Gratitude and A Positive Mindset

 

Benefits of Practising Gratitude

Practising gratitude is well known for developing a positive mindset. Our positive reflections force us to notice things that may otherwise go unnoticed. We become more appreciative of those little things that make up our day. 

This brings more happiness to our everyday lives as we do not focus on one bad thing that may be ruminating in our minds.

And what does everyone on this planet want? Happiness, of course! 

Negative people attract negative people and negative interactions whereas positivity attracts positive relationships. Relationships are often a source of frustration so gratitude journaling can help you attract more positivity into your relationships. 

 

It helps us enjoy our lives as we see a balance in our lives, rather than overwhelming gloom and doom. We become more appreciative.

Gratitude is easy to do - just requires us to reflect on our day. But it is a powerful tool for changing our mindset. 

Why I chose to practise gratitude

After some very sad occurrences in my life, I sank into a deep depression. This was very unlike me and it was scary.

I refused medication but had to find my own way out of depression. So I came upon the habit of gratitude while blogging online. 

It was a turning point for me in relationships and work. I was working on a casual basis at schools, at this time but I could choose to work every day with multiple offers. Other staff remarked that I always seemed happy and had a smile for them. I enjoyed my time in classes with children and gratefully helped out when I could.

Each day, I reflected on my day and it made me happy as I reflected on my accomplishments that day.

I became happier when I focused on each day's positives and started reaping the rewards in my new work situation. I became in high demand in my profession and had many offers of work and was given an ongoing position at age 67(which was unheard of).

 To this day, I am grateful and still reaping more benefits borne of practising gratitude.

Gratitude Journaling

A gratitude journal helps you keep track of the positives that happened throughout your day and the most effective way is to journal daily.

They say it takes a month to develop a new habit so you can challenge yourself to a 30-day gratitude challenge here.

Gratitude journaling becomes a beautiful keepsake for you and the coming generations as you can reread your experiences and thoughts throughout the year.

Your children and grandchildren can read and find out what sort of person you were through your journaling. 

I am a teacher and I did the Gratitude Jar with one particular student and we reread it to see what had happened in the past days. You will be surprised at how many little things you forget and it really does become a nice memory.

The Gratitude Jar is a nice idea to use with children who write the day's reflection on a strip of paper, fold it and put it in the jar. They can pull out strips when they want to read their reflections.  

Children do get excited about this activity and love rereading their past refelctions. 

For this reason, I prefer journals to apps as who knows what will happen in the future with apps?

Gratitude Journals  you may like

You can use a gratitude journal daily guide to cultivating a life of gratitude and abundance.

“As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.”

This is an example page of the full page inspirational quotes in Gratitude: Changing My Mindset

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Gratitude: Changing My Mindset Large Paperback 

This beautiful big book (8.5 x 11) contains all the important elements for your reflections of the day, helping with your mindset and road to happiness. It also has colourful, supporting gratitude quotes. Read more here.

A couple of examples of inner pages in this gratitude journal:

Start With Gratitude: Daily Gratitude Journal

I hope you have enjoyed this post. If you are interested in further reading, I have a post on Self-Care you might enjoy. You can read it here 

For more information about gratitude, you can read How Can Practising Gratitude Help You? 

Gratitude Journals for you:

Start With Gratitude: Daily Gratitude Journal

Designed to increase your happiness, bring you more joy, and by building the habits of positivity!

The Miracle Journal: Your Guided Manifestation & Gratitude Journal

Suitable for both men and women, it guides your growth by combining  shadowwork journal techniques and manifestation methods.

The Life-Changing Power of Gratitude: 7 Simple Exercises that will Change Your Life for the Better. Includes a 3 Month Gratitude Journal

This book leads you to the all-encompassing benefits of gratitude and strategies to make your life and relationships happier. It comes as a book and a journal. 

 Wishing you a blissful day. 

Confidence

What is confidence?

"Confidence is a state of being clear-headed either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective.

 Confidence comes from a Latin word 'fidere' which means "to trust"; therefore, having self-confidence is having trust in one's self. 

The concept of self-confidence is commonly defined as self-assurance in one's personal judgment, ability, power, etc. 

One's self-confidence increases as a result of experiences of having satisfactorily completed particular activities.^[1] 

Self-confidence involves a positive^[2] belief that in the future, one can generally accomplish what one wishes to do." Wikipedia

How does a lack of confidence manifest itself?

Do you feel intimidated by challenges at work?

