The Wonderful Blog Which You ve Never Seen

The concept of forgiveness is one that transcends religion. Every culture in the world has words of wisdom concerning the forgiveness of others. One Chinese proverb reads, “A man who seeks revenge should dig two graves.”

I suspect this has to do with the fact that we recognize the important role co-operation with others plays in our survival and how holding a grudge can be detrimental to our quality of life. For example, you are angry with your co-worker and you react by having a soap opera drama face off with them in the employee break room. Not only has your work environment become strained but say that co-worker gets promoted to higher position and becomes your boss. Your anger has just possibly cost you your job.

But forgotten among all the encouragement and admonitions were the instructions on how to forgive someone. It’s like being given the secret code to a vault full of treasure but no clue as to how to input it. I’ve searched far and wide on the webernet to bring you a few possible combinations that may help open the door to a better life:

1. Acknowledge how you feel. We have been raised in a society that wants people, especially men, to repress their pain and anger. This is extremely unhealthy and only makes things worse. Talk to a trained therapist or a trusted friend about how the situation made you feel. Sometimes all we really need is to vent.

2. Realize that the other person is human and subject to making mistakes. No one is perfect. Repeat. No one is perfect. People can only do the best they can given the circumstances they find themselves in. This by no means is an excuse for poor behavior but realizing that sometimes people trip and fall despite their best efforts will go a long way towards helping you forgive them when they do.

3. Understand that a good portion of humans suffer from Cluelessness. Thus they are unaware of what effect their behavior had on you. Your girlfriend may not know that snapping her gum is intensely annoying because no one, including you, has ever told her. Again this is not an excuse but understanding that sometimes people behave poorly simply because they don’t know any better will help you deal with them.

4. Understand that you don’t know the whole story. In ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’, Stephen Covey describes a situation where he was on public transportation and one of the passengers, a man, was letting his children run wild. Finally, Covey spoke up. The man apologized saying that he was a little off center because his wife had just died. Though we like to think we are the center of the universe, people have other things going on in their lives besides their interactions with us and sometimes our negative experiences with someone is just our misfortune of being sucked into the aftermath.

5. Put it in perspective. Sometimes we make a huge deal out of a little thing. Is it really worth it?

6. Become aware of your thoughts and try to neutralize counterproductive ones. Despite understanding the previous tips we still feel anger or have thoughts of revenge. When that happens try to refocus that energy into something else such as a hobby or a random act of kindness to a stranger. What you are trying to do is make something positive come from something negative which in the end will make you feel good.

7. Understand that forgiving someone is a purely selfish act and that if they benefit from your forgiving them at all, it is purely coincidental. You are not giving power to those that hurt you, you are taking it away.

The inability to forgive often stems from a feeling of powerlessness and the need to punish those that have hurt us. The victim sits and stews over the injustice done to them as if that will do anything to affect the perpetrator. In reality, the person who hurt you may have moved on with their life or they may not even know that they hurt you. Which means that the only person you are affecting by not forgiving is yourself.

Forgiving someone is not the same as forgetting what they have done. You need to take from the incident the lessons that need to be learned. If a friend steals from you, you should understand and forgive their weakness, however, you should then learn to keep your valuables in a safe place.

Like all worthwhile things in life, learning to forgive takes awareness, effort and patience. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes and the lighter your burdens will be. See for yourself, forgive someone today.

Indigo Black is the founder of The Towne of Blogilepsy, the community for bloggers where they learn the fine art of caring for a blog and connect with like minded adults. She also the administrator of SmutWriter, the place for erotica authors to go to share, and find markets for, their work.

Come to Towne and pick up your free PageRank Graphic.

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It is a well accepted and scientifically proven fact that how we feel mentally and emotionally affects how we act, look and feel physically. Our thoughts and emotions affect how our bodies feel, our facial expressions, and how we act and move. We can all easily identify someone who is angry, or depressed, or happy, by their face, their body language and their overall demeanour.

However, not so well known is the fact that this works both ways. We can actually change how we feel by changing the way we move, our posture and our and facial expressions. Smiling or laughing is a perfect example. It actually takes a lot less effort and uses a lot less facial muscles to smile than it does to frown. Smiling and laughing also make changes to our blood flow and oxygen levels and stimulates our brain. We all know that smiling and laughing make us feel good and change our mood.

What does this means for self improvement? It means that we can choose to change our moods and feelings by changing our physiology.

This may sound too good to be true, but we can very easily experiment. We can choose an emotion or a state, (for example, being shy, timid, and lacking in confidence) and act, move and look the way we would if that was how we really felt. If we let it, this will change our mood and state of mind so we actually feel that way. Then act as if totally full of confidence and on top of the world. Thinking about a time when we really felt this way, or visualising another person who exemplifies these qualities can help. How does that feel?

