Start a New Thanksgiving Tradition

Thanksgiving is a unique American tradition that was officially set as a national day of celebration the 3rd Thursday of the month of November by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It is a day in which we celebrate the pilgrim's safe arrival to the new World.

While the celebration continues with some of the original theme of giving thanks, face it, for most of us, Thanksgiving is the start of the flurry of the holiday season, filled with extra duties, and endless errands and a never ending list of things that must be done. We are often stressed and exhausted as a result.

What if this Thanksgiving and the entire holiday season had a different outcome for you?

What if your Thanksgiving is the start of a season of renewal, restoration and a return to a time of magic and miracles instead?

This is very possible with a few soul and energy strategies. Here is the first step along with some ideas that I have used to help you start a new tradition for yourself.

Let's start with a personal promise that you will not allow yourself to be exhausted, over extended or depleted. That would be a road less traveled for most of us. Here is a tip that will change everything for you? Start the season with a soul strategy with a plan for appreciating, taking care and serving your needs before you take care of other people needs, expectations and requests.

Take some time to be self (full) sometimes seen as selfish. Not in the way that you forget about the needs of others but in but in the way in which you truly appreciateyourself. Take time out to serve your own needs.

Consider these words from Oprah, who does so much for others. She asks herself this question to guide her actions. "What can I do right now to serve MYSELF, THEN others?"

We forget that we have to drink from the well first in order to be able to serve others. Your soul's request is to fill up your own cup from the divine well of universal energy first.

What does this look like? Well it may be scheduling an extra massage a few days before the meal or going to lunch with a friend to share a few strategies and laughs.

Perhaps it is taking things off your list, hiring a house cleaner to come in for a few hours or asking your daughter- in- law to bring a few extra dishes.

It can also be giving away the need to be perfect and allow your meal to be less formal or the house to be not as clean as you normally would have. What if you spent time finding just the right poem to read at the dinner table or rented a fun movie for yourself after guests left that would be a treat for you to watch? These were a few things I have done that have worked well for me. So, brainstorm a few minutes and come up with a list and plan of your own. Then follow through on it.

Face it, for most of us, any focus on ourselves is frowned upon. But, taking care of ourselves extends beyond being selfish, it is soul-filled. Our culture doesn't teach that instead we are trained early on that we have value only when we serve others. But the truth is we can only give what we give to ourselves first. If we have value, appreciation, gratitude and thankfulness for our own lives we have plenty to share with others, without the well going dry.

Katherine Allen has emerged a leader in the soul-led spiritual mentoring in helping women over 40 to make transformational shifts with lasting results to design their lives from soul purpose and passion. She is uniquely qualified in both the intuitive arts and the sciences. She holds a BA in Art, Health and Sociology, a Professional Interior Design degree, certification in Feng Shui, shaman training with Lynn Andrews since 1990, certified yoga instructor and certified in the Courageous Coaching Method by Kendall Summerhawk, of IAWBC.org. She has an engaging, simple to understand approach in sharing how universal and big ideas can make an impact in our daily lives. Her no-nonsense, humorous and compassionate perspectives are a joy. Please visit Katherine's website at http://www.yoursoulbiz.com/ and read her blog at http://www.YourSoulBiz.com/blog

Start Your Day With Your Happiness

Start Your Day With a Bright Big Bundle of Happiness

Have you ever heard of the phrase "Waking up on the wrong side of the bed?" If you have that probably means you were a bit grumpy that day and definitely not in a happy type of mood. However, as with most methods to master your happiness, forget the past as that doesn't matter to us anymore. From here on in you should wake up with thoughts of gratitude and love. The more happiness you experience in your life and the more gratitude you show you will find that being happy comes easy. Wake up every morning saying "I'm Alive!" with a big smile on your face. Because, unlike the other 200,000 people that didn't wake up this morning you were lucky enough to have that opportunity. You have to wake up with happiness because it will be the driving force of your daily activities. You don't need to be in a life threatening situation and make it out alive to have such a high level of appreciation and happiness. Granted, it will most probably be more happiness and gratitude on your end but it doesn't mean you cant be happy without it.

