A Message from Louise Hay

Experience Your Own Freedom of Choice

Write down all the shoulds in your life. All the things you feel guilty about and feel that you should be doing. Now examine each should and ask yourself:

Why have I not done this?
Do I really want to do it?

Stay with each one until you get a satisfactory and honest answer. Feeling guilty about something we don’t want to do but feel we should do is giving away our own personal power. Who is trying to manipulate you through guilt? Your answers will enable you to release these old patterns or to realize what areas you really need to work on.

Turn every should in your life to a could, both for yourself and for others. Drop the word should from your vocabulary. Drop the concept of should from your mind. Replace both the word and the concept with could. Should is limiting, could is choice.

I Should…
I Could…if I wanted to

All the shoulds and the should-nots in your life are just trying to live up to someone else’s idea of acceptable behavior. Let your own Power of Freedom decide what you want to do and what would be best for you not to do. Free yourself from the tyranny of shoulds. Come from Freedom of Choice.

Affirm today: I stand tall and free. I am strong and confident in all that I do.

How do you know if you need therapy?

Obviously, this is not a "one size fits all question." I'd like to give you an overview, however, of what the web has to say about this.
"Things aren't going well. You leave for work with a sense of dread and come home half-dead with fatigue. You fight incessantly with those you love-or can't find anyone to love. The toll of smoking or excessive drinking is obvious, even to you, but you keep on doing it.
Maybe something happened to knock you off balance. You lost your job a month ago, and now it's hard to get up and get dressed. A friend is terminally ill, and you can't put thoughts of him out of your mind. Since that emergency landing at O'Hare, every business trip gives you nightmares.
Or there's nothing really wrong, nothing you can put a finger on. But one day you realize that you've been struggling through the motions in a miasma of low-level discomfort and dissatisfaction. Whatever you do doesn't seem like the right thing, and none of it gives much pleasure.
What are you going to do? There's no shortage of books to tell you how to heal whatever ails you, no lack of talk-show gurus with wise advice on everything from beating the blues to finding lasting love or the job of your dreams. Maybe you've assembled your own little arsenal of strategies that help when the burdens get heavy and the skies refuse to brighten: taking a long, strenuous walk, a hot bath, a vacation. Volunteering at a soup kitchen. Cultivating your garden.
Friends and family are an age-old source of solace in times of trouble. Human beings are essentially social creatures; we need each other, and a sympathetic ear, an encouraging word can work wonders. It's been shown that simply having a confidant-someone you can trust to listen and care-reduces stress, eases anxiety, and lifts mood.
But sometimes the usual fixes just don't work; you know you've got a problem, and it's not about to go away. And the question comes up, moves up rapidly from the back of your mind (or perhaps it's suggested-diplomatically or otherwise-by a friend or loved one): should you go for therapy?
What Is Psychotherapy?
We all know what therapy is-until we try to pin it down, and realize how many very different things have come to carry the label. "Therapy" can last six weeks or six years. It may involve two people-you and the therapist-or your whole family, or even a group of strangers. You may talk about today's crisis or last night's dreams, or events you can scarcely remember. You may be encouraged to keep a diary of your thoughts, or to free-associate. To pound pillows or to take pills.
What do they all have in common? No matter what particular form therapy takes, the essence is an ongoing relationship. Researchers who seek to find what makes therapy successful return again and again to that central fact: whatever else happens, the closeness and trust between patient and therapist-what is called the "therapeutic alliance"-is a key factor. It even appears to be important when medication is the main treatment.
Therapy is a unique type of relationship, and what makes it valuable is what sets it apart from friendships, working partnerships, family connections, and love affairs. Its purpose is well defined: understanding and change. It comes into being, that is, to help you identify and understand dysfunctional ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, and to generate more productive and satisfying ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.
Friends and family members want to help us when we're in distress, and the advice they offer (with or without solicitation) can be useful. But the kind of counsel you'll get from a therapist is different. Rather than being simply instructive ("Here's what you ought to do"), it's likely intended to be a catalyst, to quicken your own ability to work things out. " This is an excerpt of a book by Carl Sherman called "How do you know if you need therapy." If you're getting this newletter, chances are that you're now in therapy. Just thought you'd enjoy it anyway and want to know more perhaps??

You ALWAYS have a choice; did you know that?

• You don't have to buy from anyone.
• You don't have to work at any particular job.
• You don't have to participate in any given relationship.
• You can choose.
• You steer the course you choose in the directionof where you want to be today, tomorrow,or in a distant time to come.
• You hold the tiller.
• You can decide to alter the course of your life at any time.
• No one can ever take that away from you.
• You can decide what you want and go after it.
• It's always your next move.

