Reading Corner

Links related to the weekly posts.

 

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In this week’s blog, we spoke about celebrating the holidays, appreciating the beauty and joy, and seeing challenges as opportunities. Here are some articles to support you in doing that.

7 Ways to Get Past Tough Situations Quickly “‘Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it.’ -Charles Swindoll. One day everything seems great in your world—maybe not perfect, but overall things are going to plan. And then something happens. You lose your job, or someone you love, or your home, or maybe even your health. It isn’t fair. You don’t deserve it. You didn’t see it coming. You didn’t plan for it. You have so many feelings and frustrations you don’t know what to do first, or if you want to do anything at all.”

How to Transform Challenges Into Opportunities for Growth “Challenges are an inevitable part of life. Whether it be challenging times, people or circumstances, most of us can relate to coming up against roadblocks in life that feel hard, unfair, or that can even be devastating at times. Some people face the most unthinkable tragedies and somehow come out the other side stronger. Others crumble under the weight of the pressure and heartache they face.”

Things to remember when life seems too hard “It is amazing the power that a good quote has to lift us up and carry us out of our dark places. A great quote shows us the truth of a situation and gets us to think about life from a different perspective. So we’ve dug up 22 of the best quotes to give you a bit of perspective for when life just seems too hard.”

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In this week’s blog, we asked why time for play is important in your relationship. These articles remind us of why it is so important.

The Benefits of Play for Adults “In our hectic, modern lives, many of us focus so heavily on work and family commitments that we never seem to have time for pure fun. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we’ve stopped playing. When we carve out some leisure time, we’re more likely to zone out in front of the TV or computer than engage in fun, rejuvenating play like we did as children. But just because we’re adults, that doesn’t mean we have to take ourselves so seriously and make life all about work. We all need to play.”

Adults need recess too. Here’s why you should make time to play. “When you think of playing, some memories from childhood most likely come to mind: digging for dinosaur bones in the sandbox, a game of tag at recess, spending hours with your toy of choice (whether it was a Barbie doll, a Hot Wheel’s car or a pile of Legos). But can you remember the last time you played? If you can’t, then you may be missing out on an important way to give your physical and mental health a boost.”

Choose a Partner You Can Be Playful With “As we grow older, more often than not, we are encouraged to subdue playful tendencies and to replace them with a more serious and professional air, as we strive to have it all figured out. We are discouraged from climbing trees, swinging on monkey bars, building sand castles, messily finger painting nonsensical artwork, or dancing freely when the music moves us. Our culture conditions us that publicly pursuing childlike activities may run the risk of appearing foolish or unprofessional. We are taught that you only dance when it is appropriate, like during dance classes, in a club, or at a wedding.”

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In this week’s blog, we wrote about why worrying about someone else does not help them. Here are some articles that tell you why.

Why Worrying Isn’t a Sign of Love “For my friend and millions of people like her, worry is a sign of love. It says that, even though I am okay, I am selfless enough to suffer vicariously for you. And isn’t that the definition of love? Wouldn’t it be uncaring not to feel terrible for others, given what some people have to deal with? At the risk of giving worriers everywhere nothing to do, the answer is no.”

Worry and Guilt: The Useless Emotions “Worry and guilt are opposite sides of a wooden nickel—two useless emotions facing different directions. Worry looks ahead, seeing threat and disaster at every turn. Guilt looks behind, imposing self-blame for perceived misfortunes and disappointments.”

Worrying Vs. Caring: Do You Know The Difference? “Most people would say that worrying is pointless and a waste of time and energy. I submit to you that it is actually harmful. Here’s why: Worry is fear-based. It is a projection of negative energy. Caring, on the other hand, is a projection of positive energy. When you care about situations or people, you’re hopeful that things will get better. When you worry about them, you’re afraid they won’t.”

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In this week’s blog, we wrote about how to be present in your life and relationship. Here are some interesting perspectives on presence.

Freedom Is Being Present “We live two lives: we live life in our thoughts and we live life as our experience of the present moment. Freedom comes as our life in thoughts diminishes and our experience of the present moment predominates. Freedom comes through learning how to balance thoughts and the present moment. We developed the ability to think abstractly only about 70,000 – 95,000 years ago. Apparently the part of life we live ‘in our head’ today simply did not exist before that time, and instead human life was solely a series of immediate experiences, like the lives of other creatures.”

Mindfulness in relationships “For many of us our ideas of love and relationships are formed from a young age, what we observe in our environment; namely our parents or guardians, to when we mature and begin to read novels and catch a glimpse of The Notebook. We see people around us talk about their feelings, emotions, hope and dreams and we start to dream that maybe some day we too might experience something similar. Our ideas mix with our delusions and get stirred by our beliefs to concoct a recipe of an ideal relationship with an ideal partner. An idea many of us again, rarely shake.”

How Mindfulness Can Save Your Relationship “Mindfulness practice doesn’t just enhance our individual well-being. In fact, it’s now being shown to have a positive impact on interpersonal relationships. A 2004 University of North Carolina study of ‘relative happy, nondistressed couples’ showed that couples who practiced mindfulness saw improvements to their ‘relationship happiness.’ In addition, they experienced healthier levels of ‘relationship stress, stress coping efficacy, and overall stress.'”

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In this week’s blog, we wrote about how to find strength from your relationship. Here is a wonderful article from our dear friend Gail Brenner and a couple more articles with great advice on relationships.

10 Ways to Have Peaceful, Loving Relationships “I’ve made a million and one mistakes in relationships. I’ve expected too much. Or not asked for what I needed in fear of rocking the boat. I’ve been competitive. I’ve been suspicious. I’ve been dependent. I’d like to think what redeems me from all these mistakes is that I’ve also been honest. Being self aware, in my opinion, is far more valuable than being perfect—mostly because the former is attainable and helpful, while the latter is neither.”

The Secret to Peaceful Relationships “The dictionary defines an expectation as “the act of regarding as likely to happen” and “anticipating the occurrence or the coming of.” An expectation is essentially an imagining about the future, a theoretical pseudo-reality that is created by thoughts in the mind. It is a thought that, when taken as real and true, leads us to assume that a given occurrence will happen. When seen for what it really is, it is merely a thought that has nothing to do with what may or may not happen. I may expect my friend to attend the concert, but this expectation is irrelevant to what she actually does. And believing that she “should” attend the concert when she decides not to only sets me up for an unpleasant emotional reaction.”

13 Steps to Better Relationships…And Peace of Mind “Sometimes you need to know that you have good people at your back when things go awry in your life. Good relationships can bring peace of mind, not to mention longer life, companionship, health, happiness, and a host of other benefits. At bottom, we are social creatures who need each other. Even meditating monks do it—congregate in communities, that is.”

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