Do you always wash your hand after shaking hands with someone? Do you at least change clothes at least 10 times before you leave for work? Do you go to the doctor for a check up once a week? You’d better be careful if your answers to my above questions are YES. Have you ever heard about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)? If you don’t, read the details below. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a mental disease that triggers people to have unnecessary thoughts (obsessions) and to duplicate specific behaviors (compulsions) over and over again. Please note that it is normal for people to have routines but if you overdo it, it can lead you to OCD. Some researchers believe that OCD stems from behavior habits that you learn over time. Yet, no one has found a single, proven cause for OCD. Some studies show that it may have to do with chemicals in the brain that carry messages from one nerve cell to another. There is also a chance for someone to develop OCD if he/she has parents or other family member with the disorder although researchers haven’t identified it yet. Another factor is stress. If you react or retain to stress very strongly, you might also have a chance to develop OCD or any other disorder. However, it can be cured with the right treatments which are psychotherapy and medications. Psychotherapy involves step by step exposure to the object that you feel afraid of or to your obsessions. One of the medications taken by OCD patients is antidepressant which can help increase levels of serotonin. Yet, both treatments should be followed by big supports from friends and family. Also, joining a support group to share experiences with other patients is also a very good way to be speedily cured.

Abraham Lincoln once met a man who he really didn’t like. The man kept annoying him and Abe couldn’t understand what it was that made him have to act like that all the time. In a famous quote, he said “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” This quote embodies one of the great sentiments about people that we sometimes forget to incorporate into our lives. There are many people in the world who don’t make sense to us and who we wish were different than the way they are. In fact, there are many people that we would simply do better to just avoid rather than try to understand them. Still, Abe Lincoln’s quote is a great sentiment for many of us to learn by because it teaches us that we don’t always see people for who they truly are and we may be too quick to judge a person who has been through something that may have been harder than we can imagine. Everybody is born into a certain life and is faced with overcoming the difficulties that are presented to them. If we are faced with some people who are extremely hard to endure, it may be that there is a lesson in there for us to learn about the problems that others face in their lives. It may be that we can stretch our minds and our hearts to incorporate compassion and understanding into our relationships and make things better for ourselves and others. Learning to look past some of the initial problems we see in others and find that silver lining in their cloud is a great talent and an ability that can define a leader. This was the kind of leadership that our 16th president embodied and why he became such a great emancipator for so many people. Another great quote that expresses the essence of a positive attitude is by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson once said “The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitos and silly people.” Emerson’s words are a real wake up call for many people. They may think to themselves, have they ever felt the need to wake up every morning and see the first glimmer of light as it begins to glow in the night sky? Have they noticed how fast the sky begins to brighten up upon the first evidence of daylight? Have they noticed how long it takes after that before the actual sun can be seen on the horizon? Have they noticed the magnificence of those first sun beams as they peak over the horizon and burn a bright fire against your eye? These things that can be witnessed each morning by everyone on the planet are more than often ignored by millions of sleeping people. This amazing and monumental event is seen as nothing because it happens everyday and has been pushed into the background of our subconscious mind. The sun indeed provides all life to the world and is an amazing phenomenon too great to even imagine its intensity. Still, somehow this is all lost to us against a long list of other problems and concerns that plague us each day. Keeping a positive attitude each day is something that can only come through discipline and effort at first. Once we have created a lot of bad habits and negative attitudes, they take a concerted discipline to overcome. Once we overcome them, however, we may begin to see great things in both the people we thought we could never like and the magnificent sun that we never noticed before.

What is the law of attraction? You may have seen “The Secret” or “What The Bleep Do We Know?” and have gotten an idea of what the law of attraction is all about. You may have even created a vision board, done affirmations, and focused on the things that you want. If you’re like most people, you may have wanted to harness the law of attraction to boost your financial level, increase health and energy, or experience better personal relationships in your life. When “The Secret” first came out, a lot of people follow the guidelines it spoke of. For a while, they were real champions at it, but then they just quit. They got discouraged. Why? Because the law of attraction is more than just focusing on what it is you want and then expecting results in a few weeks or a few months. The law of attraction works with all of your levels, past your conscious thoughts and feelings. In fact, the law of attraction goes more by your inner feelings than what you consciously are thinking. In the rush to use the law of attraction for their own purposes, many people have missed the overall picture of harnessing the law of attraction. It’s about becoming whole within yourself. Let me explain more about this. You see, most people are thinking they want this or that on a conscious level, while deep down inside, on the unconscious level, they may want something totally different. So they are focusing on what they consciously want, and never letting themselves know what’s deep down inside. In order for you to get to the deep inside, you’ve got to become still and clear your head. This requires practice, as you may not be used to becoming completely still in mind and body. But regular practice will make things easier for you. When you’ve working with all of your inner and outer levels of yourself, then you’re able to harness the law of attraction to bring you all of the good things you know you deserve. It goes beyond just mere thoughts, but feelings. How does it feel to have perfect health? How does it feel to have more than enough material abundance? Are you able to feel this right now? It may be hard for you, because your logical mind is telling you that your current situation does not reflect this idea. Remember, life is full of changes, so you cannot base yourself on the externals. As you begin to play with the feeling of already having whatever it is that you want, you will find that it gets easier and easier to already feel abundance, health and love. And as that increases within you, so your outer world will start to reflect that as well. This is the essence of the law of attraction. Some things may come easier to you than others. Enjoy the process, and enjoy the feeling. How you feel is everything when it comes to the law of attraction.

