CENTER POINT THE CENTER FOR SELF-CHANGE NEWSLETTER
Vol. 3, No. 11- November, 2009
Something to Think About
Our difficult and troubled relatives are going to remember the past in whatever ways suit them, truthful or not.*
YOUR INSTANT HOLIDAY MOOD CHANGER
J. Kingston Cowart "The Change Maker"
Our national season of holiday feasting is now upon us. It is a traditional time for family, friends, coworkers, and others to gather together in happy and companionable celebrations of joy and thankfulness for all the things life has given us over the years — so many that it is hardly possible to count them all.
Then again, there are two things we would love not to have with us at this time: annoying relatives and difficult people from work.
But it is inevitable that we must deal with some of them anyway — and can you guess who's coming to dinner?
So this can also be a season of impatience, annoyance, irritation, even anger, or a sense of depression.
These situational moods may come upon us at almost any moment during the holidays — especially when these irksome people seem to know just how to make us us feel really frustrated.
Thank goodness there's something we can easily do about it.
Let's call it "Your Instant Holiday Mood Changer."
It's simple and it feels good.
First of all, it helps to know that the words "mood" and "mode" are very closely related. A situational mood is really a temporary mode of consciousness and it can be consciously changed.
To practice this remarkable technique, begin by taking ten deep, slow breaths.
These are not ordinary breaths. The idea is to extend your diaphragm (at the very lowest end of your lungs) as far toward your feet as you can. If you are standing or sitting, it can help to think of going past your feet to the center of the Earth.
After ten slow, deep breaths like that you will find that your perspective has changed. You will have a sense of having interiorized — of being inside yourself, calmly looking out on the world with a feeling of being confidently centered, both relaxed and ready at the same time.
It's not so much detachment as nonattachment — "in the world but not of it" for the time being.
Now, I know that you probably can't take ten such breaths right in the middle of whatever irks you. After all, what would people say? And it might look a bit silly.
So just do the ten breaths whenever you can as a private rehearsal — a practice for those times when you will need what the Instant Holiday Mood Changer can do for you.
You'll discover after a while that three quiet breaths like that will be enough to center you very nicely.
Keep practicing and soon enough one slow, deep, quiet breath will take you right to your center point.
You can always deal with anything better when you're centered like that.
And since it's only one breath no one will know what you're doing. They will only recognize that you're calm, collected, and confident.
This Instant Mood Changer gives you an inner peace that projects an aura of quiet personal power in the presence of people who used to get to you one way or another every year.
Start with 10, train for 3, use 1 when needed — and this could be your best holiday season ever.
* Leonard Felder, When Difficult Relatives Happen to Good People (Emmaus, PA: Rodale, Inc., 2003), 70.
J. Kingston Cowart
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JOIN THE CENTER CIRCLE
It's easy. Every Wednesday for a few minutes between 10:00 and Noon sit down and turn inward - through prayer, meditation, self-hypnosis or any modality you choose - and send out good thoughts to everyone else in the circle.
I'll be there. How about you?
J. Kingston Cowart 619.561.9012 Post Office Box 19005 San Diego CA 92159 jkcowart@self-change.com
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