The after life

A couple of years ago a man, who was eighty-two years of age, attended one of my speech courses in Birmingham.

His name was Jim.

I was quite shocked that somebody of his age was attending and was interested in finding out what had motivated him etc.

On the fourth day of the course Jim explained that he was certain that there was an after life and that he did not want to come back with a stutter.

I found this to be quite remarkable and wondered as to why he was so certain.

“I just know. If I explained why, you would not believe me; in fact you would probably think that I am a little insane.”

He was an amazing guy, somebody who I personally learnt a lot from.

One thing certainly rang true with me. He stated that he regretted wasting so much of his youth going to places/events that he did not want to, just to please other people. I have done this in the past, mainly because I did not want my friends to think that I was boring.

“Be true to yourself. If you do not want to go somewhere, don’t go. If people call you names or think anything bad of you, who cares?

It is what you think that counts. We all need to become a lot more care-free and a lot less paranoid about what other people think of us.”

This is the way I have been attempting to approach life in the last few years.

It is amazing the difference it makes.

Here is an article that I have recently written about how to become more care-free:

Are you looking into ways to help you to gain more confidence? Have you a lack of self-belief?

Do you think that you are a weak person? Would you like to be a more care-free person?

If you have answered yes to any of these questions, this article may well be worth a read.

I am going to write about how people can go about increasing their self-confidence.

This advice is what I have used to help myself turn from an often depressive person to a now happy and relaxed young man.

I have to admit that for the first twenty-two years of my life I did not exactly live life to the full or in the correct manner.

I was basically like a scared rabbit; I worried about almost all aspects of life and was a very negative person.

I needed to change this approach as I was not exactly a happy chap.

Ten years ago; I went about making this change by reading literature about self-confidence and by trying to learn how other people coped with their problems.

One of my many weaknesses was that I was very paranoid about what other people thought of me.

I was desperate for people to like me and would easily get upset if people criticised or made fun of me etc.

In a way, I tried too hard to earn this type of respect and would do things and attend functions which I did not really want to, just to please other people of course.

I have now realised and accepted that it is important for me to be true to myself.

I should be doing what I want to do and if people do not like me for whatever reason, then that is fine, I have enough people who do.

I have also decided to stop worrying so much about things, like the future, money, relationships and work. Stressing about these and other things does not make life any easier; in fact it makes it a lot harder.

There is no time in life for this type of fear, I should be spending this time trying to improve and enjoying my life.

If something goes wrong, which of course it will from time to time, I will deal with it when it happens, in a very positive and dynamic way.

As an example of my new found inner confidence, was something that happened during an evening out I had with some friends.

We were all drinking quite a lot of beer and it was clear that most of my friends were intent on becoming very drunk.

I like a drink but not half as much as what other people seem to. At around nine o'clock I had basically had enough of drinking alcohol and started to drink diet coke.

My friends gave me some funny looks and made a number of comments; they were suggesting that I was not a true man and that I was boring.

I did not care what they thought of me and told them so. If I want to drink diet coke then I will.

I am happy with my latest approach to life and am determined not to go back to the way I used to think and live.

I do stress at times but quickly attempt to snap out of it by thinking in a more positive way. 

How to Beat Depression

I have recently spoken to my parents about the subject of my depression.

My mother has said that she thinks we have some kind of depression gene as most of our family suffers from similar symptoms.

I have recently suffered with a severe bout of this depression; however from it I learnt a valuable lesson.

I had been having a bad period in my life where seemingly everything was going wrong.

It was one kick in the teeth after each other. I had nothing to look forward to and decided that I needed a night out with my friends.

There was one intention that I had in mind which was to get as drunk as possible.

The next day I felt really ill and hung-over after having a very late night and as planned a huge amount of alcohol.

For the whole day I struggled to stay awake and as the day wore on I became more and more depressed.

The negative side of my brain had taken over my whole head and it seemed like there was a whole bunch of negative chemicals running through my body.

