Self image is the key to better life and is the real secret. It allows you to express yourself creatively. You must have a goal. Use the creative mechanism to bring success and happiness. A human being requires emotional and spiritual satisfaction.

There is great power to be had when it comes to daily powerful affirmations.

In simple terms, what this means is saying positive statements to yourself constantly during the day.

This is very much in sharp contrast to all the negative statements you hear from various sources during a typical day.

I can assure you that you will soon start reaping the positive benefits of such a simple habit.

So why don’t you start today with the following six positive affirmations which you can tailor to suit your own life and circumstances:

Life is really good to me

What a beautiful day

I love that/those …

How good it is to be …

Imagine if …

I am feeling 100% healthy

Aled Evans

One of the most difficult things you’ll soon discover as you try to implement this positive philosphy is that unfortunately we live in an extremely negative world and each day we are constantly surrounded by an air of negativity.

Therefore, in the interest of your personal mental and physical health, it is of paramount importance that you are always on your guard 24/7 around the clock with regards to the harmful effects of negativity.

The most deceptive and dangerous negative influence can come from family and friends, who in their defence might be well meaning and quite often don’t realise how destructive their negativity can be. In all fairness, while this is no excuse, they are just like the majority of the population, and no one has educated them regarding the errors of their ways. They just like you, fall victim to the negative influences quietly at work in this mad world of ours.

The important thing is that you are aware of these negative factors constantly at work in the environment. Let’s give you a few simple, practical examples of what I mean by these highly destructive negative influences: 

Without doubt the people you mix with have a huge effect on your life, so choose your friends carefully. However, when it comes to your family and colleagues, you have less influence, but being aware of those that represent a negative influence is vital. Then, it’s a case of reducing contact with these negative people as much as you can. In terms of negative friends, the clinical advice is to cut them out of your life, full stop.

If you are anything like me, you were raised to believe that listening to or watching the news on television was so important in order to keep abreast with the most important events and developments in this world. Reading newspapers was also recommended.

While staying informed might be beneficial to some extent, one should be very much aware of the fact that primarily the dose of daily news we are subjected to is highly negative and potentially destructive. 

The warning, therefore has to be to take great care as to what is allowed to enter your mind!

Next time you tune in to the latest news or when you next pick up a newspaper, make a rough note of the percentage of its content which is negative. Being exposed to such negativity can only have a destructive effect on your mental and consequently physical health, leaving you feeling bad and depressed.

Therefore, the simple advice would have to be to stop or at least reduce your intake of current news, whatever the medium, and instead focus on filling your mind and life with positive material which will inevitably leave you feeling a hundred times better.

Aled Evans

One of the major headaches for people suffering from mental health issues has to be financial challenges or put simply money problems.

Therefore, whenever I have something to share with you relating to money matters – although I’m definitely no financial expert – which I consider to be of potential benefit to you I will spill the beans so to speak.

At this moment in time our car insurance is due for renewal and in recent years we have been guilty of being lazy in the sense that we have automatically renewed the policy each year with the same company.

This has invariably led to ever increasing premiums, as companies take advantage of your apathy and reluctance to shop around. As they say, in this game, you are most definitely not rewarded for loyalty.

Therefore on receiving your renewal notice, your first port of call should be the internet and a comparison web site, such as Go Compare or Money Supermarket. Or you could contact companies like NFU Mutual or Direct Line who I believe are not on these comparison sites. An alternative would be a visit to an Insurance Broker in your High Street, where you also benefit from a personal service.

As a side-note, for some reason and don’t ask me why, they say that asking for a quote about 26 days before the renewal date is the optimum time to grab yourself a bargain. I believe it’s something to do with these insurance companies possibly taking advantage of those lazy souls who leave it until the last minute.

One other option you might wish to consider is obtaining a quote through a cash-back site such as Top Cashback, where you get money back just for having used their site.

A task such as this which might take you a couple of hours can well save you anything from £50 to a £150. Doing this with other items on your expenditure list during the course of the year could well result in a saving of several hundred pounds.

Aled

A great day to be out in the garden and one is certainly very much aware of the benefits of gardening and nature, with regards to your mental health.

