A Major Cause of Stress

Discover that stress is NOT being caused primarily by people or situations, but by your own thoughts and actions.

We tend to think of stress as something that occurs because of outside events, such as having financial problems, relationship problems, health problems, or from having too much to do. Certainly events such as these are challenging, but they are not the actual cause of stressful feelings.

Stress Is An Important Message

Stress is your inner guidance's way of letting you know that you are thinking thoughts or taking actions that are out of alignment with what is in your highest good, or that you are trying to control something that you cannot control - such as how people feel about you or the outcome of things. Stress may also be letting you know that something in your body is out of whack - you are on medications or substances that are affecting your brain and causing the stress, or you have eaten foods such as sugar, processed, or pesticide-laden food that is causing brain toxicity, leading to feeling stressed.

When you are operating from your wounded self and trying to control something over which you have no control - such as others' feelings and the outcome of things - your stress is letting you know that you are hitting your head against a wall and not accepting reality. The opposite of stress - inner peace - is the result of accepting what is, learning to take loving care of ourselves in the face of what is, and practicing gratitude for the big and small blessings on this incredible journey of life - even in the face of all the challenges. And as many of us have experienced, gratitude offers us a stress-free way to manifest what we want, and works far better than trying to control others and outcomes,

Beyond Stress

Wallace Wattles, the author of the 110-year old book, "The Science of Getting Rich," states that "Man [and woman] may come into full harmony with the Formless Substance [this is what he calls God] by entertaining a lively and sincere gratitude for the blessings it bestows upon him [and her]. Gratitude unifies the mind of man [and woman] with the intelligence of Substance, so that man's [and woman's] thoughts are received by the Formless Intelligence through a deep and continuous feeling of gratitude." He states that when you frequently contemplate the mental image of what you want, "coupled with unwavering faith and devout gratitude," you set in motion the creative forces of manifestation.

Your stress is letting you know that you are doing the opposite of this - you are using your thoughts to create what you don't want and to try to control others and outcomes rather than to co-create with Spirit.

The major challenge here is about being in faith that all of this is true. You might know that this is true from the perspective of your loving adult, but your wounded self likely doesn't believe it. It is very easy for the wounded self to come in with thoughts of bad things happening, which moves you out of faith and gratitude and into stress. It is very easy for the wounded self to focus on how to try to have control over others and outcomes, which will always create stress. It is very easy for the wounded self to turn to junk food and other substances that bring the body out of balance and cause stress. It is even easy for the wounded self to try to use Inner Work and gratitude as a way of controlling God! It is so important, when opening to learning and moving into Gratitude, to make sure that your intent is to be loving to yourself and others, WITH NO OTHER AGENDA, rather than using Inner Work as just another way to attempt to control others and outcomes.

Stress Is Your Friend

Stress is your friend in that it is instantly letting you know that you are off track in your thinking and/or behavior. Instead of ignoring your stress or pacifying it with various addictions, which will ultimately cause more stress, why not do Inner Work and attend to it with a deep desire to learn about how you are off track?

When you really think about it, it is strange that our society tries so hard to get rid of stress with medications and addictions, instead of learning what it is trying to tell us. When you really get that stress is your guidance's way of telling you that you are "off the mark," (in the original Aramaic Bible, sin is translated as off the mark) in your thinking and/or behavior, you will attend to what you are doing to create it, rather than ignore it or try to get rid of it.

https://ezinearticles.com/?A-Major-Cause-of-Stress&id=9982042

How to Manifest Faster With Law of Attraction - Real Life Tips You Can Use

If you are using law of attraction to manifest something you would like in your life and wonder if there is a way to make that process happen faster here are a few tips you can use to make things manifest faster in your life.

So you have picked out your desire or goal that you would like to happen. You have been using visualization, affirmations and practicing gratitude in your life, but you are still waiting for your desire to appear. Where is it? Why is it taking so long?