The lesson I have learnt is that is not a good idea to go out drinking alcohol if you are feeling low and depressed.

When I was speaking to my parents about my latest period of anxiety and depression, they gave me some interesting and useful advice.

They asked me to think about all of the things and aspects of my life that were getting me down.

What I then needed to do was to talk about them and to think positive by attempting to find solutions to each of these problems.

This is not at all easy to do but is something I now try. I have realised that it is good to talk about our fears and phobias and that there is nothing wrong with admitting that you are stressed and depressed.

Nowadays, when I start to feel down or depressed, I write a list all of the things that I am not happy about and I also write a list of the things that I am happy with.

I do this become at times it seems that I am worrying and depressed for no real reason.

As well as talking to my friends and family about the things that I am not happy with, I also focus on the aspects of my life that I am happy with.

This soon helps me to appreciate just how lucky I am.

Quite a strange thing happened a couple of months ago, something that would also teach me a valuable lesson. I have a belief in God and was talking to him as I was walking to the shops.

I was speaking to him about my problems/worries and asking him for help.

As I walked around the corner of one particular street, I noticed that there was a man, who was blind, walking on the other side of the road.

This was quite surreal; it was like a message from God. In an instant, I realised just how lucky I actually am and that I needed to start appreciating the fact.  

Helping your children to deal with stress

Many children suffer from various forms of stress and in this article I give advice on how parents can help their child during these periods.

Their stress can cause them to have nightmares and to lose their self-confidence.

Children who have nightmares

There are many reasons why children can start to have nightmares. I have two children, both of whom at various stages of their lives have woken up, crying and upset.

My young son started to have nightmares after watching the film lord of the rings.

He really enjoyed watching the film and wanted to watch it on a regular basis, he would even re-enact the battles.

The film itself is quite long and he would normally be watching it by himself as his mother and I would be busy doing other things.

I thought about why he may have started to have these types of dreams and believed it was due to this film.

I then made a point of watching it with him and kept on reassuring him that the people have not actually died and that they were only acting.

I even made a point of laughing at some of the more gruesome scenes and by making comments like, as if that would ever happen.

This, and by also only allowing him to watch the film once a week, helped to stop this period of nightmares.

Children can also develop nightmares after an illness. This can happen after having a period away from school.

They may start to worry that they may have fallen behind with their work, or that they may not be able to get back into their crowd of friends.

They may also fear that their best friend may have found a new best friend.

In this situation I would advise that when the child is better and before he returns to school that you re-introduce them to the work that they were studying before the illness.

You can even ask the teacher to supply some of the work that the child has missed, to help them to catch up.

I myself always phone up the parents of my children’s friends and invite their child round for a meal, and to play, the evening before my child is set to return to school.

Therefore when my children are ill, I always say to them not to worry about the work they may miss or about their friends as they know now how I operate etc.

Children who stress

My daughter started to stress because she was not in any of the top groups in the different subjects she was taking at school.

She felt like she was a failure and that we would not be proud of her. I advised her that we knew she was giving it her all at school and that as long as she continued to try her best, that we would always be proud of her.

After all not every child can be in these top sets.

I reminded her that she was in the netball and athletics teams and tried to make her see the positive way of thinking.

She now knows that even when she believes she is unable to perform a certain task, that she should still have a go at it.

When she makes an error there will always be somebody there to explain where she went wrong, which she can then learn from for the next time.

As parents it is important that we do not criticise our children too often.

This can lead to them fearing failure and can lead to them not even attempting to try certain tasks.

Keep them motivated by making homework fun. Praise the child as often as possible, when they complete something well, this builds up their self-esteem.

Instead of shouting at the child when they are naughty, try to talk to them as if they were an adult.

In conclusion I always try to treat my own children in a fair and relaxed manner.

I want them to know that I am proud of them even if they do not achieve one hundred percent at school.

If they have nightmares, I want to work out why this might be and to break whatever cycle is happening.

I attempt to work out what each child is worrying about and then try to help them to find a solution.

gain more confidence page 8