The Social Media Effect

I was thinking today about what social media has brought into my life. I then found myself in a collage photo on a special persons page. This person Lives in India and I connected with him through a lovely lady who lives in  Spain.  Please check out his website and share it. He is a Heart surgeon and has already operated on 100 children for free due to his charity efforts.You may remember my blog last September when I holidayed with the author of the children's Skellee Rescue series in Spain. In fact back then she was on book number one but has since made a few more. You can find out more here and download a free book if you have young children.

This got me thinking that through her and others, I have connected with people all over the world that enrich my life daily. I have to say that previously I  had paid attention to what was just in my own locality, unless a major catastrophe was brought to my attention elsewhere in the world. Now I get information from all over the world and some of it speaks to me so that I also end up sharing it. This is one of the perks of social media. When someone shares something interesting it can go viral within hours and spread all over the world. Of course we need to make sure the information we share is correct before posting!

I have also read some fantastic books that I would never have considered before when some of these new friends have recommended them. The latest one took me three days (in between work) but I just did not want to put it down. It was called Bouncing Back:The life of Bill Bartmann and is all about Bill's life making and losing millions and at one time  he was even a Billionaire. I won't ruin the story but I loved the outcome. I have been able to read a lot of books on Positivity through these new friends and a lot about overcoming adversity. Today I read a story about how determined a  10 year old was to get  his first book published in India which took him 3 years so he became a publisher at 13 and by then he had written 4 books! Check this out here.. It put into perspective how much work can go into getting a book published although now it is easier with Ebooks but you then have to get your books noticed.

The internet has certainly opened up the world of communication and I love it. I would rather spend time on it than watching Television. In fact in the last few months my TV viewing has consisted of only switching on to watch the UK XFactor. Don't feel sad for me though as I love my life and don't really have time to watch TV. These days I would much rather be playing with or walking my puppies. I am also blessed to be able to pass the gift of reiki on to others which can make a big impact on both my life and theirs. If I was asked what had made the biggest impact on my life, the answer would be reiki but social media comes a close second. Through social media I have also met many people in person who have enriched me in many ways and for that I am most grateful. To everyone that I have connected to both online and in person I would like to say "Thank you for being in my life".

What does social media mean to you? Post in the comments box to let me know.


p.s. In the UK the clocks just went back last night so that means it gets darker earlier. Please everyone take more care and make sure you are able to be seen (especially cyclists).




You can find me on these sites. Feel free to like my pages if you would like to connect with me.
http://www.peaceharmonyandjoy.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/peaceharmonyandjoy
https://twitter.com/Mistyspice

SPREAD A LITTLE HAPPINESS

PLEASE SHARE THIS and spread a little Happiness

How does it make you feel if someone steps in to help you unexpectedly? Does it give you a warm feeling?

Sometimes we do not acknowledge how much we are able to help other people and the impact it has on them. It may be you giving someone a cup of coffee. It may be helping someone with a project though not necessarily only when they ask. It may be holding a door open for someone or even just giving them a smile.

How often do you hear of a problem that someone has and come up with a solution to it?

I had a great experience of this a few years ago when a friend of mine on hearing I had a lack of space in the summertime decided to convert my attic on a budget at barely any charge at all. His answer to me was “You supported me when I needed it” This was completely unexpected and made me feel fantastic.

I also get a buzz out of helping others. I like to offer the use of my Chi machines or my time if I hear of someone in pain or needing to chill out. This week people have been helping me through my back pain. It is important to accept help when it is offered too as the sooner you fix a problem, you can then get back to helping others.

Are you like I was and feel that if you help someone you should not blow your own trumpet? I have struggled with this over the years but have come to realise that if people know what I am doing, it may make them think differently if they come across a situation they can then help with.  I’m not doing anything extra as far as I’m concerned. It's just the way I live my life and I am sure there are thousands more out there who are the same.

We’ve all been brought up to thank people for helping us.  I want to turn this on its head and put the onus on you to raise the good feeling of wherever you work from or in the home. In fact I think the children would also love to become involved with this. For the next 3 weeks I want you all to take part in an experiment. Hopefully after this you will continue and allow the idea to spread.

 The idea is to go to the http://www.kindspring.org/ website. There you can download for free a Smile card design and print them out. Alternatively you can make your own, something again that I think children will love to join in with. Give each person in your team area or home 5 cards. If you need more then that's great. What I want is for you to do something for colleagues/ family/ friends unexpectedly. It may be offering to help with something someone is struggling with. It may be just having a listening ear when they need you to. It can be something simple like offering to carry a load for someone, to suggesting you can help with a problem you know they have. For children it is not doing what they are expected to do in the home. Instead it is when they decide to help in another unexpected way! 

When you have helped someone you then give them a Smile card and ask them to pass it along.


