Instant spirit boosters.

If you are feeling like everything is getting on top of you, or you are finding it difficult to cope or function or you are feeling down in the dumps, then try these 5 easy-to-do tips to relieve tension and stress and boost your spirits:

1. Take a relaxing bath. Add music, candles and a glass of your favourite drink: beer, tea, hot chocolate, wine or even champagne. Close the door and forget about everything else for an hour or so. This helps to increase levels of calmness and the calmer we feel, the less likely we are to get stressed out or depressed.

2. Comedy night: get in your favourite nibbles: chips, tortillas, salsa, crackers, cheese, pizza, chocolate, cookies, ice cream etc. Crack open a bottle of wine or pour yourself a beer or two and spend a full evening watching your favourite funny films or comedians. Laughter raises our spirits and is a great antidote to the stresses and trials of modern living.

3. Get out of the firing line: Take off for some peace and quiet for a day or better still a weekend or a week. Take a journal, relax and gather your thoughts. When we are under pressure or struggling to cope with a major situation or event in life, seeing solutions to our problems can be really difficult. Distance from problems can bring clarity and relieve tension. I love going to the coast when I feel like this and it always, without fail, helps me to calm down and find solutions. I do not know why but there’s something really soothing about being near the ocean. Being near water, come to think of it.

4. Increase calmness and feel great by indulging in massage. Share a massage with your partner – create a relaxing atmosphere by softening the lights and have oils and towels to hand.

Lavender oil is particularly relaxing. Or, treat yourself to a massage from a professional masseur or masseuse. For an invigorating massage, visit a Turkish bath if you are fortunate enough to have one nearby. Massage is very relaxing. It’s one huge stress buster as well but be warned, it’s addictive! Not a bad thing to be addicted to though, and it will do you no end of good.

5. Spend a week without watching any television. Television can fill your mind with negativity, bombard you with image manipulation via commercials and give you a distorted view of reality by showing you everything that is bad about the world. Famines, disasters, murders, violence, war – the list is endless – and news programmes and soap operas are full of such events.

So give your mind a break from this assault on your senses. Abandon the television for a week and do something more rewarding instead: Read a book, listen to music, socialize, workout, go for a walk or try your hand at something new. If you need to hear the news, listen to a radio news bulletin once a day. But try and avoid them for one week, replace them with something more life enhancing and see how you feel.

The above ideas are very simple to implement but they are also very effective in helping to relieve stress and tension. Give them a try and watch your mood levels rise!Is acne stress related?

Stress - Since your skin in your largest organ, how you live can sure influence how healthy your skin is. And stress, not necessarily "bad" stress, but rather certain external and internal stressors, factor into this health equation. So let us look at how to handle these stressors with regards to acne prevention. External Stressors- A goal of acne prevention would be to keep your skin pores clear from clogging and becoming infected and irritated, resulting in blemishes and inflammation.

So you need to look at your external environment throughout the day for factors that could trigger skin pore clogging. Here are some examples of what to look for: grease, oils and sun, like being around open fryers in kitchen areas, or around machine oil and grease in workshops or factories, or out in the sun all day on a construction jobsite.

Too much oil, grease or sun on the skin can clog pores and trigger acne and other skin irritations. Minimize contact by wearing long sleeves and other protective wear and gear and discussing further options with your dermatologist or healthcare provider. With regards to being out in the sun, note that a small amount of sun each day can be fine and healthy.

However, extended periods can trigger the sebaceous glands to create more oil as your skin dries out. At the same time, the dried out skin needs to be cast off or shed at a faster rate than normal. The resulting extra oils and dead skin make a wonderful environment for pore clogging.

So here, too, use protective clothing for outdoor activities and apply sunscreen; oil-free products
are best for acne-prone people, and those with a minimum protection of SPF 15 and both UVA and UVB protection.

Internal Stressors - Internal stressors like anxiety, fear, low self-esteem, depression and a variety of other internalized emotions, can trigger chemical reactions inside your body that can result in acne flare-ups and other skin irritations. What happens is that these emotions can set your adrenal glands to work creating more cortisol, the substance that in turn causes your sebaceous glands to produce increased amounts of sebum oil, excessive amounts of which can be blocked in pores. Same old story: extra oil + extra dead skin cells = blocked pores, triggering acne flare-ups.

