on earth is to evole, to follow our own path towards - if not enlightnment then at least to learning life lessons - these messages help us along the path. You can make the choice to actively listen to the whispers by paying attention to signs, symbols and any incidents of synchronicity that appear in your life. 

Here I discuss what all that means to me and how you too can use them on this journey called life. 

My Daily Affirmation Sunday 18th January

Reflections on an Affirmation

Today - I am blessed - in more ways than one...

Affirmation: I am Blessed

For the first time in days, I woke without vertigo and for that alone I am humbly grateful. OK my balance and spacial awareness are still shot and I have to watch how I move my head, but I am getting there and so much better I feel positively euphoric.

But the card I picked is also a reminder all the good things in my life not least by my two lovely cats. They are a constant joy and they also help to keep me humble. It's hard to be anything else when you have been trained by cats.


What are you blessed by today?

My Daily Affirmation 17th January

Reflections on an affirmation

Sometimes I don't know where the cards have come from that appear in my basket and that is so with this one -

A poem on the secret of life

I don't know who wrote it or how I came to have it but since it seemed less of an affirmation than an inspiration I picked out another card - guess what...

Affirmation card for change

Don't you just love it when the magic comes together?

OK  confess I groaned when the change one came up - if you have been travelling this path for any time you will know that change is happening all the time and there are times when I at least just want to be comfortable with where I am right now. But in reality - change is the only constant as they say. I made the constant choice at the beginning of this year to take more charge of my life, my reactions and my path and for that to happen, I need to be open to change. So... today it looks as if I am giving the universe permission to help me make any changes necessary for my higher good. And yes, I am paying attention to the first card and trying to accept every day as a magnificent adventure.

What are Antioxidants and Free Radicals

Antioxidants and Free Radicals: The Battle Simplified

berries from pixabay.com

Antioxidants and free radicals are two phrases flung around in diet and health articles. Here I try to explain them in simple terms. Antioxidants Against Free Radicals: The Battle Simplified.

Should People Take Vitamin Supplements Every Day?

Vitamin Supplements Versus A Healthy Diet

fruit and veg from pixabay,com

It is tempting to think reaching for the vitamin bottle is the answer to everything but it is overdone these days. With a good balanced diet vitamin supplements shouldn't be needed all the time. Here are my thoughts on how to improve the vitamin intake in your food.

My Daily Affirmation 15th January

Reflections on an Affirmation

I am feeling very fragile today, just one of the downs on the rollercoaster ride that is my life, so it was comforting to pick this card as my daily affirmation.

Affirmation Card: Beauty and Love are all Around Me

In truth the card I picked was a plain white card that said simply Love is All Around Me. A reminder that I am never really alone every when I feel it most. 

But I created this one as a reminder that all I have to do is look around me.  

Today I shall be gentle with myself. In a few minutes I am off to watch the birds in a friend's garden - with my camera of course. Today I shall cherish everything around me and see beauty in unexpected places. 

What are you going to do?

Inspiration Images

Inspirational Quote

My Daily Affirmation 13th January

Meditation on a Daily Affirmation

Today the card that appeared is this one:

Dance Affirmation Card

I confess I am at a loss. What the heck does that mean? I don't dance! Well not in public anyway, I have no sense of rhythm from my neck down - it is there in my head but my body can't hear it. So how is this relevant for me here and now?

Usually as I type away things become clearer but not today - so - OK maybe I need to do a meditation on it and you can read my earlier post about to do that. 

You can always use an affirmation or other divination as a meditation tool - as something to take with you into your meditative state for answers, enlightments, healing, growth - whatever is on your path.
So this is what I did.

As always meditation and visualization never cease to amaze me - it is incredible what our brains are capable of.

I won't go into details because that would mean explaining even MORE stuff but suffice it to say what came out of my meditation is that I need to take more time to play - to be less serious - and to dance in anyway that is appropriate to me personally. Right now that is waltzing (my version of a waltz) round the kitchen with the cat - don't think she was too impressed.


