WORLD OF JOI

Techniques For Personal Development

Below are five of the most powerful techniques for self development that exist.
Each one of these are essential elements to managing change. The more you can practice them, the quicker your changes will come.

"Positive Affirmations"

Every thought you think every word you say is an affirmation. All of our self-talk or inner
dialogue is a stream of affirmations. We are continually affirming subconsciously with our
words and thoughts and this flow of affirmations is creating our life experience in every
moment. Our beliefs are just learned thought patterns that we have developed since
childhood, many of these work well for us, but others may now be working against us, they
are dysfunctional and may be sabotaging us from achieving what we believe we want.
Every affirmation we think or say is a reflection of our inner truth or beliefs. It is important to
realize that many of these "inner truths" may not actually be true for us now or may be based
on invalid or inappropriate impressions we constructed as children, which if examined as
an adult can be exposed as inappropriate
Our subconscious uses the behavior patterns we have learned to automatically respond
and react to many everyday events in our life. This is essential to our survival, we need to be able to respond quickly to events around us which would be impossible if we had to re-examine every aspect of things every time something simple happens. Our learned responses and thought patterns enable us to automatically respond to circumstances quickly and easily. Problems arise however, if at an early stage some of the foundation
beliefs on which many of the others are built were formed from a skewed perspective, maybe the strategy was appropriate for a perceived difficult circumstance, however often such beliefs are totally inappropriate for succeeding in the real world as adults.
You can use "Positive Affirmations", which are usually short positive statements targeted at a specific subconscious set of beliefs, to challenge and undermine negative beliefs and to replace them with positive self-nurturing beliefs. It is a kind of "brainwashing or re-
programming" only you get to choose which negative beliefs to wash away. The way these statements are constructed is extremely important. It is important to remember of course that everything we say and think is a positive affirmation, using positive affirmation
statements forces us to keep focused on our inner goals and reminds us to think consciously about our words and thoughts and to modify them to reflect our positive
affirmation.

Do affirmations work

YES! Affirmations really work. You will be hard pushed to find any self help program anywhere that does not include affirmations, even the ones that appear to pooh-pooh affirmations include them under some slightly different guise. And the reason for this is, they
work. The more determined you are to make your changes, the more you are prepared to accept change and let go of the past, the better they will work for you.

Why affirmations work

By choosing to think and say positive affirmations as true, the subconscious is forced into one of two reactions - avoidance or reappraisal. The bigger the issue the bigger the gap between the positive affirmation and the perceived inner truth and the more likely that one is
going to experience resistance. This is where the subconscious finds it easier to stay with its perceived inner truth and avoid the challenge using any means at its disposal to avoid examining the issue. You will recognize this reaction by a strong negative feeling inside as you state the positive affirmations. Equally if your experience a sense of joy and well being,
your mind is instinctively responding to something it believes to be true. When you get this emotion, you know your affirmations are working! Continually repeating affirmations with conviction and passion will chip away at even the strongest resistance.

How to create your own affirmations

Start by taking some time to think about areas in your life you would like to improve and how you might want your life to be. It is worth taking some time over this process. Write the most important ones down in a list.
Now look at each item on the list and write out a few positive statements for each. They must be positive and in the present tense, focus on what you do want, not on what you don't want. For example if my list of things that were important to me included... "A fulfilling job"
My affirmation might look like this
"I have a wonderful job that fulfils me on many levels"
Creating your own affirmations is the perfect way to get the right affirmations for you.

Meditation - Connecting to the Inner Self

Meditation is the key to self discovery - Giving yourself the time and space to understand
what it is you really want and time to properly consider events that happen. Such understanding is vital in order to be able to determine what goals and changes you are
looking to achieve on your journey.

Meditation Resource

Visualization - imprinting patterns of success

Visualization is the practice of actively playing through scenarios in your mind, exploring possibilities and repeating until you have it practice perfect. This technique is used by athletes and top performers throughout the world to gain that winning edge. You can too!

Visualization Tools

Exercise - Invigorating Body and Soul

Our bodies are the temple in which we must live our existence. Our mind and body are linked, neither can prosper if the other is neglected. It is an undeniable truth that our physical wellbeing relies on regular exercise to invigorate our body and minds. Without it both will stagnate and start to fail. But exercise need not be something to fear but rather something to start enjoying, you just need to find what suits you.

Journaling - Writing Dreams and Revisiting Your Journey

Journaling is the process of regularly writing your thoughts, your dreams, milestones, events
and feelings down on paper. There are many different kinds of journal you can choose to
keep but it is a powerful process that provides the opportunity to explore things in a
measured way. It can also be fun to look back and discover how far you have come!.

Be Blessed, Be a Blessing

A wise person does today what they will be happy with tomorrow. A foolish person does what feels good today and ends up regretting it tomorrow.
Faith is not about everything turning out OK.  Faith is about being OK no matter how things turn out
Forgiveness, simply sets you free!......
In your Giving or Receiving†
May the Rest of your Life, be the Best of your Life

IT'S YOUR CHOICE.....

God whispers in your soul and speaks to your heart.
Sometimes when you don't have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at you.

It's your choice:

Listen to the whisper...
or wait for the brick.

 "STAY IN CHARACTER"

In Joy,

Nurse Pat, aka JOI