With internal stressors, though, the results are usually "inflamed papules" or small, solid inflammations (or skin elevations that do not contain pus), instead of whiteheads or blackheads.

To combat internal stressors and prevent acne problems, here are some suggestions. Get plenty of rest and sleep a recommended average of eight hours per night. Try to maintain regular hours each day, regardless of which shift your work. Some say to focus on reducing SWAT: reduce your stress, worry, anxiety and tension, so journal a little each day mentioning any "SWAT" stressors you have felt. And focus on those that may seem overwhelming or to be taking too long to "end," seeking help from others or other resources as needed for stress managementCheck with your dietician or healthcare provider to establish and follow a regular well-balanced dietary and exercise plan of action to keep your body healthy on the inside and outside.

Keep a check list of "Things that Calm You" handy for stressful times, like reading a book, resting, listening to music

Know What You Want: If You Build Them, They Will Come!

When you’re looking for that special someone, you need to figure out who this person is going to be. Knowing what you want and who you’re looking for really helps you find the right person.
We once attended a seminar on relationships where attendees were asked to design their perfect mates as specifically as possible.

The goal was to create a wish list of all the qualities and characteristics we felt were important.

It was a great exercise — a lot of the attendees realized that they didn’t know what they wanted, although they had very specific ideas of what they didn’t want. A few months later, the participants reunited to complete the final part of the seminar, which analyzed our results. We were blown away by how many participants had met people who matched most of the criteria on their list. It was as if putting it down on paper reinforced the belief in their mind’s eye. Or perhaps by defining what they wanted, they became more conscious of those qualities when they saw them in a potential partner.

Either way, this exercise worked for a large number of people. Visualizing your ideal partner and the relationship you want is a great motivator. Athletes have long understood this process of imagery and will visualize a goal before acting on it. You can do the same with your love life. Give it a shot now! You have nothing to lose.

Close your eyes and picture your ideal partner. Engage all your senses. How does this person smell? What does he or she look like? Listen to this person’s voice. How does it sound? When you kiss, how do you feel? Where are you? What are you doing? Are your friends and family around?
How does he or she interact with them? Try this a few times until the picture becomes clear, then take out a piece of paper and make a list of the most important characteristics of this partner.

List about 20 qualities that mean something to you. What values and attributes does this person have? Look over your list and separate your “deal breakers” from your “ideals.” “Deal breakers” are the absolute nonnegotiable traits, like finding a partner who wants children or is of the same religion (if those traits are important to you).

“Ideals” are more about the attributes or traits you’d prefer, like “ambitious” or “good sense of humor.” By prioritizing which qualities are important and which are ideal, you’ll discover what you’re absolutely unwilling to accept and where you’ve got some flexibility.

Be Flexible

Don’t be overly specific when you think about your ideal partner — such as wanting “tall blondes” or “no bald guys.” Celebrate individuality and be open to new possibilities.

You could end up ruling out the woman or man of your dreams simply because they have the wrong hair color or are a few hairs short. Remember, it’s a wish list, and nobody’s perfect. Over the coming months, it will change and grow as you discover what’s really important to you in a relationship. Remain flexible and open with your “ideals.”

Fools Rush In

One of the biggest dating mistakes many singles make is when people are in too much of a rush to settle down. Disaster! They hook up with the first compatible person who comes along, instead of dating several people and then making a powerful choice as to what’s best for them.

Give yourself time to choose. The dating experience teaches you a great deal about what’s really important to you in a partner and what you have to offer. By observing yourself, you will gain new insight into how you react to different situations, and which problems you bring into each relationship. It’s only when you are inside the dynamic of a relationship that you can truly discover these things — otherwise it’s all “in your head.”

Listening and The Law of Attraction

There are so many different potential applications to the Law of Attraction that one could easily get confused and even lost in all of that potential. Experimentation is the most fruitful method of learning to apply anything and especially the Law of Attraction.

One area of interest to me is in how our listening affects that which we attract to ourselves. I define listening as something heard, felt, read or observed. We can listen to our surroundings by observing, listen to someone speaking by hearing them, listen to a writer by reading what they’ve written or listen to ourselves by being aware of how we feel.

