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7 Great Ways To Show Your Love Today

“Show me the money!”

“Put your money where your mouth is.”

I’m sure you’ve heard someone say one of the phrases above (most likely both) at some point.  They both mean about the same thing:  You’ve talked enough, now show some action.

Love is the same way.  It is great (and important) to say that you love your wife, or girlfriend, but words only go so far… and the longer you go without doing something to show love, the less the words mean.

So… how long has it been since you showed your wife/girlfriend that you love her?  If it’s been a while, here is a list of things that you can do today to show your love (with examples!):

1. Suffer with her

   This is best explained by example… My mother has certain diet restrictions that she can’t violate without serious consequences (I’ll not reveal what, out of respect for her privacy).  My father does not have any such restrictions… but he still follows them very nearly all the time.  This shows his love because he is willing to accept heavy burdens that are not his… just to make it easier for her.This one doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone, but when it does, it is very powerful.

2. Go out and buy her something she likes for no reason

   Any time you show that you remember specifics of what your wife or girlfriend likes, and supply those likes without any underlying reason other than you love her, it sends a powerful message… that you are willing to go out of your way and spend your time and money on her, and are giving her enough attention all the time to remember even small things she likes.Here’s an example:  My brother-in-law went out and bought my sister her favorite candy and favorite soda, for no reason, and brought them home to her.  This was a while ago, and she still remembers… it was unexpected and clearly showed he was giving his time and attention to her, so it was memorable, even though it was small.

3. Give her a massage

   You really don’t need any special ability to give a reasonably good massage, and it has two very clear benefits:  It shows that you are willing to spend your time and energy on her, and if it is your hands on her skin, it releases oxytocin, a powerful hormone that makes you feel closer.Here’s a hint… just a light running your hand over skin (over time), in a place that she feels safe, is often as effective, if not more so, than a deep tissue massage from a professional masseuse.

4. Find her favorite song, put the words on something, and give it to her

   You can use her favorite song or “your song”… choose something that has powerful meaning for her, and put the words on something enduring.  This could be getting a wood-burning kit and putting it on wood (I find this to be very powerful, as it uses your own hand, and you can get one for about $20), or having it engraved on something silver or glass, or anything else that you choose, so long as it is something a little more long-lasting than pen and paper.

5. Leave notes around the house

   This is the easiest of this whole list… all you need to do is write little notes (sticky notes is okay… just slightly longer is better), and leave them concealed somewhere that you know she will look (in a drawer, on the pillow beside her (if you get up earlier), etc.).  This shows her that you were thinking about her even when you won’t with her, and is a little reminder of you even when you are not there.

6. Make a “treasure hunt”

   Get her something small that your wife or girlfriend likes and hide it somewhere in the house (or apartment, or whatever) or with someone you trust.  Then write a few clues (5-10 is generally good, but it really depends on her personality/likes) that each lead to the next, and finally to the “prize”.  Leave the first somewhere that she will see it when you are not there (but still the same day… it’s much better to have this all happen the day you plan for it).

   Depending on how good your timing is, this can be a fun way to get her to meet you for dinner at a restaurant, too, where you can have something for her, or it might just be the date itself that is the prize.

7. Pick a day and just spoil her rotten

   You can’t do this every day (or even very often) or it loses its power, but it can be really fun for both of you (hint… if it’s not fun for you, you are probably going to suck all the fun out of it for her, too, so you might want to pick something else).  This one is, by definition, not specific… you can do anything that comes to mind, from making her breakfast to taking her to her favorite restaurant to a surprise shopping trip… just make sure it’s all focused on your wife (or girlfriend), not you.

There you go… seven ways to show your wife or girlfriend that you love her, things you can do today, things that don’t require a ton of planning (though a couple do require a little planning, you can still do them in one day).

If you have any other suggestions, please share them… either in the comments or by using my contact page (my wife is about due for something, and it would be great to have something new!).

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January 19, 2010   Posted in: Relationships  No Comments

7 Easy Ways To Make Your Wife Happy

Popular theory has it that men are easy to please, and women are more, well, complicated.

It’s true… women are complicated, but the implication that women are not easy to please, now that one is a complete fabrication.  It’s as easy to make a woman happy as it is to do so for a man.