 I would like you to keep a note of what you did and who you gave the card to. I also would like anyone given a card to write down their thoughts on receiving it. This will let you recognise how often that you have helped spread the word.  You should be proud of this. It is not about Ego- more about making everyone feel they are in an environment where people are aware of each other and go that little bit extra to help. The idea is NOT to collect cards but to give them away.

I know my readers are positive minded (or hoping to get there) and I know we all have different skills that enable us to help others. All I am asking that you do not wait for others to come to you. If you hear of or see a problem, then if you can, offer to help.  Please remember that although many people are very good at offering help to each other many others do not feel this way and we want to change this. 

The website I was originally going to link to was called Help others but they have now changed to Kindspring and I see that they did something similar in September so please take a good look at their website.

I wish you a successful time and please share this to get the word out that helping others is a great thing to do. I would love you to come back here and let me know what you have been doing to share the Smile cards.

www.peaceharmonyandjoy.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/peaceharmonyandjoy

Gratitude through life changes

Do you ever have one of those days when you feel your heart is fit to burst? I had one of those moments this morning. This last week has been full of great things happening, some unexpected , but all moving in the right direction and it's going to continue in the same way.

When I wake up in the morning and before I go to bed in the evening I always take a few minutes to go over what I am grateful for. This may be the changing seasons, family and friends, my puppies and lots more. Now, sometimes things do not go the way you might expect, but often you may find later that the right thing happened at the right time. Because of this I try hard to find something positive in every situation. I may not always succeed, as just like you, I'm human. This is always work in progress!

I have not always been like this. A few years ago I would have a couple of things go wrong and then wait for the 3rd thing to mess up. I then became involved with reiki and my attitude had a big change. I  read the Secrets of the Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer which had a big impact on me and then the Law of Attraction.With these teachers I started to think more positively and also realised that until then I had been a "Poor me" type of person. This comes from the Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield which I had also read and would highly recommend. This  is someone that always feels and acts like a victim and always has the guilt trip laid on them that they can never be good enough. I came across this today which is worth a read and explains the different types of people from the book. It is very illuminating.

When you realise that you do not like the type of person you are, you do your best to change and that is what I did. I did not want to be a victim. I wanted to prove myself stronger than that. I have read lots of books to help me evolve and went on to become a reiki teacher. Since then, lots of synchronicity has taken place in my life, leading me to lots of people and events that continue to help me grow. One thing I know is we never stop learning.

 The world is a wonderful place to be at this time with more people coming together as one. We are all showing that we can make change happen worldwide with governments through the power of Social media and we all have so much energy to share with the world. Meditations are taking place and often they include people in many countries meditating for the same purpose all at the same time. Remember that thoughts are actions to attract.  When we all want the same thing, such as peace, we can collectively change world events by coming together. The feelings that you get from doing this are wonderful.

In the last week my Grandson Eamonn (aged 9) has been interviewed twice on local radio and is awaiting his second newspaper interview. You can find out why here as I think what he is doing is fantastic. Feel free to join in with him and give him some encouragement. He is grateful for what he has in his life and is helping others through his project.

 I am going away with my favourite group SPICE  soon for a break and was planning to leave my puppies with a friend (at her request).
In the last few weeks she has taken on a rescue dog which has an infection and  the decision had to be taken not to have the pups to stay with her. On the same evening she advised me of this she told me not to worry. I came home to find another friend was going to look after the pups while she will walk them as they live opposite each other. How amazing is that especially as the other person has a puppy of her own. Talk about gratitude overflowing!

I could talk about gratitude all day especially about the clients I have. I feel that I have come full circle and now try to encourage others to have a positive attitude too. Often this can come about from people finding that the therapies I practice can help control the pain they have or help them combat depression. In fact I am soon to be going into a centre for people with Multiple sclerosis to let them try out my Sun Ancon Chi machines.

What you are grateful for today?  Feel free to tell me in the comments box.


Peace Harmony and Joy

Eamonn's Trading Project

This week my Blog is dedicated to my Grandson Eamonn.

 My heart is overflowing with gratitude for the wonderful thing that he is doing. Before school had stopped for the holidays he heard the story of the man that started out with a red paperclip and kept trading up(Kyle).  He ended up with a house! Eamonn did not have such high expectations, and just wanted to try it for fun. A couple of days later he then decided he would help a local charity. He thought long and hard about which charity to help and decided on one that he personally knew was helping others. He went ahead, with dads help, and set up a Facebook page called  Eamonn's Trading Project.

In just under one week he has over 200 people liking his page and the swaps have started. As I type he has an Xbox, 2 controllers and 6 games ready to swap. The only rule is that every swap increases in value. The plan is whatever gift is left on Christmas Eve will be auctioned and the money will go to East Lothian Food bank.  This is a charity that helps people who are struggling. Unfortunately with all the benefit changes there are often people stuck between benefits that have no money to buy food. The food bank can supply them with a few days worth of groceries.