Or do you feel like an outsider desperately trying to be accepted?

Or do you have family challenges and keep it bottled up instead of being able to share how you feel?

Resentment and unhappiness can slowly creep into your life as the problem gets bigger with time.

Confidence is like a muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it gets.

The same is true for our confidence. When we lack confidence, we feel like we’re carrying around a heavy backpack filled with rocks.

Even the tiniest thing can set us off balance and cause us to stumble or even fall.

There’s a common pattern that people follow when they lack confidence.

They do everything they can to avoid any situations that make them feel uncomfortable or vulnerable. They try to be more like “normal” people, so they don’t draw attention to themselves.

This means they don’t speak up in meetings or work extra hard to make sure their work is perfect.

Confidence is a funny thing. It can come and go. It's like a wave. Sometimes you're on top of the world, and other times you're drowning in self-doubt and uncertainty.

Confidence is often described as the feeling of being good or great at something.

It’s having a strong belief in your abilities and being unashamed of who you are.

It’s the ability to face challenges head-on and the ability to rise above adversity.

Confidence is the fuel that propels you to achieve your goals.

How to become more confident:

1. Don't let yourself go!

Even if you work at home, take care of your presentation so that you are proud of how you look daily and dressed appropriately for the situation.

So dress in a way that you feel good about yourself, do your hair, and put on a bit of makeup (I have dark circles under my eyes so I cover them with a touch of concealer as they make me feel ugly).

2. Forgive yourself.

If you made a mistake or didn't perform at your best, don't beat yourself up with guilt but focus on your assets and what you did well.

For example, I'm an expert in autism and I recently had a bad bout of covid. Upon my return to work, my leader asked me a simple question and my mind went blank.

I was so embarrassed as I help others understand autism.

I brought it up with her and apologised and told her my mind had gone blank, and it was possibly the after-effects of covid. She knew my work and I simply told her I was embarrassed by that situation and it had been on my mind.

3. Positive thinking-retrain your mindset.

Think positively about your goals and what actions you need to do to achieve them. And then action them!

Say 'yes' to what your old self may have thought impossible.

4. Prioritise and lessen stress.

Get the most important things out of the way first to release a build-up of anxiety.

The morning is the best time to tackle the most pressing, undesirable tasks.

5. Use a long-term planner and daily to-do list daily.

A planner and to-do list is a great idea as you can tick off all you have achieved daily and weekly, even monthly and yearly, and feel a sense of accomplishment.

6. Develop new habits.

What habits would be beneficial to you to be more productive?

Make a list of habits that could stop you from wasting time, then package small amounts of time throughout the day to incorporate a more productive routine.

Can you find small parcels of time in your day for self-care, your to-do list, journal entries, social media, emails, etc?

7. Commit to accepting and acting on problems as they arise.

Accept problems will arise but commit to solving the problems when they present themselves, and the more confident you will become.

The faster you solve the problem, the more confident and relaxed you will be.

8. Practise gratitude.

Journal your gratitude. The best thing about journaling is looking back on your notes and remembering the great things that happened throughout the year.

Think it, if you don't get the time to write-it's okay to sit back and reflect on your day and express your gratitude for the positives in your day.

Express your gratitude to others and smile.

Gratitude, happiness, and confidence are closely interlinked.

I can share that, on a personal level, gratitude made a great difference in my life and opened many doors for me.

You may be interested in this Gratitude Journal

It takes 30 days to instill a new habit. You can change your mindset with gratitude journaling.

9. Challenge yourself.

Make a list of things that challenge you and then tackle them, one by one.

These are things that you consciously avoid but you know that it would be better to overcome them.

You don't have to be great at everything so choose things that you think are important to do confidently, and make sure you make them achievable ie a SMART goal.

That means breaking it down into smaller parts so that is manageable for you to achieve. Then move on to more goal setting once that is achieved.

10. Inspiration and mentors.

Choose people who inspire you and use them as your mentors or role models.

They can be people who are online and have shown great success in the field you are in.

Find out how they accomplished their achievements and the challenges they had.

It is a great lesson to learn that they most probably had some adversities that they had to overcome before they became successful.

You will learn that people achieve by doing, even those who are not 100% confident. They take action.

11. Know your strengths, talents, and achievements.

Successful people are laser-focused and they delegate if something is not their demonstrated strength.

12. Identify where you can make a difference.

What will make you stand out with your contribution?

Developing insights into your strengths will help develop the success mindset.

