100 Excellent Art Therapy Exercises for Your Mind, Body, and Soul January 9th, 2011 Pablo Picasso once said, "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." It's no surprise, then, that many people around the world use art as a means to deal with stress, trauma and unhappiness – or to just find greater peace and meaning in their lives. If you're curious about what art therapy has to offer, you can try out some of these great solo exercises at home to help nurse your mind, body and soul back to health. Emotions Deal with emotions like anger and sadness through these helpful exercises. Draw or paint your emotions. Relaxation Art therapy can be a great way to relax. Paint to music. Happiness Art can not only help you deal with the bad stuff, but also help you appreciate and focus on the good. Draw your vision of a perfect day. Portraits Often, a great way to get to know yourself and your relationships with others is through portraits. Create a future self-portrait. Trauma and Unhappiness Draw a place where you feel safe. Collaging Self Gratitude
4 Good Reminders When You’ve Had a Bad Day Email I have learned that life is constantly testing us for our level of commitment, and that life’s greatest rewards are reserved for those who demonstrate an unwavering commitment to push forward even when times are tough. Sometimes I catch myself staring at the people around me – studying their gestures and expressions. I wonder, “What’s their story? What are they searching for? What makes their heart beat with happiness, with sorrow, with fear, and with longing?” Today, in our latest video blog, we want to share some of these thoughts with you. Video Blog Post: 4 Good Reminders (video transcript): 1. Having a bad day? Put your hand on your heart. Keep in mind that we’ve all made mistakes. 2. You have to remember that you are incredibly capable of handling great challenges. Truth be told, there are two types of pain in life: pain that hurts you, and pain that grows you. 3. Will the road ahead always be easy? 4. And that’s why the best thing you can do is to keep going.
16 things I know are true but haven’t quite learned yet There’s a difference between knowing something and living as if it were true. At the end of 2013, these truths are all lingering on that awkward threshold, for me anyway. 1) The sooner you do something, the more of your life you get to spend with that thing done — even though it takes less effort (or at least no more) than it will later. It’s the ultimate sure-thing investment and I pass it up all the time. 2) I never regret working out. 3) Whenever I’m playing with my phone I am only shortening my life. 4) Nothing makes me more productive and in-the-moment than a clean house. 5) Minute-for-minute, nothing I do is more rewarding than meditation. 6) Creative work is something that can be done at any time. 7) Acting the way you want to feel usually works. 8) Ninety-five per cent of my happiness comes from having a home, a functioning body and something to eat. 9) Our minds are geared to manage much less than we typically end up managing. Goodbye 2013, you were great. Photo by David Cain
Accuracy of Self-Knowledge How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world. ~ Kafka Social psychologists and other mortals are hypnotized by the Delphic demand to Know thyself. Actually, it was not the oracle speaking, but probably a sophist prince who put these words on the front of the temple of Apollo. Social psychology supports a cottage industry dedicated to the case of human ignorance. What to make of a correlation of .3? Yet, many people think the accuracy correlation should be higher. Zell & Krizan’s finding that the average accuracy correlation is .3 is interesting, but of little theoretical relevance. In sum, Zell & Krizan provide and interesting, if theoretically bland, overview and integration of the voluminous literature on the accuracy of self-perception.
Getting Others Mad May Be a Winning Strategy "Don't get mad, get even," may not be the best advice in all competitive endeavors. In fact, anger can sometimes help people win, new research suggests. When people are made to feel angry in a game of strength, they tend to perform better. In games of strategy, anger is a handicap. "You shouldn't look at emotions as something irrational," said study researcher Uri Gneezy, a behavioral economist at the University of California, San Diego and authoer of the book "The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life" (PublicAffairs 2013). Test of strength In the new study, published today (Jan. 13) in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Gneezy and his colleagues give a world-famous example of the power and peril of anger. The case is clearly an example of anger going awry for Zidane, Gneezy told LiveScience. To find out, Gneezy and his colleague Alex Imas, also of UC San Diego, recruited male undergraduates for two competitive experiments.
