Out of the fog of the silly season and New Year’s Eve, many of us ‘resolve’ to make New Year’s Goals that will really bring us success and happiness. We jump from one extreme to the other and from too much food and drink we decide to become vegan and run a marathon to make up for all the excess over the last few weeks!…read more
Dear Positive Habit Blog subscribers,
This week, all I want to say is THANK YOU for reading this and for all of your support throughout 2017. I’m so grateful to have every one of you with me each week and that you take the time to open and read The Positive Habit Weekly Blog. I remain eternally grateful to those who have emailed me to let me know that the blog has helped them in some way. Thank you also for sharing the blog with your friends and family and for spreading the positive vibes.
Anne Frank
If you have read ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’, you will know what an incredible, young girl she was; her words of wisdom stretched way beyond her years and touched the hearts of millions. She has brought magic to the lives of many just as your stories have brought magic to mine. Your stories of courage and compassion lift my heart and remind me of the joy of living and giving.
My intention with the blog has been and remains to help you and to bring a smile to your Monday mornings. I hope that the themes covered have resonated with you on some level and have helped you to steer your own positive pathway. I share my personal stories to give my perspective on what it means to be human, to feel, to struggle and to navigate this wonderful journey called life. However, my words are nothing without your eyes to read them.
One of the things I love about writing the blog is that it trains my brain to keep my eyes and ears open for those special and/or challenging moments that I can learn from and then share with you. This actually keeps my neural networks firing and provides opportunities to put The Positive Habit into practice. The phrase used in neuroscience, ‘What wires together – fires together‘ identifies the brain’s plastic capacity to change and grow long after childhood. Neuroplasticity demonstrates that positive change is possible and this is essentially a message of HOPE!
Please click on the image below to download my Christmas gift to you – an audio MP3 called ‘Understanding Your Subconscious Power.’ Some of you will already be very familiar with listening to my self-hypnosis recordings but for some it may be a new experience and I hope that it helps you to stay calm and present this Christmas. Remember, the best gift you can give yourself and your loved ones is your presence.
Next Monday is Christmas Day so I will be taking a break from the blog (oh God, how will I remain positive?!) and I imagine you will be busy with your families and friends. Take good care of yourself and remember to find some ‘me time’ within the festive period. If you feel overwhelmed at any time, press pause and take some deep belly breaths. This will relax your nervous system, slow your thoughts down and give you some precious space to enable you to cultivate calm.
I’ll be back in your mailbox on New Years Day with an uplifting post to get you bursting with positive vibes for 2018! Until then, take really good care of yourself, stay present, stay calm and remember to always see the best in yourself and everyone around you.
If you think the gift of the MP3 would help a friend then please do pass it on.
Have a joyful, happy and present Christmas.
Understanding Your Subconscious Power MP3
Perhaps you have gifted yourself The Positive Habit Program and perhaps you think someone you LOVE could also benefit from a positive mindset so that they too can feel calm, confident and joyful this Christmas.
Gift Vouchers now available.
Keep spreading the positive energy & make someone TRULY happy this Christmas.
The Maintenance Program is now also available and is a wonderful way for people who have completed The Positive Habit to sustain their positive shift.
Early Bird until January 6th 2018 is only €115.00
Full Price Ticket is €130.00
Presented by Nutritional Therapist Elsa Jones & Clinical Hypnotherapist Fiona Brennan, ‘Love Yourself Well’ is a unique mind-body weight management program that deals with both the physical and psychological components of weight management, providing you with tools that will lead to lasting weight loss success.
At Love Yourself Well, we invite you to attend a one-day masterclass workshop where you will be given a set of uniquely effective tools help you manage your weight & health for life. You will then have the option to become a Love Yourself Well member where you will have access to a private online support group and have monthly live webinar sessions with Fiona & Elsa (inc. Q&A) to help you stay on track & reach your health goals.
Hello Dear Positive Habit People,I hope you’ve had a good week and of course welcome to the many new subscribers – I’m really thrilled to have you with us. Regular readers will know that I like to share something from my own life each week and then ask you to consider an idea or approach to improve your own mental health. The Positive Habit is all about that – creating the habit of being positive.
