Marcel Legros - Play the Game of Life

Here are three tips to help you manage your worries.

1. Examine your expectations to see if you are expecting too much from others or yourself. Times change, so your expectations may not be valid anymore.
2. Explore your options and keep them open. Know there are other possibilities, and you will feel less trapped and more relieved. Options create hope.
3. Live in the present. “What if” questions keep popping up, bugging us about the future, and when that happens, push these aside and stay in the present.
4. Here is a worry management bonus, give yourself some quiet time through meditation, or quiet thought. Research continually proves that the majority of worry related thoughts we have, are things that are out of our control. Work on coming up with alternative solutions to your problems, or what else you can do, if you can’t solve it. Your life will move ahead much faster and you will enjoy yourself more in the process.

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Most of us find our place in adulthood. Our confidence grows with our experiences, and if we’re lucky, the self limiting labels created in childhood fall away.

Even positive labels create negative consequences. Any behavior contrived to elicit a response, to maintain an image, or to pump up the ego, is not authentic. It perpetuates the notion that we require props to be of value; that we have to defend our existence. No-one can diminish who you are by their opinion of you.

Peace comes when the urge to defend yourself falls away and is replaced by compassion.

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You are bigger than your problems. Problems come at you in one area, but you have many areas to pull from to overcome them. You might have a physical problem, but you not only have your body, but also your brain to help overcome it. You might have a financial problem, but you have your body, your brain, your personality, your support groups, your education, and so on. Problems can seem overwhelming, but step back and ask yourself what resources you have at hand to begin to work on them.

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Each day the media floods us with bad news, because bad news sells, and those of us looking for good news are in the minority. So you have to be your own TV show, your own newspaper, etc. Keep you eyes open for positive, uplifting stories, so all the bad news people want us to hear, doesn’t carry you away. You will keep your spirits up and be able to stay motivated to accomplish the things you want to in this life. Cut down on the amount of news you take in, particularly first thing in the morning, or just before you go to bed. The news in newspapers, on radio and television, etc, tends to be negative and is probably things you can’t control anyway. Negative news of this type, saps your energy, makes you nervous, etc, and rarely has any positive use. So to keep your morale and productivity up, limit the amount of news you take in during the course of the day.

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If you think it is difficult to do the right thing with your life, think about how difficult it will be to live your life doing the wrong things. Many people think doing the right thing is hard, and I agree with them, it is hard. On the other hand, doing the wrong thing seems easy, but boy, oh boy, does it get hard fast. And undoing the wrong thing seems to take a lot more time and energy than we thought, all the while taking this effort away from doing the right thing. So before you go for that easy, comfortable wrong thing, take a second look at what will be involved in undoing it, and then do the right thing. Believe it or not, doing the right thing turns out to be doing the easiest thing.

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1. When I meet my soul mate, I’ll be happy.
2. If I wasn’t feeling sick, tired, and in pain, I’d be happy.
3. My dream wedding will make me happy.
4. If I have children, they’ll fulfill me.
5. If only I didn’t have children, I’d be free to live my life and be happy.
6. If people understood me, everything would work out.
7. I need more money before I can do everything I want to do.
8. If my boss wasn’t such a jerk, my life would be great.
9. If I didn’t have to do this mind-numbing work, I’d be free.
10. If I was less attached to money and more spiritual, I’d be happy.
11. I need more time before I can be happy.
12. If I wasn’t afraid of taking big risks, I could live my dreams.
13. If I was better looking and in better shape, I’d be happy.
14. If people took me seriously, I could be happy.
15. If this tragedy hadn’t happened, I’d be happy.
16. When I break free from alcohol and drugs, the freedom will make me happy.
17. When I get to have a stiff drink, or drugs, I’ll feel great. I’ll be happy.
18. One day I’ll become enlightened, and have lasting peace and serenity.
19. I’ll be happy when I’m recognized for my great ideas.
20. I’ll be happy when I retire, travel, and can take it easy.

Tomorrow Never Comes

We all hope for enough time to make all the right things happen so that we can finally be happy. We think that if we collect more happy moments, one after the other, we’ll find peace. Unfortunately, bad things happen to even the happiest and most successful people.