Want proof?  I have listed below 7 easy ways to make your wife happy…

1. Write her a letter

   Adding this one to the list is easy for me… I wrote about it before (in another article about happy wives), and I was reminded about it by The Art of Manliness earlier today.
   It’s nearly impossible to NOT be affected emotionally when someone takes the time to handwrite a letter and send it, especially if that person took their time and really put their own feelings into it.  Just pull out a couple pieces of paper, a pen, and a few memories… the rest will pretty much take care of itself.

2. Gather old pictures of the two of you and buy a nice frame for your happy memories

   Speaking of memories, what better to bring them out than old pictures of you… from when you met, when you got married, or even when you did something crazy together.  It all depends on the mood you want to set.
   Take a few of these pictures, get copies, and go to buy one of those collage frames that holds a few pictures… even better if the pictures fit some kind of “theme”, like one of those I just mentioned (your wedding, your honeymoon, your summer together hiking across Europe, whatever it is that brings up memories of you being together and happy…).
   Now put the pictures in the frame, and put the frame in a gift box, and give it to her some time when she isn’t expecting anything.

3. Make her something

   When you make her something, it shows that you care enough to give up your time and energy for her… and that’s what ALL non-verbal ways of showing love boil down to in the long run.  Making her something just puts it right out in the open.
   If you make something durable, you may have something that reminds her of the love you share for years, or even decades, to come, as well.

4. Not the type to make something?  Have something made for her

   What if you’re not really the type to make something yourself?  Not to worry, you’re covered, too… as long as you spend the time to make sure it’s something that has personal meaning.
   Need an example of this one?  One year for our anniversary I had a charm bracelet  made for her with pictures of each member of the family, our names, our birthstones, etc.  That was a few years back, but she still wears it every anniversary, and often when she just feels close to me.

   

5. Do her chores

   As long as you can do them right, of course.  It could be anything, but of course you get extra brownie points if it’s whatever one she hates the most.  Whatever you do, take the extra time and effort to make sure that you do, in fact, do it correctly, or this one can backfire…. half-done or wrongly done chores is worse than no chores done at all.

6. Bring her a flower (her favorite, if you know it) for no reason at all

   Roses are acceptable to nearly any woman, but they’re sort of generic at the same time… it’s much more fun, and usually more appreciated, if you get her some other kind, especially if you know her favorite.
   This one has been known to occasionally arouse suspicion, but if you really are doing it just to make her happy, it will show… you just have to get through that first couple minutes.

7. Send her something small just to remind her that you love her

   At work or at home, either way works… just find something little, even a knick-knack, that has some personal significance for the two of you, something that shows that you were thinking about her (and the two of you together) in more than just passing, and have it delivered to her.
   Brownie points for this one are tied directly to how well it shows you know her, and how unexpected it is.

There you go… seven ways to make your wife happy that are both quick and easy (though making her something could take a bit longer).  It’s good to do one of them, or something else like them, about once a month, and though you can customize that to fit your particular relationship, you should be careful of doing them so much that they become one of your chores, and therefore not valued.

Interestingly, all of the actions above, and most of the reasoning, also work for improving your relationship with your daughter, if you have one.

Not enough ways to show your love?  I have Part II, with seven more ways, coming out next, and a few from the first time I was writing articles:

7 Quick Tips On How To Make Your Wife Happy
7 Ways To Show Your Wife You Love Her
9 Ways To Remind Your Wife You Love Her
8 Ways To Show Your Husband You Love Him

And, of course, last but not least, the most popular article ever on my site:

One Slow Tip To Improve Your Relationship

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January 4, 2010   Posted in: Relationships  No Comments

7 Signs You Are A Creative Destruction Kind Of Person And How To Excel If You Are

Chaos is in my nature.  I thrive when creating, and suffer when maintaining.  I feel passion when building something and “stuck” when forced to focus on the details.

Does that sound familiar, or overwhelming?  Does it sound exciting to throw caution to the wind and dive right into something, or does it sound scary?

In my last article, I gave a very broad overview of the two basic natures of people, chaotic and orderly.  I mentioned, briefly, that I am of a chaotic nature (more so, in fact than virtually anyone I’ve ever met).  Ironically, I am also very good at spotting the order in what seems chaos to others (something sometimes referred to as pattern recognition).

Below I’ll list seven of the major attributes of someone for whom creative destruction is the spice of life, and then a few things that don’t come easily, but pay back the extra effort they require many times over.

