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Music Courtesy of Irene Boggs http://affirmajams.com/

Hi! And welcome to the Dream Big & Bloom Podcast Episode #55

I’m Mardi Lynn, certified DreamBuilder Coach and author of Living Happy, Rich and Free After 60, the guidebook and scorecard for achieving your dreams and I help ladies create lives they absolutely love.   

The DreamBuilder Program that I teach is a proven, reliable system for overcoming any challenge and achieving any dream no matter how big it seems.

This podcast will introduce you to the powerful principles and practices of the DreamBuilder system and show you the mindsets that are growing or slowing your progress. 

Are you feeling stressed? Or do you long to have more peace and joy in your life? 

Today I’m going to share with you three simple steps for relieving stress and creating more peace and joy in your life. 

The key to having less stress and to having more peace and joy – is…

Drum roll please…

Do you know it already?

The secret to relieving stress and having more peace and joy in your life is to choose different thoughts!

Your thoughts create your feelings. It’s your thoughts and beliefs (beliefs are just thoughts you keep thinking over and over) that are making you feel stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed. If you’re having a lot of stress producing thoughts your brain is flooding your body with stress hormones that create your feelings.  

And not only does a constant flow of stress hormones make you feel bad and saps your energy, but it compromises your immune system. So your thinking affects your health as well as your experience of peace and joy. 

And then your feelings affect your actions and your actions affect your results. So your actions and results are likely to create more stress and lack of joy.

Let’s stop this right now!

Misconceptions

First let’s clear up a couple of common misconceptions:

The first common misconception is that circumstances or other people make us feel bad. However, the reality is that it’s our THOUGHTS ABOUT circumstances and other people that make us feel bad.  

Two people can face the same circumstance or the same human being and one might feel happy and the other might feel upset. 

Take rainy weather for example, one person might be feeling gloomy and discontented because it’s raining and she’s telling herself that her day is ruined because she can’t do some things she had planned to do outside, and another person might tell herself that she has a great opportunity to get cozy and relax or to do a special project inside. 

It’s not the weather – the circumstance causing how we feel. The weather is just being the weather. It’s our thoughts about the weather that generate our feelings and will affect our course of action. 

And there is so much drama generated by weather reports on the news. Recently, a news story about a big rainstorm popped up in my weather app and I was amazed at how much drama the reporter was making out of it. It was a perfect example of how people’s thoughts and words can generate unnecessary feelings of stress and anxiety. 

The weather is just being the weather. It’s not a “vicious” storm, it’s just a storm. It’s not a “raging” river, it’s a very full, fast moving river. Some people will benefit from being aware of it so they can protect their property, there may even be considerable damage, but what is the point of stirring up a lot of fear and stress? 

I’m not suggesting that you should ignore circumstances or “bury your head in the sand” but you will  be more effective at dealing with a situation, if you’re feeling positive and energized rather than overwhelmed and fearful.

Does starting the day with worry and drama about the weather serve us? Most of it isn’t even about circumstances that are going to affect us personally. Is it a good idea for  everyone in the country to be flooding their bodies with stress hormones about every weather pattern in the country?

The purpose of all the drama and fear mongering is to capture EVERYONE’s attention so the channel will have a large audience and the company can get more money from advertisers. 

Circumstances Don’t Make You Feel Bad

Here’s another example of resisting circumstances. In a Facebook group the other day, someone started a conversation about how much she hated the time chargeback from daylight savings time. That will generate hundreds of comments from people who also dislike the time change. Is that going to prevent the time change from taking place? How does it affect everyone’s energy when they express their dissatisfaction about the time change? What kind of behaviour will that lead to? Acting tired? More complaining? Will the results be peace and joy?

This is not to judge. This is just to create more awareness that we have choices. There are alternative ways of thinking that you may not have considered and that will relieve stress and produce more peace and joy in your life. 

It’s such a common practice, to commiserate with each other about dissatisfaction with circumstances or people. Until now, you may not have considered how detrimental that can be. 

What If…?

So today I invite you to consider…

What if you chose to not be bothered by circumstances and situations you can’t control?  

What’s a better feeling thought you could have about them? 

