James Smith’s Info Serv

Author: Martin Mak

The human consciousness is the awareness of oneself as a being that thinks and learns. Consider the difference between your consciousness and its closest relation, emotional awareness. Since the time of Freud (who lived from 1856 to 1939), we as a society have become skilled interpreters of how dreams, fears, conflicts and emotional attachment affect our experiences and actions. In spite of our high level of emotional awareness, few of us achieve a high level of mind consciousness. Otherwise educated and sophisticated people have virtually no awareness of how they solve problems, discover ideas, assimilate and manage information, or adapt to change.

Is it is important to develop your mental prowess? A human mind is an instrument of enormous power. The similarities between the workings of your mind and the mind of a major scientist (such as Einstein) or a revolutionary thinker (such as Freud) are great, while the differences are subtle. To make the most effective use of your mind, you need to be aware of what it does as you think and learn. Strange as it may seem, you only have to learn to use the ability the mind that you already possess. That is why mind consciousness is such a powerful asset. With the right techniques, you can train your mind and improve your memory and accelerate your learning.
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Author: Inese Millere

Man is not disturbed by events, but by the view he takes of them. Epictetus.

Almost every minute of your conscious life you are engaging in a self-talk, your internal thought language. If the self-talk is accurate and in touch with reality, you function well. If it is irrational and untrue, it’s become self-destructive. You experience stress, emotional disturbance and unsatisfactory performance.

Albert Ellis developed a system to attack irrational ideas or believes and replace them with realistic statements. The basic thesis is that emotions have nothing to do with actual events. Between the emotion and the event is realistic or unrealistic self-talk. The self-talk produces the emotions.

Your own thoughts, directed and controlled by you, are what creates anxiety, anger, depression, damages health and affect performance.

What this means: we people have a choice to think in the negative or positive way. It’s up to everybody to choose one or another option. To make choices is an active process in which our will is involved. You have to want to change something if you consider that something is wrong with our life.
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Copyright (c) 2009 Michael A Jones

Creative thinking activity comes naturally to a brain that is alive and energized. As explained below, your five senses provide an amazing set of tools to get your brain out of a rut and into productive, creative thinking territory.

Aerobic exercises get life-sustaining oxygen into parts of the body often starved. Aerobics for your senses have the same effect, enlivening them, waking them up, which in turn leads to a higher level of creative thinking activity.

Our five senses of taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing bombard the brain every second with millions of pieces of information. To bystanders, the children may be making a terrible din, but the mother is hardly aware of it until a friend says: “How do you put up with it!” The lesson? We quickly get accustomed to our environment so it becomes the norm, which means we fail to take notice of detail and the seeds of creative ideas.

The Challenge

So here is our challenge - to get the senses to break out of the box so we start noticing things again.

Here is an “aerobic brain exercise” to get creative “oxygen” to those senses:

Select in your mind something familiar. To illustrate what we mean we will choose a simple common object, A BOOK. Think of a familiar book you enjoy reading. Now close your eyes and wrap your 5 senses around this object in your imagination and really live the experience.
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Author: Mike Hooker

All of us have fears. Fear of rejection, fear of public speaking, fear of the unknown, etc. Our fears typically control our lives, sometimes demonstratively, otherwise subconsciously. Few of us are even aware of our fears and their role in our lives, yet we live with them every day. Without being able to understand why we are fearful and what our fears are, we will never be able to conquer these fears.

So, if our fears are central to our very being, without us even recognizing them for what they are, how are we to know how to name them, understand them, and eventually work on solving and eliminating them? Let’s take a closer look at how to find where your individual fears come from, and also how to eliminate them.

Where do they come from?

Fears are central to every living animal. Some are based on primal urge and survival while others take form in less physical form. For the topic of this article, obviously, our focus is on the human condition’s response to fear. Where do your fears come from? Was it from birth? Were you born with your fears? Was there an event or chain of events that set you up with your set of fears? Are your fears real or imagined? These are all the most basic questions you’ll need to ask yourself when beginning to look at where exactly your fears come from.

Chances are, if you are like most, you can in fact-pinpoint the origin of your fear. You know that there was a time in high school that you failed at a public speech, and this is why you freeze up when it comes to any sort of public speaking, scared to death that you will repeat the same situation again and again. Or, perhaps, you were rejected by a loved one, and forever hold that fear about all relationships, and as a consequence find it difficult getting serious about anyone in case you are rejected again. If you have a memory that you can tie to your irrational or rational fear, then you must start here-no matter how painful it may seem.

If you can’t readily recognize why you are fearful of any particular situation, brainstorm. Talk to your friends, relatives, and anyone who has known you for years. You would be surprised how much other people take in in relation to your life. Objective reality is always clearer than subjective reality. Typically, sitting down, brainstorming, and collecting insight from your loved ones will let you start to see where your fears come from. It may be a painful journey as sometimes you just don’t want to admit that you have certain fears or ever experienced whatever painful event made you forever fearful, but this is the only way to heal and start living your life fearlessly.
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Author: Rich Simpson

The Recession – A Personal Survival Guide

Recession! If you haven’t been affected by it yet you must be in a space capsule whirling aimlessly around the globe. Unemployment rates are at record highs. People are struggling to pay the rent, mortgage, buy groceries while desperately searching for work before their unemployment checks stop coming. That’s the economic side, bleak as it is, of the recession, but there is also a personal side which can affect you with equal negative impact.

The Grieving Process:

So, you’ve lost your job. Maybe you were let go because your company’s finances were dwindling or your position was no longer needed; whatever the reason you now find yourself at home unemployed and wondering what to do.

That’s the first step.

The next steps are the feelings of anger and embarrassment all the while questioning your abilites and self worth.

You have now opened the door to the grieving process. First comes denial with a slice of hostility, then wonderment, “What did I do, or what didn’t I do?” Then it finally hits you – it’s over, no more job, no more past employer. It’s time to focus on a new direction, to get busy, active and avoid slipping into depression.

Staying Productive at Home

How can you be productive while at home? Your friends tell you to “apply online.” You start searching the internet for positions that may or may not be suited to your background and skills, but once you write a compelling cover letter and submit it, hours and even days have gone by. You’re still waiting for a response. Now what? You can either stay at home while the clock ticks, or get busy. It’s too easy to let yourself get depressed, so it’s important to stay positive and motivated; otherwise, feelings of self-doubt and frustration will take over.
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