Ericksonian Principles

Slow and Steady

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Adorable Wins the Race

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When we rush things, it is inevitable that we are going to miss something, forget something and make unnecessary mistakes. But if we take our time at the beginning, we will notice things ahead of time and won’t easily forget and only make fewer mistakes.  When we pace ourselves we are developing a rhythm from within. Pacing ourselves help us to stay balanced and not get overly stressed. Pacing ourselves also help us to complete things.  The rhythm we create within us rewards us with the satisfaction we get from our efforts.

 

 

 

Risk Giving

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Risk

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“In the long run we get no more than we have been willing to risk giving.”— Sheldon Kopp

The more we risk the more opportunities for a better return. We fear risking because of our self-preservation. We don’t want to risk losing something that we hold most important to us.  To risk one’s life is one thing and to risk being criticize is another.  Most of the time our risks are not going to be life threatening. But about taking steps that will help us grow as a person. We have to be willing to risk if we want to see a return, even if we are to experience emotional pain, shame, or ridicule along the way.

 

Fall is Around The Corner

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Winter memories
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Fall is around the corner. Most kids are back in school. The green leaves are beginning to turn yellow, red and then brown. We’re feeling the Indian summer beginning yesterday. Our favorite new season shows this fall is approaching. Summer is winding down. Others are returning to a last minute summer labor-day vacations.  We’re in our 9th month of this year of 2014. It is still not too late to start that new thing or learn something that we’ve been thinking of doing.  Just as there is transition in seasons as there are in life. We change with the seasons.

 

Create Your Own Atmosphere

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Watermelon Welcome Mat

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We don’t have to wait until a change of atmosphere; instead we can create our own atmosphere. It’s like moving into a new office. If we want our office to feel welcoming, then we can put up picture of positive messages or use bright colors to help create a positive atmosphere. Every holiday is an opportunity to celebrate with decorations. Every holiday has a theme. We can do the same in our personal life create a new theme if we’re dissatisfied.  When we create another theme we’re changing the atmosphere. Just simply cleaning the house or doing yard work can create welcoming atmosphere.

 

The Thoughts of Happiness

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Happy.

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“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”— Marcus Aurelius

It is what thoughts we feed that entertain the mind.  So if we think about negative thoughts, then we will feel negative feelings. Instead, if we replace negative thoughts with positive ones, then we will feel positive feelings.  When we have positive feelings we behave positively. If we have negative thoughts, then we can also do something positive to evoke positive feelings.  So we do have within our power to change how we think and feel, just simply by doing something we like. We don’t have to abide by the power of our negative thoughts and feelings.

Stop Trying to be Normal, be Amazing

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Jose really is amazing: Hunts Point, Bronx

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“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.”— Maya Angelou

We want to be normal because we want to fit in. However,  we don’t have to be ostracized by a group of our peers. If we think that we will be ostracize by our peers, then our peers also fears being different. How can we find out how amazing we can be if we are afraid to really be ourselves? We don’t have to hide all our foibles; we just got to accept them so we don’t have to fear rejection from others. Everyday we have the opportunity to know how amazing we can be, if we accept everything about us.

 

When Children Look for Magic

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Magic

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“Children see magic because they look for it.”— Christopher Moore

Children look for magic because it stimulates curiosity. Children want to learn how the magic is done. There is a lot of magic in the world. Magic is things unexplained. When we see magic we only see what the magician want us to see. Magic is like watching our imagination come to life before our eyes. As adults when we see a trick done, we’re in conflict with ourselves because we know there is an explanation to the trick but at the same time we don’t want to know. We want to keep the experience of trick that the magician performed as a mystery. We enjoy a mystery like in a story because we want to know how the story ends and we don’t want to know. It is like magic.

 

Our Vision

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IMG_0386

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“Our vision is more obstructed by what we think we know than by our lack of knowledge.”— Krster Stendahl

Having no knowledge at all is better than what we think we know that’s obstructing our vision.  Sometimes we don’t have a clear vision on things. And we need to step back if we’re too close or move forward if we are too far so we can observe better what is necessary to widen our scope on things.  We know if we have a clear vision on things, when we can see the end from a far. A vision is what can be possible in future based on what we know up to now. That knowledge is based on our learning we’ve gained by our experiences, not by what we think we know.

 

Cry, Forget, Learn and Move on

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the cry

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“Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.”— Steve Maraboli

To Cry, to forgive, to learn and to move on is a good sequence to start the process of healing. In the privacy of our home, it is okay to cry. Although it is difficult for some men to cry publicly, it is all right to cry privately. We can cry and still remain strong. After a good cry, it is now time to forgive. Forgiveness is another difficult things to do. Forgiveness is accepting the pain that the event has caused. Milton Erickson says that all our feelings are done by us. If all our feelings are done by us, then we have the power to let go of the pain. Throughout this process we can learn something about ourselves. To move on means to put those things behind and look forward to a new beginning.

Letting Go Ties

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Caswell Incoming Tide

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“Some people think it’s holding that makes one strong—sometimes it’s letting go.”—Unknown

Sometimes we don’t realize that we hold on to things far too long. I think it all right to hold on to things for a minute or two but not for years. It is all right to let go and to believe that letting go is not a sign of weakness but of strength. We hold on to things because we have emotional ties and memory attached to them. We’re afraid that if we let them go, then the emotional ties and memory goes. More likely the emotional ties go but memory is left. When we recall the memories, we can review them and place a new perspective on them.