1. You feel alive when creating something new.

   Crafting something builds your energy, leaving you satisfied and stronger, while assembling things leaves you empty and drained.

2. You see the whole more than the parts.

   In the kitchen, you make a meal, not a recipe… in writing, you see the world, not its mechanics… in business you see how the whole is different than the sum of its parts.

3. You love creating plans, but have trouble following them.

   Creating plans is fun, just like creating nearly anything usually is for you… when you are creating, you easily open up and pour your energy into things.  When it comes to following the plan you have created, you start having to pay attention to details, and the fun goes away… and with it goes the energy.

4. You generally have little attachment to things.

   Things are a part of the details, and therefore not something to which you become attached… the same often holds true for the majority of people that you meet.

5. You are easily frustrated when details keep you from advancing the big picture.

   This one really rears up and bites me every now and again… when you get stuck on what seems like a minor (but necessary) detail, and it keeps you from making any major progress on the big picture, the frustration can build up to an extreme level very quickly.

6. You excel when given a free hand, but perform average at best when forced into a box.

   When you have something to do, and the freedom to do it your way, you tend to excel, because it draws forth your energy as you create a solution.  When you have something to do and have a prescribed way that you must do it, especially if you see a way that seems better, you resent it, and do not give it your energy.

7. You are frustrated by working with people who must follow step by step plans.

   Sometimes life works better when you follow Nike’s advice and Just Do It.  Some people, however, can’t operate that way… they need step by step guidance for everything.  Of course, sometimes their way works out best, too.

There are, of course, degrees of alignment with either nature.  Some people are extremely chaotic, while some are just mildly chaotic, and the same goes, of course, for those of a more orderly persuasion.  The degree to which the points listed above apply reflects that level of alignment.

If you don’t recognize yourself in the points above, you almost certainly can name someone who does fit them right off the top of your head.  While everyone leans one way or the other in their nature, the ones who lean the farthest tend to be more memorable.

That’s the first half… knowing that you are chaotic.  The second half is knowing how to use your strengths to cover your weaknesses.  Here comes your second list:

1. Find something you can do with passion to keep you going after the initial investment.

   As mentioned above, when you create something, it’s easy for you to invest a lot of energy into it.  When it changes from creation to maintenance, though, it becomes much harder to invest your energy.  The counter to this is finding something that you are passionate about, so that your passion can keep you going between your bouts of creation.

2. Create smaller, short-term plans so that you can accomplish them before you run out of energy.

   One of the best ways to keep going when you have a chaotic nature is to keep things in the creation mode as much as you can by creating short-term plans more than long-range ones.  Create a plan for what to do today, rather than what to do for the month.
   If you must create long-term goals, then break them down as soon as you can and forget about the long-term goal except for when you accomplish the shorter goals and need to see what the next short-term goal is.

3. Learn to shift exactly how big the big picture is.

   Because we tend to see things in terms of the big picture, little details can become frustrating all out of proportion.  One solution for this is to shift how big the big picture is… if you’re building a house, and the detail is an electrical problem, shift the big picture down to the electrical system of the house.  This will make the detail not seem like it’s so disproportionately small, and can also make it feel like it’s the last detail, which can relieve a lot of the stress.

4. Create systems to help you with things where you know your nature is hurting you.

   This is one area where I can definitely do better… the most obvious example for me is networking (and not in the computer sense).  It is not natural to me to build and maintain network connections, but it’s clear that they make it far easier to succeed in whatever it is that you do.  It is natural, however, for me to take a problem and build a system to solve it.  I just need to apply that here.  The same goes for other things where your nature works against you, like if you are absent-minded and forget what needs to get done, or what was highest priority… create a system to solve the problems your nature causes.

5. Find partners (whether in business or personal) who are more orderly than you, but understand your nature.

   This is a big one, but has a catch, too… you need someone more orderly than you, but if you are at the extreme of chaos, you don’t want someone from the extreme of order.  You’ll end up having so much trouble seeing things from each other’s view that you’ll have serious problems communicating properly and working together.
   Someone who is a little more orderly than you, though, can be a great complement, with their strengths supporting you where you are weak, and vice versa.  This is how it is with my wife and I, and it works out amazingly well for us.

