Feeling Stronger with Positive Mindfulness

By Fred Sterk and Sjoerd Swaen

Feeling stronger with positive mindfulness

 

Living consciously and with full attention means, by definition, a healthier and more positive life.

This new book shows how to combine the benefits of mindfulness with effective motivational techniques from positive psychology.

A meditative, inner development can only magnify new opportunities. Positive mindfulness helps you to trust your own strengths unconditionally.

Feel good, healthy, and happy!

 

Psychologists Fred Sterk and Sjoerd Swaen are, in addition to their work as psychotherapists, bestselling authors of a series of successful self-help books.

 

'A good book, clear and bright, with inspiring texts.'

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sterk Publishers
• Release date: Jan 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223325703

Book preview

1 Self-confrontation

Mindfulness helps you increase your ability to experience positive feelings and break old negative thinking patterns. Overview, satisfaction, and knowledge flourish on a breeding ground of inner peace.

If you can stay alert, attentive, and calm in stressful situations, you will respond better to it. The feeling of not being good enough fades into the background to make way for the certainty that you can handle any difficult situation with ease, not by using all kinds of tricks, but from a carefully built confidence in your skills.

What you're looking for is on the inside - greatness, pleasure, peace, love - and meditation takes you there. Why wouldn't you expect something beautiful? New opportunities continue to present themselves; they are visible to those who trust them.

A stressful fear response reinforces negative prejudices and limits your view. On the other hand, you can try again and again with calmness to assume the good and increase your psychological resilience.

Many people live in great fear of their vulnerability. They limit themselves by letting their fear rule. As soon as you dare to look at your human vulnerability with kind attention, you will discover that love is a better counselor than fear.

Vulnerability is not something to be ashamed of; it can become a wise advisor. Moreover, it is comforting to know that every person must learn to deal with their own life fears.

Even if your brain keeps rattling on, you can disconnect from your thoughts. Protected by the power of a meditation silence, it gradually becomes apparent that gratitude, appreciation, recognition, patience, contentment, and awe of life provide you with the riches you may have been seeking for a long time.

While you continue to strive for certainty out of fear, meditation shows you that there is enough within you to handle life under all circumstances.

Perhaps it is the mental challenge of self-confrontation that makes meditation so fascinating. Just like solving a tricky puzzle, it just lifts you above the normal, sometimes boring, reality. For example, a gloomy mood can brighten unexpectedly beautifully after a meditation exercise.

*What you're looking for is on the inside - greatness, pleasure, peace, love - and meditation takes you there.

2 Inner strength

The most beautiful goal in this life, we believe, is to establish contact with your highest self. Those who are in touch with their inner strength have more to offer. As long as you can't be who you are, you can't give the best of yourself. In addition, spirituality is also essential for happiness because it connects you to what is greater than yourself. Without a source of energy, a lamp cannot give light.

We cannot solve every problem immediately. If you don't accept that patiently, you can become hopelessly entangled in it. But there is a gratifying way out. Go in, repeat a short reassuring mantra, and try to calm yourself.

Meditating for a few seconds gives all the necessary starting power. It helps you gather courage for intrinsically rewarding activities such as: harnessing your talents and investing in your personal development.

You don't have to sit still; there are many other ways to meditate. For example, focus your full attention on what you are doing. It directly changes your perception. Look at yourself as in a slow-motion movie; the delay and the increased awareness have a calming effect. Likewise, you can calmly observe your feelings and thoughts, like passing clouds in a clear blue sky, without judging them.

Trust in the good. That is extra difficult because we live in a culture of fear. The media, politics, economics, and advertising mainly benefit from keeping us as scared as possible. They earn gold from it. Don't fall for it. Why should you be made sick with fear? Meditation helps convert your fear into love. From this calm, warm energy, there is room for forgiveness, trust, letting go of (self) blame, and the ability to see the good sides of apparent disappointments.

Daring to experience a meditation silence takes courage. Loneliness, rejection, avoidance, or suffering; after the silence and after the pain, you will find that they transform into peace, honesty, and a profound realization that you have found the right track within.

*The most beautiful goal in this life, we believe, is to establish contact with your highest self.