Successful people integrate these practices, skills, actions, and mindsets into their everyday life.

So learn to optimise your strengths and develop new skills that are needed.

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Recovering from Covid at home

 

How did I get covid?

I work at a school of 3000+ students so it was inevitable that I would eventually get covid, especially as I have contact with 12 classrooms, teaching literacy skills. 

I had a meeting on Tuesday about my work and, later that night, I received a phone call from the person I had a meeting with that she had just tested positive for covid.

That was Tuesday and by Thursday afternoon, I was starting to feel unwell. 

That night, the headaches, fever, body aches, and sore throat started. Followed by constant coughing.

My covid vaccination history

I had my booster 3rd vaccination 3 weeks prior to this. It was awful. 

I had a different booster to my first two vaccinations, which were Astra-Zeneca. The booster was pfizer as it had the omicron elements added. 

The symptoms were quite severe for a week. I went back to work the following week but it was very difficult getting through the day.

 I went home and just collapsed on the couch as my headaches were bad and my body was aching terribly. 

The following week I felt better and that's when I had the meeting and contracted covid. Neither of us had been wearing masks and we sat quite close to each other.

 I had taken mine off as I was working in my office and simply forgot to put it on, as we were not always wearing masks at school.

Living with Covid.

I had a fever for 2 days and occasionally afterward. The sore throat took a week to subside but I had facial numbness on the right side of my face. Even my ears!  I liken it to getting a strong injection from the dentist to numb your mouth. 

I could not stop coughing and eventually tore a muscle along my left rib cage, which made coughing painful. My back also hurt from the coughing. 

The coughing was unproductive and the tickle would not go away. 

At night, I started to wheeze as I lay down, and my nose would block up, making breathing difficult. 

The headaches were constant for one and a half weeks.  Sometimes, they would subside for a few hours but then they would come back. 

Same for the body aches and pains and exhaustion-just carrying the groceries they had delivered to my kitchen left me breathless. 

I think I started to panic as, unlike colds and flu, you do not get cumulatively better each day. When you think you're getting better, boom! Back to square one. 

As I'm older now and need medication for blood pressure problems, and I have a history of cancer, I was quite worried as I kept hearing that I needed to be monitored as things can change quickly with covid. 

I suppose, at the back of my mind, I was anxious thinking I might be the one it changes to the dangerous level. 

The fact that a healthy school teacher in her 40's had died on her second day of being tested positive did not allay my subconscious fears. 

So the psychological effect of covid is quite impacting on mental health, along with the need to isolate when sick.

Getting over covid.

My doctor just said 'take panadol and rest' but it wasn't working. 

I was really panicking about my endless cough so my daughter bought me some Benadryl and some vaporizers to help me breathe at night. 

I put eucalyptus oil in the water to help me breathe and stop the coughing. 

I also used Vicks Vaporub (this is my 'go-to' for many things-read my post on its other uses that will benefit you) under my nose and on my chest to help open up my nasal passages and help me breathe.

I drank copious amounts of lemon tea, laced with Apple Cider Vinegar. Our chiropractor advised us that this would help. 

A few days after I had initially contacted my doctor, he rang me to check on me. I think he heard my foghorn voice, as my chest was congested, and he finally prescribed some antibiotics and Ventolin. 

I was wheezing slightly when I went to bed but found that the Vicks Vaporub and vaporiser helped to stop the wheezing. 

Covid practices in Australia

In Australia, we have to contact the relevant government department when we have a positive covid result. They put you in contact on a daily basis with doctors and nurses, who call you each day.

I cannot even praise them enough as they helped me enormously through a difficult time. 

This was such a great service for me as the doctors and nurses ring you daily for a week to monitor your symptoms.  You can extend this service if you feel the need. 

Unlike doctors in these finance model clinics, they have all the time to chat with you. I needed that as I was waking up at night in a heightened state and they could talk me through it. 

They gave me the number for the Nurse On Call, which is a 24-hour access number, in Australia. 

They sent me medical equipment e.g. oximeter to measure my oxygen levels, at no cost to me. They informed me how to get my meds delivered and my groceries, and asked if I needed any other type of help.

They asked about mental health issues as people are not coping with being ill and being in 7-day lockdown. They were great as my doctor only has a few minutes to talk about the essentials I needed and how I felt. 

Where I am now with Covid.

It's been a week and 5 days since I became ill. 

I am not suffering headaches all day long but just get occasional twinges throughout the day.