 

Be Thankful

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Thank You.

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Look at what you’ve got and make the best of it. It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”— Proverb

We have to be constantly reminded that we ought to be thankful for what we have and not look for what we don’t have. We need to find satisfaction in what we already have because we can’t have everything.  We don’t need everything. Our lives don’t suppose to be perfect. We need challenges in our lives to strengthen us so we don’t wither away.  If it is a talent we possess, then we should do our best in our talent. We can strive for near perfection not perfection.

 

Look Forward

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'Looking foward to that summertime feeling' by sami burford
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“Worry looks around, fear looks back, faith looks up, guilt looks down, but I look forward.”— Unknown

Worry is only wasted energy because we’re using only our imagination to fuel our fears.  Instead, we can use that energy for something useful. When it comes to guilt, it so hard to be uplifting when we’re looking down. Instead, as the above quotes says we can look up. We can have some sort of faith that something good will come out of an unpleasant event.  We can look forward doing something real that will bring us joy to our hearts instead of fear.

 

 

 

 

Give Peace A Chance

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Peace

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“Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace.”— Joan Boryenko

As the quote above says we have a choice to either practice stress or practice peace. We don’t have to react to an unpleasant event; instead we can be proactive and give peace a chance.  When we react to an unpleasant event, our stress level increases, thus creates within us unnecessary hostility. When our stress level is high, this is a potential of depleting our self-respect, which leads quickly to hostility.  First we must practice peace and that starts from within to know that we must come to an understanding that we have it within ourselves the power to change the world by first changing ourselves and then model that to those around us.

 

 

The Courage To Begin

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4/366: Beginning

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“More powerful than the will to win is the courage to begin.”— Unknown

When we’re confronted with doing something new, our heart starts pounding. Our first initial thought is what have I got myself into. But as we begin to plan things, some of our anxiety turns into excitement. Sometimes, before we begin a new project, our minds begin to be filled with self-doubt. We first experience self-doubt and/or anxiety because we don’t know whether we will succeed or fail.  If we look at our past, we will find that we have a lot of experiences of starting something new. We can also see the abilities that we’ve acquired over the years from starting something new. So it is a good reminder to look at what we have done.

 

You Are Very Powerful!

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I am Powerful

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“You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.”— Yogi Bhajan

Many of us do know how powerful we really are, it’s just we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. If we think we need to assert ourselves and we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, then it would be at our expense of suppressing our own power.  However, there are others who feel comfortable wielding their power, sometimes in an abusive manner.  We just need to find a balance to assert ourselves without being overly aggressive. It is about respecting one another, getting our needs met and give and take in a group setting. We have the same rights as another to voice our opinions in a respectful manner.

 

When Opportunities Existed

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A New Day Brings New Opportunity
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“Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great.”—Orison Swett Marden

We don’t have to look for extraordinary opportunities to seize the moment. We have the common occasions that are the opportunities that we can make great. We don’t have to wait very long to find common occasions. We just have to look for those in our everyday lives. It is a matter of changing our mindset to see how we can make a common occasion into something potentially extraordinary. It is in mind that creates the limitations and not see the opportunities. But, if we could train our minds to go beyond what seem obvious, then we will see that opportunities existed all along.

 

 

Attention is Generosity

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Ready

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“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Simone Weil

When we give another person our full-undivided attention, we’re telling them that we care about them and they’re interests. When we’re listening to another person, we’ve stopped thinking about our thoughts instead we’re listening to them telling us their thoughts out loud.  If the subject matter the person is discussing is of interest to us, then it is easy to give our full attention. However, if the subject matter the person is discussing is not of interest to us, then our attention is truly a form of generosity but with an opportunity to learn something that can be useful to us.

 

 

Taking A Break From Our Routine

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Take a break
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For some of us, who needs to take a break or go on vacation, it is difficult to let go of our routine. We become a slave to our routine that we forget that there is a life to live. Our routine is predicable and it evokes very little anxiety in us, but makes us stagnant. When taking a break from our routine to do something different, we break out of stagnation and we are free to do other things. Doing new things, renew us and makes life more meaningful again. After a time away, we’re ready to return back to our routine but only with a renewal spirit.

Returning Back To Our Old Stomping Ground

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365::136 - home
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When we return back to our stomping grounds it evoke memories of our past. It is an experience of old familiarity. We think about how things used to be in our youth. We also experience the innocence of that time period when things were fresh and new.  These memories were the beginning of our foundation that made us what we are today. It is those things we said goodbye to so long ago that we are returning back to.  It is mainly the good memories we like to think about and say hello to.

 

 

Return to Knowing Thyself

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thou hast prepared the light and the sun.

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It is time to focus inwardly. It is time to renew self.  It is time to know thyself. If we want to understand another person, then we must learn and understand something about ourselves.  It is no accident that we hang out with certain people we call friends.  On an unconscious level we pick out certain people who we want to hang out with.  Hanging out with a certain crowd, tells us something about ourselves.  We all have our quirks. When we learn to accept another’s foibles, we begin to feel comfortable about being ourselves around others.  Feeling comfortable about being ourselves around others indicates that we have accepted what we discovered about ourselves. It is all right to return to thyself.