There are many more examples, can you name a few?

Most people believe that listening is a very passive action however; my experiments have shown me that it is something quite different. Listening is a dynamic action and when we do it deliberately we affect how we experience our lives in a profound way.

Most of us are quite rational in our thinking so a little proof might be in order. Try this: The next two people you come across in your day listen to them deliberately. When you encounter the first person, make a conscious decision to listen to them as though they are the world’s greatest leader. Take just a second or two and imagine how you would feel if you were talking to a world leader. Then listen to that person and pay attention to how you hear what they say. Is it different then how you usually hear them?

When person number 2 shows up, make the conscious choice to listen to them as though they are the funniest person you have ever met, taking a few seconds to imagine laughing a belly laugh. Now pay attention to how you hear what that person says. The expectation that person number 2 will be funny should provide for a few good laughs.

Assuming your little experiment was successful (and if it wasn’t just keep repeating it, it may take a little practice) imagine for a minute what might change around your house if you started listening to your teenager or spouse differently.

It’s also useful to remember this when you are out and about in the world. Often times people wait in line at the customer serve desk anticipating that the clerk on the other side of the desk will be distant and not very helpful. Well guess what happens when they get to the clerk?

How we listen to people is just as much an intention as anything else. And often we decide how to listen to people (or our environment, ourselves or a writer) out of habit. If a child is normally mouthy, as soon as he begins to speak most of us would just fall into our habit of listening to him as a disrespectful kid. What would happen if we listened to that same child as if he were brilliant, or gentle or full of creativity?

We can attract the behavior we want from others; we just have to make the choice to listen to them differently. It is the most allowing place we can be when we hear people in a way that they don’t normally show up.

Want to change the world? Try listening to it differently!

Methods of Self Control

Before you go to sleep tonight, ask yourself that are you happy? What is your true calling? Think for a moment and the results will still probably surprise you. In the race to move, ahead in life you have neglected your inner self. You are juggling so many things at once that you have no time to interact with yourself. You may posses all the ingredients that make you socially successful.

However, there is hollowness and emptiness in your life that does not allow you to enjoy life. A spiritual deficit engulfs you because of which you do not have peace and serenity of mind. You spend money and time and travel to distant places to discover the peace of mind. However, the truth is that no one can provide you calmness of mind, the key to controlled mind lies within you. You seemed to have exchanged your life and true happiness with materialistic accumulations.

A person who possesses latest gadget and has designer wardrobes is socially considered successful. An individual today has postponed his living, his priorities includes a high package job, latest car and mobile. However, the irony of your life is that he may own the latest phone but has no time to talk to his family members. You are so busy in your life that with each passing day you are getting trapped and losing on the moments that could provide you true happiness. You can simplify and add happiness to your life by adopting some techniques. It will improve the quality of your life and provide you peace of mind.

Start appreciating the beautiful gifts of nature like rainfall, blooming flowers, sunrise and sunset. Observing them will give you a sense of calmness and you will fell happier. Happiness lies in these little things of life. Stars, dew studded flowers and different shapes of moon teach you a very important and basic lesson in life that nothing stays forever. It is advisable that you learn the lessons from the past and then move ahead.

Always focus on your present keeping future in mind. Oscillating between past and present leaves no time to focus on the present. You should keep experimenting things and never be scared of failure. Failures teach you lessons in life and by experimenting new things; give space to your creativity. This leads to deeper understanding of the self and leads to fresh ideas.

Exercising regularly releases the negativity from your body and keeps you healthy. It is advisable that you exercise in the park as keeps you close to the nature and allows you to enjoy the chirping of bird, rising sun and dew studded grass. Because of focusing on the beauties in the surroundings, you become more positive and happy.Music is a great healer and a stress buster.

Listening to music can bring your stress levels and charge you for day. It creates a positive aura around you and keeps you energized. Meditating is a great method that can be used for connecting with your self. It can be done at any corner of your home, you are required to sit cross-legged and eyes close. It must be done at same time everyday and at same corner.

