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You are here: Home / Archives for thoughts and feelings

How’s Your Attitude?

August 26, 2020 By Scott "Q" Marcus

The social media meme displays the number “13” who is saying to all the other numbers, “I’m the worst number ever!”

Six-six-six replied, “I’ve got you beat.” Twenty-twenty chimes in, “Contest over.”

One cannot live in times like these without paying the toll.

We internalize our environment, affecting how we feel and even infecting our beliefs; the result is that we view our lives differently than if circumstances were otherwise. As evidence, utilizing an example from the late Zig Zigler, picture your typical morning. Imagine your attitude. Rate it on a one-to-ten scale; most of us land somewhere between six and eight most times. Now, imagine that same “typical” morning, with one aberration: you awake to voice mail from a loved one, “It’s been too long. I’m thinking about you. I can’t wait until we get together. I love you and hope your day is filled with joy.”

It is without a doubt that in scenario two, we’d face the day energized, enthusiastic, and determined. Problems that would have normally knocked us off-trail become insufficient bumps in the asphalt.

Nothing changed — except our attitude. Because it improved, we took on more; facing more upbeat the day ahead, and closing our eyes at night more fulfilled.

Attitude — the complex interaction between feelings and beliefs that affect how we view the world, and therefore how we react to it — matters.

Yet, a question remains: “Is our attitude determined by us or by outside circumstances?”

The honest answer is it’s some of both, but with enough understanding of what determines this mindset, we can wrestle back the reins and become masters of attitude, therefore leading happier, more fulfilling lives — even amid the madness churning around us like a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.

Attitude has nothing to do with logic; it’s more primal; it’s “right-brain” driven.

Therefore, telling yourself (or anyone else) to “get over it” is like trying to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

To up-level attitude, we must dig deep into what we believe as well as how we process emotions.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Beliefs, Change, Happiness, Hope, Newspaper Column, Power of Attitude, Self Talk Tagged With: attitude, attitude change, bad attitude, emotions, happiness, lifestyle change, negative feelings, positive attitude, positive mental attitude, stress, stuck thoughts, thankfulness, thoughts and feelings

Your Feelings are Real

November 3, 2014 By Scott "Q" Marcus

dog-emotions

Whatever you are feeling, whenever you’re feeling it – is real.

Your emotions are as real as your limbs and they have vital functions.

Of the four “primary colors of emotions:”

  • Sadness cleanses
  • Fear and Anger are each designed to protect
  • Happiness builds community and enriches your life

It’s no one else’s right to change what you feel or to tell you you’re wrong. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Group Support, Happiness, Motivational Monday, Power of Attitude, Relationships Tagged With: anger, emotional responses, emotional states, fear, happiness, sad, sadness, thoughts and feelings

I Think Therefore I Become

June 17, 2014 By Scott "Q" Marcus

Next to my bed is a nightstand.

man-in-bed-in-bedroom

I presume that is a common arrangement in many bedrooms. Upon the shelf of the nightstand are many books; this too I assume is widespread.

Like me, I take for granted that many people have three categories of books populating their nightstands:

Some wait to be read. While at a bookstore, the concept between its covers was so striking that I plunked down money, thinking, “I will read that someday.” Alas, “someday” has yet to make its appearance. Being optimistic, I’m sure it will (probably about the same time as when “I get my act together”).

The second classification is books started but still unfinished. Maybe I lost interest, the story was not as expected, or simply “life kicked in.” I could give them away but feel like I betrayed them, (does co-dependence apply to books?) so I pledge to finish reading them in the future. Until that fateful moment, they too shall gather dust.

Finally comes the definitive category: Books completed. Residing here include authors such as Robert B. Parker, Dean Koonz, and Roger McBride Allen. Most are novels because I like to “escape.” However, there is one self-help book I have read over and over again. Although I do not buy into everything she says, You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay is infused with 210 pages of brilliantly simple wisdom (usually the best kind).

