Posts Tagged "positive thinking"

Special Anniversary

Posted by MJ on Jul 20, 2011 in My Truth | 1 comment

Today is a birthday and anniversary.

Not an anniversary with someone, but an anniversary nonetheless.  It is also the very same day that became the Maine Coon Cat’s birthday.  The vet marked it as Lilo’s birthday when she first went to the vet at 6 weeks old. (I had found her 2 weeks before)

Today, she is 3, and it’s been 3 years since I realized how much my life has changed. But change is hard to see, and for those who are just getting to know me you may not know how much change there was….

In 2003, I woke from a dark life, and my hand bears a reminder of that day. Perhaps a scar does not sound like the best reminder, yet it constantly reminds me that I need to help others. Even if that idea did not occur to me until later.

That day was July 20th 2008.

Looking at my life, I realized it was not where it needed to be. This was the day I decided to

Make it so

Posted by MJ on Dec 14, 2009 in Business, fun | 1 comment

A month ago I took off “suddenly.” The thing to know about me, is I never actually do anything suddenly. Having been alone for most of my life I plan things out with great detail in my head, so when I act it looks very sudden.

The visit was months of discussion, months of persuasion and me resisting. Actually I had planned to go since April, but things didn’t work. Yet this new factor was both a temptation and a reason to resist. One resistance was budget in nature, but I will explain that later.

On July 3rd a classmate came to town from Las Cruces for a family wedding. A third classmate joined us, and we went out to eat around the corner from her hotel. Soon we were joined by her husband. He had already eaten so he stayed for a drink and left, then her brother showed up, a friend on facebook.

The 5 of us soon went out to a club, her brother and I danced the night away at the Mambo Club. We laughed and acted like we were a couple (see the image above). So the next week, I asked my classmate about him. She didn’t say much, but a few weeks later she said to talk to him.

The conversations were few, but comfortable. Often with him encouraging me to visit his sister and him in New Mexico. Finally in November, my resistance broke, and I am glad it did. Yes, it was nice to get away from home. But truth is I had a lot of fun, and all we did was hang out, like a first date (that lasted 2 days) Well, I guess it was… and soon we will try a 4 day second date.

Unfortunately for him, I have dated more than a few jerks, so he’s got a mountain to climb. Which really isn’t fair to him; but, something tells me he’s up to the task. Course this is going to be a bit weird if he reads my posts… although he’ll probably laugh.

Now drifting back to the first resistance and the related. Part of the disillusionment with taxes and bookkeeping is the pay has not gone up while the bosses have gotten progressively meaner. In my 20s I shopped for designer labels on sale, although I could buy them full price. My savings was nice.

In my 30s after a bad business deal, the business partner made off nice . Followed by a period when no one would hire me, my savings disappeared, debts appeared, in droves.  A few years of work helped, but when I was laid off in April, I decided to quit in July (long story).  It was time to follow a 30+ year dream of being a writer, but the starving artist is NOT part of the dream.

I want to able to pay bills, even better to buy things again, without worry. But after New Mexico, my urge and urgency has grown. My debts need to be paid off, the sooner the better.

So what’s the plan o’ action? First are goals, $1500 to raise before the end of the year, $5000 by February 1st. That will be great forward progress.

• Sell my Wendi Friesen and Joe Vitale stuff on eBay to raise money ASAP (see if there is more stuff I can sell) http://bit.ly/6oBTJQ

• Promote my products more on http://RockstarGuideBooks.com,

• Produce new products.

• Find JV partners.

• Write articles.

• Do more graphics. I do graphics for fun but it’s a little bit of income.

• Offer ghost writing

• Make the ex-boyfriend pay his debt to me.

• Believe.

• BELIEVE.  (worth repeating)

• Make it so… (Star Trek: TNG)

So if you need to learn something in particular, have ideas to raise some funds, ideas of what I can sell, please leave some comments. If you know (or even better are) a potential JV partner, please leave a comment.