Planning your life on a weekly or monthly basis gives a direction to your life. It helps you in prioritizing your schedule and focusing on important aspects of your life. It is advisable that you break your difficult goals into short-term goals. For instance if you wish to save 10000 dollars annually, break down your saving plan on monthly basis. It will make your saving plan realistic and successful.

Personal Development with a Purpose

There’s an old saying that goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any path will take you there.” The same is true of personal development. Everyone who starts down the path of personal development wants to grow – to evolve into something more than when they began their journey. But figuring out just what path to take when you set out is a major challenge in and of itself.What exactly does that mean? Most of us have some sense of the meaning of the term “legacy.” The common use of this word is backward looking.

Take this question: “What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?” In this case, a legacy is something like the achievements we’re known for when we’re gone. But this backward looking sense of a legacy is just a small part of what I’m after when I talk to clients about their legacy.

After all, we’re not planning for their funeral here! The reason why I use the word “legacy” is that it focuses our attention on the whole picture and purpose of our lives. It’s fantastic to have career goals, financial goals or relationship goals, but often times we tend to ignore the other aspects of our lives in favor of pursuing those particular achievements. This imbalance inevitably slows down our growth and frequently results in all sorts of health problems.True personal development requires a holistic approach, one in which you’ve set out the ideal picture of your life and developed a goal structure that supports that the achievement of that total life goal.

Because a legacy just is your complete life’s goal, having one is a crucial step in taking a holistic approach to personal development.So one fantastic benefit to having a legacy is that it can help you to create and organize goals. It provides you with the ideal towards which all your efforts in life are directed. But having a well thought-out legacy offers so much more. As with any other project, there will always be distractions while you are working on yourself. We have habits to overcome, patterns of procrastination, people who need our time and energy, and so forth.

The power of a legacy is that it can provide a very powerful tool to conquer those habits, steer clear of the procrastination, and to meet the needs of those around us with out getting diverted. In fact, the reason why these diversions can have such a pull on us is because we don’t have any particular force guiding us in a direction that we truly want to go. But when your day is built around your legacy, those distractions become impotent.

The short term pleasures that procrastinating offers pale in comparison to the potential of your legacy and as long as you stick to your goals, you’re always one day closer to realizing that dream.Of course, the extent to which your legacy will help you to create and organize your goals, and boost your motivation is going to depend upon how much detail you give to the picture of your ideal life.

This picture of your legacy often develops over a long period of time, but you can get a decent handle on it by thinking about the following lifestyle components:

1) People – what kind of people do you value, feel comfortable with, get excited about spending time with?

2) Passion – what is it about life that enlivens you and fills you with energy?

3) Purpose – what is it that brings meaning to your life or gives you a sense of fulfillment?

4) Responsibilities – what kinds of responsibilities are you comfortable handling in your life, whether they be personal, professional or spiritual?

5) Career – what manifestation of your abilities, purpose and passion would best fulfill your career needs?

6) Values – your values are your needs and desires, ranging from your most basic physical needs to those that dictate your relationships with your friends, loved ones, co-workers and the environment at large. What are your values? This list here certainly isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a good start.

Not only will it help you to fill out the picture of your career, but the relationships you develop with your self and your loved ones. At the C.H.E.K Institute and in my PPS Success Mastery Program we get into much greater detail as we help our clients find and create their legacies on a daily basis.Because this picture you’re developing is your life’s goal, I recommend, just as with any goal, that you write it down. Or, if you are artistically driven, you can draw it, paint it, sculpt it, or make it physical in whatever way works best for you. However you do it, don’t allow your legacy to remain just an idea!

Your legacy will be much more motivating when you can look it in the face each and every day.Knowing that you have a purpose and that you are living your purpose every day is a wonderful thing. It makes me spring out of bed each morning, energized and excited! How many people do you know that look forward to their day, every day, in that way? So take the time to map out your legacy today. You’ll be giving yourself a path to personal development with a purpose and that’s a path to success!

Happiness – Finding True Happiness is Within All of Us

You are not born to be happy just as you are not born to be sad.
Happiness is a choice for you to make, if you understand certain facts about yourself and life generally.

Here are some important facts in relation to happiness, if you understand and accept them you can be happy to.