Understanding who you are, what your nature is, and how to use that is an almost overwhelming advantage, as the vast majority of people never learn.  If you can understand the nature of others and therefore how to best let them use their own nature, you’ll can, and almost certainly will, find success in both business and personal life.

Next article… signs and tips for the more orderly among us.

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December 29, 2009   Posted in: Awareness, Energy  3 Comments

Silly Subscription Situation

I don’t really know WHY my subscription service has been having issues lately, but I believe that I have them fixed.  Of course, in the midst of fixing them, I also appear to have temporarily broken direct access to articles (it’s fixed now).  If any of you visit the site and notice that one of the articles appearing on the site has not been received in your subscription, be it email or RSS, please let me know so that I can take immediate action

Here are the three most recent articles, in case you have NOT received them, which I suspect many of you have not:

Knowing Your Nature Is The Key To Happiness

How To Have Happy Holidays, Without All The Stress

Don’t Let Your Body Blind Your Soul

Please let me know if you like them, if you’d like more of the same sort or on the same topic, etc., as I’m just getting back into this and I need some feedback.  You can also become a fan on Facebook, or talk to me on Twitter.

And, as always, I appreciate it any time you send others my way, or share my articles via social sites like StumbleUpon, Facebook (both links submit my most popular article of all time ), or your site of choice.

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December 28, 2009   Posted in: Uncategorized  No Comments

Knowing Your Nature Is The Key To Happiness

Everyone in life has a nature that tends toward either chaos or order… knowing which one is your nature is essential to happiness and success.

What do the terms chaos and order mean in regards to your life?  They are opposite ends of the same spectrum, just as they are in other things.

Order is a force of preservation, of structuring… order is all about maintaining what already exists, about keeping the status quo.  Its impact is easily recognized in things like planning and scheduling.

Chaos is a force of both creation and destruction.  Often the creation actually comes from the destruction… something gets taken apart, and the pieces get put back together in a new way to create something that didn’t exist before.  Its impact is usually most easily detected in things associated with creativity… art, design, writing, etc.

Both of these forces are present in everyone’s life, and both are important in everyone’s life, as well.  The key is to finding the balance between them in your life.

If you are like most people, your first thought about balancing order and chaos in your life is wrong.

Unless you’re a very unusual person, you can’t balance chaos and order by having equal amounts of both.  That’s because your fulcrum, your center of balance, is highly unlikely to be in the center.  Instead, you will, by your very nature, have more affinity for one side than the other.

If you are the kind of person who gets nervous at the first sign that something unexpected is happening, your nature is pretty far to the side of order.  That means that you need considerably more order than chaos in your life to find balance.

If you are the kind of person who never plans unless they have to, who does nearly everything on a wing and a prayer, then your quite chaotic.  Balance for you requires keeping the order to a quiet murmur.

It really isn’t hard to figure out which side you lean toward.  If, when looking at  a task, you see all of the pieces and then assemble them into the whole (like following a recipe when cooking), your nature is orderly.  If, when looking at the same task, you naturally look at the whole and see where the pieces fit, your nature is chaotic.

Where you, personally, fall can be anywhere from nearly at one of the poles (pure chaos or pure order), to somewhere very near the center.  As with most things that involve people, though, it tends to be somewhat of a bell curve, meaning that the farther toward the edges you get, the fewer people you find, though in my experience, the center of that curve, where you find the most people, tends to be more on the side of order than chaos.

Anyone who actually knows me can tell you which source my energy tends to come from… I am definitely chaotic.  I love to dig in, tear things apart, and build new things… but I don’t like doing the detail work.

My writing and my programming both reflect this… I jump in, build the structure, the skeleton, and make it work, and I generally do this very rapidly.  Then I have to go back and fix or add all of the little details I missed.  I love the first part… it definitely is my passion.  I can do the detailed part, but I mostly do it without the passion, meaning that someone who is passionate about the details could likely do it better than I.

There is nothing better or worse about either way, any more than there is between brown and blue eyes.  You may very well have a preference for one or the other, but neither is actually objectively better.

That being said, the there are things in life that align better with one side or the other, one of the most important being your work.  Artists, for example, tend to see the things they are creating first, then shape the pieces to fit, whether those pieces be brush strokes, stone, or words.  Managers and money people, on the other hand, tend to see the pieces and try to assemble them into a whole.  Nearly every type of work, however, has some sort of role for those of the opposite nature… technical writers, for instance, are usually very orderly, while sales managers may tend to be chaotic (at least, if promoted from within the sales department).