3 Fleeing

It is good to consider why you want to make a specific choice with important choices in your life. Are you motivated by love or by fear? A desire for something better, more beautiful, or a new growth opportunity usually stems from love. While all kinds of vague fears often feed the urge to flee reality, routine, or obligations. Do you want to go somewhere else, or are you on the run?

Fear or avoidance doesn't always have to be bad. Sometimes it can serve as a safe shield against hasty decisions or prevent you from taking too big steps. The more you dare to follow your heart, the better you will become at solving new problems on your path. And even if something goes wrong, it offers you a unique opportunity to test your flexibility. There are no wrong choices.

No matter how big the differences between people are, we look for the same thing deep in our hearts: (self) appreciation. Those who can stay in the present with their full attention need to worry less about it. The present moment offers all the necessary learning experiences; you know you are on the right track if you keep feeling, seeing, and experiencing them. You only run the risk of getting (temporarily) lost when you lose contact with yourself.

Especially the fear of criticism or rejection can keep you from choosing what you really want. As long as you keep seeking confirmation from others, they can continue to force you to go against your own interests. So you will first of all have to get safety, approval, acceptance, and appreciation out of yourself. Only then are others willing to give it to you. No matter how good external approval feels, living in harmony with your personal, inner values prevents you from becoming too dependent on others.

Give direction to your choices with the following questions:

-what makes you happy?

-what are you best at?

-and what can you mean to others?

In addition to reasonable thinking, your emotions are indispensable in important decisions. If your heart is allowed to speak, your brain calms down. As long as your choices are supported by love, you know you won't regret it.

*You will first of all have to get safety, approval, acceptance, and appreciation out of yourself.

4 Happiness Mantras

Many thoughts and opinions about ourselves circulate in our heads every day. We are less aware that these opinions have a major influence. They are order notes for the kind of life we choose.

For example, repeating all day that you are stupid, sloppy, fat or whatever cannot be without consequences. Automatically you start behaving to it, bringing yourself down in a downward spiral. If you order stupidity, carelessness, overweight, etcetera, it will be delivered to you neatly. Whether you like it or not.

Your thoughts can do whatever they want; you don't have to go along with it. You can observe them from a distance without turning them into disadvantageous order notes. As your thoughts rage, you can repeat the most beautiful happiness mantras or affirmations such as:

-I am love, wisdom, abundance, strong, beautiful, successful, peace, grateful, etcetera.

Now that's an order or shopping list that will make you grow and shine. As an added benefit, happiness mantras calm you down and calm your fears.

But what should you do if your negative thoughts keep going, or worse if you keep believing them? Very simple; put the following words in front of it: I am afraid that I am ... stupid, sloppy, fat, or whatever. You state what's really going on; it's just the fear of not being good enough. No more and no less. Then you can repeat the positive mantras as good, hopeful wish lists.

Pretending that your fear is more than just a feeling; avoiding, denying, or outshouting it isn't necessary, as long as fears and doubts are allowed. In addition, there is more than enough room for your happiness mantras; they strengthen your willpower and resilience and draw your attention to a greater world around you.

With positive, constructive energy, you pave the way to worthwhile goals, healing, and happiness.

Feelings of inferiority deserve the same mindfulness recipe over and over again: certainly don't give in to them, don't avoid them, don't outshout them, but acknowledge them completely as fears.

*Happiness mantras strengthen your willpower and resilience and draw your attention to a greater world around you.

5 All is well

Ultimately, positive mindfulness will bring you home to a deep source of goodness and strength. Unfortunately, some people resist positive, helpful lyrics because they don't seem to fit their gloomy mood yet.

Focusing on hope, growth, and optimism can sometimes seem false. But to break a negative spiral, you need new information. What you are deficient in deserves supplementation, both physically and mentally. If you lack certain vitamins for your body, it would also be strange not to take them. Positive mental nutrients are just as essential to your health.

In addition to all the serious things in an adult, responsible life, there must be enough room for humor, games, relaxation, new discoveries, self-confidence, relaxation, and carefree. Free and totally getting to enjoy all the simple, colorful things in your daily environment.

Often people get caught up in guilt about their negative emotions such as anger or jealousy; with self-blame about this, you do yourself doubly short because negative emotions are fueled by pain and inability. Punishment and