If you want your manifestation to appear faster you have to detach from it. Of course you still want your desire to appear in your life but you can not be stressed or worried about it, this will only defeat everything you're trying to do. Manifest faster with law of attraction

When you come from that frame of mind you are actually attracting exactly what you don't want, you're pushing your desire away from you even further. What you are actually doing is attracting the lack of your desire because that's really what you are thinking and feeling deep down.

When you worry about a desire and why it is not coming you are thinking of the lack of it and that's what you're going to attract more of. You need to think about what you're thinking about.

Sometimes I will tell people you need to completely detach from your goal. When you detach and let go you are no longer worrying about achieving your desire or goal and then, coming from that frame of mind, it will appear.

Think about the last time you needed a job really bad. You worried about it, stressed about it because money was not coming in and so on. You visualized and used law of attraction to get a job and eventually you did. What happened next? I can almost guarantee you had a flood of offers come in, all at the same time.

Why did that happen? It is because you let go and released your goal or desire and were no longer worrying about it. You detached from it. The universe still knew you wanted it and was now ready to deliver it to you because NOW you were in the perfect frame of mind... feeling like your "already had" what you wanted... because you actually did... therefore the flood of offers poured in.

This is why you need to FEEL, THINK and ACT like you ALREADY have something in order for it to come into your life. Law of attraction works very fast and efficiently if you can get into this frame of mind.

I've seen the same thing happened many times in other situations when people let go. Let's take for example you are single and looking for someone you can date. You go on all these online dating sites write your profile, go on many dates but still nothing is working out.

You eventually meet someone that is a perfect match for you and soon after that you meet three other people that you would like to date at the same time. Feast or famine, isn't that the way it always works out? It's because you are no longer attached to your desire and are coming from a better frame of mind in other words you are aligning with your desire and now the universe can deliver, and boy does it deliver sometimes.Tips to speed up manifesting with law of attraction

Some of you are worried about getting an ex back in your life. You worry and get stressed about it, can't sleep and miss them so bad you can even eat sometimes. What do you think this is going to bring you more of? You are basically showing the universe with law of attraction this is what you want.

It's not what you want of course but this is the way the universe works. You get what you think about and feel about. This is the language of the universal mind and this is how law of attraction really works.

You think and worry about what you don't want and that's exactly what you're going to get. Law of attraction and the universe knows no difference whether it is good or bad it just delivers what you are showing it.

I hope that helped explain how law of attraction works to some of you that are new to this. You must only think about things you want because this is what you are going to get.

Another way to speed up the process is to use meditation. Meditation is a simple process where you sit quietly and think of nothing, you completely shut off your mind and relax. While it is a simple process, it takes a little practice to shut your mind down. I will do another post on it shortly.

Meditation can speed up the process of law of attraction because you are no longer thinking or worrying about what you do not have, you just stop thinking for a while and give yourself a break. The universe knows what you want already and by meditating and shutting your mind off you can connect with a higher power. This is where inspiration and great ideas come from.

Another process you can use to speed up the process of law of attraction is to use subliminals. I recommend making your own, in your own voice, tailored exactly to your needs.

Subliminals will speed up the process of manifestation the same way meditation does by shutting off your thoughts, putting you into a very relaxed state where the subliminals can seep into your subconscious mind and change your beliefs, they are very powerful if used correctly.

Affirmations, mind meditation, visualizations, gratitude journals and all other methods of law of attraction basically have the same purpose and that is to change your deepest beliefs. That is why I always recommend using subliminals they can really speed up the process of manifesting your desires.

I' am going to repeat something again and that is "think about what you're thinking about" then ask yourself is this what time want? Because what you are thinking about is what's going to appear in your life, like it or not.

http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Manifest-Faster-With-Law-of-Attraction---Real-Life-Tips-You-Can-Use&id=9353730

Practicing Gratitude Can Increase Happiness by 25%

Psychological research finds that people’s happiness levels are remarkably stable over the long-term. Whether you win the lottery or are paralysed from the neck down, after about three to six months you’ll have returned to your usual level of happiness. While these findings are deeply counter-intuitive, they also raise a serious problem for those wanting to increase levels of happiness permanently.