Don’t wait for the perfect moment when you will finally find lasting happiness. Decide to find it now, right from where you stand.

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When things get crazy and life feels too much, I look forward to tomorrow and live today. Things might not get better tomorrow, but there is the great promise that it can. Maybe it will get worse - I don’t know. What matters is that I live today because there is no other time to live.

Nothing Can Harm You

When I’m experiencing pain or negativity I use try to remember to use my secret weapon - I imagine I’m a ghost. I let every emotion and experience pass deeply into me, and then through me, as if I’m perfectly invisible. I don’t ignore my pain but actually welcome it. I try to feel the pain as deeply as I can muster. Once I’ve felt it, I let it pass through and move on to whatever comes next. There is absolutely no emotion in this world that can harm you if you allow it to be, and then let it go.

Feel deeply, rinse, repeat…

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Change things, or accept things as they are. These are the only two choices you have when something is bothering you. Try to find at least something to change about something that is bothering you, even if you can’t fix the whole thing. Taking action on something gives you a feeling of being in control and boosts your morale, plus puts you on the path to fixing it. If you have to live with the situation, find some things about it that are positive, no matter how hard you have to look, and gradually you will begin to accept it. Whatever you do, the key thing is to do something, rather than just float along aggravated.

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Dealing with distractions is a life skill we all need to master. I’m working on it myself, right now. I have an idea and I want to create a killer article but a car alarm goes off across the street, a good tv show begs for my attention, my cat wants to be fed, and I have to get my laundry done for work tomorrow. I’m distracted and I can’t focus. We’ve all been here, haven’t we? How do some people stay focused and calm while others are mired in multitasking hell - distracted, annoyed, and irritated?

No matter who we are or what we do, there will always be distractions. Even when we are completely removed from outside distractions, our mind is like a crazy monkey, frantically jumping from thought to thought. The outside world is simply a reflection of what’s going on in the inside.

You’re drifting off to sleep and you hear:

* a dripping kitchen faucet.
* ocean waves crashing on the beach.

People love the sound of ocean waves crashing on the beach. It’s relaxing, isn’t it? So why does the quiet little drip in the kitchen drive you insane when you’re trying to sleep?

Expose Your Thoughts With Bare Attention

If you want to begin honing your powers of concentration, the best tool is insight meditation. Insight meditation is also know as Vipassana in the East. Here’s how it works:

* Find a quiet spot to sit or lay down. Close your eyes. Take a few breaths and draw your attention to your thoughts.
* Thought flows fluidly and rapidly from one to the next - it moves like water. I suppose that’s why people call it ‘stream of thought.’ Some are loud and plaintive and some are quiet like whispers. Listen to them all without judging. As they come and go, don’t resist new thoughts or hold on to old ones. Let them flow like a river.
* Pay close attention to your stream of thoughts as if you are watching a movie. You’re mind will wander and suddenly you’ll notice you have no idea where your attention went. It’s normal to lose your attention. When you notice it, just bring it back to your thoughts. It takes practice to maintain attention for any length of time - it develops with time. Gently but firmly bringing your attention back when it drifts away will strengthen your concentration skill better than any other method.

This practice is simple and can be done often throughout the day. I challenge you to try it for one week. It’s a real eye-opener as you learn what really makes you tick.

Vipassana is usually practiced as a formal sitting or walking meditation but I find it most helpful while I’m busy and life is at it’s craziest. Be mindful of what your thoughts are doing. What kind of monologue is going on in there? When I’m trying to focus and getting distracted, why do I want to kick the cat or yell at my loved ones?

Becoming mindful can be peaceful, alarming, and enlightening all at the same time. We all have repetitive patterns of worry, planning, resentment, anger, desire, want, and fear. Allow them to be, just as they are - you don’t have to do anything. If you scrutinize your mental distractions, they become calm and eventually disappear over time. You’re only truly in control of one thing - your mind. If you are in control of your own inner world, there is no distraction you cannot conquer.

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The old boy scout motto “Be Prepared” is one of the most overused yet overlooked foundations of success. It’s amazing how a trite, two word statement can have such an impact on your present and your future. Here are a 8 ways you can “be prepared” for almost anything:

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