How can you help a child towards a life of peace and contentment?There are so many daily influences in our lives directing us towards unhealthy and unhappy lifestyles. We are constantly faced with pressures and persuasions to consume bad food and to live stressful lives with diminishing values.
Sickness, worry, anger, fear or depression can take over and dominate our existence, often because we have taken the wrong paths.
If you think you have anxiety, worries and troubles what are your kids going to have?
There are various ways to help a child to live a happier life such as getting kids involved in physical or mental, mind occupying interests. Home hobbies and activities like crafts or gardening, learning and partaking of nature with hiking, camping, or visiting city parks. Friendly and healthy sports.
These all help immensely and there is a lot of good information before us, on healthy eating and exercising habits for example.
Mental well being and happiness information is not so prominent yet is one of the best all-round general advantages in providing for a content and fulfilling life. Learning and practicing self-help and self-improvement could be the best time investment made for self or family.
A good place to start is the self-improvement or self-help section of the public library or bookstore. If you think that this is an odd place to be, think again. There are very many big selling self-help titles to choose from. These books are popular reading. These inspirational ideas are easy enough to understand, but more difficult to practice. But it just takes practice. Start with the most popular books on various self-help topics. Reread the better ones, highlight the best phrases, and take notes. Try to devote a few minutes a day to help make good thinking and happy, satisfied feelings a way of life.
Just a few examples of the ideas and little positive gems
that can be collected for pleasant travels into a positive future.
Poor self esteem?
"The finest lives, in my opinion, are those who rank in the common model, and with the human race, but without miracle, without extravagance." - Michel de Montaigne
Worry is only a worry if you worry about it.
"If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?" - Shantideva
Had some bad luck?
"Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out." - Art Linkletter
Trying too hard? Just where were you going?
"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." - Nathaniel Hawthorne
So what do you really need?
"Whether in favor or in humiliation, be not dismayed. Let your eyes leisurely look at the flowers blooming and falling in your courtyard. Whether you leave or retain your position, take no care. Let your mind wander with the clouds folding and unfolding beyond the horizon." - Hung Tzu-ch'eng
How much living are you willing to pay for that?
"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life, which is required to be exchanged for it immediately or in the long run." - Henry Thoreau
Got a tough problem that needs solving?
Get all the facts. Describe the problem in detail. List all the possible solutions. List the advantages and disadvantages of each. Detail what you will do. Follow through.
Relationship problems - a viewpoint.
Joseph Addison puts it quite nicely this way: "Two persons who have chosen each other out of all the species with a design to be each other's mutual comfort and entertainment have, in that action, bound themselves to be good-humored, affable, discreet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with respect to each other's frailties and perfections, to the end of their lives."
Take a break and appreciate.
"Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies." - Erich Fromm
Change your thoughts - change your feelings.
"Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your permission." - Arnold Bennett
These are some of the helpful reminders that are in my treasure chest of life tips. You should at least check out to see what's out there and what could be valuable and suitable to you and yours. There is so much practical life enhancing self-help information in print.
There are also many internet resources and again, there are very popular high-volume sites and blogs and some should suit your tastes. You can do a search of topics that concern you. Here are a few related resources.
A collection of Self-Help Websites and a list of 100 of the Best Self Help Blogs.
Other Self-help posts here, and my website 32 Keys About Life since 1999.
Relax, smile, take awhile. - Grampa Ken