A possible answer comes from recent research in the psychology of gratitude. Yes, you read that correctly – being thankful might be the key to raising your happiness ‘set-point’. And there is some good experimental evidence to back up this theory.

Counting blessings versus burdens

In his new book ‘thanks!‘, Dr. Robert A. Emmons describes research he carried out with three experimental groups over 10 weeks (Emmons & McCullough, 2003):

1. The first group were asked to write down five things they were grateful for that had happened in the last week for each of the 10 weeks of the study. This was called the gratitude condition.
2. The second group were asked to write down five daily hassles from the previous week. This was the hassles condition.
3. The third group simply listed five events that had occurred in the last week, but not told to focus on positive or negative aspects. This was the events or control condition.

The types of things people listed in the grateful condition included:

• Sunset through the clouds.
• The chance to be alive.
• The generosity of friends.

And in the hassles condition:

• Taxes.
• Hard to find parking.
• Burned my macaroni and cheese.

Before the experiment began participants had kept daily journals to chronicle their moods, physical health and general attitudes. These was then used to provide a comparison for after the experimental intervention.

Happiness up 25%

People who were in the gratitude condition felt fully 25% happier – they were more optimistic about the future, they felt better about their lives and they even did almost 1.5 hours more exercise a week than those in the hassles or events condition.

All this from reflecting on the pleasure of having seen the sunset through the clouds? Dr Emmons also expresses surprise at the findings of the study, partly because there are some reasons practising gratitude might not be so good.

For example, focussing on gratitude reminds us what we owe to others. This may in turn remind us of our dependence on others and reduce a sense of personal control. Thinking in terms of gratitude may also focus us on the debts we owe to others and, studies have shown, people don’t enjoy feeling indebted to others.

Just the effect of positive comparisons, or really gratitude?

Yet, despite these reasons why gratitude might not increase happiness, it seems that it does. But does the benefit from the gratitude condition simply result from thinking about how we are better off than others?

In a second study, very similar to the first described above, Emmons and McCullough changed one of the control conditions. Instead of asking people to write down any events from the week, people were asked to list ways in which they were better off than others. The idea was that in this condition people are making positive comparisons but are not necessarily thinking gratefully (although it can’t be ruled out!).

Again, though, the results showed that those in the gratitude condition were significantly happier than those making positive comparisons between themselves and others. Unsurprisingly those practising being grateful were also happier than those focussing on daily hassles.

Gratitude can help those with chronic health problems

A good criticism of the first two studies was that they were carried out in undergraduate students. It’s all very well increasing the happiness of young, healthy college students, but what about people with serious, chronic health problems?

In a third study Emmons and McCullough recruited adults who had neuromuscular disorders, often as a delayed result of surviving infection by the polio virus. While not life-threatening the condition can be seriously debilitating, causing joint and muscle pain as well as muscle atrophy. People with this condition have a good reason to be dissatisfied with the hand life has dealt them.

In this study a gratitude condition was compared to a control condition in which participants wrote about their daily experience. After the 21 day study, participants in the gratitude condition were found to be more satisfied with their lives overall, more optimistic about the upcoming week and crucially, were sleeping better. Good sleep is important as it has been found to be a great indicator of overall well-being. People who sleep well are generally healthier and happier than those whose sleep is poor.

Practising gratitude

Even if gratefulness has benefits in the short-term, it still raises more long-term questions. What are the major obstacles to living a grateful life? Can gratefulness really increase happiness over a lifetime? Finally, how exactly can gratefulness be increased? It’s this last question that I’ll be addressing in the next post with Dr Emmons’ top ten methods for practising gratitude.

http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/09/practicing-gratitude-can-increase.php