Starting your morning right is the way to fuel the rest of your day. If you don't wake up feeling joyful then you should at least try and feel joyous and you will subconsciously become a more joyful person. Furthermore, another exercise to apply is to breath mindfully. Right now as you are reading this you are breathing. You can make your breathing a subconscious action which you never take note of or you can make it a mindful thing and take note and appreciate the ability to breath. When you appreciate and show gratitude for every breath you take your whole day will be filled with appreciate and gratitude. Subsequently that gratitude will be transferred over into all actions of your day and not simply the breathing.

I'm sure you have all heard of Art Appreciation and Wine Appreciation and Music Appreciation and so on, but Breathing appreciation will enhance your life far more than Art, Wine, and Music will. Try an activity of counting your breaths for about 3 minutes, this will automatically slow down your breathing. When you breathe slowly and deeply your nervous system relaxes and becomes calmer. Slow and deep breathing alleviates anger, tension, fears, and stress, all of which are traits that are not conducive to being happy. As you breath slowly your mind clears and you will be able to gain a broader perspective that is helpful in dealing with those underlying issues that caused your distressed feelings in the first place. Also, when you add gratitude the process of having your day filled with happiness becomes a lot easier.

This article was written by professional speaker and motivational author Eli Attias from his website. His website provides many informational and inspiring posts and articles on what it means to be happy and touches upon many topics such as Anger, Self-Control, Patience, Relationship Advice, and much more. You can visit his website at http://www.HappinessDirect.com/

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Start Your Day With A Personal Success Ritual In 4 Easy Steps

Every person should have a morning success ritual. People that have morning success rituals are more productive, happier and healthier. I know you want to improve the quality of your life, so I am going to give you a blueprint on how to create your personal morning ritual and convert it into a habit.

First, you want to wake up a little bit early, because your ritual will be around 90 minutes long.

Step 1: When you wake up, first thing you need to do is to drink a half liter of water. This is even before you wash your teeth. Your body is dehydrated in the morning so you need that water to start a productive day.

Step 2: Now is the time to work out a little. It`s better to exercise in the morning, because it increases your heart rate, and you will have much more energy during the day. Try to exercise for about 30 minutes. If you exercise later in the day you will feel tired and your productivity level will drop.

Step 3: After your work out you should eat breakfast. Think about the food you eat in the morning. There is a reason why breakfast is the most important meal of the day. You have to eat rich nutritious food in the morning so you will feel better and have more energy. Your breakfast should include whole grains, low fat protein, low fat dairy and fruits. I suggest you consult this with a professional nutritionist.

Step 4: After breakfast clean your teeth and do your usual routine in the bathroom. It is important that you brush your teeth after the morning meal. When you are done in the bathroom, try to meditate. You don`t need to learn advanced meditation techniques. I just want you to focus on your breathing. Close your eyes and only concentrate on your breathing. Five seconds for one inhale, and five seconds for one exhale. This is a basic but very effective exercise for building concentration. Don`t feel bad if you will have a ton of different thoughts running in your head. That is what happens when you start with meditation. Do it every day and you will get better, and you will be able to focus for a longer periods of time.

It is important that you do this every day. It takes around 30 days to develop a new habit. If you miss one day, don`t feel bad, do it immediately the next day. I know there are some things here that you don`t like to do. But if you turn this things into habits, you will become more productive and enjoy a successful life. Repetition is key to success.

Take control of your life and turbocharge your productivity. make a positive change with these secrets to a productive and successful life.

For more cool information visit my blog: http://www.onlinemarketingboss.com/

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Stop Pursuing Success and Start Attracting It

Have you been working yourself to the bone, pursuing success, working long hours, giving your all, but somehow success just seems to elude you. It always seems to stay out of reach and even redoubling your efforts does not seem to help much. No matter how much persistence you apply and how hard you try, you seem stuck on a hamster wheel and the harder you try, the more you seem to just spin your wheels. The reason for this is simple; you are approaching success from the wrong perspective. You cannot pursue success, anything you pursue, will elude you. The amount of success you have in your life is directly proportional to who you are and never to how hard you pursue success.