Isn't that good news? I'll be happy to talk more with you about this!

Dr. Alice

A few tips to get your week started right!!

Hi Friends,

Just got this in my Inbox and thought it was worth sharing with you all! Hope it's helpful!

Dr. Alice

Never borrow from the future. If you worry about what may happen tomorrow and it doesn't happen, you have worried in vain. Even if it does happen, you have to worry twice.


1. Pray.


2. Go to bed on time.


3. Get up on time so you can start the day unrushed.


4. Say No to projects that won't fit into your time schedule, or that will compromise your mental health.


5. Delegate tasks to capable others.


6. Simplify and unclutter your life.


7. Less is more. (Although one is often not enough, two are often too many.)


8. Allow extra time to do things and to get to places.


9. Pace yourself. Spread out big changes and difficult projects over time; don't lump the hard things all together.


10. Take one day at a time.


11. Separate worries from concerns. If a situation is a concern, find out what God would have you do and let go of the anxiety. If you can't do anything about a situation, forget it.


12. Live within your budget; don't use credit cards for ordinary purchases.


13. Have backups; an extra car key in your wallet, an extra house key buried in the garden, extra stamps, etc.


14. K.M.S. (Keep Mouth Shut). This single piece of advice can prevent an enormous amount of trouble.


15. Do something for the Kid in You.


16. Carry a book with you to read while waiting in line.


17. Get enough rest.


18. Eat right.


19. Get organized so everything has its place.


20. Listen to a tape while driving that can help improve your quality of life.


21. Write down thoughts and inspirations.


22. Every day, find time to be alone.


23. Having problems? Talk to God on the spot. Try to nip small problems in the bud. Don't wait until it's time to go to bed to try and pray.


24. Make friends with good people.


25. Keep a folder of favorite sayings on hand.


26. Remember that the shortest bridge between despair and hope is often a good "Thank you Lord."


27. Laugh.


28. Laugh some more!


29. Take your work seriously, but not yourself at all.


30. Develop a forgiving attitude (most people are doing the best they can).


31. Be kind to unkind people (they probably need it the most).


32. Sit on your ego.


33. Talk less; listen more.


34. Slow down.


35. Remind yourself that you are not the general manager of the universe.


36. Every night before bed, think of one thing you're grateful for that you've never been grateful for before.

Good Food for Thought!

The present is defined by a confluence of your thoughts, otherwise known as your beliefs.

The future is what you experience when your beliefs change.

Time measures how much energy or effort you require to change your thoughts, or, the degree of conflict between old and new thinking. And space shows exactly what you're now thinking about.

And the one, universal, immovable, unifying equation that sums up all things physical and metaphysical, is.... Thoughts Become Things. Which is all you really need to know.
~~Mike Dooley~~
************************************************************************************"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me".Erma Bombeck

Fireworks, bottle rockets and Elvis: How to enjoy this 4th of July safely

I really hate negative stories and nervous Nellies, but that’s what I have come down to today.
Please be careful shooting fireworks.
I read that Elvis and his friends used to shoot bottle rockets at each other for fun. Bad idea. Stupid. (I am a big fan of the King). First there are the hand injuries. I have seen amputations due to fireworks. Then the burns on the body and clothes catching on fire. Eye injuries, even blindness, occur every year.
According to the CDC, 9,200 people went to the emergency room in 2006 for fireworks-related injuries. Five percent were hospitalized; 11 died. In 2004, fireworks caused at least 2,200 fires. It’s very disheartening for me, not to mention the patient and the family, to see someone who has an eye put out due to a preventable cause.
If you do shoot fireworks, at least being extremely, extremely careful: Wear goggles and don’t let children play with them. Take the dangers seriously. Most injuries are from common bottle rockets and firecrackers because they are used the most and taken lightly. Sparklers account for up to one-third of fireworks burns in children under 5.
In an article for American Council on Science and Health, LASIK surgeon Emil William Chynn, M.D., F.A.C.S., M.B.A., suggests having a bucket of water nearby. “In case of eye injury, do not touch the eye,” he says. “Tape a clean paper cup over the eye to prevent contamination or further injury” and seek professional help immediately.
In the end, why not just leave it to the professionals and watch the community display this year? Have fun, eat watermelon (good nutrition) and enjoy the fireworks from afar.
What are your plans? Any public activities you’d like to point out?