John Dryden
On Monday I was being interviewed on the Dermot and Dave show for Today FM (link to the podcast below) and was talking about acceptance being a crucial step in dealing with an anxious thought. Dave made a good point that most people are not even aware of their thoughts and this is unfortunately true. How can we change our negative/anxious thoughts to positive ones if we are not even aware we are having them? Being aware is therefore the first and most important step. This week I would like you to observe yourself with love and kindness. If a negative thought or feelings of irritation and frustration or the urge to comfort eat/drink arises try surfing the urge. The steps involved are as follows:
You will be amazed at how, by practising this, you can train your brain to make it automatic over time. The positive habit of being kind to yourself then overrides the negative habit of giving yourself a hard time. The brain behaves as a muscle does and requires proper exercise which you can give with consistent care and love.
On Wednesday I bit the bullet and started the Christmas shopping and on Saturday we got the Christmas tree so I am beginning to get ‘set’ for Christmas! When I was in town shopping I could feel the stress of my fellow shoppers and the exhaustion of the shop staff; one shop assistant described it as “the nightmare of Christmas!” I had to work hard not to get caught up in the frenzied stress. At this time of year it is even more crucial to cultivate your internal calm and to maintain a vital sense of perspective. If you feel challenged by the build up to Christmas please read an article I wrote last year for Bressie’s wonderful mental health site, A Lust For Life, ‘Have Yourself a Conscious Christmas’.
Thanks again for reading and please do share this post with your friends and family and let the positive vibes uplift those you care about.
If you are interested in the Love Yourself Well workshops please note that early bird tickets (€115 as opposed to the full price of €130) are on sale until January 6th, 2018.
Fiona with Dermot and Dave in Today FM on the Mind Yourself Now mental health slot. To listen click here.
Perhaps you have gifted yourself The Positive Habit Program and perhaps you think someone you LOVE could also benefit from a positive mindset so that they too can feel calm, confident and joyful this Christmas.
Gift Vouchers now available.
Keep spreading the positive energy & make someone TRULY happy this Christmas.
The Maintenance Program is now also available and is a wonderful way for people who have completed The Positive Habit to sustain their positive shift.
Early Bird until January 6th 2018 is only €115.00
Full Price Ticket is €130.00
Presented by Nutritional Therapist Elsa Jones & Clinical Hypnotherapist Fiona Brennan, ‘Love Yourself Well’ is a unique mind-body weight management program that deals with both the physical and psychological components of weight management, providing you with tools that will lead to lasting weight loss success.
At Love Yourself Well, we invite you to attend a one-day masterclass workshop where you will be given a set of uniquely effective tools help you manage your weight & health for life. You will then have the option to become a Love Yourself Well member where you will have access to a private online support group and have monthly live webinar sessions with Fiona & Elsa (inc. Q&A) to help you stay on track & reach your health goals.
Hello Dear Positive Habit People,
I hope you’ve had a good week and are remaining nice and calm while the build-up to Christmas really kicks in. Expectations at this time of year can often lead to pressure as we continue all of our everyday responsibilities along with the task of creating the ‘perfect’ Christmas!
“Are you all set for Christmas?” When people ask me this I just smile and think to myself – ‘not at all and that’s OK’! How we prepare for celebrations is in fact very subjective; whatever the approach it is really about finding one that works best for you. If you are super organised and that helps you to feel calm, good. If however, like me, that is not your style then find peace with how you are and be confident that it will all fall into place. I literally haven’t even started to prepare! Christmas, isn’t that miles away?! It is, isn’t it?!
With all the talk of ‘getting set’ and ‘being prepared’ for Christmas it is important that we consider the most important preparation – being calm and happy. The tree can be up and the turkey ordered but if you are not feeling calm and happy, what is the point? Being mentally fit for the festive season is often overlooked and yet causes a lot of difficulties as people often fall into negative thought patterns when surrounded by family. In his autobiography, ‘Music and Madness’, Ivor Browne, the eminent Irish psychiatrist observes that being with your family can be one of the worst places for people to be at Christmas. A rather bleak outlook perhaps but this time of year is not easy for many people. The best gift you can give yourself and your loved ones is to be calm, happy and truly present.
During the week, Luca and I (now 10 years old) were watching ‘Cosmos: a Spacetime Odyessy’ on Netflix which I would recommend highly. It is an mind-boggling history of the infinity of the cosmos and can certainly provide us with a healthy sense of perspective if your mind starts to race with negative thoughts. Carl Sagan, the American astronomer, cosmologist, and author who is referred to in ‘Cosmos’, was famous for seeing the bigger picture. His speech, ‘Pale Blue Dot’ really resonated with me as it describes in the vastness of the universe and just how small we are – the pale blue dot. His message of kindness at the end is one that inspires hope.
You can read the speech below or, if you prefer, you can watch the YouTube video here where it is narrated.
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
Have a great week. I will, of course, be here with you next Monday as always to help bring a smile to your face and a lightness to your step.
