How to Know Yourself Better.

How-To Tuesday!

1. Take a moment to write down things that you know “very good” about yourself - your interests, likes, dislikes, preferences, hobbies, strengths, weaknesses, hopes, fears, dreams, etc. Reflect on these qualities and find out how they impact your overall life. By creating a list of your personal attributes that you are familiar with, you are keeping yourself in touch with your self.
2. Take personality and psychological tests. This is another way to know yourself better. The internet has a rich source of free online personality and psychological assessments and tests. By answering them, you will understand more how you think, make decisions, interact with people, do things, choose mate, live your life, etc.
3. Know yourself better by understanding people’s perceptions about you. Pay attention to what your family, friends, coworkers, etc. observe and say about you. Sometimes, you think you know yourself enough, but other people who see you from their point of view can offer you some insights how you act and get understood by others. Be careful, however, to balance both perceptions to come up with an objective view of yourself.
4. Keep on learning who you are. It’s a lifetime process. Everyday you will be given new insights about yourself. Writing a journal will help you keep track of these new discoveries. Maintaining that hunger to know yourself better will make you more self-aware, opening up new opportunities to enrich your life.

[How to Know Yourself Better @ eHow.com]

How Do I Stop Being Socially Awkward?

How-To Tuesday!

1. Put yourself in social situations on a regular basis, so that you have repeated exposure. One of the main ways to overcome nervousness in any situation is to challenge the fear, until you feel more comfortable.
2. Mention to new people that you are a little shy. Being open helps others to understand why you may act in an awkward fashion at times.
3. Think things over before saying them when you’re in social situations. This will help to prevent you from saying something bizarre that nobody else understands.
4. Pay attention to how other people behave and speak, so that you have a better idea of social norms.
5. Avoid worrying excessively about your own behavior. Everyone is different and in social situations there are often various people worrying about themselves too much, to realize if someone else is awkward.

[How Do I Stop Being Socially Awkward? @ eHow.com]

How to Make My Life a Little Bit Brighter.

How-To Tuesday!

1. Realize that you are a person of worth and deserve to be happy. Making time to think about yourself may seem selfish at first, especially if you spend much of your time serving or helping others (whether at home or at work). Being happy is about making time for yourself and then making the most of that time.
2. Get out of bed earlier than usual and use the time to appreciate quiet and beauty. Whether you watch the sun rise over your garden or sip your favorite coffee in the still of the morning before the kids get up, a few minutes of personal space and contemplation in the morning can invigorate you for the entire day.
3. Start a new hobby or pastime that helps you feel good about yourself and gives you a way of expressing your personality. Pottery, painting, drawing, music and dance are perfect for releasing pent-up creativity. Gardening, cycling, swimming and sports are active approaches to relieving stress and improving overall well-being.
4. Lose yourself in a good book. This is classic advice but escaping realty and absorbing yourself in a fictional story gives you a mental break. This may be just enough of a break to improve your mood and calm your mind. Pick a childhood favorite and read aloud for added pleasure.
5. Treat yourself to a gift that has significance to you. Whether a beautiful flower arrangement, gourmet chocolates, designer clothes, a day at the spa or the prefect antique, a happy gift makes for a happy person. Allowing yourself to be the recipient of your own gift is a great ego boost. Happy ego, happy id, happy you.
6. Enjoy nature. Go for a walk in the park, hike the back hills or camp in the nearest national park. Getting closer to nature restores a sense of self and realty and allows you to put things back into perspective. Being surrounded by Earth’s natural wonders can have a profound positive effect.
7. Carve out pieces of time in between your responsibilities to others and devote those few minutes or hours to yourself. Consider using them for meditation, yoga or journaling. Making life fun and peaceful for yourself improves your perspective and makes it easier to see the bright side of life.

[How to Make My Life a Little Bit Brighter @ eHow.com]

How to Overcome Grief.

How-To Tuesday!

