How to control your emotions

According to the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, we are dominated by the instinct of aggressivity. It easier for human being to plunge into negative than positve. By nature, we tend to be sad than happy. If you are not sure about this tendency, do a simple assessment text of yourself.
Try to take mote of how many times during the day that you think or act positive or negative, if you could keep tract, you will find out that this assertion conveys some truthfulness.
The problem is that the state of negativity always has physical and mental effects that are detrimental to our well being in general and also can influence our success in life.
        Thanks God we possess the ability to control our emotions
Here are some insights or techniques you can use to reverse that natural tendency.
  When you feel sad, mad or negative for whatever reasons;
 - Don't listen to sad songs, listen to upbeat and jovial songs
 -Don't spend the little energy you have to wallow and bemoan your state, go for a run or exercise and you will feel better afterward.
  -Don't call a friend who is as negative as you are , it would only deepen your state, call the one who is always happy
  -finally ,let your mind wander back to a memorable positive experince you had in the past, remember the time and space, the weather of that moment, the smell, the sound, who was there with you , remember exactly how you felt that day. it would all come back to you as though it was yesterday.
     Try to aply any of this , yo will feel and enjoy the benefits of being positive.

Monday anxiety tips

Monday Malady solution cont..

                  There are many people out there who have problem with mondays.
Few months ago, i ran into an acquaintance in line to get my hot chocolate at the coffe shop and when i asked her how she was doing. she responded " it's Monday". Deja vu, i thought i've heard this answer before. We continued with our chit-chat, to my great surprise,she blurted out how she hates her job, how it makes her miserable, her tone was filled with resentment and disapointment. By the way she was a lawyer and really practiced law.
               My friend case is not unique as there are many poeple who really loathe monday especially those who work monday through Friday. All of them share one thing in common.; they hate their jobs; simple.
             Now i am going to share with you what i shared with my friend.
- The first thing is to find your passion and do that you love and you will find out that Monday only exists to mark a day in the calendar rather than the day that contributes to shorten your lifespan.
( i will elaborate more on this point in another blog)
- The second thing is to be aware that the current situation(job) is not permanent especially if you are working in making the first to come to pass.
- The third is to start your monday or any other day with a positive midset; there are some physical and mental exercise you can do ;
  . One example is to belly- laugh even for no reason first thing after you wake up. It may sound silly but it is a workable exercise vouched by Zen Buddha practitioners.
  . Also you can openly say to yourself that it is going to be a great day today. It is like a command you send into the universe to bring greatness in your day. It is known to be a powerful and magical statement that always brings a positive outcome.
These are just a few example you can employ to change the course of things on Monday or in your life.
 As of today, my friend doesn't practice law anymore, she went back to school to be a teacher of Elementary school; her dream.
Try it and let me know after all you are not loosing anything.
       

The Monday malady solution

              Do you know that most cases of heart attack in America happen on monday,
and between 8 AM and 9 AM when people are getting ready to go to work?
I am quite sure you've never heard of this, but that is unfortunately true.
We may scientifically tend to attribute many causes to the occurrence of heart attack, namely age, angina, blood cholesterol, diabetes, diet, gene,  physical inactivity and  smoking just to mention a few, that is correct. But these are also known as contributing factors.
I usually take it to the street or wherever i engage a conversation with people going to work on monday morning. It strikes me funny how people really feel that specific moment of the week, The collective response is " it's Monday". The fact is most people who work Monday to Friday hate Monday, simply it's the begining day of the week , they have a whole week ahead of them.
       The problem is, that feeling triggers more and more secretion of cortisol, which is the stress hormones, when built up over time can cause a heart attack.
        Now, why many people hate Monday?
               The truth is, it is not Monday that they hate, it is their JOB.
many people do jobs they don't like.

        What is the Monday malady solution?
                Do what you like and love and you will be able to do it seven days a week with a smile on your face.

 For the time being, will teach you in my next blog how you can surmount the negative feeling and save yourself from the risk of heart attack even if you seem to have no choice as to the matter of the type of job you can do.

No one is successful or are they?