This beautiful poppy in my back garden certainly brought a smile to my face this morning.

Enjoy every minute in its company because those wonderful petals might only be around for a couple of days, as a strong gust of wind is inclined to shatter those delicate petals.

Happy gardening all!

Aled

So where do we start? Well I suppose, how about when you get up in the morning. It is so important that when you do wake up, to commence the day on a positive note, and how about reminding yourself of ten things to be grateful about as you start another new day. 

Naturally, the first gesture of grattitude should be to thank God that you have been given another day in your life. Secondly, how about giving thanks for your good mental and physical health. Even if your overall state of health could be better, complaining about it isn’t going to help affairs, and a token of appreciation for whatever element of good health you possess, however little that maybe, can only help you. 

Third on your list, when you think of the dreadful life endured by many in this world, just the fact that having a roof over your head, plenty of food and drink on the table and access to basic, important amenities, such as utilities in the shape of clean water, seweage service, heating, phone, internet and television is a cause for celebration. 

You can then move on to such things as having a job or successful business, a loving partner, a car, a home, the world of nature around you, hobbies, interests and passions. The list is endless when you think about it, once you get into the grattitude zone. 

The key element is to start your day in a positive frame of mind and being grateful rather than complaining endlessly and being generally negative, complaining about everything under the sun, and being critical of everyone and everything! 

When I set up my blog relating to mental health issues, my main objective was to offer people like myself who have long since suffered with mental health issues, support on a daily basis, in order to be best able to cope with their issues and demons and in general to get more from life.

Having written a book on the subject, relating my personal experience and primarily the things I have found to be beneficial during my journey through life’s challenges coping with mental health issues on a daily basis, I thought that my job was done.

However, although constantly reading self-help, positive thinking books is of paramount importance, what I’ve discovered is that each day, one needs constant support and advice to keep you on the straight and narrow so to speak, not to mention belief and self-confidence, as well as reminding you of the importance of implementing these powerful self-help, positive thinking philosophies 24/7  in the face of the incessant barrage of negative influence we encounter in this immensely negative world of ours.

In the old days, a weekly newsletter in the post might well have done the trick, but in these modern times, with supposedly great technological advances – although not always great in my eyes – what better way to keep in touch with your fellow sufferers than through a personal blog, where you get the opportunity to speak straight from the heart, so to speak, about the most important issues on your mind! 

“Decide what you want. Believe you can have it. Believe you deserve it and believe it’s possible for you. Close your eyes daily and visualize having what you want, feeling the feelings of already having it. Focus on what you’re grateful for already, and really enjoy it.” Jack Canfield

Get a new mental picture of yourself. Focus on the desired end result. Don’t be anxious trying to force the issue. Act as if it’s there. Your nervous system cannot tell the difference between the imagined and real experience. Hypnosis seems mysterious because belief can bring about such unusual behaviour.

Given this lock-down period, I like many find it more appealing to do my grocery shopping online and today I visited the Tesco website to do the big shop, which we do every two or three months.

It should also be said that this Corona Virus period has shown us the benefit of the local village shop, and a great personal service while bringing the community together.

Therefore, much of the essential day to day items and fruit and vegetables we source from the local shop, while you can’t beat meat from the local butchers. 

It is more important than ever I feel to support local businesses.

However, the money saving tip I wanted to share with you today is ‘don’t forget to use your Tesco discount vouchers, which may have accumulated on your Tesco card, lying dormant in your account!’

Just as I was about to pay for my groceries, amounting to the princely sum of £143.74, I suddenly recalled a recent e-mail I received from Tesco alerting me to my discount vouchers.

Therefore, I logged on to my account and with a little bit of cut and pasting discount codes in to the relevant boxes at checkout, resulted in a saving of £36.

It was a great feeling that the bill was reduced to around £107.

What was quite remarkable is that the earliest discount vouchers went back a year and a half!

This is a timely reminder for you to check to see if you have any discount vouchers lying around the house, as they say that it is quite staggering the total value of discount vouchers which go unused within a given year, as shoppers forget about them!

Happy shopping folks!

Aled Evans