1. Give yourself time to heal. Grieving is a very individual process. According to the Hospice Foundation of America, some people express grief through anger, by experiencing guilt, or through feeling bouts of sadness or loneliness. Whether it takes a few weeks or months, it is essential to take the time you need to come to terms with your particular loss for your own emotional and physical well-being.
2. Allow your emotions to surface; don’t suppress them. Feeling bereft after a loss is entirely natural and a necessary component of the healing process. Just as a physical wound needs nutrients to heal, fully expressed emotions bring the grieving individual through grief to the eventual state of peace and acceptance. According to Judy Tatelbaum, MSW, of the Hospice Foundation of America, “Expressing your feelings will help you heal, as feelings expressed disappear. Feelings repressed don’t. So give vent to your feelings.”
3. Confide in a counselor, minister or friend. Many times a loss brings with it an overwhelming sense of despair. In order to gain a better perspective, it might help to see a counselor or a minister to discuss what you are experiencing. If a dear friend is available, share your thoughts with them to help alleviate some of the stress you may be feeling.
4. Join a support group. Often, when people experience a loss, they feel very much alone in their experience. Joining a support group may comfort you in the knowledge that you are not alone in what you are feeling. Funeral homes and hospitals often have affiliations with bereavement support groups, as do many faith communities. Reach out and share with those in similar circumstances.
5. Develop a plan for coping with anniversaries or holidays, when you are likely to significantly feel the loss of your loved one. Realize that you can’t recreate the past; make slight changes in your usual holiday traditions, just enough to honor your memories while recognizing the change in your life. Daily, try to live in the present moment as much as possible. Dwelling on the past will tend to remind you of your regrets or sense of loss. Dwelling on the future may cause anxiety.
6. Become involved in outside activities, such as joining volunteer groups or learning new skills. The emotional stress of grief can take its toll on your body, so eat right, and get enough rest and physical exercise.
7. Don’t hesitate to seek professional help if needed.

[How to Overcome Grief @ eHow.com]

How to Know If a Girl is Flirting or Just Being Friendly.

How-To Tuesday!

[This is also applicable to anyone of any gender you may be interested in.]

1. Notice how exactly she flirts with you. There’s a difference between friendly flirtation and romantic flirtation. If she’s smiling, laughing at your jokes, or looking for a place next to you at the lunch table, then she’s interested in you, but there’s no guarantee she wants you romantically. However, if her gaze lingers, she goes out of her way to find a chance to talk to you, or mentions mutual interests she wants to enjoy with you, then these are more reliable signs that she’s genuinely romantically interested in you.
2. Know what her motivation is with you when she’s giving you attention. If you have something she wants, are in a position of professional power, or you have a social status that requires her to be friendly — then she may not be interested in you romantically. However, if you can’t think of a reason she would feel obligated to befriend you, she may be flirting.
3. Don’t confuse kindness or sympathy for romantic interest. Consider the way you have presented yourself to her. If you have a sob story and she knows about your personal struggles, or if kindness is one of her shining traits — then she may be just friendly and not romantically interested.
4. Ask your friends, her friends, or anyone who has known her for a while if she is this friendly with everyone. They’ll be able to give you some context in which to put your own interaction with her.
5. Watching the woman as she interacts with other men can give you the answer you’re looking for. If she’s just as flirtatious with other men as she is with you, or her friendliness toward other guys makes you feel jealous, this is a red flag that she is just being friendly with you or just flirts with everyone. However, if that sparkling smile and lingering gaze is something she shares only with you, chances are she’s really flirting.
6. If you’re unsure, don’t make any big moves. Return the friendly gestures, but don’t take it to a romantic level just yet. If she’s genuinely interested in you, she’ll either take her flirtation to the next level, or demonstrate her frustration that you don’t seem mutually interested.

[How to Know if a Girl is Flirting or Just Being Friendly @ eHow.com]

How to Discuss Hurt Feelings.

How-To Tuesday!

