SelfGrowth.com: An Exceptional Thanksgiving & How to Reduce Holiday Stress

 [SelfGrowth.com]  Self Improvement Newsletter Improve Your Life Today!  11/21/16 issue: SelfGrowth.com: An Exceptional Thanksgiving & How to Reduce Holiday Stress Email for: {EMAIL} * Self Improvement and Personal Growth Weekly Newsletter * Issue #946, Week of November 21-November 22, 2016 Publisher: David Riklan - [] In this issue: -- Quotes of the Week -- Article: 7 Tips for an Exceptional Thanksgiving Day with Your Family - By Ivana Pejakovic -- Article: Never Let’ em See You Sweat: Reduce Holiday Stress by Managing What Your Mouth and Your Body Language Says -By Sharon Sayler -- Book Review: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy - by Sadhguru -- How to Advertise in the Self Improvement Newsletter -- How to Subscribe and Unsubscribe from this Newsletter ------------------------------------------------------------ *** Quotes of the Week *** ------------------------------------------------------------ Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny. - Carl Schurz, 1829-1906 Ignorance is not innocence but sin. - Robert Browning, 1812-1889 Everything you can imagine is real. - Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973 ------------------------------------------------------------ *** ARTICLE: 7 Tips for an Exceptional Thanksgiving Day with Your Family - By Ivana Pejakovic *** ------------------------------------------------------------ Without a doubt Thanksgiving is a day that ought to be filled with hope, gratitude, and happiness. It is a time of togetherness and for appreciation of our family and friends. It is a day to be celebrated in joy and liveliness. Although this day is great on its own, it is possible to enhance the day for your family. There are many things that can make your Thanksgiving holiday exceptional. Your kids watch and notice much of what you do. How you talk about your family, the attitude you have about this special day and life in general is all being recorded by your kids. As such this article is intended for parents to examine how they are currently celebrating the day and to find tips that can enhance this experience with their family. Here are a few ideas to get you started: 1) Begin with a thankful mindset: Start the day off with a happy and thankful attitude. You can ask all family members to write down one positive thing about each of the other family members they are grateful for. Decide to read these notes out loud when you are together at the dinner. 2) Cook together & eat together: Cooking and eating are important for human bonding. Sharing a meal with others is what makes the food even more enjoyable. This is an opportunity to share your daily experiences (the good and the bad) with those you love and those who love you the most. Thanksgiving Day, however, is a good time to share your gratitude with each other. When we share positive ideas with people we grow closer to them. Remember that food is more than just nutrition for the body and brain. It is nutrition for the mind and soul. ** To read the full article, [go here.] ------------------------------------------------------------ *** ARTICLE: Never Let’ em See You Sweat: Reduce Holiday Stress by Managing What Your Mouth and Your Body Language Says -By Sharon Sayler *** ------------------------------------------------------------ Love the holidays, but hate those family gatherings? Do you find yourself praying for a “new” family member just so your family might be on best behavior that day? (You know it won’t last, but you can dream.) Are there family members that always seem to want to start a fight, or can’t let that embarrassing moment from 1971 go? Typically, it is the same thing year after year. Most families have a couple of topics that are almost as predictable as “pass the turkey and dressing”. So why do we go into the Holidays expecting anything different? Short of family counseling know that family dynamics rarely change without a conscious effort to do so. Take a few minutes and plan your response ahead of time, so you are less likely to react. We are very good at rehearsing what we want to say, not so good at writing a new script and planning what we should say. Remember, this planning includes how you say it too. People remember how we make them feel long after they remember what we said. Seven Nonverbal Strategies for a Stress-less Holiday Strategy One: No response can be the best response. A smile and a change of subject or your location might be all that is needed. Strategy Two: Have a great memory already selected, what I call “go to your happy place” ready. When that stressor moment begins, think of the happiest memories you have. (Hey, you really can only partially listen, you already know the story….) Some of my happiest memories are the births of my sons, each time I think of those, I smile automatically and begin to relax. Holding those happy thoughts changes your body language and the thoughts around the current situation. Yes, we really can “head-fake” ourselves out of a negative reaction. ** To read the full article, [go here.] ------------------------------------------------------------ *** BOOK REVIEW: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy Hardcover - by Sadhguru *** ------------------------------------------------------------ The practice of hatha yoga, as we commonly know it, is but one of eight branches of the body of knowledge that is yoga. In fact, yoga is a sophisticated system of self-empowerment that is capable of harnessing and activating inner energies in such a way that your body and mind function at their optimal capacity. It is a means to create inner situations exactly the way you want them, turning you into the architect of your own joy. A yogi lives life in this expansive state, and in this transformative book Sadhguru tells the story of his own awakening, from a boy with an unusual affinity for the natural world to a young daredevil who crossed the Indian continent on his motorcycle. He relates the moment of his enlightenment on a mountaintop in southern India, where time stood still and he emerged radically changed. Today, as the founder of Isha, an organization devoted to humanitarian causes, he lights the path for millions. The term guru, he notes, means “dispeller of darkness, someone who opens the door for you. . . . As a guru, I have no doctrine to teach, no philosophy to impart, no belief to propagate. And that is because the only solution for all the ills that plague humanity is self-transformation. Self-transformation means that nothing of the old remains. It is a dimensional shift in the way you perceive and experience life.” The wisdom distilled in this accessible, profound, and engaging book offers readers time-tested tools that are fresh, alive, and radiantly new. Inner Engineering presents a revolutionary way of thinking about our agency and our humanity and the opportunity to achieve nothing less than a life of joy. The list price of this book is $26.00. To purchase it from Amazon at a price of $14.36, a 43% discount, [go here].  ============================================= *** How to Advertise in the Self Improvement Newsletter *** To advertise your website or product to our Self Improvement Newsletter audience, go to [ To submit articles or other information, please send us an email at [editors@selfgrowth.com], or visit our Article Submission form at [   --------------------------------------------------- *** How to Subscribe and Unsubscribe from this Newsletter*** --------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to our newsletter, please go to our Subscriptions Page at [ To unsubscribe or update your information, go here: [Manage Preferences] Copyright (C) 2016 by Self Improvement Online, Inc. Permission is granted to reproduce or distribute this newsletter only in its entirety and provided copyright is acknowledged. Self Improvement Online, Inc. 1130 Campus Drive West Morganville, NJ 07751 [editors@selfgrowth.com] [] 732-617-1030