If you switch on the news today, all you are bound to see is negativity. If the news were to be believed, it could be easily perceived that our world is about to end. The unfortunate reality is that it isn’t only the news that breeds negativity, but people and social media as well. All of this negativity leads to a destructive mindset and affects the quality of our life.

WHY?

The reason why I’m writing this post is because I feel as though in the past few years I’ve been surrounded by people that were going through mentally hard times and always tried to seek a significant other or a momentarily dose of numbness just to fill the void of emptiness or loneliness they feel about their lives or about themselves. Everyone is suffering in their own way and it’s just a part of life. But in the end, you have to realize you have such a powerful ability to live life the way you want it to be and when you come across a undesirable feeling of sadness—the only person who can pull you back up is yourself and you really need a positive mind set in order to change the way you feel.

Hey everyone. The hardest thing when starting something new is where on earth to begin? My new aim in life is to help others to deal with tough times in their lives and uplift them in any way I can. So the best place to begin is to explain how I came to this idea.

Beth was a small-town girl with a dream of becoming a singer one day. She sang in the church and school choirs and had the occasional solo but was a bit shy about her talent. Singing in church was easy for her; it was something she had done most of her life, but when she thought about performing in front of people she didn’t know, Beth would hesitate.

The morning is probably the most important part of the day; breakfast especially, because it helps to keep us going until the afternoon when we can replenish our energy. Almost all conscious or intentional lifestyle books tell us to take notice of our surroundings and to be more aware of the decisions we make when we waking up and getting ready for the day, rather than just doing things automatically—which is actually a lot harder to do than it sounds, especially when you have to get up in a hurry to go to work.

Three years ago, my husband asked me what was it that I wanted as a birthday present.

WHOLEHEARTED LIVING—What is it?

At my last therapy appointment, my therapist gave me a homework assignment to work on.

Growing up in California, I was taught that lilies were exotic flowers imported from far away. Any wild lilies in the area where I grew up were considered invasive and although no efforts were made at eradication, they were often treated as weeds and removed from pristine lawns and yards. After spending 25 years in Japan, I moved to Ohio and was pleasantly surprised to find bright orange wild lilies growing abundantly in many fields and roadside ditches. Eventually, I learned this species was native to North America and was widely known as the “Tiger Lilly”, thus the name of the native maiden in James Barrie’s now legendary stage play, Peter Pan.

You read that right. I moved out of the house when I was eighteen. And I haven't moved back in. To be honest, I haven't stayed with my family for a time period longer than two weeks separated by five or six months. It wasn't hard to make that decision. I joined the Navy, and, so far, that decision has been made for me for the past four years. Let me answer a few questions you may have real quickly:

There are many stressful occurrences in life that can negatively impact our mood. Fortunately, there are a variety of methods to go about improving your mood and seeing a change in your life. Here are 10 unique methods to improving your mood.