1. Pause for reflection before acting on hurt feelings. A delayed but thoughtful response will usually generate more constructive results than an immediate, blurted reaction. Psychoanalysis suggests that people who feel easily hurt may find themselves looking in the wrong direction when they blame others for their emotional responses. The mind gets structured by patterns of relationship built in early life and some of these patterns can “filter” present day experiences. A careless but non-malicious comment from a friend can “pass through” an inner representation of a mocking or punitive figure, perhaps partially based on an aspect of a parent or a sibling. When this happens, the comment gets instantly interpreted as a humiliating slight.
2. Take full responsibly for personal emotional responses. Person A may hear the same comment as person B from a third party, directed at both of them equally, but feel entirely differently about it. Emotional reactions occur very rapidly, but think of them as constructions rather than passive “happenings.” At some level, often beyond conscious awareness, people choose to feel a particular emotion. Other people don’t “cause” emotions; personal habits and assumptions do. This doesn’t excuse offensive and inconsiderate behavior on the part of others, but identifying how an emotion gets built in the mind helps in deciding how to respond to it.
3. Work on a “balance of probabilities” exercise. Psychoanalyst Bruce Fink, a follower of the radical French analyst Jacques Lacan, argues that human speech is irreducibly ambiguous. Words mean more than they say — as soon as speech leaves a person’s mouth, it enters another’s mind and gets subject to complex evaluations and interpretations at phenomenal speeds. A person who constantly expects criticism may experience relatively innocuous or humorous remarks as attacks. Reacting with furious condemnation will more likely damage a friendship than enhance it. Take “time out” from the immediate situation and come back to it later when instantaneous feelings have cooled.
4. Strike when the iron’s cold. This phrase comes from psychoanalyst Fred Pine, who argues that in states of raw and intense emotion, rational action easily gets blown away. Coming back later to the “scene of the crime” — the person whose remarks resulted in hurt feelings — enables a calmer and less fraught exchange. Openings remarks such as “Can I just run something by you that’s been troubling me?” make for less threatening intros than “You really upset me the other day and I need you to know why!” It takes time to come up with tactful opening remarks when hurtful exchanges require discussion.
5. Keep opening comments purely observational or benignly questioning. Remarks such as “I found myself a bit puzzled when you said ‘X’ yesterday” invites clarification whereas “You hurt my feelings when you said ‘Y’” invites defensive obfuscation. Focus on tact-with-honesty — if someone has behaved or spoken carelessly, or even maliciously, he can make amends for he actions if given the chance. Allowing space for what psychoanalyst Melanie Klein called “reparation” fosters the growth of strong and healthy relationships. Klein argues that most people wish to repair the damage they inflict when they grow aware of any hurt they might have caused.
6. Practice tactful fortitude. A bully will usually back off when confronted with evidence that his intended victim can come back and question him, even if politely. Don’t sink to the level of the wrongdoer - remain calm, posed and courteous. Psychoanalysts frequently challenge distorted thinking and malicious states of mind their patients; but they do so with great forbearance and diplomacy. A counter-attack usually simply escalates hostility or animosity, whereas an intelligent observation (or question) relating to a potential act of aggression, in speech or deed, at least shows that the “target” is no doormat and will respond robustly.
7. Choose a trusted confidante, if you can, to check your feelings with before responding.
8. If you repeatedly feel easily hurt, consider seeking psychotherapy to help manage the internalized origins of such pain.
9. If you find that even tactful comments arouse further hostility and aggression, back away quietly and seek additional support and help from friends, family or work colleagues, especially managers. You may have stumbled upon a malicious person who can only feel good by making others feel bad.

[How to Discuss Hurt Feelings @ eHow.com]

How to Clean a Mattress Containing Urine.

How-To Tuesday!

1. Remove all bedding from the mattress and wash it in hot water with detergent. If the mattress is encased in a cover or anti-allergen case, remove and wash it as well.
2. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions on the carpet cleaner. This will include spraying the product on the urine stain and allowing it to sit for a specified amount of time. Next, you’ll be instructed to vacuum or scrub the residue from the mattress where the cleaner was applied.
3. Sprinkle about a cup full of baking soda from a brand new package onto the urine stained area. Cover the mattress with a large piece of plastic sheeting. Secure the sheeting over the mattress with rope or elastic. Leave this on the mattress for 6 to 8 hours.
4. Remove the plastic sheeting from the mattress and vacuum the baking soda. The baking soda should have absorbed any remaining odor left from the urine stain.
5. Spray the entire mattress with a disinfectant spray like Lysol. This will kill any remaining germs and leave the mattress smelling fresh and clean.
6. Try this concoction if the above steps didn’t rid your mattress of the urine stain and odor. Mix 8 ounces of hydrogen peroxide with a cup of water and a half cup of baking soda. Sponge the mixture onto the stain and allow it to sit for half an hour. Remove the mixture from the mattress and then allow to dry.