1. Like Yourself

Many people simply don’t like themselves and feel that this prevents them achieving happiness because they are simply not worthy, and feel inadequate to deal with life and all that it has to offer.

However were all born with potential and were all born good.

However, if you feel you don’t have the art of appearing likeable (even though you are) work on it and learn basic social skills.

Keep in mind there is no reason for you to feel inadequate and like yourself – The first step to happiness is to like yourself.

Know your strengths know your weaknesses and work on the areas that need improvement.

2. Accept Life Is Not Perfect

Life is not all joy and fun, there is despair, feelings of loss and feelings of life is not fair.
Simply accept it’s the same for everyone, but you can make the bad better and remember there is always someone worse of than you, so be thankful to god for what you do have.

Leading on from this:

3. See the Good In All Situations

Even if you are involved in a bad situation, take the positive from it.

What have you learned from it has it made you stronger, wiser and more able to cope in future?

Many people simply change their lives after a bad situation they have encountered and re merge with a new strength and conviction, to change their lives for the better.

You can always find a positive to take from any situation, so make sure you do.

4. Accept People for What They Are

As far as possible try and see the good in people rather than the bad.

Don’t however surround yourself with negative people, if they are a bad influence on your happiness; remove them from your life.

Don’t let another person burden you with their problems, for to long if they can’t sort it out chances are you can’t to and advice them accordingly.

Under no circumstances use up energy in anger, or look for revenge on people who have hurt you, simply move on and learn from the experience.

5. Do What You Really Want To do

Many people are sad simply because they never do what they really want to do.

Now of course, we can’t always do or achieve what we want in life, but if it is within your grasp go for it.

Quite simply it’s better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all.

Many people remain sad because they always “think what if”

Well, you won’t know the answer unless you try and the experience if you fail or succeed will enhance your life in some way.

6. Life Is What You Make It

It’s an old saying but is totally true. Life is not always good to us the same as it’s not always bad to us, but by accepting this fact and confronting life in a positive frame of mind, you really can make life a rich, fulfilling and happy experience.

Creating A Limitless Life

What is a limitless life? It’s a life where you are free to reach your highest potential - a life where negative thinking is powerless to stop you from pursuing your dreams and desires to create a rich and abundant life full of joy and possibilities. It’s a life where you are completely open to seeing those possibilities.

I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. Diane Ackerman

Do you want to only live the length of your life, just plodding along and taking what comes your way? Or do you want to live the width of your life as well, experiencing the fullness of opportunity that life has to offer and always being open to more - more joy and happiness, more peace, more abundance, more love, and more success in whatever way you define it?

1. Take responsibility for your life. This is the only way to go beyond just taking what life brings. You have to claim your life in order to create your own destiny. It’s under your control. Believe it or not, you are the one who decides how to spend each day that you have here on Earth, and you can choose to spend them either in joy or dissatisfaction.

2. Decide what you want. So many people waste life’s precious moments complaining and reciting all the things they don’t want. Free yourself from that trap. Look deep inside yourself and determine what a limitless life means to you.

3. Take action and live now. Stop waiting for tomorrow. Make even a small amount of time each day to either do or pursue the things you dream of. Don’t wait to take action when you could do it now, and don’t assume life will reward you with all you dream of if you’re unwilling to get off your butt to go after it.

4. Learn to quiet and question your mind. Ceaseless and unquestioned thinking is one of the greatest obstacles you will ever face in pursuing a limitless life of happiness, abundance and peace. Your mind and thoughts are tools for you to use to support yourself in your unlimited life. (Think you don’t have time to learn to quiet your mind? Check out my article Meditation in a Busy Life.)

5. Think big and push yourself beyond your comfort zone. This is one of the best ways to keep yourself growing. In life, if you’re not growing then you’re either stagnating or dying. Stretch and reach for a little more than you are comfortable with, a little more than you think is possible and you will often be rewarded beyond what you expected.

6. Continually work at releasing your negative thoughts and feelings. Negativity inside of you in any form is resistance, and resistance sets up limits. When you can free yourself of negativity, you open yourself to new possibilities that were previously clouded by your negative perspective. (For tips, see my long article Overcoming Negative Energy at my website.)