I will be on the Dermot and Dave Show on Today FM (Monday) at 10.30.am discussing #thisiswhatanxietyfeelslike. I hope you get a chance to listen to it. If not, I will post the podcast here next week.
Perhaps you have gifted yourself The Positive Habit Program and perhaps you think someone you LOVE could also benefit from a positive mindset so that they too can feel calm, confident and joyful this Christmas.
Gift Vouchers now available.
Keep spreading the positive energy & make someone TRULY happy this Christmas.
The Maintenance Program is now also available and is a wonderful way for people who have completed The Positive Habit to sustain their positive shift.
Cork – 3rd March 2017
Early Bird until January 6th 2018 is only €115.00
Full Price Ticket is €130.00
Presented by Nutritional Therapist Elsa Jones & Clinical Hypnotherapist Fiona Brennan, ‘Love Yourself Well’ is a unique mind-body weight management program that deals with both the physical and psychological components of weight management, providing you with tools that will lead to lasting weight loss success.
At Love Yourself Well, we invite you to attend a one-day masterclass workshop where you will be given a set of uniquely effective tools help you manage your weight & health for life. You will then have the option to become a Love Yourself Well member where you will have access to a private online support group and have monthly live webinar sessions with Fiona & Elsa (inc. Q&A) to help you stay on track & reach your health goals.
Hello, my fellow Positive Habit people,
I hope you are well this Monday morning! We are now truly in the thick of the dark mornings and evenings and with this lack of external light we all need to work hard on keeping our internal levels of positive light healthy and strong.
Last week when I was in the bank I noticed that the young teller had the most amazing skin, so even though I was a little cautious about being familiar with someone I don’t know, I said, “You have amazing skin”! The girl was literally delighted, her beautiful skin glowed and she said “Thanks, so much, you have made my day.” Wow, that was simple, I thought and I felt a glow inside even though my skin wasn’t quite as amazing. Nevertheless, my inner glow at making someone’s day was pretty high.
What I Iove about compliments is the way they pass freely from one person to another. You know when you think something nice about a person but either forget to tell them or are too embarrassed? This week, capture those thoughts in your awareness and spread some sunshine by choosing to make people smile. IF you think of something nice about a person, if you notice they have a nice dress, cool shoes or even more importantly, that they are kind, fun or caring, TELL them! Genuine compliments only please not manufactured ones.
Those of you who have completed my online, self-help program, The Positive Habit, will know how I feel about gossip. Gossip is toxic and is actually most harmful to the perpetrator and those who encourage it. Unfortunately, gossip is highly prevalent with people often quick to criticise; for many the passing of a negative comment or making a judgment slips easily from the tongue. The Positive Habit is all about developing the awareness and habit of turning negative behavior into positive.
Make an effort to pay your friends, family, kids, strangers authentic compliments and you will make their day and your own. Also, work on spreading positive vibes about other people by saying positive things; the opposite of gossip. I don’t think we have yet developed a word for this? ‘Possip?’ mmmm…maybe back to the drawing board…
On a neurochemical level when we indulge in gossip we are sparking the production of lots of the stress hormone, cortisol in our brains and bodies. It never feels good to talk ill of other people and this is why cortisol is generated. The old saying, ‘If you have nothing good to say…say nothing’ comes to mind. We probably all know people who are notorious for gossiping but when you are with these people make the conscious choice not to encourage or engage in gossiping. Believe me, these gossips will eventually stop looking to you for back up.
I was overjoyed with all the positive compliments on my TEDx so thank you. I would like to share with you another TEDx talk by my colleague, Mark Kelly whose inspiring idea mirrors the theme of this weeks blog – when we do an act of kindness we feel better ourselves. To watch his talk, click here.
Please share this blog with five people in your network and spread the positive energy and also please do share my TEDx – the link is below and it is helping those who may be struggling with anxiety.
Perhaps you have gifted yourself The Positive Habit Program and perhaps you think someone you LOVE could also benefit from a positive mindset so that they too can feel calm, confident and joyful this Christmas.
Gift Vouchers now available.
Our gift to you is to receive 10% OFF the full price of the program when you enter the code XMASPROMO at the checkout!
Keep spreading the positive energy & make someone TRULY happy this Christmas.
The Maintenance Program is now also available and is a wonderful way for people who have completed The Positive Habit to sustain their positive shift.
The Weight Management Workshops are returning in 2018!
The first workshop will be held on February 27th in Airfield Estate, Dundrum, Dublin 14
For details and to book please click here
