Tuesday Truth or Dare: It's a Gossip Thing

Truth:  She is such a bitch!  Look at her outfit can you imagine wearing that!?  My boss is a nasty cheating jerk!  Did you see the way she treated so and so?  She's pregnant again!  How can they afford another child?!

It's all gossip, rumour, innuendo, judgement and it's TOXIC!  

Gossiping is toxic to your personal wellbeing and mood.  Gossip causes stress, guilt, uncertainty, anxiety and distrust.  these are not good feelings to have for your day!  

Participating in gossip has negative consequences for your emotional, mental and physical health.  Bet you thought it was harmless!

Dare:  Consciously decide that you will not participate in any form of gossip.  You won't start the gossip.  You won't listen to gossip.  You won't engage with gossip.  You will remove yourself from gossipy situations.  

Remember:  When you're gossiping about someone, someone else is gossiping about you!

You will begin a Healthy Gossip-Free Lifestyle!

7 day Challenge: 

Wake Up and Smile!

I Declare Myself Gossip Free!

Make it a Great |Day!

Ready to Claim Your Big, Bold, Ballsy Life?

You had a dream and then life happened and then worry and stress crept in and sucked the life out of your dreams. No dreams + no inspiration = no motivation.

Sometimes life knocks you down and leaves you feeling depressed, challenged, overwhelmed, stressed and you start to believe that things will never change.

Thrive:  Live Life Fearlessly 10 Day Challenge is designed to reignite your inspiration + breakthrough your negative feelings.

You will finish the challenge feeling vibrant and ready to make each and every day a great day!

Let's get your Inspiration back! Time to reclaim your passion and look forward to achieving your dreams.

Take the challenge and reclaim your inspiration. 

You have one life - this one, right now!

Sign Up Here

Challenge Starts June 1st

Turn Off Your Phone and Be Present Now in the Moment

People want to engage with you and see your smile, listen to your words.

Nature wants to seen and be fully appreciated.  Nature is waiting to be discovered in all its amazing glory.

How can you possibly engage and communicate with real people if you're neck is bent toward the ground and your eyes are focused on your phone?  How can you connect with nature and her magnificence if your eyes are riveted to your phone?

I recently conducted a successful workshop on the topic of "Mindfulness and Connection".  Participants were asked to leave their cell phones at home....period.  I had anxious callers telling me how they couldn't do that because they were expecting a very important phone call from someone.  To each special request I simply replied leave your cell phone at home....period!

All the participants who attended complied and were pleasantly surprised to discover that their stress level was significantly reduced.  They were relaxed and enjoyed the conversation and looked forward to our next group chat.

There was a time not so long ago that your phone was connected to the wall in your house.  If you went out with your friends, family or just for a walk, your phone stayed at home!

You were free to simply enjoy the moment, the activity, and the people.

Action Steps to Live Phone Free 

Leave your phone at home, in the car, or the office for 15 minutes each day.

Meet up with family, friends or take a walk in the park.  Focus on the moment, what's happening right now.  Breath and relax.  Be present in your life.

After 7 days, increase the amount of time you leave your phone behind.

Remember - when the phone was attached to the wall, you survived, business carried on, family crises happened, your kids arrived at their destination, and anyone and everyone was free to leave a message.  You would get back to them at your leisure.

Disconnect and Kick the Phone Habit - you will be a new person in a very short time and you will look forward to your "no-phone time".

About Susan Ball

Susan inspires her clients to live the life of their dreams with passion, joy, and love. Susan is an experienced international Life Coach helping people discover and live their ideal life through NLP, Mindfulness, and G.R.A.C.E.

Learn more about Susan by visiting her Online, on Facebook

Stress Awareness Week - September 8th to 14th, 2013

Stress is such an unnecessary part of our lives. Stress Awareness Week gives you the opportunity to learn and try new things to help understand, manage, and remove stress in our everyday lives.

Join us in September for the first annual Stress Awareness Week. There are all kinds of free classes and information sessions for you to take part in from JTW, the Cumberland YMCA, Hatha Yoga Room and more. As well as some great workshops

Schedule of Free Events

When What Where

Sunday Sept. 8th (1pm) - Sensory Walk (Susan Ball NLP) at Downtown Amherst
Sunday Sept. 8th (4pm) - Laughter Yoga ( Wallie Simieritsch) at JTW 
Sunday Sept. 8th (6:50pm) - Zumba (Jen) at the Cumberland YMCA

Monday Sept. 9th (8am) - Guided Meditation (Susan Ball NLP) at JTW
Monday Sept. 9th (12noon) - Reconnective Healing (Hazel Coates) at JTW
Monday Sept. 9th (6pm) - Group Hypnosis (James MacDonald CH) at JTW

Tuesday Sept. 10th (12noon) - Reiki (James MacDonald/Kim DiStatio) at JTW
Tuesday Sept. 10th (6:30pm) - Power Pump (Shawn) at the Cumberland YMCA