[How to Clean a Mattress Containing Urine @ eHow.com]

How to Escape From an Emotionally Abusive Relationship.

How-To Tuesday!

1. Realize that you are a worthy person. You are not what your abuser tells you—that is the first step towards moving on. You are bright enough to realize that you are in an emotionally abusive relationship, so you are not stupid, neither dumb nor simple minded.
2. Spend some time reflecting on some of the things your abuser says and does to make you feel worthless. If your best friend did those things, would they still be your friend or would you replace them with a friend who treated you better. If you had an emotionally abusive friendship, you would walk away—that is human nature.
3. Stop trying to change the abuser and stop believing they will stop abusing you. Too many times when we are in an emotionally abusive relationship we give up the helpful friends and remain with the abuser because we feel that because they love us dearly they will change. Abusers rarely change because they enjoy the power they have, and do not wish to give it up.
4. Build up your self-confidence and self-esteem, when you are in an emotionally abusive relationship your self-confidence and self-esteem go through the toilet and we need to take the steps to regain those things. Try to find other things that will make your self-confidence soar; take up a hobby or perhaps a class on something you might enjoy. Writing seems to be a great way to ease a troubled soul, so write a letter to the abuser, pouring out your heart and then burn it.
5. Decide to leave an emotionally abusive relationship. This is hard for anyone in that situation. For some people it is much easier. In emotionally abusive relationship, it is far better to remove your self from the situation as quickly as you are able to. If you can financially take care of your self, and then use your savings for a deposit and first month’s rent on your own place. If not, take the steps now to get a good job, and begin a savings account which is really your escape from the emotionally abusive relationship fund.

[How to Escape from an Emotionally Abusive Relationship @ eHow.com]

How to Tell if You Are Being Manipulated.

How-To Tuesday!

1. Learn how to tell if you are being manipulated by paying attention to the way others act when they want something from you. He might be unusually kind to you in the moment he’s asking something from you, when he is not normally a kind, caring person.
2. Pay attention to the way you feel when someone asks you to do something you don’t really want to do. If you feel guilty or shamed into taking part in an activity, that feeling is a way to tell that you’re being manipulated. The whole goal behind manipulation is to control other people. He lays a “guilt trip” on you so that you’ll do what he wants. She wants you to feel ashamed and that you are not a good person if you don’t do this for her.
3. Watch out for temper tantrums a person might use on you. This is another way to tell if you are being manipulated. The emotion of anger is used by many people to exercise control over others. Displays of anger can evoke feelings of fear in someone who is the target of that anger. You become fearful of what might happen, so you give in and do whatever the angry person wants.
4. Be wary of people who are constantly playing the victim in life. He may always be in need of help. She may act hopeless and helpless. But as soon as you step in to help or to give whatever is wanted or needed, they are temporarily better. Until the next time he or she wants something.

[How to Tell if You Are Being Manipulated @ eHow.com]

How to Avoid Being Annoying.

How-To Tuesday!

1. Try to be yourself instead of trying to please everyone else. Having a person who has seemingly no opinions of their own can be highly annoying. This behavior becomes obvious quickly and is extremely annoying to most people. Having your own personality and opinions, even if you don’t agree with others, is far more interesting than trying to agree with everyone you meet.
2. Remember personal space. It can be annoying when a person doesn’t respect your personal space. This can include sitting or standing too closely, or it may be asking inappropriate questions. Try to behave in a way that shows respect for the people around you.
3. Watch how the people around you are responding. If you have trouble understanding social behavior, this may help you to understand how people react in ordinary situations.
4. Avoid correcting people in public or otherwise making them think you believe yourself superior. This can include criticizing a person’s grammar or laughing about their opinions. Respect that other people have opinions and that everyone makes mistakes. It isn’t your job to correct everyone every time a mistake is made. Being social is largely making people feel comfortable in your presence.
5. Keep your behavior appropriate to the occasion. Laughing at a solemn moment or grimacing when someone is making a joke is impolite and annoying to others.

[How to Avoid Being Annoying @ eHow.com]