7. Surround yourself with other positive-minded people. Cultivate friendships and relationships with people who are joyous in life and have a positive energy within them. Seek out other unlimited thinkers - they do exist! (And my personal suggestion is to run the other way when you’re confronted by negative complainers - they’ll suck the life right out of you…)

8. Take time to consider why you or your soul are here. Are you here to live a life of misery and complaint, or unlimited abundance in every area possible? Realize that there are some people living under the most difficult conditions life can offer who still manage to create love, joy and peace for themselves.

9. Search for and live your passion. When you find what you truly care about and put your energy into it, you create a a powerful force for breaking through your preconceived limits.

10. Be open to giving AND receiving. Give of yourself in everything you do. Put your values into your life, give your love as freely as possible, support others as they try to create happiness for themselves. And then make sure you are open to receiving all the good that’s coming to you. If you are not open to receiving the best that an unlimited life has to offer, then you will not see the opportunities and gifts before you and they will pass you by.

Life is like a gift in a box, and you have to decide whether to throw it away, leave it sitting unwrapped in the box, or gleefully tear open the box to find the delightful possibilities inside. It’s up to you. Nobody else gets your gift. Nobody else can open it for you.

Are you ready to embrace your gift with gratitude and be open to the unlimited possibilities that await you? Are you ready to live the width of your life fully? Then start today. Don’t wait. Enjoy!

Can You Prepare Yourself to Handle the Bad Things in Life?

Do you ever find yourself turning off the evening news because watching one more story about something bad will shoot your stress level into the stratosphere? Global warming, terrorism, record home foreclosures and of course, murder, crime and scandal are the prevailing stories of the day.

We live in a world where we're constantly bombarded by bad news. While you can't bury your head in the sand and pretend these problems don't exist, can you prevent the state of the world from stressing you out?

Louise Lewis, a ‘self-growth junkie’ and author of the inspirational new book, "No Experts Needed: The Meaning of Life According to You!" believes we can learn to protect ourselves from feeling overwhelmed by negative events. "Many of us, whether we're consciously aware of it or not, absorb all of this bad news and it chips away at our sense of security and balance," says Lewis. "So how do you prevent the state of the world from completely stressing you out? You focus on changing the state of your world and on touching the lives around you in a positive way." For example, if your life is a daily routine of getting up, going to work and then coming home and watching TV each night, you can become isolated. That makes it easy to focus on the very negative things that are going on in the world.

On the flip side, if you seek out opportunities to socialize and show compassion towards others you achieve multiple positive benefits. "When you build bonds with other people it's like weaving a safety net for yourself," says Lewis. "The ability to commiserate and laugh together establishes a healthy foundation for you emotionally. And when you feel anxious about the world-at-large, giving to others can help.

Your giving spirit can simply lead you to talk to someone who looks lonely in a coffee shop. Sometimes chance encounters where you take the time to reach out on a human level can have a profound impact on others-- and yourself."Reaching out to others can be a key coping strategy when things in your own life get rough—and the reality is, they will get rough at some point.

Whether you’re dealing with a divorce, death of a loved one or some other drastic, life-altering event, Lewis believes it is possible to prepare yourself for adversity. “I’m not saying you should walk around in a constant state of anticipation waiting for bad things to happen to you,” says Lewis. “But realistically speaking no one is immune from problems. So if you work on fortifying your life, you’ll be in a better position to handle those major events when they do happen.”So how do you ‘fortify’ your life? For starters, you spend time figuring out what’s important to you—essentially determining what your personal meaning of life is.

If you gain a sense of what matters most in your life and then focus on those areas, you’ll have an anchor when the storm hits.“Deciding your own meaning of life gives you strength and it also gives you a freedom to break down barriers with the people you love,” says Lewis. “Once I began following my own sense of purpose, I was able to talk to my family in a new, more open way. They sensed the honesty of it and it’s changed the dynamics of our relationships. It put history in its proper place- the past. And our improved relationships fortified my buffer zone against the bad things in life.”

