Adversity, personal injury, grief and loss can make you feel as though you have lost touch with yourself, but the truth is that adversity introduces us to our real selves. When you survive something awful, you have the opportunity to increase your personal power, strength of character, and ability to contribute to the greater good based on how you react to and rebound from the adversity.

One of the best ways to deal with a post-holiday slump -- or mid-winter blues -- is to engage in a daily practice of positive visualization. Visualization is a powerful force, and whether we are aware of it or not, the unconscious mind constantly sends and receives visual messages, images of things we want, or don’t want, in our lives. If you allow  negative, default visualization to run through your mind all day, you may notice the negative emotions resulting from the negative images: anxiety, disquiet, frustration, hopelessness, melancholy. On the other hand, when you make positive visualization a regular part of your day, every day, you experience positive emotions like peace, joy and love, and you’ll notice an increase in your creativity, inspiration, and optimism.

Each day presents new opportunities to hone your stress management skills and increase optimism. That’s one way to look at it, anyway, and I prefer to focus on the positive. In my opinion, it takes a true badass to embrace optimism and employ enough mental discipline to continue to cling to that positive spin, rejecting any and all negative input.

California will always be my home -- I’ve been a California resident for 25 years. Since I currently reside in both Indianapolis and the San Francisco Bay Area, alternately, I have come to appreciate Indianapolis. For one thing, it’s a city built by, of, and for sports. I’ve never been a jock. I love to work out -- it raises my endorphin levels and keeps my energy up -- but the only sport I truly understand and get excited about watching is basketball. And Indy is a basketball fan’s dream. Thanks, Indianapolis!

Fun is an attitude, a state of being; it’s playfulness, enjoyment or amusement. Fun can inspire you, motivate you, and empower you to change your attitude, reactions and perception of yourself. Fun and a sense of humor will propel you toward your goal more quickly and give you inspiration, motivation and a sense of well-being along the way. If you're having fun, you're increasing your levels of "feel good" neurotransmitters in your brain ⎯ dopamine, serotonin, etc. When this happens, you empower yourself to feel better in general; you'll find it's much easier to be creative, energetic and empathic when you feel good.

Happiness is a state of being. It is a way of thinking, a conscious choice. Lots of people think the “pursuit of happiness” is a linear process, so they live in a state of expectancy, or hope of happiness arriving…some day. They pursue, hoping to some day overtake happiness when the conditions are perfect. But you can experience happiness in the present moment, without waiting, if you give yourself permission — in the moment. There is no need to meet any requirement, fulfill any quota, or compete with rivals in order to allow yourself the liberty of carrying unconditional happiness inside you every moment of the day. You are calling the shots here — your life is yours alone to experience.

Because I’ve been stressed out and feeling overwhelmed lately, I treated myself to a walk in beauty today! And guess what? It worked! Instead of booking an appointment with a therapist -- something I’m not knocking, by the way, since I’ve benefited tremendously from therapy -- I visited the Indianapolis Museum of Art, a gorgeous place set on 152+ acres of wooded land near the city’s center.

On the path to personal healing and transformation, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to acknowledge your feelings. Every moment of every day, you experience emotions. It's very important to become aware of these feelings, to monitor them and be open about them.

Ground Yourself in Love.  Love is a growth experience. I’m not speaking of romantic love, necessarily, but universal love, which is the essence of life itself. You can tap into this powerful force with something as simple as music, “I love this song!” –  and your whole day goes along more smoothly. Love is the all-encompassing, universal power that enables growth and discovery. Healing, change, progress and creativity flourish when rooted in love. Plato said, “At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.” Here are a couple of exercises you can use to tap into universal love:
 

My experience working with combat veterans, as a programs counselor and presenter, helped me to appreciate and understand courage on a deeper level. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is resistance to fear. Courage is the conscious decision to move through fear to the objective. Here are four actions to manage your fears and build courage daily, and anyone, including you, can do them and get results.