Remember the Serenity Prayer?

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.”

And this applies to people as well

People Don’t Make You Feel Bad

Another common misconception is that other people can make us feel bad. We tend to have opinions about how other people should behave, and then feel bad when they disappoint us.

The reality is that people do not make us feel bad, it’s our opinions – our thoughts about people and their behaviour that make us feel a certain way. The proof of this is that some people you don’t like, will be very popular with other people.  

The common way of responding is to try to manipulate or control people but people will always resist. Even if they seem to comply with their behavior, they will resist in their minds with resentment. In either case, there won’t be peace and joy in the relationship. 

We don’t have control over other people. We only have control over our response to them.  We are in control of our feelings. It’s totally up to us. You can choose. Isn’t that great news!

And all you need to do to relieve stress and create more peace and joy in your life is to observe your thoughts and choose better feeling thoughts. 

Most of our ways of thinking are just habits that we’ve adopted from others and never questioned. 

However, some people resist giving up worry, anger and other stress-producing thoughts because they believe that if they weren’t upset, they wouldn’t do anything about it. 

If you believe this, than I invite you to think about the answers to these questions:

• Is it possible to work for change in the world without being upset? 
• What would it look like if you approached changing the world with love and patience? 
• Does being angry and upset motivate people with opposing views to cooperate with you?  
• Does posting your discontent on social media change circumstances or people’s opinions?  
• How effective will you be if you allow feelings of frustration to compromise your mental health and physical health?

So now that you understand the consequences of negative thinking and how simple it is to turn it around, are you excited to create more peace and joy right now? 

It’s as simple as 1, 2, 3

1. The first step is to make a decision – a commitment to change. Love yourself and take care of yourself by making your happiness and well-being a priority. It’s not selfish. Not only will you improve your life, but your relationships with others will improve. People love to be around people who are happy and peaceful. It lifts their spirits and helps them feel more peace and joy. 

Not only will you benefit, but you will be making the world a more peaceful, joyful place. As Abraham Hicks says, “There’s nothing more important than that you feel good.”

2. The second step is practice observing your thoughts.  Notice when you are feeling stressed or not feeling peaceful and joyful. Stop immediately for a few seconds and observe what you are thinking. What thoughts are creating those feelings? 

Are they true?  Have you verified that they are true?

Are they serving you well?

Are they generating feelings of peace and joy in your body or inspiring you to take action — to make a difference?

3. And the third step is to choose better feeling thoughts. It may be a simple matter of noticing an old way of thinking that you are choosing to discard. Just come up with a better feeling thought that you believe and that generates feelings of peace, joy and gratitude.  

Comments and Questions?

I’m eager to know how this works for you and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Just post in the comments at dreambigandbloom.com/55

Here are the steps for taking your whole life to the next level.

1. Get The Book

If you haven’t already, get your free copy of Living Happy, Rich and Free After 60. It explains the mindsets for creating a life you’d love and has a scorecard to show you how you are growing or slowing your progress. It’s at dreambigandbloom.com/guidebook

2. Listen to the “Power of Vision” Workshop

Listen at your own pace to this free, three-part series where you’ll learn the foundational principles of DreamBuilding, and create your personal vision for a life that makes you feel happy, rich and free. It’s at DreamBigandBloom.com/workshop

3. Be a guest on the Podcast

This is a great way to get a feel for the process in a friendly environment. Coaching women just like you, to use the DreamBuilder principles and practices to overcome any challenge and achieve any dream is one of my favorite things to do. To be a guest just visit DreamBigandBloom.com/guest

4. Join the Dream Builder Program

Imagine having me as your personal coach to believe in your vision, even when you have doubts, to keep you moving forward. And imagine being a member of an exclusive group of enthusiastic, like-minded ladies who understand the DreamBuilder process and cheer each other on.  

Let’s get together for a complementary Strategy Call. You’ll get clarity on exactly where you are now, where you would love to be, how the DreamBuilder Program works and the results you can expect. Go to dreambigandbloom.com/get-started 

Now as you go remember…

Here’s to Living a stress-free, peaceful, joy-filled life!

Much love to you,

Mardi

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