I Hope You Dance!

How to Use Affirmation Cards or Divination Cards in Meditation for Self Help

How to meditate for self help, self healing, self development and growth

Woman Meditating from FreeDigitalPictures.net

Phew that was a long-winded title but as close as I can get to my intention. Meditation is a wonderful tool for getting in touch with your inner feelings and can be used extensively to harness your inner strength and wisdom. Here I give you a step-by-step meditation using affirmation cards or other divination tools.

My Daily Affirmation 12 January

Self Help with Affirmations & Other Cards

Every morning I pick out a card from my basket as part of my self help, self development strategy. Most of the time they are affiramation cards, something I will repeat constantly throughout the day to make it so. But they are also to reflect on what they mean for me personally and try to figure out why they have appeared today. In the same basket are self help cards and other divination cards, primarily crystals and animal totems. Today's card is an exercise in self help. Want to join me?

The Main Thing... Affirmation Exercise

Of course my very first reaction is probably the same as everyone else - not a lot. It made me feel uncomfortable that I would need to sit and think about some positive aspects of me - but - here goes.

Appearance wise - I have to say my legs! I've always had good legs and grew up in the age of mini skirts, even our nurses uniforms were short!. Today they are the only parts of my body that have aged well. It's like having two different hemispheres - slim and shaply legs and ankles and blob above - well less blob than a few months ago but still not exactly a matching set.

Now that whole paragraph is telling and something I obviously still need to consider. Why did I feel compelled to add a negative onto a positive? We all do it, the trick is - if you turn up something you don't like, either do something to change it ( like me and my 5:2 diet) or learn to live and accept it.

I was tempted to go with this exercise and I probably will in my personal journal - I like my compassion, my principles and ethics and a whole lot more. But it is the physical that I stumble on most and if it makes me so uncomfortable that I am having trouble expressing it - then I really need to look more closely at why it is important to my personal self esteem and what I can do about it to change my reaction. So I will take today to react to this card and


 maybe today my card will read

Nursing Graduation in Dundee 1973

Self Help Tip: Keeping a Journal

How to Keep a Journal for 

Self Help and Self Development

my journal and pen

The first thing I get clients on my YOUR Life in YOUR Hands course to do is to start keeping a journal so if you would like to take the first step on a journey of self help and self development, here are some tips to help you do just that.

When a Disability is Invisible: Living and working with a mental illness.

WHEN A DISABILITY IS INVISIBLE 

Living and working with a mental illness.

hope and despair sign from Pixabay.com

 Mental illness continues to be the hidden disability - it holds such stigma in society that it is seldom talked about especially as it so often makes other people uncomfortable. Here I'll share a little of my personal experience in the hope it will doors.

My Daily Affirmation: 10th January

Affirmation

Affirmation card: today I will reach out my hand

As always I need to think about my card today. At first glance it is simple - I will reach out my hand. 

Why? My first instinct is - to help someone in need, that is the compulsive carer in me and probably something I do best. Admittedly I do most of that at a distance these days. It is easier for me to be anonymous, to remain hidden online or in the background where I don't actually have to make contact in any sort of physical or emotional sense. Life experience has left me battered and bruised and I have chosen to retreat into my shell to protect myself.

So... if we are talking life lessons heres - perhaps today's card is less about me reaching out my hand to help, but reaching out my hand to connect - to accept that sometimes I am the one in need of that compulsive caring. 

Change Your Life By Changing Your Habits: Morning Rituals

Changing your morning habits.

glass of water from pixabay

WHY CHANGE THE HABIT OF A LIFETIME?

Maybe because it is causing you harm?  So often bad health comes from bad health practices and those start in the morning are one of the first habits to look at.  That is all those are - habits. That is LEARNED behaviour and so it can be UNLEARNED! Here are a few tips on changing habits that no longer support you.