The simple formula for bringing long term sustainable success into your experience is to:

Identify all the skills, knowledge, abilities, attitude, character and philosophy that you need to attract the level of sustainable success you desire.Build a plan to gradually acquire all these skills, knowledge and abilities.Commit to take action daily to work your plan and learn all the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities, until you grow into the person you need to be, to attract the level of success you desire.Keep refining your character, improving your attitude and moulding your philosophy, until you have evolved into the person that is suitable enough to attract all the people, relationships, circumstances and resources, which you need to sustain the success you desire.

If you want to have, do or be more, you need to commit to become more. As you become more, you become more attractive to everyone around you, everything seems to magically fall into place and success feels almost effortless. Opportunities that would have remained hidden from the person you were, will miraculously appear as if by magic and you will have everything you need to explore, exploit and finally utilise any opportunities that will come your way.

Think of your level of knowledge, skills and abilities, being depicted by the water level in a half full swimming pool. Now visualise all the success that you desire, attached to the wall of the swimming pool, at varying levels, depending on the level of success. If you wanted to attract any of the success that is attached to the wall of the pool into your life, you could for a short time cup your hands and raise the water level to enjoy that level of success.

Although as soon as you stop causing the wave, the water level will go back to where it was and that level of success would once again be out of reach. There would also be levels of success attached high up on the wall that, no matter how hard you tried to cause big enough waves in the pool, they would remain out of reach. So how do you get to reach and sustain the success that you desire? You put more water in the pool, by growing your level of knowledge, skill and ability. As you progressively raise the level of the water in the pool, you effortlessly bring that level of success into your experience.

I hope this analogy has helped you to understand this really important concept. Commit to your on-going personal development, continue to refine your attitude, keep improving your character and constantly mould your philosophy, until you become the person that you need to be, to deserve the success you desire. This unlocks your potential, avoids all the pain associated with pursuing success and makes attracting success feel almost effortless.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Hi my name is Andrew Horton; I am an inspirational Speaker, Master Teacher, Radio and TV Host, Global Traveler and Author. My area of focus is in the field of human behavior, expanded awareness and enlightenment. I travel the planet constantly researching, learning and seeking ways to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. I delve into the inner workings of the universe, always looking for ways to understand my role in making things better and contributing to the improvement of the human experience. Please visit my website to sign up for a daily inspirational message, by following this link Daily Inspirational Message. This is your daily call to action, a reminder to do things better each day. Visit my website at http://www.andrewhorton.co.za/

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Two Things We Have to Unlearn Before We Start Our Journey Towards Success

Throughout my life I have had to face challenges and obstacles. I failed to shine in my education, I failed to maintain my relationships, I failed to manage my finances and I failed to keep myself fit and healthy. Every time I managed to get a handle on any of these aspects of my life, others aspects starts becoming a problem. I was firefighting all the time. It began to tire me out and I felt like giving up many times. Thus began my vicious cycle of misery.

It wasn't until I discovered that the cause of these challenges and obstacles was not out there. It was within me and until I worked on myself, I would never be able to get out of this vicious cycle.

When I began my education in personal success, it became apparent that there were two things I learnt (and believed in) that I had to unlearn before I can start to truly live to the fullest the potential of my personal success:
Successful people are born, not madeSuccessful people are always at the right place and the right time

These two learnings shaped the way I made my decisions and the actions I would take and thus the results I get.

So let's talk about the first one.

Learning #1 Successful people are born, not made - NOT TRUE

I used to look at successful people with a lot of envy especially when they were my age. I thought that there were born with a silver spoon and were destined for success and greatness from young because of the circumstances of their birth. My measurements for success were the cars they drove, the clothes they wore and the lifestyle they led (I could never keep up with them). I find myself bearing a little resentment at their good fortune and often wondered why I wasn't born so fortunate.