True happiness is nearly impossible to find when you try to force yourself into roles and paths that originate, or mostly stay, on the other side.  It is like the mental equivalent of wearing clothes that are too small for you… you can do it, but it is uncomfortable short term and can cause serious damage long term.

Take me, for example… In my last job, I was moved from a role that consisted mostly of creation to a role that was mostly organizing.  I went from enjoying my job, and being very good at it, to intense dislike of my job and overwhelming stress, and doing average at best.  In the beginning I was following my nature, and after the change I was fighting it.  The move, even though it came with a higher title and more money, was a poor one on my part.

Happiness, and success, in life nearly always comes from following your heart, your passions… and your passions will always reflect your nature, be it chaos or order.  When you follow your passion, you do things with your whole heart, your whole mind, and that is how great things come to be.

Your passion doesn’t have to be something the world admires, it just has to be yours.

Find your nature, find your passion, and find a way to follow it.

Follow-up article:  7 Signs You Are A Creative Destruction Kind Of Person And How To Excel If You Are

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December 28, 2009   Posted in: Awareness, Energy  One Comment

How To Have Happy Holidays, Without All The Stress

What causes the most stress during the holidays?  It’s usually one of two things… family (relationships), or presents.

Maybe you don’t get along with someone in your family… maybe you don’t get along with anyone in your family.  Or it could be that you have “things that need to get done”, and spending time with extended family keeps you from doing those things.

Or perhaps you are one of those ones who worries about gifts… “Did Suzy get the same number of presents as Joey?” or “Did I spend the same amount on each of the nephews and nieces?”.  Everything has to be “fair” (there is no such thing as “fair”, but that’s an article to itself) so that nobody feels left out or insulted.

Though these two sources of holiday stress seem very different, the true source turns out to be the same… it come from focusing on you.

Sounds wrong, doesn’t it?  How does focusing on yourself cause you to stress about other people, or about making sure that the distribution of presents is “fair”?

When you stress about who gets how many presents, and how much they’re worth, what you’re really worrying about is how that reflects on you.  If you didn’t care about the “kind of person” it makes you, you would just give people gifts based on who you are and/or who they are, things you enjoy giving and that they enjoy receiving.  The number and cost wouldn’t matter, because the whole goal and focus would be giving them something that would bring a bit of happiness.

Stressing about relationships works in a similar way… even the relationship with your significant other.  If you remove “how it affects me” from the way you think about the relationship, it takes away all the stress.  It doesn’t magically fix relationships, as there may be solid reasons why you don’t get along, or you may simply be different enough people that there isn’t much common ground upon which to build.  You are very likely to find,  however, that your relationships (all of them) improve when you stop looking at everything through the “how it affects me” lens.

It’s not easy to learn how to stop looking through that lens (actually, it might be more useful to refer to it as unlearning it, as it is a behavior that is learned), so what can you do to relieve the stress right now, while we’re still in the holiday season?

The answer is simple:  Go do something to serve others.  It doesn’t need to be your family… it might even be better if it isn’t.  Go volunteer at a homeless shelter, visit someone in a nursing home who has no family, or buy a bunch of toys and bring them to children who are in the hospital this holiday season.

It doesn’t really matter what you do, as long as you don’t do it for yourself… giving to others when no personal gain is involved has great emotional and spiritual rewards, one of the least of which is the relief of stress.

So go, help someone else without looking for any kind of reward, not even a thank you… and watch how much your own outlook improves.

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December 23, 2009   Posted in: Growth  No Comments

Don’t Let Your Body Blind Your Soul

How does your body blind your soul? What does it even mean to “blind your soul”?

Being soul-blind means being so wrapped up in the things going on immediately around you that you cannot see anything else. It is when you become so overwhelmed with the stress and build-up of life that you start losing sight of what really matters to you.

How can your body overwhelm the part of you that is supposed to be in charge?  The same way the old saying says you boil a frog… slowly.  If you drop a frog into boiling water, it will jump back out, but if you put it in water which you slowly heat, it will sit there while it cooks.

The same thing happens with your soul… if you are dropped in a situation where everything is completely skewed and wrong, you will rebel.  If that situation comes about slowly, though, you can be talked into (or talk yourself into) just sitting there while you let it happen.

