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Let’s be wise enough to make a ritual of replenishing what our daily living depletes from us. Our culture has not taught us to embrace downtime. We feel stress, anxious, overwhelmed, we sacrifice to serve others and make them happy for many this has just become a way of living.

Today our lives are more complex, overscheduled and we are always in a hurry! We find ourselves living in a high-stress zone and we are paying a high emotional and physical price for it.

Today, take back your power and your life, and make no more excuses. Much of our stress is self-imposed. Set your priorities, and every day do something to un-clutter and un-complicate your life.

Research shows that just 15 minutes of quiet time each day will refresh and restore you. Surround yourself with your favorite candle and flowers. Sit still or relax in a hot bubble bath. Give thanks, listen to your heart speak; seek wisdom, knowledge and understanding. It’s as simple as that, remember you have to create this space in your life and embrace it; in its fullness. Cheers, to making room for you!

Positive thinking doesn’t mean that you keep your head in the sand and ignore life’s less pleasant situations. Positive thinking just means that you approach the unpleasantness in a more positive and productive way. You have to think the best is going to happen, not the worst.

Positive thinking often starts with self-talk. Self-talk is the endless stream of unspoken thoughts that run through your head every day. These automatic thoughts can be positive or negative.  Some of your self-talk comes from logic and reason. Other self-talk may arise from misconceptions that you create because of lack of information.  It doesn’t take long to see all the negativity that life brings in our path, but it only takes a second to change your way of thinking.

Do you find yourself drifting off into the negative when things are hard?  Stop take a deep breath and say:  I Embrace Positivity.  Think about all the positive things that have happened in your life and look forward to all the positive things sure to come your way!

Give positive thinking a try and you will quickly see how rewarding being positive can be!  Cheers!

Positive thinking doesn’t mean that you keep your head in the sand and ignore life’s less pleasant situations. Positive thinking just means that you approach the unpleasantness in a more positive and productive way. You think the best is going to happen, not the worst.

Positive thinking often starts with self-talk. Self-talk is the endless stream of unspoken thoughts that run through your head every day. These automatic thoughts can be positive or negative. Some of your self-talk comes from logic and reason. Other self-talk may arise from misconceptions that you create because of lack of information.

Do you find yourself drifting off into the negative when things are hard?  Stop take a deep breath and say:  I Embrace Positivity.

Give it a try, and you quickly see how rewarding being positive can be!  Cheers!

 “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was publicly performed first as a poem as part of a celebration of Lincoln’s Birthday on February 12, 1900 by 500 school children at the segregated Stanton School. Its principal, James Weldon Johnson, wrote the words to introduce its honored guest Booker T. Washington. The poem was later set to music by Johnson’s brother John in 1905. Singing this song quickly became a way for African Americans to demonstrate their patriotism and hope for the future.

In calling for earth and heaven to “ring with the harmonies of Liberty,” they could speak out subtly against racism and Jim Crow laws—and especially the huge number of lynchings accompanying the rise of the Ku Klux Klan at the turn of the century. In 1919, the NAACP adopted the song as “The Negro National Anthem.” By the 1920s, copies of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” could be found in black churches across the country, often pasted into the hymnals. In 1939, Augusta Savage received a commission from the World’s Fair and created a 16-foot plaster sculpture called Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing. Savage did not have any funds for a bronze cast, or even to move and store it, and it was destroyed by bulldozers at the close of the fair.

The lyrics are ones of empowerment

Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith
that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope
that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chast’ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way
that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path
thro’ the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from a gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam
of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places
Our God where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world
we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.