Tag: thankful

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Words of Encouragement

Blonde white girl spreading arms near body of water

Pandemic: Living in the Era of COVID-19

Take my words of encouragement how you like them. It’s so easy for you (and for us) to wake up every day and dive into a negative state of mind, especially during the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. We turn on the news and hope that we don’t hear any more mentions of “lockdowns,” “mandatory vaccines,” “delta variant,” and “masks.” After one minute of the television chirping in the background, we’re already slightly stressed and quickly turn it off. This process is even worse when you’re suffering from a mental illness.

So what are my words of encouragement for you? I know it sounds simple but they are, “practice gratitude and be thankful for what you already have.” A mistake many people make (including myself) is that they constantly desire more in their life, at the expense of practicing gratitude for what they already have. While there’s nothing wrong with desiring more and creating goals to accomplish new dreams, always seeking without practicing gratitude puts you in a “consciousness of lack.” In other words, you attract more of what you don’t have because that’s what your mind is focused on.

Words of Encouragement: You Already Have What You Need

Just remind yourself that you already have more than you need; never forget that. We’re already very selfish by nature so don’t let your environment make you even more selfish. You can imagine how terrible it must be for your psyche if you’re not practicing gratitude, always seeking more and suffering from a mental illness, all while in the middle of a never-ending pandemic. Gratitude is like medicine but we often ignore this potent medicine that lies within us. We’re too focused on our environment rather than internally being thankful for what we have.

Cloud formed as heart in sky

Starting from today, practice gratitude this very moment and continue to do so for the rest of your life. Lastly, I want to mention that I don’t write long blog posts due to time and energy. As a psychiatrist, it’s a challenge to write impressively long content, so I hope you enjoy these short pieces.

Are you Ready? (This is Defeating Stigma Mindfully)

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Thankful State of Mind

Approaching your day by being thankful is something we always hear about but rarely apply. It’s such an easy tweak to your mindset but gets lost in your daily stressors and struggles. By being thankful more often, you will notice your mental health improving. But you may ask, why be thankful when I have so many bad things happening to me? And I’ll reply, maybe these “bad things” are happening so you can be more thankful for what you do have in the first place! Life is not always smooth-sailing; the downs that follow the ups are necessary to build up your character and increase your wisdom, but the process does become smoother when you are consistently thankful for what you have.

Are you Ready? (This is Defeating Stigma Mindfully)

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Thank You for Being a Friend

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/5qg333YngtiahVZMbxAcVD?si=713e74e442964c89

Approaching your day by being thankful is something we always hear about but rarely apply. It’s such an easy tweak to your mindset but gets lost in your daily stressors and struggles. Sometimes you don’t have a friend to share you feelings with. Sometimes telling yourself, “thank you for being a friend” is the best thing you can do for yourself. By being thankful more often, you will notice your mental health improve. But you may ask, why be thankful when I have so many bad things happening to me? And I’ll reply, maybe these “bad things” are happening so you can be more thankful for what you have. Life is not always smooth-sailing. The downs that follow the ups are necessary to build up your character and increase your wisdom. However, the process does become smoother when you are consistently thankful for what you have.

Thank you for being a friend: abstract picture of mystical woman with roots growing around

Thank You for Being a Friend: Being Nice to Yourself

It’s very easy to become bitter, self-critical and put yourself down when things aren’t going your way. This is especially true if you lack a social life and close friends. Sometimes the only friend you have is yourself and you need to remind yourself of that every day. If you’re currently in a position of not having any close friends, the last person you want to put down is yourself. In all cases, you need yourself the most! Think about it; how can you be thankful for what you have if you’re not even thankful for your own presence?

Be nice to yourself and work with your mind on developing a plan for improvement. If there are traits you don’t like about yourself, identify and change them. If there are habits you despise, identify and change them. The first step in being thankful for what you have is treating yourself with love and respect; the same way a good friend would do. After you become comfortable with yourself, you can start being appreciative of everything you have. Be thankful for the roof above your head, clothes, food, family and relationship with God. Don’t lose yourself in the struggles of life. What happens out there does not need to be brought back into your personal space at home. Have courage.

Are you Ready? (This is Defeating Stigma Mindfully)

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I Am Thankful

Thank you! heart text written on yellow paper with pens alongside

Positive Affirmation: Being Thankful

“I am thankful that despite my mental illness, I have food on the table, clothes in the closet, a car in the driveway, a family by my side and God who loves and takes care of me everyday!”