I often hear of families with children who get so many toys for Christmas that many stay unopened in the attic. What is this teaching them? Eamonn aged 9 and his sister Chloe aged 5 have been brought up to share things with others. I remember when he was much younger and saw something on television that was asking for toys to be boxed to send to a third world country. Eamonn came downstairs with an armful of toys and asked his mum for a box. He was aware at an early age that there were children a lot worse off than him.

As you can see from his photo with the cheeky grin, he is just a normal 9 year old boy that gets into scrapes like the rest of them but I know that doing this is making an impact on him so today I am looking for some help. Please like his page and give him some feedback. If you are local, see if you have anything that you can swap with him to help him Trade up and most importantly help share his page so that others can join in too.

He has even set up a Twitter page too. Businesses are welcome to join in too, so don't get left out. Help Eamonn make a difference knowing that you have played a part in it.

I personally can't wait to see how this develops.

You Too Can Be Happier By Helping Others

I saw something the other evening which amazed me. I was visiting my local park and saw 3 sets of ducklings. They were in the water with a group of ducks and swans being fed by someone. As is usual in this scenario the seagulls were fighting to get to the bread before the other birds. Seagulls are very strong and usually succeed. For some reason I am not enamoured with these birds, probably because I always look out for the underdogs. Many times also the ducklings do not stay alive due to the seagulls and often you can see a brood depleting day by day which saddens me.

This is when I saw something I had never seen before. First one of the ducks went for a seagull, trying to chase it away. This continued for about a minute then a coot joined in. What was interesting is there were no baby coots but it still decided to help its friends. To see both the duck and the coot biting into the seagull as well as chasing it away I was curious to see what would happen. The seagull actually limped away before stopping to tend to its feathers. When I looked up the last of the seagulls were flying away and there were none left in the water!

It reminded me that it's great to be able to do something for yourself but you should always accept the help if it is offered. Sometimes two can complete a job much faster than one and be more effective. It can also work the other way too. If you ever see someone struggling with anything, ask them if they need any help with the problem. Today I was told I had done my good deed for the day by explaining how the trolley bank worked at the local supermarket. It can sometimes take just a couple of minutes out of your day to help someone in need.

 I often get told by customers in my day job that I sound happy when I answer the phone and get asked why?  My answer is it's a beautiful world to be part of and there is always something good I can see in each day. Sometimes I get told by the same customers that I have made their day. Just by taking an extra few minutes to chat to them about their day can break their solitude. Remember this when you interact with people. It may be that you are the first person to acknowledge them that day with a few words and it can make such a difference to them.

Don't forget that when you think of other people it can have a ripple effect. A person you have just helped might feel so much better about themselves that they may then Pay it Forward and help someone else in need. You will also find that the more you help other people, the happier you will become. Don't believe me? Try it and see as it really works.

Sometimes all you need to do is SMILE to make a difference to someone's day. Have a wonderful day people wherever you are in the world and thank you for reading my blogs.

www.peaceharmonyandjoy.co.uk

Is what you read really Newsworthy?

This is not my usual style of posting but I felt I needed to write this to get it out of my system so decided to share it with you.

I made the decision a few months ago to not read or listen to news articles. This was because all the negativity was dragging me down. Since then I have certainly felt as if a burden was lifted from my shoulders and feel a lot happier. Now I have a new problem. I like using Social media, such as Facebook but more and more it is being used to spread all the news I restricted previously from my life. It is also being used for campaigns against perceived injustices.Sometimes these are things I agree with but at other times I do not.

I have found myself getting annoyed recently especially at the news stories coming out of America. One was for people not being allowed to collect rain water. How can collecting something given to us from the elements be illegal? Bureaucracy gone mad? Another was from Japan charging people for using Solar Power. Again something we receive free from the elements. Is there a trend here? Greed is coming at us from all corners and Governments as well as multi national companies are usually at the root of it all. Even in writing these last sentences I can feel the emotion stirring in me at the injustice of it all.

I need to come up with a way of still accessing social media but missing out on these posts that disrupt my thoughts. Do I just not look at them when they come up in my newsfeed? That sounds simple but then I find that many of the positive pages that I visit on Facebook stick little snippets of these injustices in every so often too. Sometimes I see campaigns that I want to get involved with and do so but there are so many that sometimes I feel I am wading through them.

 I often find myself researching things I see printed and see that they are years old and have been changed since they were first produced but they are stated as if they are current news items. Sometimes the information has been discredited or it is found to be completely fictitious but the people posting it are unaware of this. This is where we have to be careful of believing everything we see. Often a story may have a bit of fact but then it gets sensationalised. Also how often have you seen a startling headline only to find the story a non event? This is also a reason why I stopped reading newspapers.