Wednesday Sept. 11th (8am) - Guided Meditation (Susan Ball NLP) at JTW
Wednesday Sept. 11th (12noon) - Reflexology (Kim’s Goddess on the Go) at JTW
Wednesday Sept. 11th (6:30pm) - Cyclefit (Jen) at the Cumberland YMCA

Thursday Sept. 12th (12noon) - Kangen Water (James MacDonald) at JTW 
Thursday Sept. 12th (5pm) - JTW Open House: Meet and greet with our practitioners

Friday Sept. 13th (8am) - Guided Meditation (Susan Ball NLP) at JTW
Friday Sept. 13th (7pm) - Gentle Yoga at the Hatha Yoga Room

Saturday Sept. 14th (10am) - Drumming Circle (Gretchen Smith) at Victoria Square


Workshops at JTW Natural Health Guidance Centre

Tuesday Sept. 10th: Authentic Self Workshop (Susan Ball NLP)
Time: 6pm Cost: $20

Wednesday Sept. 10th: Feng Shui: Clear Your Clutter, Clear Your Mind (Wallie Simieritsch)
Time: 6pm Cost: $20

Friday Sept. 13th: Authentic Self Teens (Susan Ball NLP)
Time: 3:30pm Cost: $15

Saturday Sept. 14th: Communicating with Children (Susan Ball NLP)
Time: 1pm Cost: $20


For more information or to register for any of these great events and workshops, please contact Charlene at 667-1119

Presented by: JTW Natural Health and Susan Ball NLP Success Coach

In partnership with: Cumberland YMCA, Hatha Yoga Room, Wallie Simieritsch, Gretchen Smith, 
Devine Meditations, Hazel Coates, Kim’s Goddess on the Go, Dianna Stewart

How to Avoid Being Mr. or Mrs. Grumpy Pants

Today, I was host to Mr. Grumpy Pants who happens to be my husband.   He's a truck driver so he spends 4-days away from home driving around the Maritime provinces.

He had a particularly bad week on the road this time and he brought it home with him and infused our home with his negative mood.  How selfish of him to bring the "past" into the "present" in such a negative, grumpy, ugly way!

We all experience something negative during any given day.  It's what we choose to do with that negative experience that matters.  My husband's negative experience happened a full 2-days before he even got home!  Talk about dragging Marley's chains around with you.  I could smell his festering brain.

When you bring your bad mood, lousy experience, and  negative energy home, you contaminate your home and all the people and pets that live there.  Suddenly, the feelings and mood go from enjoying the moment to misery or arguing or resentment.

So what do you do if you have had a bad experience that lasted a few minutes and you want to remove the negative energy and feelings before it ruins your whole day?

Stop Reacting to the Stupid Stuff - Seriously!

The babysitter is 5-minutes late and so, you're going to be a grouch for the rest of the day and into the evening and maybe the next morning because you're anticipating she might be late again!!  You get cut-off while you're driving, oh my!  As events go, these are small, irrelevant, and inconsequential and you get to make the choice about how you're going to let them effect you.  Are you going to carry them with you and let them snowball into a huge, ugly mass of anger and resentment?  Or could you look at each individual event when it happens and simply look at it as a small mistake, a funny moment and then keep moving on with your great day?  To start feeling greater happiness and contentment, start by stopping to let the little things grow up to be huge and ugly.

Drop Your Irritation and Anger

When you find yourself feeling angry at someone or something.

Stop, Take a Deep Breath, then Let It Go!  

Just let it go. 

It isn't worth ruining your day, someone you love's day, your health and your general well-being.

Roll On - Your Life is Happening Now

It happened, it's over, move forward.  Living in the present moment, living life to the fullest is about moving forward.  Roll On!

Choose to Make it A Great Day!

Living in the Present

Are you appreciating what is happening right now, right here?  Or are you focused on something that might happen (future, anxiety)?  Or are you focused on something that happened in the past (depressed, angry)?

When you live in the moment, there is no stress, no anger, no regret; just what's happening right now.  You will be focused on and experiencing the activity at hand.

The only moment you can control is the one that is happening right now.  You can't go back and change the past.  You can't predict the future.  The present moment is the only one you have, the one you can feel, hear, see and smell.  It's YOUR moment.

How to Live in the Present by Breaking the Habit of "Wandering"

Your mind has been trained to wander through the past or think about the future.  When you start thinking about the past or the future, stop yourself by focusing completely on what you are doing right now.  Bring your mind back to the present moment.  Use all your senses to immerse yourself in what is happening in the moment.

Breathe and focus.  Find inspiration in what is happening.  Smile and enjoy.

It takes time and practice to break the mind's wandering habit.  Start by focusing on one action or activity at a time.  For example, walking - feel your feet touching the ground, feel your muscles moving, see the sidewalk or trail going by as you take a step, etc.  When listening, just listen,  When eating, just eat.  When drawing, just draw.

