Take Care of the Most Important Person In Your Life

You've gotta take care of the most important person in your life -- you. Taking a leaf from Lucille Ball, "Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world."

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You may well have been caught up with the busyness of life and have neglected to spend time alone to recharge and reboot. Some people have their quiet moment in the morning over breakfast while reading the morning news. For some others it would in the evening where they review the events that have transpired during the day and reflect on how they may have done things differently and better, at that. For a mother with a new baby, it would be when the child is snoozing.

The well-being of your soul (heart, mind and feelings) need to be safeguarded as it defines who you are and provides the sustaining power for you to do life with meaning and purpose. That said, taking care of your physical body with proper nutrition, adequate sleep and physical  exercises also require your due care and attention.

Here are some further insights on your mental and emotional needs as adduced by reflectd.co: 

"According to Self-determination theory, human beings have three basic psychological needs: a need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Self-determination theory defines autonomy as behaving with a sense of volition, endorsement, willingness, and choice; competence as mastering one’s environment; and relatedness as feeling related to others in one way or another (Gagné & Deci, 2014)."

Click here for The Three Most Basic Psychological Needs, and Why We Need to Satisfy Them.

When you have a healthy well-being, you will naturally arise to fulfill your calling or 'do your thing' by being a producer of something. Everyone has an inherent gifting or talent which has been hardwired into their being. For example, singing, dancing, photography, love for nature, etc.

May you take care of all the hygiene factors of your well-being and find your voice to produce for your world something that makes life sweeter and more enjoyable for somebody else.  

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The next time someone tells you to "Take care", you will seize the day and gather the rosebuds of your potential, thank them, and wish them the same with a smile.

Thank you for dropping by Daily Refreshing.

Happy 54th Birthday, Singapore!

Polar Cafe's National Day Parade (NDP) cake

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BreadTalk's take on Chilli Crab and Curry Crab

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Click here for SG Passion Made Possible 

Listen Empathically

The ability to listen is vital to effective interpersonal communication. You will be amazed how much deposit you make into the speaker's emotional bank account when you truly listen to him or her.

There are various degrees or levels of listening ranging from ignoring, pretending to listen, selective listening (pick and choose), passive listening (with intent to reply) and active listening (paying attention to the words). All of these listening modes are within your own frame of reference; you have yet to see things from the other person's perspectives and feel what they are feeling.

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The highest form of listening to aim for is empathic listening where you listen with the intent to understand the speaker emotionally and intellectually as you immerse yourself in his world. 

According to communication experts, communication comprises Words (10%), Sounds/Tone of voice (30%) and Body language (60%).

With empathic listening, you pay attention not just to the words being spoken but also the emotion that goes with it plus the accompanying body language (e.g. facial expression and posture). You listen with your ears, eyes, mind and heart while suspending judgment and showing from your body language that you are paying rapt attention.

The following poem is an excellent illustration of our craving for empathic listening:

Please Just Listen - Poem by Jessie Swick

When I ask you to listen to me

And you start giving me advice, 

You have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me

And you begin to tell me why

I shouldn’t feel that way, 

You are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me

And you feel you have to do something

To solve my problem, 

You have failed me, 

Strange as that may seem.

Listen! All I ask you is listen.

Don’t talk or do—just hear me.

Advice is cheap

And I can do for myself; I am not helpless.

Maybe discouraged ad faltering, 

But not helpless.

When you do something that I can

And need to do for myself, 

You contribute to my fear and

Inadequacy.

But when you accept as a simple fact

No matter how irrational, 

Then I can stop trying to convince

You and get about this business

Of understanding what’s behind

This irrational feeling.

And when that’s clear, the answers are

Obvious and I don’t need advice.

Irrational feelings make sense when

We understand what’s behind them.

Perhaps that’s why prayer works—because God is mute, 

And he doesn’t give advice or try

To fix things, 

God just listens and lets you work

it out for yourself.

So please listen, and just hear me.

And if you want to talk, wait a minute

For your turn—and I will listen to you. 

In his book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey opined, 

"If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the filed of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication." 

Click here for Habit 5: Seek First to Understand Then to be Understood - Part E :Empathic Responses  

Click here for The Challenger Disaster: A Dramatic Lesson In The Failure To Communicate

Brighten Your World

Do you find life dreary when you look out from the window of your room? Life's situations come as they are but you do not need to allow it to paint the beautiful and colourful life of your dream.

Hold fast to your dream and paint it as vividly as you can on the canvass of your mind and start believing in yourself. Listen to your inner voice or calling that God has placed in your heart. Learn from your mistakes and turn them into nuggets of wisdom.

You will get to see the blue sky, fluffy white clouds and multi-coloured wonderful life of your dream.

"My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories." -- Bjorn Borg

"Whatever has happened to you in your past has no power over this present moment, because life is now." -- Oprah Winfrey

"You become what you believe, not what you think or what you want." -- Oprah Winfrey

Enjoy Your Cup of Tea with TCBS

If you are a tea drinker or a fan of Tolkien or Nicholas Hoult, you are in for this treat.

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Click here for TOLKIEN | TCBS Tea Etiquette Part 1 

Click here for TOLKIEN | TCBS Tea Etiquette Part 2