Brain Hacks for the 7 Deadly Sins [Infographic]

The seven deadly sins are lust, gluttony, pride, sloth, vanity, greed, and envy, and as we all learned in explicit detail in the movie Se7en, possessing even one of these qualities can lead to some terrible outcomes. But even if you’re not being hunted down by a serial killer because of your reveling in one of these sins, they still aren’t very positive to possess and look good on no one.

The following infographic goes through each of the seven deadly sins and gives a simple explanation of what it means to possess one of these qualities, and then a brain hack for identifying the trait in your brain and then exploiting or hijacking the thought process in order to eventually change that habit and start looking at the world and at your life in a more positive light, which will ultimately lead to gaining more personal fulfillment.

#PhotoaDayMay: A Favorite Place

We had our first pool day today! I think we may have opened it a little too early, since it still gets down into the high 40′s to low 50′s at night and we still have three blankets on our bed, but we have had several days of hot and humid weather this past week, and next week’s temperatures are being said to get well into the 80′s. When you live in Pennsylvania, the mention of 80-degree weather doesn’t go over too well and the air conditioners coming out of storage is always a reasonable course of action.

Before today, I had only been swimming once in the past 10 years. This is due to a series of different factors; I have long lived with anxiety and depression issues, I don’t …

A Woman’s Journey Back to the Light — Love Thy Self!

Having turned 45 years old this fall and having lost all my children from the nest, I am in a reflective phase of my life. I felt very lonely and lost at first, but am now embracing the opportunity for reflection and a restart of sorts.

Growing up, I was a young girl looking for love any which way I could get it. I was manufacturing love all around me; I loved my gorgeous salesman husband, I loved my curious little children, I slaved to be the best wife and mother I could be. Periodically I felt resentment, loneliness, depression, and a feeling that my life lacked meaning. I had arrived at this place in my life in a daze. I felt like I had never consciously made any decisions for my life.

I pushed these feelings away and concentrated on loving and caring for those …

Calm Your Consciousness — 5 Tips for Your First Meditation

I attended my first-ever Meditation class recently after hearing of its many benefits in helping to manage anxiety and stress. Among the wonderful points the teacher taught us about Meditation, there was one that really stayed with me. She told us of how Buddhists describe life being full of 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows, and how these joys and sorrows travel through our consciousness. She said our consciousness is like a big river full of thoughts and Meditation is about getting on the bank of that river.

As a beginner to Meditation, I liked this visual picture to gain a better understanding of what it is you are trying to do when you meditate. It can be difficult when you are first starting out, as your mind can wander so much (as I found out) …

The Meaning of Life Stretched Out of Me at Bikram Yoga

Five years ago my father died of a sudden heart attack. Naturally what followed were a few emotional months. It wasn’t the normal grieving process as you’d expect when someone in your family or a best friend passes away, as my father and I weren’t close. But because of our estrangement I had bottled up a lot of feelings and when I was told of his passing, all these feelings came to the surface, and my mind had become introspective, thinking deeply about the meaning of life. It wasn’t a healthy way to live and I needed something to help me move on. A colleague at work suggested I try Bikram yoga. Yes yoga! He’d been doing it for over a decade and swore by it.

If you don’t know what Bikram yoga is, here …

Hoarding Clean Up: Leave It to the Professionals

I used to have a particularly negative attitude towards documentary/reality television shows documenting a person’s struggle with a mental illness, an attribute that sets them apart from the society-accepted version of “normal,” or the challenge to change themselves in the face of discrimination. In my estimation, these shows, while they did strive to reveal a supposedly honest depiction of living with conditions such as substance abuse issues, obesity, and particular phobias, they were doing very little else but exploiting the subjects that were plucked from obscurity and put on the television screens of millions of homes nationwide. I saw the benefit of these shows in the sense that they bring a certain level of success to the television networks who produce and air them, and for the viewers who typically see quality entertainment value in the …