                         The idea of success has always been misconstrued and misinterpreted. There are two dimensions in the concept of success.
                         On the one hand, there is the type of success considered by the society. This type is mostly attributed  to fame and wealth, therefore, is considered successful anyone who achieves certain popularity, namely the sport and movie celebrities, the politicians and others, also anyone who possesses certain wealth. To make a point, i conducted a survey among friends and family members as to name one or two successful individuals that come quickly in mind. The result was spot on, almost all mentioned the president( of the United States) and or a celebrity name. This definition of success by the society is not new in modern time, but has tremendously evolved in adaptation to the advancement of technology and the means of communication. In primitive age and in some traditional societies, successful person was the chief of tribe and the sage namely the elderly because they possessed wisdom and they were well respected.
This type of success, unfornatunate doesn't always guarantee the attainment of life fulfillment
                         On the other hand, there is the type of success that is personal . This is a type that you and i attain when we achieve a specific goal, when we reach a treshold of a milestone longing. This could be a well functoning relationship with spouse,  family, with friends, it maybe the restoration of one's health after a tough and long battle against a grave disease, it could also imply obtaining a good job or being rich, i might also add the fact to impact many people's lives. The idea is, at some point in their life, everyone experiences success, they can attribute any definition of success at whatever situation is applicable to themselves. The dictionary defines success as a favorable or prosperous outcome of an attempt or endeavor. In the light of this definition we should consider ourselves successful in one way or another, but we savour any favorable endeavor only temporarilly and after that we completely forget  that something of significance even happened to us.
                        Why are we so entangled with the idea of looking for success in wealth and fame? it turns out that it is not completely of our doing, we live in the society where individual character and sentiments are deeply buried under the dictatorship of the great leviathan.
                          In order to stay grounded and live a very fulfilling live, we must begin where we are, by considering every simple but significant thing we accomplish in life, recongnizing its value and place of importance in our life and savour them as long as we can. To do this is quite simple; let's be aware and alert, and also consciencious of every journey we embark, of every fight we engage, of every rubicon we reach. let's value the simple thing that otherwise would have no value.
Let's enjoy the moment.
                      

What makes you happy?

                       Here is the challenge. If you want to see a living proof of a happy person, not a camera- induced happiness, i mean a genuinly authentic one characterized by the overpowering smile that no matter what negative mood has taken reign over you, would deeply impact you, then you have to meet me. One of the element of the definition of my person is that of happiness, courtesy of 90% of those who know me or who ever come in contact with me.
                   This brings us to ask what is the definition of happiness anyway. According to wikipedia, happiness is the mental or emotional state of well being characterized by pleasant emotions raging from contentment to intense joy. But at what moment one can claim to be happy .Some people would say that their happiness is linked to money or any desired material possession, others believe that happiness is a choice, that we choose to be happy or not, another category would argue that one is capable of reaching happiness through faith in the Almighty God. No matter where you can find happiness, it it important to understand that it is not a mere button that you press and there ,you are happy. In fact it is quite considered at some point as an ideal to pursuit  This can be easily verified by the fact that there are many wealthy and famous personalities who are proof that money doesn't bring happiness, or even the most fervent believers who are so negative they can enter a dark room and grow. Although anyone has a liberty to define happiness the way it can apply to them, there are certain steps or approaches you can take to really come to term with the idea of happiness.
         There is a number of questions you can ask yourself such as WHO I REALLY AM and WHO I WANT TO BECOME. The answers of these questions helped me choose a direction of my life from where i was. Once i used a number of approaches to would lead me to happiness, i was able to put my life in auto pilot so that even in the middle of  ravaging storm, i remain on top of my game and even impact others in many ways.
            Few years ago i was working as a cashier in a retail store, the manager did what has never been done in the history of that company. He had had my smiling pictures posted everywhere in the store written on the bottom was 'Happiness is contagious". To make matter interesting, many customers took copies of my picture with them. I was so happy to be happy. This experience showed me how i was able to touch people with my happy attitude(smile). It was and it is really contagious. Imagine the feeling you have in changing people's mood with a simple smile. The most rewarding feeling we possess in life is when we help someone else.
To me , my happiness is no longer for my own good alone, it is also therapeudic for others
To be who i am today, i have accomplished some steps to get there and any one else can use the same approach to get there too .
               Freedom;  Realizing that who i am today is a result of the many choices tha i made in the past, made me recognize that i am free to give my life any direction i choose to. For example i am free to respond to any circustances that happen to me, i can choose to wallow, complaint, blame or i can choose to see what is happenig to me as an opportunity and exploit it.
                Hope:  To me, hoping that tomorrow is going to be better makes me happy today
  
               Emotional recall;  When things go awry and we find ourselves drifting away, gasping for a moment of good feeling, we can do the following; Think of a past positive experience, sit quietly and remember the circumstances, where you were, who else was there,what time it was, the sound, the smell and concentrate of what happened and how you felt, feel it as though it was happening again. you will realize that you are enjoying the moment and therefore you become happy at that moment.