Visit www.noexpertsneeded.com for more information

Alternatives to Standing Still

A lot of people who look for guidance on self-help and self improvement are secretly fed up with themselves and their lives. Mainly, they feel they aren’t ‘making progress’ and they’ve come to the depressing conclusion that they’re standing still. They feel as though their lives are going nowhere and they that they are stuck. That may be true, but if they think that standing still is a lazy place to be, where they’re expending no effort, and living each day in a way that involves no energy or commitment, they’re fooling themselves.

Try it. Stand upright, away from walls, tables and other support, and see how long you can manage it. If you’re young and healthy you should be able to stay that way for hours. But observe your body. It isn’t immobile, far from it. It fact it’s constantly moving. Every moment that passes your muscles are making small adjustments, keeping you in balance. Some people say the Sixth Sense is actually balance, and they may be right, but it isn’t an instinct, it’s learned behaviour. When babies start standing up, they aren’t discovering how to be upright. They’re learning how to avoid falling over. They do it be developing a sense of where their body is in relation to up and down, right and left, then learning how to move to compensate for the effects of gravity, dragging them in directions they don’t want to go.

It’s the same with riding a bike. Young people who are in the process of learning how to control the machine often wobble around a lot, sometimes falling off. The problem they have at first is that they think they have to somehow keep still and upright, which – they anticipate - will keep the bike on track. Wrong. The bicycle is constantly moving. The trick is to realise which way it’s going and adjust your posture and the position of handlebars and wheels in tiny ways so that you don’t fall off. Same with roller skates, skateboards or surfboards. People on these devices are continually in danger of falling off. The successful ones are the ones who sense in which direction they’re going and learn how to make the necessary adjustments before the ‘fall’ becomes catastrophic. In a very real sense, you aren’t ’staying on’ a surfboard, you’re simply in control of how gravity is making you come off it. Finally, ever thought about driving a car? There’s no benefit in keeping going in a straight line. You have to follow the twists and turns of the road and then make decisions when you come to junctions. Isn’t that a bit like life?

The sad fact is that it’s easy to think that just because something has become a habit, it’s easy and it involves less effort ‘carrying on’ than changing. Like getting up and going to work at the same job every day. If it’s ‘easy’, then why would anyone ever have a problem dragging themselves out of bed on a Monday morning? And why would a new job, or a move to a new town, or a new relationship, be any less easy than the energy you’re putting into overcoming that ‘Monday morning feeling’? I’m constantly amazed how people seem to think that ‘familiar’ and habitual equates to easier. I worked with a woman who was the proud possessor of a top-of-the-range computer but every month when she sent out mailings, she always wrote out the addresses on the envelopes by hand. It was ‘easier’, she said. Every month, same momentous effort. When I introduce a person to some life-changing activity, they often say, ‘I can’t go to your meeting. I go to Bingo on a Thursday/ wash my hair/ watch Seinfeld’. The sad fact is that we like to think that we are irreplaceable and we couldn’t possibly let our Bingo companions down. They would die without us. Really? Move to a new house, stop going and just see how soon they forget you were ever there. Or miss an episode of Seinfeld. Would he miss you?

However the commitment to TV programmes is routine and familiar and many people mistake that for ‘comfortable’. They don’t realise how much effort it takes to make that rendezvous happen. What about the opportunities that you have to cancel? Someone wants to take you out for dinner that night? Hey, a date with a rich man sounds better to me than an hour observing someone who doesn’t even know you exist. Even if he does make good jokes. What about getting stuck in traffic? How many of us pull out all the stops to ensure we arrive in time for the beginning of the TV we’re addicted to. No, but we’re good at ignoring that. We construct an analysis in our heads that comes down hard on the ‘positive’ side when we’re weighing up the pros and cons of missing our favourite TV show. Then we balance the scales a different way when we’re invited to do something else with our time.

What if we were honest and actually faced facts? What if we appreciated that yes, standing up is an effort in itself. When someone invites you to join the gym, or take a jog, or go on a sponsored run, why not think about the small difference there really is between the new effort and what you usually do, instead of exaggerating that gap? What if, when faced with the chance of a new job or a business opportunity, we actually thought hard about how much we hated our current routine, or our fellow workers, or the boss, or the company, or the hours we’re asked to commit? Sure, the new plan sounds like it needs a lot of energy, but think – think about the amount of energy you’re putting into your current life. Think about how much effort you’re putting into ’standing still’. What you do now costs energy too. It may not seem like that, but only because you know that you don’t have to think about it much.