With practice, you will be able to stop your mind from wandering aimlessly.

Living in the Present will bring richness and awareness to your life.  You will appreciate the little things that you have probably forgotten brought you joy.  When was the last time you slurped the juice from a watermelon and tasted all of it's wonderful sweetness?

There is magic in the present.  

Repeat after me:

When I live in the present, I am Happy, Joyful and Free.

Do You Suffer From Anxiety, Fear, Panic.......

Then you are living in the future.  Worrying about the what-ifs and inventing negative outcomes to fulfill your desire to outline all the bad things that could happen!!

Anxiety is an emotion that sends our mind into the future. After all, nobody is anxious about the past, right? As human beings we tend to think in stories that are like mind-movies. Anxious mind-movies usually have a ‘what if?’ scenario.

So what winds us up into anxiety are particular thought patterns and stories. Take a look at the following list and see if any points seem familiar:

1. Self-doubts: Do you doubt your ability? Do you think you haven’t got what it takes, in order to succeed?

2. Wanting Control of the future: Do you want to control what happens in future? The truth is that even if we lay great plans, the unexpected can happen. Be flexible and flow with the change. 

3. High self-expectations: Sometimes we become our own slave-driver. Take time to step back and check out whether your expectations are realistic.

4. Fear of failure: Are you afraid to fail? The truth is that all learning entails failure. The greatest inventors in history failed more than they succeeded!

5. Not being present: This is a key factor of anxiety. When our thoughts dwell on the future, and we stop being truly present, that’s when we can become anxious.

These are all mental habits that can be changed in order to alleviate and transform anxiety into a healthy, positive mindset grounded in the present.

Anxiety is a natural alarm system that keeps us safe and productive. But when it becomes a chronic mindset, it will deaden joy and stifle creativity.  It will also lead to chronic physical illness, some of which can be life threatening.

Anxiety Busting Exercise

• Create two columns on a piece of paper

• Label the left column “fears”

• Create a thick vertical dividing line and label it “REALLY!!!!”

• Label the right column “fear busting thought”

I’ll give you an example:

I don’t think that I will get the promotion, sigh, stomach feels queasy because you're thinking about all the bad things that will happen if you don't get the promotion.

RESET = Shout STOP & take a deep breath (brain cannot think while deep breathing)

I have excellent skills to get the promotion and I will look into how I can improve those skills to ace the promotion.

Next Post:  Living in the Present....Til next time Recognize, Reset, Realize Your Potential

Cellphones, Email and Your Not-So-Well-being

In our age of technology, there are very few places where you can go and not see someone on the phone either texting or talking, studying their tablet, or checking their e-mail.  It is overwhelming for me to watch 90% of the population completely controlled by their electronic devices. 

It got me reminiscing about the "olden days".  I remembered how exciting it was when the phone rang and   you picked it up in anticipation of who was on the other end.  You were going to engage in a real conversation with a real person!  The phone could bring great news and feelings - a new job, a date, your mom's voice, a good friend.  It was there when you needed someone special to talk to and all you had to do was dial a seven-digit number and voila! a conversation was in the making.  There was no caller ID or voicemail, you either picked it up or you didn't.  Of course, when you didn't you wondered if you had missed the call of a lifetime!

The phone was magical and it allowed families and friends to communicate across the miles making separation from each other easier.   It brought news, good and bad and could be banged down when you were angry or disappointed.  The banging down of a phone receiver was cathartic.

The amazing thing about the phones of the good old days was You Would Leave Them at Home When You Left.  You went out to meet people and enjoyed face-to-face interactions.  You had a good time and there was no beeping, ringing and vibrating interruptions.  When you wanted to check in with your parents, spouse or babysitter, you walked to a payphone and dialed.  You spoke with the interested person, hung-up and went back to your socializing. 

When you went for a hike, or to the cottage, or on a vacation, you left your phone at home and you enjoyed new sights, relaxing in a natural setting, joining in with groups to discover new adventures.  You were free from attachment and free to explore without interruptions.  The best kind of exploration.  Healthy, encouraging, inspirational, natural, social behaviour is becoming a lost art and it is discouraging.

I have been in meetings and social environments where live conversation is interrupted by beeps and vibrations.  Inevitably, someone says, "Oh, Sorry, I HAVE to take this!".  Really?!?  Have to?  or Want to?  What would happen if you didn't answer your cellphone immediately?  What would happen if you left it at home for an enjoyable evening out?  What would happen if you gave 100% of your attention to the live conversation that is taking place?  

What is so life-altering that it is critically important that you relentlessly engage with an inanimate object - your phone?

Shut it down for a day.  Get out and talk face-to-face, take a walk in the woods free from your phone, play with your children and focus on them only.  

When you do this once, you will do it over and over because you will discover that the caller can leave a message, the text can be answered later, and the email, well, it could actually be left for a few days.  

You will discover a new style of freedom and happiness and it is worth leaving the phone at home!