4 Easy Ways to Brighten your Day| VictorSchueller.com

Let’s face it — life can look very different depending on the perspective from which you are viewing your world.  Perceptions shape our realities.  If we perceive and accept that something is truth, our body will go along with it.

Sometimes when you get pelted with hard times, get discouraged, or just feel a little down, it’s hard to pull yourself up from the negative feelings to a place where you start to feel a bit better about life in general again.  It can start to affect you in a negative way and the funk can last for a long time if you don’t stop it dead in its tracks right away.  It happens to all of us, so I wanted to share some strategies I have found useful to shake off the blues and hold my head up once again.  They’re easy to implement, and I really hope they can help brighten your day as much as they brighten mine!

1. Use “Wouldn’t it be nice if…” to start your sentences:

I absolutely love this practice.  Just throw a “Wouldn’t it be nice…” out there, and finish it with something that you’d love to see happen.  The reason why this works for me is because it gives me permission to dream and have fun.  It gives me permission to think about circumstances positively, and assume a positive mentality and spirit.  When I play this game, I return to a state of fun and joy, and this puts me back in alignment with who I really am at my core.  I feel better (and believe it or not, my “wouldn’t it be nice if…” thoughts do come true too!).

2. Play the “Gratitude Game:”

This game is really easy to play and can lift your spirits very quickly.  All it requires is a bit of attention to the present and your surroundings.  Just look around you and note all the things that are pleasing to you.  Say those comments to yourself.  You could say to yourself, “I really love the color of the paint on those walls,” or “I really enjoy the feeling of the warm air on my skin.”  You could say to yourself, “I just love when I get to let my daughter sit on my lap and laugh together,” or you could think, “It’s so wonderful to see the sun in the sky and all its beauty.”  It just takes awareness of the present, but it really gets you aligning with a positive mentality and it lifts you out of the doldrums in a matter of moments.  You can go on and on with this exercise for as long as you like.  You can even mix things up and find a partner to play this with, and exchange thoughts verbally with them.  Just have fun with it!

3. Make a “Wishing Box:”

Get yourself a box, and start throwing things in there.  No matter how crazy it may seem, just throw whatever you wish for in this box.  Maybe it’s a check for a lot of money; perhaps it’s a picture from a magazine of a car you’re dreaming of.  Maybe you can throw in there a list of things you want to accomplish within a certain amount of time.  There are no rules!  Just have fun with this one.  This exercise gets you to think creatively of what you want, but you are giving yourself permission to just think big and make grand wishes.  The reason this helps is because you have permission to lift your inhibitions or skepticism.  You don’t have to think to yourself, “This will never happen,” because you’re just wishing for anything and everything you could ever want.  You’re actually removing your subconscious resistance and moving beyond your self-imposed limitations on what’s possible.  When you move into a “fun” mode by making these wonderful wishes, you are eliminating negative feelings caused by your restrictive belief systems which are telling you “It’s just not possible.”  Give it a try, and you may be surprised at what happens to you!  Wishes do come true!

4. “Give it up:”

This is helpful when you feel overwhelmed or at a point where you just can’t seem to move past something with which you are stuck.  Maybe you have more on your plate than you’d like, or maybe you keep coming back to the same problem over and over again and you can’t move past it.  You can do this two ways: One, you can just make a mental list of the things you can’t or don’t want to deal with, and just “give it up” to the universe to take care of for you.  Act as if the universe is at your beck and call and you can just tell it what it needs to take care of for you.  Let it go.  The second way you can do this exercise is to take a sheet of paper and divide it into two by drawing a vertical line from top to bottom on the sheet.  Put on one side the things you are going to take care of, and then on the other side, place the items that you want the universe to do for you.  Put only on your side the things you know you can accomplish that day, and leave the rest to the universe.  I have found this to be helpful in just removing the pressure from me to get everything done.  I have found that not only do I get more done because I am focused, but I feel more positive about my productivity and, believe it or not, some of those things do get taken care of very quickly because the universe is helping me out.  You’ve got to experience it to believe it!

Try out these four easy exercises.  If you do try them out, or if you’ve already done some of these yourself, please let me know and let me know what happened to you, or what your thoughts are.  I’d love to hear from you!

Photo: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Mansee