I am not challenging myself with physical activity but still get very tired. Some nights I sleep well while other nights I just can't sleep and feel anxious. 

I am still coughing but it is bringing up small amounts of phlegm and it's more settled. But my back is still hurting, my chest still feels heavy, and my voice is still a bit hoarse. 

My work entails me going up and downstairs to 12 different classrooms. This amounts to 10 kilometers of stair walking in 3 days. 

I have a Health app that I used to measure my walking at school.

There is no way I feel ready for work at the moment as a healthy person can get quite breathless with the distances walked at this very large school. 

I'm hoping to be back on board next week!

Have you had covid?

What's your experience been like?

* update: Been back at school for two weeks and am absolutely exhausted and having difficulty thinking as I am still having headaches! 

So glad I am having an Easter break and resting. This covid is crap.

**further update: had to have another covid test as headaches severe and spent last night shaking with cold sweats, then alternating with burning up with fever. It's been 5 weeks now since the original positive tests. 

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Cold Sore

How to get rid of cold sores quickly 

 Cold sores are a common viral infection. They are tiny, fluid-filled blisters on and around your lips. 

After the blisters break, scab forms that can last several days, or even weeks, and they can be quite painful.

They are also called fever blisters.

My experience with cold sores.

My very first experience was when I was about 4 years old and we had been to church. My parents decided that they would like to visit friends, after church. 

I was absolutely starving as  I hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was going onto lunchtime.  

Thankfully, our family friend offered me some delicious Hungarian Csabai sausage, without bread, and sweet tea. It was delicious and I scoffed it down but I broke out in huge blisters on my lips later. 

I still get these blisters if I eat this sausage without bread, when I'm hungry.

 Strange- I can eat it without any side effects when I'm not particularly hungry but I get blisters if I eat it when I'm hungry. So that indicates an allergy for me.

However,  they usually pop up on my lips before a viral infection, such as the flu.  They will appear a few days before I get sick with a viral infection.

Best cold sore treatments: 

I seemed to be plagued with cold sores since then so it was important for me to find treatment for them as they were painful and embarrassing. 

For me, they lasted about 3 weeks until the final scab healed.

I found the ointments and creams from the chemist to have problems.

A popular treatment was Zovirax. I used that for a time but found that it dried my lips out to such a degree that my lips were painful, cracked, and bleeding for weeks.

I looked for other solutions.

Garlic 

Mum's old fashion home remedy!

As soon as you feel that tingle, you cut a garlic clove and rub it on the spot that is tingling. This will actually reduce the size to a small, hardly noticeable lump or it may go away completely. 

You will feel the sting of the juice on the spot. I don't use it if I'm leaving the house as it's very strong when applied to the lips. 

Petroleum Jelly 

My mum discovered this when she became very sunburnt. She was very fair and her lips were covered in blisters, even though she did not usually have cold sore blisters. 

She rubbed petroleum jelly (which was one of the Gods in our medicine cabinet) all over her lips. The pus started oozing out and they healed very quickly.

This works like a dream so I stopped using Zovirax and used it instead.

You will notice the ooze as soon as you apply it. Sometimes, a large cold sore would be flat by the morning and completely healed in 3 days. 

No painful, cracked lips and no more cold sores for 2-3 weeks.  You can purchase it here.

Vicks Vapor Rub

One day, I felt the tingling but I didn't have any petroleum jelly. So I substituted it with Vicks Vapor Rub!

You have the added benefit of menthol and the eucalyptus acts as a antibacterial, as well. It works well.

BTW: I do not have sleepless nights due to a head cold and stuffy or runny nose anymore. I smear vaporub under my nose and this enables me to sleep through the night. It dries up the congestion and opens up the nose and makes it easier to breathe when your head is on the pillow. 

Zinc

Once I started zinc tablets, it was bye-bye cold sores. It's amazing how well it works, and it's great for your nails and hair, as well.

Paracetamol and rest

When you get a cold sore, you may be coming down with a viral infection (like me), or stressed. 

The pain does affect you as, in my experience, my brain feels quite foggy and just not right. There is a distinctive mild pain I feel until I get a fever or the viral infection rears its ugly head. 

So bed rest and paracetamol will help you in this stage of your illness. 

I hope these hints help you with those very annoying cold sores. 

Has anyone else experienced cold sores related to allergies?

Has anyone been using any of the above remedies?

What are your go-to's with cold sores? 

I'd love to hear your comments. 

 

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