Hope in the unseen

                   Scientists hate this term of hope and even more so the expression " hope in the unseen", for good reason if you pretend to be unhuman. We know well the scientific method implies observation, experimentation plus hypothesis and conclusion from the great engenuity of Louis Pasteur. To have hope in the unseen doessn't make the scientific equation.
Now let's see how even the purists of all scientists inadvertently have hope at every area of their  scientific work....
                             Hope can be defined as an emotional state which promotes the belief in the positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life, The point i want to bring out is that hope is part of the states of our mind and that the proper chaneling of this instance of mind can be the origin of much greatness.
Underneath the concept of hope lies the notion of belief which has always been a factor of human survival and at the basis of any succesful endeavour. The fact is we all believe in something and that is absolutely important in any decision making process; for example if i decide to go to school, it is because i come to believe that it would provide me a decent job in  the future, it is the same way we choose among two or more cadidates the one we believe would represent our best interest well. It wasn't at random that Barack Obama, in the run for the highest office in 2008 used the slogan "HOPE",and the results spoke for themselves. What happened was the term aligned with the natural aspiration of the people at the moment that was golden.
                    The idea is one bets on something unsure, uncertain , something that is not tangible. My position is not so much about what happens after hope as to a result of a decision made , but rather what takes place at the moment one hopes, that when the magic appears. the feeling that it creates is so positive ,it is energy, vigor and resilience . That moment of anticipation of a desirable goal is a catalyst of any invention and adventure. Hope can culturally change the nature of things even momenterally. It unites people especially in time of tragedy. When september eleven happened , everybody from all works of life come together as one and hope for a strong and better America. Even just a simple fact of hoping that tomorrow will be better makes today interestingly good to some degree. I am talking about the fact that no situation is permanent. No matter what you are going through or no matter how bad the situation we are in may be, there a lingering belief that it would not last forever.
                 Also the way human operates is anchored by what we know, see, hear or experience. it triggers our belief system. When we know that maybe someone else has been in the same situation and has gotten better it feeds even more the hope we have in getting better too.

The freedom that matters

            What is freedom? or what is it to be free? We use the term for many reasons in many ways. We often employ it in our daily interraction with others so much as it has lost its rightful meaning. We use it sometimes as a safety valve, yet we don't really practice freedom.
             The concept of freedom is as old as the human existence. it has always been at the paramount of all struggles and somehow the justification of much violence. history has shown to illustrate the different moments when freedom has been the reason for war, battle, fight and insurrection. There are always two camps involve in this movements; the oppressors and the oppressed, the masters and the slaves, the authority and the citizens just to name the few important groups. The collectivity of individuals come together to claim what they consider being given by God and inherent to the being. The founding Fathers thought better to include this inalienable human right in the Constitution.
             Now the freedom that matters more is the freedom you possess under any given circumstance. It comes down to liberty. It is a sort of liberty one has when everything else is taken away. Even if you are part of the group of oppressed, slaves or the citizens, there are still a number of things you can do or to put it literally you have a liberty to chose among many options. For example living is a choice, same as eating or breathing,
What is the point here?What we are today is the result of the many choices we made in the past. Whether we are where we wanted to be or not, it is because we freely made some choices that were conducive to where we are now. there are almost always different alternatives to every situation, each one bearing its consequences .
              But the good new is we still possess that freedom to change our situation around. It is imposible to go back in time to chance any choice made, it is history. we can revisite it, we can learn from it, most importantly it is better to learn not to look at today through the lens of yesterday, which makes the promise of tomorrow all the more magical. It is in our reach to change the course of our lives today by making decisions and choices different than those that led us here today. It is possible to choose where we think will be a better direction for our future, and this can be done whether the government in power is democratic or republican or independant, even if the country is in great recession or deep depression. Bottom line is we have the power(freedom) to influence the remaining years of our lives, jim Rohn puts it this way, the same wind blows in us all , it is up to us to set sail right.