My Daily Affirmation 8th January

Daily Affirmation for Self Help

My Steps are Sure
My Way is Clear

This keeps turning up for me - my way is clear, my steps are sure. At a time when I'm not all that sure what I should be doing with my life I pick this card repeatedly.

At age 62 and 3/4 I am still getting used to the idea of being an Old Age Pensioner - that was someone REALLY old when I was young. With life's knocks and trials it is easy to think the best of my life is over - no more romances to enjoy - no more adventures to be had. Most of the time I feel I have given the best I have to offer - I've done the nursing thing, I've done the thearpist thing, I've done the aid work thing, the charity and volunteer thing, the academic teaching thing - and I feel pretty played out.

Yet I still feel as if I am looking for something, for a purpose and a way ahead.

Do I really need to know where the path is taking me? Perhaps I should simply be enjoying the journey and not looking to the final destination it will carry me to. That is my adventure - if I want it - to live every step in the present.  Right this minute my path is writing, in passing on and sharing some of the knowledge I have found along the path.

So yes, in living in the present I will say today

My Steps are Sure

My Way is Clear

and I add

The Universe makes it so.

An Interesting Life So Far by AnnMackieMiller

My Daily Affirmation: 7th January

Using Affirmations for Self Help

affirmation card: the power of the Universe by annmackiemiller

I am reminded this morning that I am not alone. It is so easy when you are on a journey of self discovery to think that you are - all alone that is. Yet everything in the Universe is geared to supporting and nourishing us. From the beauty of a seascape to the food that we eat, the people we meet, the joys we encounter and the messages it sends us.

I made up this card using a photo I took of the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth Scotland because it reminded me of the joy of natural things that surround us. In my striving for a healthier lifestyle I am reminded that the universe provides me with all I need. The people that come into my life - and yours - are exactly those that support me or have come to teach me something. All around are simple joys to enjoy - the birds on my bird feeders, the cat lying in my lap as I try to type this around her. And the messages - well - I believe the Universe is our guide and sends us messages - as it does when you use  affirmation cards as a tool for self -help and divination.  I'll be writing more about Signs, Symbols and Synchronisitic in anther post.

Yesterday in considering my affirmation I realised that I am happy in my isolation - Today this card appeared to remind me that although that is so - I am never really alone and today I am rejoicing in the peace and inner calm this realization brings me.

How to Cope with Stress

What is Stress and How Can You Manage it?

Stress Relax signpost image from Pixabay.com

It is impossible to avoid stress in modern society, everyone suffers from it to a greater or lesser degree.  So, if it can't be avoided, we need to learn a few strategies to cope with it.  I hope these tips on stress management are helpful.

My Daily Affirmation: 6th January

Daily Affirmations and what they mean 

Affirmation Cards

I have a basket full of affirmation cards I have picked up over the years, some are bought, some given, some I even made myself. Every day I pick one and sometimes they don't make me feel comfortable which is an indication I should probably be looking at why that is. For the next few weeks, in the darkest days of winter, I plan to share with you the card I pick for the day and the thoughts and feelings it stimulates. Maybe this is something you would like to copy as you reach for better health in mind, body and spirit.

Are You Suffering from Stress? How you can tell if you are suffering from stress

How do you know when you are stressed? Take the free stress test.

image from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Only a few years ago, stress was called the 'yuppie' disease, supposedly affecting those in high-stress jobs. Fortunately we are much more enlightened these days and allow that stress can affect anyone at any time. Yet many people fail to recognise the signs and symptoms and that stress is adversely affecting their health. Of course, levels of stress can vary in degree and not all stress is harmful. Indeed, in many ways we need stress in our lives and today we certainly cannot avoid it. What we can do is learn to cope with it, to ensure that the stress within our lives does not become debilitating.

Here, you will find a simple breakdown of how stress affects the body, and how you might recognise that stress is having an adverse effect on you. The quiz is not fool-proof and should NEVER be used as an ultimate diagnosis. It is not meant to be or should be used as an alternative to medical advice.