Emotional happiness

Here are some motivation tips for achieving emotional happiness by focusing on the words we use to describe happy feelings. Look for your favorite feelings in this list.

Although many happy emotions arise spontaneously, part of the experience is the realization that we feel them. When you are joyful, you are aware that you are joyful at that moment. Since consciousness of joy is part of the experience, it stands to reason that the more we tune in to joy in our lives, the more of it we may feel. In fact, Rhonda Byrne, in her book, The Secret, says that we can attract things into our lives just by focusing on them.

Although we have plenty of words to describe happy emotions, our adult brains tend to spend more time thinking about problems and negative states than positive ones. We need to find the problem and fix it. How often have you heard that admitting the problem is half the solution?

We human beings are creatures of habit. Once we think in certain ways over and over again, our brains develop special pathways that make it easier to think that way again. When we spend a lot of time looking for problems, the brain pathways that look for emotional happiness get rusty and harder to navigate.

When I heard, as a child, that our brain cells died if we didn’t think about something for a long time, I resolved to protect myself by periodically thinking about something I didn’t usually pay much attention to. To this day, the thought of slimy frogs still comes to mind once in a while- just to keep the slimy frog neural net alive.

Here are five motivational tips for using these words to increase your emotional happiness:

1. Pick one word and spend a whole day looking for that emotion in yourself and others. Notice who has it, who doesn’t or where you see more or less of it that day.

2.Spend some time brainstorming more happy words and add to the list. I have found that most people feel happier just by reading the list of happy words.

3. Pick your top ten words. Again, the time you spend thinking about and evaluating happy words will tend to focus your attention on the happiness around you.

4.Write one or two of the words on a piece of paper, or make a poster. Post it somewhere you see frequently like the bathroom mirror, your computer monitor, or the dashboard of your car.

5. Write each word on a card and pull one at random when you need a little boost. Then spend a moment thinking about whether that emotion applies to you now or could apply to you now.

http://www.happylifeu.com/emotional-happiness.html

Toilet training your child

The first step in toilet training is to make sure both you and your child are ready. Okay, I realize no one is ever really totally ready for toilet training. But your child should be at least developmentally and behaviorally ready. That means your heretofore untrained child should be at least 2 years old and be able to do such things as walk from room to room, raise and lower his or her own pants, sit independently, and follow a few one-step commands without raising a big fuss.
Children also should have some awareness of the need to urinate. So if they’re acting like they have ants in their pants but don’t, that’s usually a good sign they know, on some level, that they need to go. They should show the need only about five or six times a day. Your home life also should be fairly stable at this time (e.g., no home construction going on, in-laws who stay more than three days, major marital disputes, or other distractions).
Next, get a potty chair. Or, if you choose not to use a potty chair, get a stool your child can use while on the toilet. If you want to know why this is necessary, I suggest you try having a bowel movement while your feet are dangling above the bathroom floor. Much will be made clear to you. Comfort is a commodity that is hard to overrate when the task at hand involves having a bowel movement (regardless of the age of the bowel mover), and it’s hard to be comfortable when the person engaging in that task does not have good support for his or her feet. You also might consider purchasing an adaptor for the toilet seat that makes the seat child‑sized. One new adaptor on the market even has a stepladder attached. It is a relatively easy way for children to move up in the world.
Parents often are worried that their child will be afraid of falling in the toilet. There are no factual accounts of children (or adults) falling in. No one has ever admitted falling in. No one knows of someone who has fallen in. But the fear survives, resistant to history, facts, and outright logic. Let’s deal with it this way: It’s a parent fear, not a child fear (at least until it spreads from the parent to the child; it’s a very catchy fear). So it’s good to suppress this fear and remember that children are actually naturally curious about the toilet. They also usually enjoy flushing it over and over, which can lead to a different and more realistic fear for parents.
Also, be aware that long after your child is toilet trained, daytime wetting and soiling accidents will happen from time to time – and that’s the good news. The bad news is that bedwetting accidents are common all the way up to age 7, especially in boys. These continued accidents are merely God’s way of reminding you that procreative activity (i.e., sex) was supposed to be about having children and not having fun. They also can provide just the right amount of humility for your child. It’s hard to be too full of yourself when your pants are full of poop. If accidents do become a frequent problem, you should probably ask your child’s doctor about them. In general, try and remember that a child who is learning to use the toilet has to master many different skills and success does not come all at once. So give your child time and expect some accidents. After all, wouldn’t you rather be surprised than disappointed? Finally, try to remain calm and patient.

http://www.parenting.org/archive/precious/life_lessons/toilet_training3.asp