I’ll offer an example from my personal life, and it has to do with why I have been gone so long, as well:   My previous job was causing me to work so many hours and stress out so much that it was tearing me apart.  What little time I had at home was not quality time with my family, as it should have been, but instead was still focused on work and the stress from it… I couldn’t let go.

It didn’t start out that way, though… if it had, I would have jumped out, just like the frog in the pot of boiling water.  Instead, things got that way over time, and even when they moved further that way, there was usually something positive, too… a raise, a promotion, etc.  These made it even harder to see that the overall impact was the slow heating of the water, the slow blinding of my soul.

I was even aware of it, sometimes, to some extent, but I couldn’t see my way beyond it… I was blind in my soul, even if my eyes could still see. I knew that it was hard on my whole family, yet even that could not open my sight to what needed to be done.  I kept making excuses, like the economy being so bad that I might not be secure in a new job, if I could even find one… and so I didn’t really look.

In an ironic twist, the poor economy was actually the cause of my eyes opening… my position was eliminated, and suddenly I was forced out of that environment.  I couldn’t seem to do it on my own… I had been there for over seven years, and with the economy in the state it was, I couldn’t risk not being able to take care of my family… even though I was already not taking care of them in a way that matters far more than the money.

It took nearly a week for the shock and the remains of the stress and feelings of being overwhelmed to fade enough for me to begin looking for a new job. In the meantime, there were new stresses… what were we going to do with no more money coming?

I went online and looked for a new job, sent my resume to a few places, and was astonished to receive a call within an hour, asking me if I could interview that day.  I did, and a few days later I was offered the job.  I took it.

Luckily for me, it turns out that not only was this job available when I needed it, but it is a great place to work, too.  I’m also closer to home, and I have no overtime.  My job is no longer overwhelming the rest of my life… and the blindness of the soul is leaving me.

There are three lessons that learned from this experience, that I want to share with you:

1. The big positive things from a piece of your life, things like raises and promotions in a job, or wealth and beauty in a relationship, don’t matter as much as the ongoing small things… if your energy is always being drained, and you take that one piece of your life into every other piece of your life, it’s not good for you.
   
2. You can find reasons to not do something, and convince yourself that they are good reasons, even when you should (and if you were completely honest with yourself, actually DO) know better.
   
3. You can let a piece of your life that is less important, like a job, hurt the pieces of your life that are more important, like family

So what to you do if you look at your life and see that there is one piece of it that is taking over the rest, that is blinding your soul?  To quote from the Bible, “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.”

I am not, of course, recommending that you blind yourself physically… but if one piece of your life, whether it’s a job, a relationship, or something else, is taking over your life, draining your energy,  to the point that you forget to, or can’t, take care of the other parts of your life, then take that leap and do what you have to do in order to clear your soul’s sight of what is truly important.

If you think that your soul is already blinded, if you spend your days drained of energy and feeling overwhelmed, or if you may be headed that way, find a way to take at least a day completely to yourself, with no one else around, and no interruptions.  Take that day to take a look at your life and find out what it is that is sending you down that path… and look at what you can do about it.

You may be able to fix the thing that is causing you the harm, especially if you are only headed down that path, rather than already at the end… relationships especially can start heading down that path, but be repairable (there are quite a few articles even on this site for help with that).  Jobs are less likely to be able to be fixed, but that doesn’t mean they cannot be… you may be able to invest less of yourself into your job and still get it done, and that may keep it from taking over the rest of your life.

If you can’t fix it, though, the only answer may be removal.

Trust me, I know that it is a lot harder to do than to say, yet I have also just been through a really strong reminder of just how important it is.  My life felt like it was falling apart, and I was hurting physically and emotionally, as well as being blinded.  I now feel like I’m not just healing, but moving past where I was before I started heading downhill, and that’s with it having been only about a month.

Please feel free to share your story, either in the comments or by emailing me, and if you want any advice, I will be happy to help if I can… even if all you really want or need is someone to listen.

PS – This is my first real article since I’ve gotten the site back up and running.  If you like it, please help me get the word back out and share it with your friends or on a social site.  That goes for any “old favorites” you might have, as well… I really need a helping hand back up.  Also, please feel free to become a “Fan” on Facebook(99 as of last time I checked), or follow me on Twitter (less than 1 last time I checked… I haven’t really started using Twitter much, but I will if I can find conversation… I don’t want to just send out “Hey, I have a new article”).