Dyslexia affects as many as 1 out of 10 people. 90-95% of adult dyslexics don’t know that their problems with learning are caused by dyslexia. Not knowing, they suffer from social stigma, low self esteem, depression. There is a simple way they could quickly improve their lives, change things for the better… Dyslexia is A learning disorder characterized by impairment of the ability to recognize and comprehend written words. It is usually associated with some type of neurologic disorder. All dyslexics are different, each with different symptoms and degrees of severity. There is no “typical” dyslexic. The symptoms are not apparent. The effects are often mistaken for something else. The key to getting an accurate diagnosis, and knowing, is an adult dyslexia test. Today most people that have dyslexic symptoms are recognized and diagnosed early, as small children or as students in school. But our general understanding of dyslexia is fairly recent. Only a few years ago dyslexic students were most often just called “slow learners” and shunted aside. Today there are many adult dyslexics who not do not yet know the real cause of their learning problems. Moreover most do their very best to hide it. So they continue suffering from the disabilities of dyslexia, which makes their lives miserable. Often being labled as dumb or stupid is depressing and robs them of self-esteem. A simple adult dyslexia test would swiftly put them on track to a better life. Once the problems are identified, there are many therapies training courses that enable dyslexics to effectvely deal with their individual problems. They can quickly learn to function much more effectively. Dyslexics tend to have special talents in visualizing and manipulating images. They often excel in the arts, in architecture and in life in general. There is no reason why they cannot be successful and lead happy, full lives. There are many successful dyslexics, such as Sir Richard Branson, George Washington and Abert Einstein. Once they are diagnosed, so the problems are understood, dyslexics can overcome their weaknesses and focus on developing their considerable strengths. The first step for anyone who is dyslexic, or thinks they might be, is to arrange to take an adult dyslexia test. The test will quickly verify if any form of dyslexia is present. It will also assess its characteristics and severity. There are adult dyslexic tests available that can be taken in the privacy of your own home or almost anywhere. These only require half an hour of time less money than you would spend for many video games. There is a genetic link. Anyone in your family with dyslexia? Do you ever have difficulties in reading? In manipulating numbers in your head? Do you struggle to write so you can be understood? If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, you might be dyslexic to some degree. If you might be dyslexic to some degree, you should find out for certain. A simple adult dyslexia test would provide the answers, so you would know for sure. And it could radically change your life forever, for the better…

Truly one of the most inspiring things anyone can do for themselves is to find gratitude in their everyday life. Contrary to how bleak life may look to you at times, if you could state at least 3-5 aspects of your being with gratefulness, your attitude and outlook will shift. I believe that Wayne Dyer was the person who stated: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”. Finding gratitude may be difficult to begin with if negative thinking seems to rule your life, or it seems that everything often goes wrong. Though beginning with saying “Thank You” for all the things that you have (that other people may not have been so lucky) is a great place to start. To have sight, hearing, the ability to walk, to talk, think, and the like are all good reasons to be grateful. If you begin each day or end each evening with gratitude you will begin to notice how doing something so easy will have such a powerful impact on your life. After a period of time of being faithful to this concept of displaying gratefulness, amazing things begin to happen with the way you think: 1) You will not longer search to find something to be grateful for, these thoughts will automatically embrace you. 2) You begin to see beauty around you everywhere you look. 3) You start to feel better about yourself. 4) You will find you display a more apathetic attitude towards other people, rather then a judgemental point of view. 5)Several other aspects of how you view life will shift. Remember the importance of the statement that “we create our own life”. Let’s begin by taking responsibility for the way we think. So much information and thoughts go through our minds each day, that if we start to control “some” of our thinking, we will eventually be able to control at “lot” of our thinking. There are several persons that get referred to “Masters” of what they do. Oftentimes, these same “Masters” know the secrets of gratitude. They know that the thoughts they put out to the universe, is what will come back to them. So begin today. Whether you just speak your thoughts of gratefulness in your mind, or begin to journal each day, (a very powerful method) things will begin to shift for you, and you will feel much more at peace with yourself. You will become your own “Master”. Thank you! Wishing you great success! Shanley MacKenzie