11 Practices That Will Make You Instantly More Positive - Alycia Hall - Vancouver Life Coach and Coaching Services - Alycia Hall – Vancouver Life Coach and Coaching Services Feeling positive doesn’t have to be the result of your external circumstances. You can learn to cultivate positivity anytime as long as you’re committed to it. Here are 11 practices that will make you instantly more positive! 1. Journal nightly about what you were thankful for. 2. Meditation brings you a sense of calm, taps into your intuition and can sooth your mind. 3. Instead of focusing on how things are not working out try shifting your perspective. 4. Nothing good comes from comparing yourself to other people; it’s the quickest path to unhappiness. 5. Regardless of where you live spending time in nature will help calm your mind and open your heart. 6. Take the time out to laugh, be goofy or just smile at a stranger. 7. One of the best ways to feel instantly more positive is to do a random act of kindness. 8. Is there something that you are doing that… well…. you’d like to stop doing? 9. 10. Do you have a dream that you secretly wish for? 11. Now I’d love to hear YOUR story.
How I Wish the Homosexuality Debate Would Go Just once, I’d like to see a TV interview go more like this: Host: You are a Christian pastor, and you say you believe the Bible, which means you are supposed to love all people. Pastor: That’s right. Host: But it appears to me that you and your church take a rather unloving position when it comes to gay people. Are homosexuals welcome to come to your church? Pastor: Of course. Host: But you said there, “We’re a place for sinners.” Pastor: Yes, I do. Host: So how do you reconcile the command to love all people with a position on homosexuality that some would say is radically intolerant? Pastor: (smiling) If you think my position on homosexuality is radical, just wait until you hear what else I believe! Host: But Jesus didn’t condemn homosexuality outright, did He? Pastor: He didn’t have to. Host: You say he condemned adultery, but he chose not to condemn the woman caught in adultery. Pastor: That’s right, but He did tell her to “go and sin no more.” Pastor: Who am I? Host: But you are judging.
75 Affirmations for Personal Development Affirmations are one way to develop new beliefs that can eventually become second-nature. Every morning or evening we can repeat these affirmations with a clear and focused mind, and with practice these beliefs can take hold inside our brains. One caveat, however, is to make sure that the affirmations you repeat to yourself are congruent with reality, and aligned with your core values. I’ve seen many people come up with delusional affirmations and then attempt to ingrain them into their minds. Even when they do succeed, those beliefs can be detrimental. Please be aware of the meaning and intention behind the affirmation before you decide to “program it” into your mind. The following is just a list of suggestions on some of the affirmations you may want to practice. I recommend only practicing 1 or 2 affirmations at a time. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.
Top 10 Most Important Personality Development Tips | Infinityfast Blog Personality development is a term which is often misunderstood to be self development and or just limited to enhancing one’s own looks. So it becomes necessary to get a clear picture on what is personality development and what is self development. Personality development is something which is considered as improving the way we think, feel, behave and carry ourselves. In other words, it is not confined to the improvement of a single aspect of an individual; rather it is about improving an entity or a cluster of qualities which helps in achieving and presenting oneself in a better way. Well, if you are wondering how to improve your personality, here are a few tips which could help you improve your personality. Positive approach and confidence: Positive approach and confidence are two different terms but are interrelated in many sorts. Listen with intent: Listening with intent results in a better understanding of the core point of what you listen to. Be good in learning: Be yourself: Manners:
9 Epiphanies That Shifted My Perspective Forever By David Over the years I’ve learned dozens of little tricks and insights for making life more fulfilling. They’ve added up to a significant improvement in the ease and quality of my day-to-day life. But the major breakthroughs have come from a handful of insights that completely rocked my world and redefined reality forever. The world now seems to be a completely different one than the one I lived in about ten years ago, when I started looking into the mechanics of quality of life. Maybe you’ve had some of the same insights. 1. The first time I heard somebody say that, I didn’t like the sound of it one bit. I see quite clearly now that life is nothing but passing experiences, and my thoughts are just one more category of things I experience. If you can observe your thoughts just like you can observe other objects, who’sdoing the observing? 2. Of course! 3. 4. 5. Yikes. 6. This discovery was a complete 180 from my old understanding of emotions. 7. 8. 9.