Most Read AMAD Articles Of All Time, In Order:

(Not the same as at the top left, due to new system)

1. One Slow Tip To Improve Your Relationship
2. 8 Ways To Show Your Husband You Love Him
3. Break The Ice – 10 Creative Questions To Get Them Talking
4. 7 Quick Tips On How To Make Your Wife Happy
5. 7 Ways To Show Your Wife You Love Her

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December 21, 2009   Posted in: Awareness, Body/Mind Relationship  No Comments

A Miracle A Day Coming Back

I am working on bringing the site, and the content, back… they were nearly lost when my server crashed badly.  Stay tuned and I will have them up as I can get to it.

Update – I recovered most, if not all, of my old articles, but it appears the images were lost.  At some point I will go back through and add images so that they look nice, but at least the content is there!

Update 2 – Starting to get some images in to replace the ones that vanished, but I am still trying to find a live person at Google to help me get my subscriber list fixed (it’s not pulling new content right now).

Jason

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December 14, 2009   Posted in: Uncategorized  7 Comments

Change And Rebuild

Sometimes, in life, something brings to your attention that you’ve gotten so far down a path that you don’t want to be that there is really no way back.  You just stop, look around you, and realize that you are unhappy with where you are and who you have become.

The natural reaction for many, probably even most, people is to give up and start sliding into despair, thinking there is nothing they can do about it.  It doesn’t have to be that way, though… there is something much more positive you can do, instead.

First let me say that from the easy perspective, the one that is up close and mired in the current situation, the feeling that there is nothing you can do about it is right… because that feeling is all about the fact that you can’t get back to “the way things used to be”.  If you move back a couple of steps, however, that very realization can be enlightening and even free-ing.

When you hit a point where you know that you can’t go back, that means there’s only one way you can go, and that is forward.  You can take your moment of darkness and turn it into the point where you breathed light and hope back into your life.

How do you do this?

You start by accepting that all of the things that brought you to this point are in your past, and you cannot change them.  You are who you are, and where you are, and right now is the only thing left that you can change.  You have to let it go, and forgive yourself… let who you have been and what you have done be in your past.  Let it even be a different person – you are NOT required to be that person any more.

Now you have a blank slate, an open canvas to paint yourself.  Who do you want to be?  The only one who can decide what gets painted is the painter, and that is you.

Other people in your life, whether friends, family, coworkers, or something else, may not like the changes that you make.  They only knew the person that you used to be, and if the new you is different enough, they may feel like they are dealing with a new person, and that takes time just as meeting any other new person does… perhaps even more so because they keep expecting you to be, and and act like, who you used to be, much as might happen if you met the identical twin of someone you already knew.

You can’t worry about others, though… you are your own home, and you have to build to suit yourself.  If you were designing an actual home for yourself, and you love to cook, you wouldn’t design one with a tiny kitchen.  In the same sense, you shouldn’t try to be a person that others think you should be.

Speaking of homes, that brings up another important point… walls.  As we go through life along whatever path we take, we build up walls inside ourselves… mental walls, emotional walls, even spiritual walls.  These walls generally grow up haphazardly, over time, in response to various things that happen in our lives.  They contain us, force us into internal contortions and stress just to fit inside, keeping us from truly being comfortable in our own skins.

Internal walls, much like walls in the world outside, require demolition.  Have you ever watched the show Extreme Makeover Home Edition?  The first thing the team does is demolition… tearing down all of the old construction, all of the old walls, in order to make room for the new home that will better fit those who live there.

You need to do the same… those walls are from that other person, the one that you used to be, and any that you leave standing are going to impact the design of your new home, your new self.  As much as you can, wipe them all out… and any that you do leave standing, take a close look at them to make sure that you want that to be a part of who you are becoming.

One last thing before I go… remember that this new home you are building doesn’t have to be complete overnight.  You can lay the foundation, and then take your time on the framing, to make sure that everything is where you want it to be.  The finishing, like choosing what color to paint the walls, can be far down the road… you don’t have to hurry, it’s not for anyone but you.

Even if you don’t feel like you’re at the end of the line, take a look around at the home you have built for yourself… is it time for some remodeling?  You may even find that today is a good day for demolition day for you, too.

