Life Options


Finding Joy on the Most Depressing Day of the Year


Jan 22

 

Congratulations, you have already made it though the most depressing day of  2009.  For those who want to know this day was calculated as January 19, 2009. 

 

 

First of all, why would anyone want to know what the most depressing day of the year is?  Dr. Cliff Arnall does.  Dr. Arnall is a Welch psychologist and depression expert. He came up with a formula that takes into account six factors: weather, debt, time since Christmas, time since failing our New Year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and the feeling of a need to take action. 

 

For those interested the formula is:

 

(W+(D-d))xTQMxNA

 

W is the weather, D is debt, M is general motivation levels etc. 

From the Daily Mail Report in Great Britain

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1121262/Feeling-blue-Today–January-19-2009–depressing-day-HISTORY-say-experts.html

 

For those who are interested the happiest day of the year is calculated to be sometime in June. 

 

If you are feeling blue after the holiday debt and stress as well as some middle of the winter blues there are some very positive steps you can take.

 

Taking action – any action is probably the most important step.  Exercise, take deep breathes, call a family member, have lunch with a friend, even finishing something you have been putting off can change your mood.   

 

If none of these works talking with a professional may help shake off those blues and get you motivated.  Give me a call and let me know if I can help.

 

Wishing You Joy Always,

 

Amy

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IMAGINE BELIEVE CREATE _ CREATE A LIFE YOU LOVE


Jan 01

Imagine! Believe! Create!

Create a Life You Love!

 

Led by Amy Barnes MA MBA LMHC

Saturday January 17th   

 

9:00 to 2:30

Spiritual Life Center at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church

Call St. Luke’s at 846-3404 to register

Space is limited 

 $25 per person

 

Come treat yourself to a day of visioning, play, laughter and fun.

Create what you really, really want in your life.  What would it be like to have more joy and abundance in your life?  We’ll get out of our heads, create a vision board, play, move, and talk about what we really want and what gets in the way.  We’ll do some movement and breath work.  Dress comfortably.  A light lunch will be included.  Join us for the fun, interactive workshop

 

You may have heard or read of creating a vision board.  This is your chance to actually take the time to do it. Create your vision for 2009.  You can create a life you love.  Imagine the life of your dreams. Believe in yourself. Create a life you love.  We will use a variety of tools, to get a jumpstart on creating the life you want. 

 

Led by Amy Barnes MA MBA LMHC.  Amy is a life coach and therapist, a graduate of Christian Theological Seminary and a certified Body-Mind Vibrance and Relationship Coach with the Hendricks Institute.  She is also further studying with Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks in their Transformational Leadership Program. 

 

If you have any questions about the workshop, you can call Amy Barnes at  317-…. 

 

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.  Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.

-Carl Jung 

 

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Getting Things Done


Dec 03

In high school my yearbook picture had the words absent minded professor written under it. I have always been challenged to stay focused and on task. I am not one of those born organized types who doesn’t understand why clutter can be such a problem. I feel that David Allen understands clutter. He realizes that clearing clutter from your mind is a necessary task in order to get things done. Getting Things Done is a systematic way of approaching clutter – process, organize and flow. Maybe that’s why this book is particularly appealing to the creative software engineer types.

I have given workshops on clutter, hoarding and other types of behavior that keeps us form getting what we want. This is a book on the practical side. To make your dreams a reality it is necessary to take action. This book helps you to take that action.

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The Passion Test: The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Destiny


Dec 02

Are you 100% clear on who you are and what you want out of life? Have you ever wondered what your purpose is? What if discovering and living your life on purpose and with passion could actually be more meaningful and also more fun?  Janet and Chris Attwood in The Passion Test:  The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Destiny, provide us with a number of questions for each of us to answer and think about that will help guide us to our true passion.

As a coach, I have the privilege of working with a number of talented people who are good at what they do. That doesn’t mean they necessarily like what they do.  This is a book you can use over and over again when you are feeling stuck or not quite sure what direction to take next.  What would your life be like if you really could create your ideal life, would you even know what that would look like?  What is your true passion and how do you carry it out in your every day life.

If you have read The Passion test or have any questions or books you would like to share, please let me know.  I look forward to your comments.


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Five Wishes


Dec 01

T’is the season for giving.  One of my favorite gifts to give and receive is books.  During December, I would like to share with you a number of my favorite books and also to ask you for your favorite books.  Maybe some you would like for yourself and maybe some for a friend or someone special on your gift list. 

 Five Wishes by Gay Hendricks is based on a simple premise.  If you were on your death bed would you have any regrets? I think the question itself is profound and could have much impact on each of our lives if we took it to heart.  While you are pondering you own answer you might wish to read Gay’s answer.  

 

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Dealing with Distractions


Nov 11

First thing this morning I started to write but couldn’t find my favorite pen.  It’s silver with one of those soft squishy plastic things you hold on to and it’s refillable with some ink gel cartridge that just glides across the paper when I use it.  Now this might seem silly to focus so much attention on a lost and then found pen. 

Yes, it’s only a minor interruption and yes it only took me a few minutes to find it. Yet our minds can only focus on so many things at a time?  By the time I found it I had become distracted.  I lost the focus of what I had planned to write.  I’m now writing about this pen instead. 

What is it that gets you off track during the day?  It may be something major or something little.  Noticing what keeps us stuck and what interrupts us are important before we can solve them.  I’ve now decided to put my favorite pen away in the same place every night. 

You can’t solve the problem until you recognize it. 

What is it that gets you off track during the day?

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Revisiting Those New Year’s Resolutions


Nov 01

Two months left in 2008.  Are you on target to complete what you started out to do this year?  Maybe it’s time to bring out your New Year’s Resolutions, dust them off and see how you are faring.

 

Did you forget these resolutions before January was even over?  Perhaps feeling what’s the use or may be you didn’t even make any resolutions at all.  It is a fact that people who set goals accomplish more than people who don’t.

 

Life is not a sprint.     It is a marathon.  Keep going.  Dust off your goals.  What needs to be completed or started or permanently taken off your to do list by the end of the year?  How can you make the most of these last two months of 2008?  What can you do now that would allow you to wake up January 1, 2009 saying what a great year 2008 was?  This was the year when___________________________.  (Fill in the blank)  

 

It’s easy to say the economy is bad, the year’s almost over, I’ll do better next year or any number of excuses.  What you choose to do says lots about you. 

 

Persistence.  It’s not exciting or flashy.  It doesn’t make headlines.  Persistence is sometimes doing what you need to do even when you don’t want to do it.  Persistence means making three more phone calls or putting the finishing touches on a project and reviewing it one more time or going to the gym for that workout when you’d really rather do anything else. 

 

Persistence is the number one trait that separates successful people from non successful people.

May you be blessed with the gift of persistence!

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Do you have an upper limits problem?


Oct 24

You just closed that big deal you have been working on for months. Life should be wonderful, but you lost the final paperwork or totaled your car or missed the closing or lost an easy sure fire deal. You just had an incredible trip to Maui and find you’ve lost your job. You just doubled your income and find yourself with less money or your spouse just walked out.

Life is going well and then it’s like “the other shoe dropped”.  Do you find yourself creating chaos or self sabotaging yourself just when life seems to be going great? 

How much joy can you allow in your life? When have you felt you had the world in your hands and then it all crumbled? These are all Upper Limit Problems ULP’s.

What’s your Upper Limits Problem (ULP)?

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