Category: Words

Turning clouds into silver lining – changing potential negatives into positives

Last night I experienced a liberating, fun and challenging class of air yoga. Air yoga is form of yoga using hammocks suspended from the ceiling.

My plan after class was to catch the train back into the city. As I walked to the train station I saw the train arrive and ran to meet it. Unfortunately, it departed just as I arrived to the platform and the next train wasn’t for another thirty minutes.

Instead of cursing and burdening my mind with negative thoughts about the situation, I took it as an opportunity to eat dinner at the nearby cafe strip. I enjoyed my fish and chips and was happy and back at the station ready for the next train 🙂

The joy of food

This morning, after a delightful early morning run, I stopped at the local bakery. There I bought 2 portions of meat and potato borek (a kind of pastry) straight from the oven.

The taste and texture provided by this combination of pastry, meat, potato and spices was stunning. The borek was so delicious, eating it brought great joy 🙂

The beauty of variety

Variety is a great thing: variety in food; in people; in thought; in weather; in geography; variety in almost everything.

Variety gives us new things to try; variety challenges us to consider alternatives; variety provides new opportunities to grow; variety provides different solutions.

I am grateful for variety in life. As the idiom goes: variety is the spice of life.

The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself

This powerful quote from inspirational author Orison Swett Marden reflects the unlimited potential we each have in our lives.

If I truly want something to happen, I can make it happen.

Our choices and actions can create the most opportunities and we should not wait on the environment, other people or lucky charms to lead us to where we want to be.

The biggest potential we have is within ourselves – let’s use it!

I’m alive, I’m well and I feel great!

At university I was a member of the global student organisation AIESEC. One of many great things about the organisation was the conference: long days of meetings and events followed by partying late into the night. Many attendees became very tired as the conference wore on.

To get the audience enthusiastic again, speakers often got the crowd to stand up and shout out the following mantra, punching their fists into the air while stating each line:

I’m alive!
I’m well!
And I feel great!

Even if really tired, this mantra helped rev up the audience again. As well as motivating groups of people, I think this mantra is great for individuals. When feeling down or requiring extra motivation, passionately stating out loud I’m alive, I’m well and I feel great can make one feel vibrant again, at least temporarily.

Life. Be in it.

Life. Be in it. is a famous Australian slogan used in a series of advertising campaigns in late 1970s and 1980s to promote physical exercise and activities. The campaign’s animated television commercials started “Norm”, an overweight man who liked drinking beer and watching TV.

I love the slogan Life. Be in it. I think this mantra can also be used in a broader context of living life. Be in life – get into life and really enjoy it; live life to the maximum; really love life! That is my goal – hope it is yours too!

I have the freedom to choose

It’s wonderful and to know that, no matter the situation I am in, I have the freedom to choose my response.

If something potentially bad happens, I can choose to be positive and not react negatively.

The freedom to choose is also very important as happiness is based not on one’s circumstances but on how you react to those circumstances.

What a wonderful day!

Today was my Auntie and Uncle’s last day in town. This morning we visited a historic area and walked around, looking at and reading about the interesting buildings. We then enjoyed a coffee in a quaint cafe tucked away in a quiet area.

For lunch we ate some delicious food at a winery in a beautiful location. What made today even better was the amazing, mild and sunny weather.

After dropping them off at the airport I came home to a fantastic sunset. What a wonderful day!