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April 30, 2009   Posted in: Healing  No Comments

Want To Beat Depression, Emptiness, And Feeling Overwhelmed? Watch A Child

A huge number of adults feel overwhelmed or depressed on a regular basis.  It can be from any of a huge number of sources, although any of those sources can be tied to one of the three areas of your life that I talked about in my last article.

Have you ever seen a young child depressed or overwhelmed?  Even if you have, at one point or another, have you ever seen them stay that way for long?

Many adults (maybe even you) would respond that young children are not under the same stress as adults.  While this is true, there is another secret that we know when we are young, and tend to forget as we grow older.

What is that secret?  It’s simple, though not always easy… if you want to defeat feelings of depression or being overwhelmed, simply decide to do something and do it.

It doesn’t really matter what it is that you do, as long as it is a conscious choice to do it, though it generally works better if it takes more than just a couple of minutes.  You can choose to go fishing, build something, or even make a nice dinner.  It works even better, of course, if your action helps to work toward clearing up whatever had you feeling depressed or overwhelmed in the first place.

Children do this instinctively… watch a 3 or 4 year old, and see how often they sit still, not doing much.  They will do so to watch TV sometimes, or play video games, but watch them after they do this… they will be grumpier and misbehave more often.  It’s not because of what they watched or played.  It’s because they ceased to be active, and became passive instead.

Passive activities drain your energy… they suck away your positive feelings and leave you feeling empty.  Passive activities are, by nature, activities that take your time and your energy without a return:  your energy still goes into the activity, but you get nothing back.

Active activities take your time and energy, also, but that energy is returned to you by the results of your activity.  It may be returned when you eat the fish you catch, or when you see your home clean, or when you see your body change shape (if your active action happens to be physical).  It may even be returned by looking at what you created, if you choose some type of creative activity (I personally happen to like woodworking… I’d like music and art, too, if I had any talent in those areas).

A lot of adults are passive most of the time.  They let their energy drain away into nothingness, with nothing to show for it.  This can usually be traced back to a specific event, something that they didn’t want to deal with.  They then sought passive ways to “escape” from that event, which started the process of bleeding away their energy and positive emotions.

Once that drain starts, it makes it harder and harder to stop being passive, as you have less and less energy to use actively.  That leads to being even more passive, and even more drain, until sometimes it adds up to the point that you feel like you have no energy left, like you are empty and dying inside.  Life feels overwhelming because you have so little energy to grab it and take what you want and need from it.

If you want to beat those horrible feelings (I know how bad they are… I’ve been to the bottom of that barrel), you have to put a STOP to those passive activities that are draining your energy.  You have to turn off the computer, turn off the TV, get out of bed, and do something.

The easiest way to start is to take a shower and get cleaned up.  Even that is a start on becoming active.  Once you are cleaned up, get out of the house (or apartment, or wherever it is that you live)… it doesn’t really matter too much where you go, although some place that you enjoy is an easy choice when you’re just getting started.  Once you’ve gotten started on this, try inviting someone else to do something with you… it can be a friend, a family member, significant other, or complete stranger.  Activities that involve more than one person get more result for less energy spent.

This can be a fragile time, right at the beginning.  It can be very easy to fall back into the passive activities that you were just doing, so the best thing to do is to keep away from them as much as possible.  Any time that you’re not at work (where your job may require it), stay away from the computer, the TV, and the video games (unless you have someone over who is doing it with you, and even then don’t do it for long).

The more you stay away from your old passive activities, and the more you continue in your new active activities, the easier it becomes, and the more “full” your life will generally seem to become.  This will bring about positive results not only for you, but for everyone around you.  Your relationships are almost certain to improve (providing, of course, that you don’t neglect them in your pursuit of one of your new activities), your self-esteem and self-respect will improve, and you will generally be more pleasant to be around.  You are also likely to do better at work, and even like your job better.  Depending on the activities that you choose, you may even find another means of income or a new job.

You can get started on this today.  You only have two ways to spend your time and energy:  actively and passively.  If you choose to stop your passive activities, you will find that you HAVE to choose active ones to replace them.

Let your “inner child” out… let them out to do and to play (which is active, of course).  Do things that you enjoy, and find others who enjoy those things too.  You will soon find that the emptiness that seemed to fill you is, itself, being filled.

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January 13, 2009   Posted in: Energy  No Comments

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