MJ Schrader

Losing Time

Posted by MJ on Aug 27, 2009 in Life | 0 comments

I have a sinus infection. Hate when that happens.  Finally realized that after 4 days of my head non-stop hurting. Of course, when I admit that I have a sinus infection someone will tell me to go to a doctor, which means antibiotics. Been kicked by a horse twice, cut my finger almost to the bone, broke my baby toe, and didn’t go to a doctor, so nope, not going for this.

Did just do a Cayenne sinus rinse. Yes, it’s just like it sounds. A sinus rinse with a pinch of Cayenne pepper. THANK GOD, when I am in pain I lose verbal skills. So instead of swearing, screaming, and other such profanities, I hit my skull with the palm of my hand, stamped my foot, and scared the dog.

BUT NOW I CAN THINK!! My head is finally feeling clearer and I can actually feel the infection deciding it doesn’t want to fight with someone as crazy as me. “Wow, that woman actually put cayenne IN HER NOSE to get rid of me…”

But I should have listened to my body. Instead I was unable to think clearly for days and blaming everything else under the sun. Friday and Saturday night I went out with friends from many years ago. I have never been one to go out much, so 2 nights of drinking, hollering, and hanging out might effect my body I thought. Even though I didn’t drink that much, and Saturday night rather than drive the hour home exhausted, I stayed in Dallas with friends. (Thank you B.A. Thank you P.S., there is a post dedicated just to this past weekend in the works.

The heat here has been bad. My office is the warmest room in my house. Top that with a 30 minute walk EVERY morning even in this heat. Add puppy-sitting mom’s 9 puppies, which means checking on them, catching and playing with them etc… in 100+ degree weather. So I blamed these factors. That’s why I am so tired. Why my muscles hurt, why I am sleeping horribly and then having to take long naps.

All the while watching my eyes getting puffier and growing ever bigger black circles. The number one sign of my having a sinus infection is staring me in the face every time I look in the mirror.

Yet this is something we often do. We forget to listen to our bodies, to borrow from Princess Bride (simply because it’s epically funny) “If you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.”

But the previous line is important as well, Prince Humperdink tells Count Rogen “Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work, but I’ve got my country’s 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Gilder to frame for it. I’m swamped!”

While I do hope that those exact things are not in your schedule, my dear reader, I wonder if your schedule is as full? Or perhaps it’s even more jam-packed?

Because you have “so much to do” you don’t listen when your body tells you that something is not right. If you do notice not feeling well, you blame the wrong things, like I blamed the late nights, the heat, etc… If you don’t take care of your health then you lose part of your life.

Literally.

I lost 3 days of work, because I couldn’t focus on my writing. So an assignment that I should have finished yesterday, still has two days of work left. On the plus side I was able to study a course, but had I been feeling better I would not have had to hit replay 3 times during one section.

But we’ve all done it. You’ve gotten the flu, been “too busy to rest” as necessary. So rather than rest a day or so, you keeping working. Jobs that are normally quick and easy are slow and cumbersome. Then the flu laughs at you becoming easy prey, and you spend the next few days to week in bed with the flu. Coughing, sneezing, hurting, and worse.

Time is something we can’t get back; so make a choice…

Do you want to listen to your body or lose time?

Live ♥ Laugh ♥ Love

MJ Schrader

LoveRockstar

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And Finally… Lent ends…

Posted by MJ on Apr 13, 2009 in Green Earth, Uncategorized | 0 comments

This is the last “Let’s Eliminate Negative Thinking” post, (at least for a while). Today is purely off the cuff.  No carefully thought out plan of what this blog will cover. Here it is Lent, and my goal is to eliminate negative thinking. Yet, of late anger and deep frustration have been trying to push themselves into my day. So this blog will be about dealing with the “Negative Thinking” that arises from that.