The meaning of fitness

           The notion of fitness has undergone different interpretations and alterations as to its definition.
If you a believer of the origin of species, well even if you are not, the idea of fitness was understood as an element of survuval and mating. In the animal world today and even millions years ago , animals who showed fitness were able to survive and even ward off pradators,and more importantly were able to win a mate for reproduction. Female had the power to select the male that is fit and would pass on the good gene to the offspring. Unforntunately or maybe fortunately, depends on where you find yourself in the category, the same reality applies today in the human species and even more so.
            But the idea of fitness wasn't limited only on the physical aspect, as having six packs and all , but it characterized also different aspects of life. A male who were able to bring food to a female was considered by her as being fit, or being able to protect her was an impressive quality in the fit male.
Now the physical quality was such that it was the first factor of attraction, notably the girafe with the longest neck was and is imposing therefore fit, the lizard who could perfom more push ups was the "man".
            Today the definition of fitness has taken a more biological approach while preserving some elements if not all of its primitive meaning. The physical characteristic of fitness still very much a factor of consideration in the mating( relationship) department. The females still have the power to chose the male they think fit. There has been a nuance of reciprocity that males also pick females without any abstraction of fitness a priori.
          The scientific aspect, more precisely the biological aspect of fitness, in human's view, has to do with the wellness of the body. Is fit someone who benefits a well functioning of the body due to some physical activities(exercise) or a proper nutritional value intake.
 In regard to the different elements of the definition of fitness, it has become a culture that has evolved . Through time and space it has evolutionarily lost or gained some elements.
At the end of the day it is only beneficial to human.
So stay fit.

The fitness mindset

             How can one become a fitness master? certainly it doesn't happen by accident. so what is the mindset behind the success in fitness?
             Before getting into understanding this concept, it is important be familiar with another concept.The discipline is paramount to almost every area in life success. Fitness is no exception.
Achieving a goal of fitness requires one to be disciplinary. Sometimes it is necessary to ask some fitness gurus what does it take to achieve one's fitness goal. The experience that i had in dealing and talking with such people lead me to arrive at a simple finding: they think fitness everyday. While this is such a brilliant idea in its simplicity, not many people come to do that. Why is that? simply because we all by nature tend to engage in passive thinking rather than a more creative one. Now i am going to expose the secret behind this mystery. Without going to far, i am going to take an example of myself. Other than litterally going to the gym, every physical activity that i am engaged in, may it be sweeping the floor, climbing flights of stairs, fixing anything at home, i always tune my mind to believe that it is an exercise and that it targets a specific part of my body, and when the mind is focus on that specific of the body even when i am exercising, the result speaks volume. It has always worked for me and most of my clients have found it undoubtedly effective
Also because we eat everyday, it is another way to maintain the fitness mindset . I just watch what i eat especially if i have choice. here , it is quite important to be mindful of the effect of anything consumed, what may contribute to the overall fitness achievement, whether it helps or forestalls the whole operation.  
It therefore must be clear that attaining a fitness goal requires as much physical exercise and careful selection of nutritional intake as the psychological awareness .

fitness and the african

       One of the few first things i noticed when i first came to America was the fact that it was public knowdledge that fitness was undeniably and irreversibly good for you. This was made factual by the way that you could see gyms almost in and around every commercial center in the case of East Coast where i landed and later on , in almost every block in California, you could see people of all age category running up and down in parks without any clear destination in mind or a frequent fitness product advertisement on  television. But what happened to make poeple so trendy about fitness?. was there anything wrong with people here ? the answer is yes if you really understand where i am coming from.
I was born and grew up in Africa. I or any other fellow African, the majority to say the least, we didn't  know what a simple push up is and we don't care even if we know how to do it.
The reality is we are called to engage in fitness by doing our normal daily activities.
You see i grew in the village where the means of everything from transportation to labor are rudimentary or sometime inexistant. The circumstances dictated that we physically engaged in different activities.
Basically our cardiovascular exercises consisted of walking really long distance to go to school, to the farm or to any other place and this happened everyday of the year. The case of school for exemple when i was growing up, the clasees were in two shifts,so i used to make four trips of about seven miles one trip each school day. Until i left the village i didn't remember ever ride on any vehicle. also the running moment came when hunting or when late in class, because we never possessed a clock, it tended to happen often. How could one not burn calories to the bones.

Our strenght exercise consisted of carying heavy things on top of our heads for example getting water from the well at about a mile or two from home or fetching woods for fire or carrying product from the farm sometime at about ten miles. Also working in the farm conditioned me as well, using machettes to cut grass and trees was the brutal arm strenghening method possible, How could one not become strong?

Consequently those normal daily activities are what make the African(me) physically fit with an accompanying factor that the food they comsume comes directly from the farm(organic)

So what is wrong with the people of the West Hemisphere is that they lack those natural activities.
Well i beleive that every individual is free to choose to bring a bit of a natural in their lifestyle.
you can choose to walk sometimes or use the bike rather than driving,
Think fitness when doing even the household activities
Think fitness when playing with the kids.
It is about fitness.