These thoughts lead me to believe that success is only for the select and privileged few who are destined by fate to become the success stories or the great leaders while the rest of us are destined to live in our lives in the struggle of life.

The mistake I made was to equate those who were born into wealth with those who had developed the skills for success early on in life (let's not go into those who were born into wealth and wish them well for good fortune). Instead, let's ponder about those who had developed the skills for success early on in life.

There is such a thing as the skills for success and that everyone can learn them. Some people (like the ones I looked at with envy above) have simply been able to learn them early on in their life and the successes they enjoy now are the fruits of those learnings. The good news, for those of us that have not been able to learn them early on in our lives, is that we can many have learnt them later on in their lives and are enjoyng tremendous levels of success.

I now believe that 'Success is a skill and any skill can be mastered' and therefore it is something that can be learnt and if something can be learnt, then it can be developed and improved upon. All of us have the potential for greatness and success because we are all born with the ability to learn and therefore the opportunity to grow.

It is those who recognize this and take steps to master the skills of success that can break out of their circumstances and begin to truly be on the path of success. It is unfortunate though that not everybody recognizes and accepts this simple truth and because of that they do not take the efforts to turn their abilities into something that can contribute towards their success.

Learning # 2 Successful people are always at the right place and the right time - NOT TRUE

I use to believe this deeply. As a result of this particular belief, I never bothered to look at my abilities and improved upon them (based on the first learning above). Instead, I spent my time making myself 'available' for success to come. I spent my time waiting for my turn to strike it lucky.

It never came.

I have since learnt that the successful people out there do not wait to be at the right place and the right time because every place is the right place and every time is the right time. They look at their circumstances and environment and simply make the most out of it. They would discover their abilities and skills and improve on them. They would see out to make sure that others would benefit from their abilities and skills and they approach any situation with energy and spirit.

In other words, they do not wait for it to happen. They make it happen.

Our beliefs can be shaped by these two learnings. If you want to begin your journey towards success, it's time to unlearn them because the good news for us aspiring for success is that we too can develop a similar philosophy for success. There is no secret manual where only the few are privileged enough to have access to.

We can all learn it.

If we chose to.

Reza Ali is a writer, speaker, coach and consultant residing in Malaysia. Reza is an avid learner in the field of leadership and success and can be contacted at RezaAli.Net

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Obama pushes Senate to approve START treaty now, not later - Los Angeles Times

President Obama on Thursday called the new START treaty with Russia a "national security imperative," ramping up pressure on the Senate to ratify it during the lame-duck session.

Obama joined a meeting in the White House hosted by Vice President Biden that included former secretaries of State and Defense and the chair and ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to make his case.

He said it was a "gamble" to put off a Senate vote, as some Republicans have asked for, calling the treaty a "cornerstone of our relationship with Russia."

"This is not a matter that can be delayed," Obama said. "This is not about politics."

Sen. Jon Kyl, a Republican from Arizona, said earlier this week that he did not think a vote on the treaty could be supported "given the combination of other work Congress must do and the complex and unresolved issues related to START and modernization" of U.S. nuclear weapons systems.

Obama said Thursday that he was prepared "to go the extra mile" to address those concerns, adding that the treaty has been vetted with 18 hearings, multiple briefings and support from military leadership.

"The stakes for American national security are clear, and they are high," he said. "We can't jeopardize the progress that we've made in securing vulnerable nuclear materials, or in maintaining a strong sanctions regime against Iran."

Asked if he thought he could find the 67 votes in the Senate needed to ratify the treaty, Obama said he was confident.

"Keep in mind that every president since Ronald Reagan has presented an arms treaty with Russia and been able to get ratification," he said.

Sen. John Kerry, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, said earlier Thursday that Republicans "ought to be unbelievably happy with what the president has offered."

"In my judgment, this treaty ought to be able to win with significant votes," Kerry said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "We have to cross the divide here, and this is the first step to prove to the American people that we can work together and get something done."

mmemoli@tribune.com

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