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Good Friday

Jesus Christ crucified on the cross

Jesus Was Crucified And Risen Back To Life

The Son of God who is named Jesus Christ continues to watch over us from heaven; what and where heaven is we do not know. We just know from the bible that Jesus is seated at the right side of God and watching over humanity. We have to be thankful that we are observing Good Friday with everything that is going on in the world; thanking God and Christ should be something that you should be doing right now.

People who used to be Christians but abandoned their faith have stated that they prayed for years and never saw any results. In return, they gave up their faith in God and went back to relying on humanity for answers. The problem is that humanity will give you answers that will make some sort of sense to you, but they will not be the answers that will bring you true spiritual happiness.

It’s very easy to become satisfied with humanity’s answers because we are human; we rely on logic and what our senses can detect. When people try to apply logic and reason with God, they become disappointed rather quickly. God does not interact with us through logic and reason; if He did, then everything would make sense.

God interacts with us through the Holy Ghost; this can be felt within you if you are close to God. Not everyone can truly say that they feel it, but you’ll know when you do. You’ll feel peaceful inside and this feeling will last with you as long as you continue to live within your true self, as well as continue to worship God and seek to improve your relationship with Him.

The beautiful thing about the Holy Ghost is that it can be given to you if you seek it with good intentions. But you must first interact with God and open up your heart to Him, even though he already knows everything about you and more. Giving yourself to God is putting Him before yourself and your family. Remember that if it weren’t for Him, you wouldn’t have a family in the first place.

We are all sitting here rightfully worrying about the coronavirus and its impact on humanity, but we have to remind ourselves that God is present with us during these evil times. He sees everything and knew this was going to happen before we were even born; God is all knowing because He is the creator! So don’t worry too much about all of these worldly events. If you have your faith set on God, then as a child of His, you will continue to gain confidence and march on in peace.

May God bless everyone on this Good Friday and may Jesus Christ return and save us all on Judgement Day. Amen!

Are you Ready? (This is Defeating Stigma Mindfully)

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Imagery and Repetition are Aspects of Success

Young blonde woman wearing blue top while standing on plain field celebrating success

Suffering from Success

To accomplish is to first see it in the eye of your mind. Visualizing your goals before achieving them preps your path towards making them a reality. Living it in your mind before in reality allows you to connect with the emotions of that event; it increases your belief that you deserve whatever you want!

It takes much repetition in your mind and in reality to achieve success. Without persistence and hard work, success moves farther off into the distance. Most people do not want to put in the hard work because it is easier to become complacent with the current situation; this mentality promotes mediocracy.

There is suffering before success and suffering from success; one indicates that you are on the path to achieving it and the other indicates that you have achieved it but still in pain. Suffering does not go away once success has arrived; it is part of life whether rich or poor. It’s how you handle the suffering that separates resilient individuals from the rest.

To become successful, you must be willing to sacrifice time, energy and even situations; to gain something greater requires losing something lesser. For some, time is precious and are not willing to sacrifice it; they may never see success. For others, time is pointless and are willing to take up as much of it to see results; success might be around the corner.

You decide what it takes to become successful, but one common theme remains: imagery, repetition, thankfulness and sacrifice usually deliver you the results!

Are you Ready? (This is Defeating Stigma Mindfully)

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The Power Of Being Thankful

A wooden sign on a palm tree stating "thankful"

Being Thankful Will Deliver You More Positive Results

We are so bombarded with work, education and distractions that we forget one important thing: being thankful for everything we have. Depression and anxiety can stem from being overstressed, but did you know that by reminding yourself everyday of all the things you have to be thankful for, can lower your chances of developing a mental illness?

This is because by being thankful on a daily basis, you force yourself to recognize all the good things you have in your life, which uplifts your mood and stabilizes your mind; stabilization takes you down the right path in life.

But one mistake people make is that they are not thankful enough. Being thankful once in a blue moon is like trying to lose weight by exercising once a month; it’s not going to happen. The key word is “daily.” Everyday, from morning to night, you should be thankful in your heart and in your mind.

Remind yourself of all the great things you have: the job you have, your family who is still around, the roof above your head, the good health you are in, etc. This is called positive reinforcement; you are self-delivering encouragement for the life you lead.

Being thankful helps to keep negative thoughts away. Remember that your mind is like a garden; weeds (negative thoughts) don’t take effort to grow, but flowers (positive thoughts) must be carefully planted and taken care of on a daily basis; otherwise, they rot.

Rotting is equivalent to poor mental health: depression, anxiety and even hallucinations. It’s time for you to forget about yesterday, and start being thankful for today.

Are you Ready? (This is Defeating Stigma Mindfully)

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