Hay’s philosophy, outlined in the foreword, includes:

  • We are each responsible for our experiences
  • Resentment, criticism, and guilt are damaging, and
  • It’s only a thought, which can be changed.

Furthermore, says Hay, feelings are “thoughts that stick.”

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Beliefs, Change, goals, Happiness, Power of Attitude, Psychology Tagged With: book review, louise hay, negative self talk, positive thoughts, self help books, self-talk, thoughts and feelings

The Most Important Question

April 10, 2013 By Scott "Q" Marcus

road-sign-with-question-mark

You followed a passage faithfully through a lush forest, now standing at a fork in that path; one bearing leads slightly northwest, the other, tending to the southwest. Standing at this juncture, you place your hand over your eyes to block the glare of the setting sun, and strain while scanning the horizon. Ahead lays a long, grassy, seemingly endless prairie with hills on either horizon, obstructing your view from where each trails leads.

Yet, you have stood in this place before.

You know with certainty that in one direction lays a picturesque, emerald city, chock-full of light, music, and gladness. In that township is great joy and contentment. Should you opt however for road number two, what waits at its terminus is far less glorious, resembling the ruins of the firestorms of Dresden. There lies darkness and foreboding, sadness and frustration.

Although either direction assures you a safe arrival at your destination, the route to happiness is rocky, long, and hilly; it will require effort. Its alternative beckons with a flat, easy-to-navigate, and well-worn, shorter course.

Which path do you choose?

We’d all like to say that we’d choose the first. After all, look what waits at the end of either. It’s a no-brainer.

Yet, when we analyze our histories, the reality is that too often, we opt for the alternative; the smoother, shorter, easier pathway guaranteed to lead in the end to a sense of defeat and unhappiness.

Let’s examine some real-life situations, shall we?

Stick with your diet for one more hour and go to bed happy and proud, or give in and eat the bag of chips now, berating yourself all day tomorrow for tonight’s poor decision. Which do you choose?

Hold your tongue until you can figure out a more productive way to bring up your frustration to your wife, or let loose with a blast of heated epithets driving a hurtful spike in your most important relationship. Which do you do?

Put $200 away into your retirement fund, knowing it will be out of reach for the next decade, or buy a new TV even though you don’t need one. “A” or “B” please?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Change, Habits, Health, Intentions, Newspaper Column Tagged With: bad habits, emotions, feelings, great joy, happiness, sadness, thoughts and feelings, unhappiness

Radical Forgiveness for the Holidays

November 17, 2010 By Scott "Q" Marcus

The common, accepted portrayal of a happy, joking, and supportive family joyously celebrating around a food-laden Thanksgiving table is definitely not a universal reality.

Some families despise the ritual (and aren’t too keen on one another either); yet they meet year-after-after out a sense of guilt or tradition, jabbing each other with passive-aggressive verbal stabs. Even within families that are indeed content overall, certain members of the clan might resent, or even dislike, one another. They hold grudges over past transgressions or historic bitterness stalks silently beneath a transparent veneer of tranquility.

I point out these realities not with intent of injecting an unpleasant aftertaste to Thanksgiving dinner, nor as some sort of post-apocalyptic view of the holidays. And to be honest, I also do not know percentages of “unhappy” versus “happy” families; maybe it’s minuscule; possibly it’s everyone but you and I. Yet it is true. Moreover, to focus on “how many” bypasses the greater issue: we cannot release these strains until we acknowledge they exist. Once there, we discharge them with a type of thanks.

“Thanks,” you might ask with understandable confusion; “Why would one give thanks for an irritating collection of boorish relations with whom I’m forced to endure boring football games and overcooked turkey?”

In the traditional sense of “giving thanks,” you wouldn’t. However, when one expands the concept of thankfulness, we realize that gratitude and forgiveness are actually the same act. All that differs is the direction in which they are pointed.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: family, Holidays, mental health, Newspaper Column, Power of Attitude, Relationships Tagged With: change, christmas, emotions, forgiveness, holidays, radical forgiveness, thankfulness, thanksgiving, thoughts and feelings

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