There are lots of good news stories out there on facebook and Twitter etc pages. I would like to hope that those pages will remember what they stand for and stop adding any negative posts to their page and I promise that I will monitor mine as well. There may be some campaigns that I really believe in but I will limit my posting of these as I much prefer my pages to be filled with positive inspiration. I do love the fact that we can share ways to help including helping owners to find their pets. More and more I see postings for this which are followed up by a post that shows the animal has been returned to it's owner. This is the good power of the internet.

After writing this I realise that I get so much positivity from social media which far outweighs the other side.  I have decided that I will monitor which direction I am getting these posts from and see if I can either not click on them or in extreme cases remove them from my newsfeeds. This will allow me to concentrate on my wellbeing. All I can ask of those reading this blog is if you still read the news please make sure it is a true fact before you spread it around the internet.

Thank you for reading this and feel welcome to share your comments about what I have written if the same thing affects you.





www.peaceharmonyandjoy.co.uk

How to Accept Constructive Criticism and Improve Yourself

I wrote this for something else but decided I would rather share it on my blog so apologies if you have read it already.

I had an interesting day recently. I went to the Edinburgh Body and Soul Fair and listened to Dr David Hamilton. If you have not heard of him can I suggest you look him up. He speaks from both the spiritual and scientific sides and amazingly they both have the same outcomes. One of the things he spoke about was people who feel they have to be positive all the time. We are only human so of course we can feel down at times but do we criticise ourselves when we have a bad day? Do we feel we are letting ourselves and others down when we do not seem as positive as usual? I know that in the past I have thought like this but in the last couple of years I have changed my way of thinking. I now accept I am having an unsettled time and then move on from it. I often find myself looking back on whatever the situation was to see if I could learn anything from it too as we are always in learning mode.

Another thing he talked about was becoming more aware of who we really are. One way to do this is to take an elastic band and put it on your wrist. Every time you think something negative you need to swap it to the other hand. It has been found that even positive people can still need to swap it up to 21 times in an hour! It is all about becoming more self-aware and stopping these thoughts as they develop. I am going to try this out and see how I get on.

One of the things you often hear, especially from people that have lost their temper, is "You made me do it!" Have you ever said this to anyone? I caught myself out recently. I have 2 puppies that had just been neutered. As they are one of each sex I was having to separate them at times including the night time to help them heal. This one night the female would not settle and after the third time of coming down the stairs to settle her I found myself saying that she was making me angry as I was so tired. This was because I had received only 5 hours sleep the previous night. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I realised what I was saying so I apologised to her. It was me that had the problem in not having the patience to help her with the problem she had. She did not understand what was happening to her. Suddenly she was being kept away from her brother for the first time and could not cuddle into him. It did happen again but I coped better now that my self criticism had kicked in. I was aware it was my decision how to react to this situation and I chose from that time to have more patience. In a short time things changed and are now almost back to normal.

This came to me also in a conversation with a friend who teaches Toddler calm. How many times do people lose tempers with their children and then say the children know what they are doing or saying and are winding the parent up? My friend advised at toddler age the brain is not wired in the way parents think and the children do not have the control we attribute to them. It is up to the parents to accept that they have to change the way they react to certain situations to change the outcome. Getting mad at the children is not the answer!

Sometimes we cannot change the outcome so need to change the way we deal with the problem. For instance we may be planning an outdoor event and find it is going to rain. This is not something we can stop from happening so rather than going in a strop and cancelling the event,we can take all the steps we need to change things around such as getting more items under cover for the evening so the event can still be successful. It just needs us to change our mindset. What may have started out seeming as a disaster could turn out that people had more fun under cover. It would probably also made more people come together to help with the extra work involved.

It is really important for us to be aware that how we react to a situation is down to only us. Every emotion we have comes from us not the external situation. One of the biggest emotions we have at our disposal is self -love. A good way to increase this is to run a critical eye over the way you live your life and see what changes you may be able to make enabling you to love both yourself and your life even more. We can be our best critics but we should also be looking for all the things we are good at as well. There needs to be balance

Fill your life with gratitude for all the things you have that bring joy. Every morning when I wake and in the evening before I go to sleep I think of my family, animals, job, friends, and all the wonderful sights I get to see on a daily basis. I am lucky to live near the sea and to have wonderful green spaces around me where I can walk and listen to the birds singing. Before I made reiki a part of my life I would walk quickly to wherever I was going. Now I take my time and appreciate everything I see daily. It makes a much more fulfilling life, believe me. It's amazing what you can see when you really look.

Homework for the week:- Set yourself a target of finding at least one thing to be grateful for every day. After that try every hour and see how much more lighthearted you feel by the end of the day.
You will find that the more you do this it will become automatic to see so much that you can be grateful for. Improve your life starting from today.

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