Here’s a challenge. Next Monday morning, write in your diary: ‘I like my life just the way it is’. Then, as the days roll on, write down every time someone mentions an opportunity to change your job/ the fact that the company might be closing down/ the training the boss wants you to go on, and list the excuses, the manipulations, the negotiations you have to do to avoid all that and ’stay as you are’. And that’s just your job. Do the same with family and relationships. Try the same with where you live, your health and hobbies. Your beliefs. Then, at the end of the week add that all up and try to admit: it takes time, energy and commitment to ’stand still’. Would it really be more effort to do things a bit differently – and start moving?

Happily Ever After the Divorce?

We have all grown up with dreams of the princess bride fairy tale. Every woman, no matter how sensible, has been indoctrinated since birth with Disney-esq. romantic notions about marrying Prince Charming and living happily ever after.

Many women who find themselves in the already turbulent and transition filled midlife years have to face another reality: the gradual decay of the marriage myth which seems to come to a head somewhere right around 50 years old. It seems that when midlife women begin to seek their power and independence, marriage becomes…optional.

* Setting Them Up for Failure

There are two large factors that contribute to the steady rise of divorce rates among the long term marriages of people in their 50s. First of all, many when young succumbed to the popular myths about marriage such as:

* We expect the same things from a marriage. Instead there is often a huge clash when family cultures and expectations collide.

* The good will get better and the bad will disappear. Rather, one learns that you can’t change him/her.

* He will complete me. Instead, what seemed like a complementary fit becomes annoying.

Unrealistic expectations and misguided beliefs about marriage constitute a recipe for dissatisfaction and frustration. The problem that really kicks this issue into high gear is that many women were raised to avoid conflict rather than to speak up when there is a problem. By midlife this has resulted in a mountain of resentments that have been harbored and nursed for years.

* Why Women Leave

Midlife can be a time for serious re-evaluation and assessment of a woman’s life. And it seems that many women in this age group find their marriages to be seriously lacking. According to a study commissioned by the AARP of people divorced in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, 66% of the divorces were initiated by women.

Fully a third of these women considered divorce for 2 years before mentioning it, and 10% gave it at least 10 years worth of thought. While you might think their husbands would be aware, 26% of these men claim they were completely blindsided by their wife’s divorce request.

So why are these women leaving in such numbers? The top reason they give is the need for self-identity.

* What Does This Mean for Women in Midlife?

Clearly there are huge gaps between our expectations of marriage and the realities. There is also a huge communication gap between women asking for what they want and men hearing them.

Finally, there is the ever-present problem of women who give their heart and soul to the nurturing of everyone around them and have nothing left for themselves.

If you are women in midlife, you must learn what it means to take care of yourself. However, reversing a lifelong pattern is a huge challenge. Do you even know what you want? Can you clearly visualize the future you are trying to create?

Coaches for midlife women are very popular right now because there are thousands of women trying to figure out what they want and how to get it.

* What Does This Mean for the Midlife Marriage?

Successful marriages involve partners who support each other in their growth and development. Your part in this equation is to make sure that you have realistic expectations, listen to your own needs and wants, speak your truth and treat yourself as kindly as those around you. Marriages that thrive usually have two partners who don’t try to complete each other; rather they respect each other and their differences.

* What Does it Mean if I’m Divorced?

First of all, studies show that divorced people go on to live as happy and fulfilling lives as those who have never experienced a divorce. Whether you are divorced or married, midlife can be a pivotal time for a woman to reinvent herself and create the life she really wants. And it’s time to pay attention to the needs of her soul.

If you find yourself in these circumstances, surround yourself with supportive women friends. Stop looking and wishing for rescue. Rather find your own solutions. Create a life that is based on your authentic power rather than the myths of childhood.

75% of women who divorce in their 50s will find themselves in an exclusive relationship within two years. But many of these women will not choose to remarry. Neither marriage nor divorce is set up as happily-ever-after scenarios. However, whether it is marriage or divorce midlife presents an opportunity to learn, grow, and take steps to creating the life you really want. That part is no fairy tale and it is about creating your dreams.