This may seem like ‘acting’ at first, but it will change our thoughts if we have an open mind and allow it to. This simple method can be used to help put us in a better frame of mind any time we choose. We can actually ‘act’ our way to more positive thoughts and feelings by changing our physiology. More details are available from Neuro Linguistic Programming Specialists and other Self Improvement Experts, who use these and many other similar techniques that can help our lives.

Self Improvement Tips Quote of the Day

” We must all realise that emotion is created by motion. The way we move changes the way we think, feel and behave” - Anthony Robbins

Garry Zancanaro is the founder of Self Improvement Directory, a website dedicated to Self Improvement and Personal Development, and to helping people live more successful and fulfilling lives by providing a directory of the highest quality Self Growth resources available. Includes many FREE eBooks and much more. Visit http://www.SelfImprovementDirectory.com/

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I frequently like to think about where I am in my life and the things I’ve done - and the things I would still like to accomplish in whatever time I have left here on this old planet. A few mornings ago (I like to do this kind of thing in the morning with a big, hot cup of coffee) the question popped into my head, “What should I focus on next?” Now I’ve been at this personal growth stuff long enough to know that it’s not particularly easy to conduct an honest self-evaluation. The information has a tendency to get skewed because of our already built-in mental programming or filters. Then I remembered a technique that can usually help point us in the right direction. It’s one simple question. “What’s your trigger?” What do other people do or say that is bothersome to you - or even hacks you off completely? What hits your hot button?

In less than three seconds, I had my answer. My trigger is people making statements about a situation, event or concept which they present as 100 percent fact even though it is “obvious” they don’t know what they are talking about. Hmmm, it looks like there is a whole bunch of information - for me especially - in that sentence, doesn’t it?

Part one: Some time ago, a good friend - and boss - made the following observation. “Sometimes when people don’t know what they’re talking about - it shows!” Even though at the time he was referring to a co-worker, I also think it was a nice way for him to pass on a tidbit of important information to me too. And he was absolutely right. It can be a huge mistake to pass on erroneous information to any person or group of people who just may know more about the subject than we do. Occasionally we do this simply because we really think we have all the pertinent information about a topic. Once in a while though, we wind up “shooting from the hip” for one reason or another - and yes, often it is because our logic processes have provided us with what we feel is an accurate assumption. At times, we can even become so damned cock-sure that our opinions are correct that nothing - absolutely nothing - any other person says or does will change our mind. We’re right and that’s all there is to it!

Occasionally, we do it just so we can feel included - a contributing member of a group who is capable of conversing intelligently on the current subject. “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.” Yeah, there are also times when we tend to manipulate the information a bit so we can promote our own personal agenda and prompt our own desired outcome to a situation.

Sometimes we succeed in our efforts. Sometimes we don’t. The main variable in this of course, is that we never know who might be around that really will know more than we do about something. Sort of puts this in the category of verbal Russian roulette, doesn’t it?

Part two: Here’s where it gets downright personal. I learned some time ago - or thought I did anyway - that the more information I’ve absorbed over the years, the dumber I’ve gotten. It’s not that a whole bunch of the stuff that I thought I knew was completely incorrect. It’s just that I’ve come to realize there’s always more to know, more to think about related to any given subject. Details that I may not be aware of. Other possibilities to consider. What I write in my blogs and articles is only what I think I know right now. It could be different tomorrow.

It’s good to be aware of this, right? So why the hell then, when I’m talking with a family member about a particular subject, do I act as though I’m the world’s leading authority on this topic? I become the resident friggin’ expert - as I shoot from the hip and sort of think there’s a reasonable level of accuracy in what I’m saying but have no way to prove any of it. Nah, I don’t use this approach all the time. Just often enough to be annoying to the both of us involved in the conversation.

Maybe I’m trying too hard to assume a leadership role. Maybe I think that by being the perceived “authority” I can gain more respect (which of course, is so well deserved considering my vast accumulation of knowledge and abundance of wisdom). Or maybe I’m just being a butt-head. That’s probably more likely the case, huh?

Anyway, it’s something I need to work on. I need to remember that when I express an opinion, it would be best if I specifically say “This is just my opinion” - or “I’m not 100 percent certain about this, but it looks as though.” Or maybe even “Beats the crap outta me - but here’s a possibility” I think this approach would make life a little easier for all of us.

So it looks like I have my next self improvement project all laid out. What about you? Just check your triggers

Gene Simmons, through NuPathz.com, provides an easy reading self-help blog, articles, quotations, thoughts and links along with affordable personal growth and self improvement books & materials - all designed to help folks find the road to a more enjoyable lifestyle, to pass on some of life’s “secrets for survival” in a chaotic world & offer a few smiles along the way. It’s a down-to-earth, simple approach to discovering a better life. You can visit Gene at http://www.nupathz.com/

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