This time of the year always chokes me up. I write this with tears in my eyes because I am so grateful to have been born in this country. Did you know that you had a 4.7% chance of being born in the United States? That statistic is staggering for me. And yet here I am walking throughout my day…
Now that the pandemic is in the rearview mirror, people are starting to get out and resume their public lives. I don’t know about you but the pandemic was especially hard for me because it limited my in-person interactions with my friends and family. As humans, we are social creatures made to exist in community. I have heard countless stories…
In my last post, I talked about a breathing exercise we can all use to reduce stress. In this post, I want to give one more example called Progressive Relaxation. Here’s how: Sit in a comfortable position, with your head supported. Start breathing slowly and deeply. Let your entire body relax. Release all tension and try to visualize your body…
Over the last month I have talked about positive affect and optimism, but what good is talk without something practical to “do” about it? First, I want to challenge you to think of at least three things you do to minimize stress in your life (walking, working out, or other appropriate distractions). Practice these often. But I also want to…
In my last blog post, I talked about the benefits of being a positive person and the personality trait called: positive affect. Optimism is a close cousin to positive affect. Optimism is the expectation that good things will happen in the future and bad things will not. If you agree with statements such as, “I tend to expect the best…
Have you ever wondered why some people survive in the face of great stress (personal tragedies, demanding jobs, or an abusive home life) while others do not? These survivors share a personality trait called “positive affect.” Positive affect is what happens when a person experiences and expresses positive emotions, including feelings of happiness, joy, enthusiasm, and contentment when faced with challenges. Interestingly,…
Now What? Remember what happens when we become so paralyzed by fear that we remain motionless and indecisive? We end up getting surrounded by the enemy and taken out. Our minds are our worst enemies during these times. Many people assume that the physical aspect of SEAL training is the hardest but honestly it isn’t. Our training is only about 20%…
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] During my life I have experienced the death of a spouse, death of brothers, job loss, hardest military training in the world, divorce, war, poverty, and betrayal of friends & family. The positive attitude I developed changed everything. How? Some people say religion is for the weak minded. [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image…