A huge kink was thrown my way Friday, and caused me a great deal of pain. Because of certain situations, finishing my book has been stalled until after April 15th. Bummer because I was nearing completion. But work and my writing are in conflict.

Unfortunately it seems I don’t do enough work, never mind the more work I do, the more I get paid. Since I have plans to travel this summer, income is very important. Try as I might, the German blood in me begins to boil. Anger seeps into my being. Yet, as my blood boils I recall that blind anger is Negative Thinking.

How easy it would be to lash out, yell out my feelings. Another worker brags about her home business with every other client has worked on it at the office. Anything I have done has been done by my co-workers in forms. What I say and do is turned in and turned against me. It’s seems unfair.

Yet, this is part of life. Life is not fair. There are things that make us want to scream, that cause deep frustration, and make your anger flare. The easy route is to embrace those feelings and follow the instincts that follow.

No, I am not sleeping well, haven’t in over two weeks. But as I got called into the office again, my anger flared, and I caught myself. Closed my eyes for a brief moment, and realized “this too shall pass.” It was time to stop, think beyond this moment, and not create more negative thinking.

Follow my temper, then I would feel worse. Management would then be upset. My co-workers could then get into trouble. Then management, my co-workers and I would all go out into the world and spread more negative…

Wait.

That’s not a good thing.

Instead, I will embrace whatever they tell me. Hopefully my last three days of work will be extremely busy. When it’s not busy, I can think about things to write later. Maybe I can get in some reading. This week I will bring in some brownies. Maybe I’ll make some appetizer.

On April 15th I will thank my boss for another tax season. Pay my co-workers compliments. They are wonderful people. There is a great deal of beauty and love inside each of them. Rather than see the negative, I will choose. I choose to see all the wonder, and amazing values each of them brings. So “Let’s Eliminate Negative Thinking” by controlling the anger, frustration and choose to see the positive.

Love
MJ

Faking Positive Thinking

Posted by MJ on Mar 27, 2009 in Life | 0 comments

The fourth week of “Let’s Eliminate Negative Thinking” brings us to Faking Positive Thinking.  A special thanks to Simone Blum who helped me decide on a slightly lighter topic for this week. She is a great person to follow on Twitter.

The past two weeks were some of the consequences of negative thinking. The making poor choices, falling into or back into addictions, and suicide are serious problems that negative thinking can bring.

You must make choices that better for you. Making changes for the world is too big. Think positive and light up YOUR WORLD.  But if you think about the people in your world, your family (not necessarily by blood), your friends, your acquaintances and the people whose lives you touch unknown by you, that IS YOUR WORLD.

By thinking negative, you effect not only yourself but everyone in your world. It is ripples in a pond. Ever walk down the street and someone gives you a big smile. Suddenly you find yourself smiling? Those are the ripples in the pond…. or the invisible threads of the spiderweb from last week’s blog.

It is not the big things that make or break the world, it is the small ones. You are having a bad day, everything seems to be going wrong. It is easy to drift into negative thoughts. But as difficult as it seems, that is the time to think positive. If you can’t think of anything to be positive about fake it.

Put on a friendly smile, wear it for a while. It seems the brain can not tell the difference a genuine and fake smile. Either case the brain releases endorphins, serotonin and natural painkillers which work to make you feel better. Turn on your MP3 player or favorite radio station to give your mood a further boost.

Some stresses in life are too big to stop your stress and worry with simple methods. The best solution is then to consciously distract your mind from the current situation. This can be done by watching a favorite happy movie, playing a video game, or breaking from normal routines to do something that keeps your mind active.

Changing your thoughts can give enough time or distance from a situation to either help you forget what caused the negative thoughts or help you see the more positive aspects. Either way you help your perspective and possibly help other people who’s lives you touch in big and small ways. So smile today, even if you don’t mean it. Find the flower growing in the sidewalk and rejoice in it. And “Let’s Eliminate Negative Thinking.”

Hugs,
MJ