For over many centuries now, memory techniques have evolved in which how they are used and learned by people. We all know that the process of remembering information is called ‘mnemonics’. We also know that mnemonics isn’t similar to magic tricks but due to its proven efficiency, it’s considered a technique pertaining to memorization.

If you haven’t realized yet how our memory works, a person’s memory effectively functions to how it associates objects and information. But of course, what we need to practice at is how we focus on things and such and eventually associate or link them with other information that enable us to remember what we need to remember.

One way of how to remember things easily is to rhyme words. How do you think we’re able to carry riddles and rhymes during our nursery years in school up to the later years of our lives? Just reading this question alone makes you remember one or two nursery rhymes you’ve learned, right? This also answers how toddlers are able to cope with what they learn in school at this very early stage of their lives. This is also the very reason why rhymes are considered as common memory aids.

Another effective memory technique is the use of initials or the first letter of the word. For example, for a group of items, you can take each first letter and make a word out of it. Remember ROY G. BIV? If you do, you’d know right away that this is not a name of a person but it stands for the seven colors of the rainbow – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Notice how you have easily recognized the initials? Now you’re nodding.

You need not to make a name always out of the initials from a set of items. You can make a word or anything which can easily help you recognize the words equivalent to items. But in some cases, there might be too little number of vowels versus the consonants. Let’s have the items pasta, rye, fish, cheese and table. Together they look like this: PRFCT. We can add the letter E in between the initials to make it a word; in this case, it can be read now as PERFECT. Of course, when you remember the word PERFECT, you’d easily recognize which item stands for each consonant. Simple? Yes.

There are many other ways how to enhance your memory skills. Interesting and effective memorization techniques can be found at http://memory-improvement-techniques.com.

Memorization tires most of us. Admit it; we’d rather glance on our palm tops or organizers once in a while for convenience. Memorization is something we don’t want to deal with for the rest of our lives although we deal with it in school because it’s something we need to do.

Now that’s just odd. When we need to do something, we tend to give our best shot at it. Why can’t we do the same thing with our simple everyday activities?

One effective and interesting way of familiarization and memorization of objects at a particular time or event is to associate them with a journey. The place or location where the journey happens can be stationary but not you, the traveler. You should come across the entire set of objects which are available on the setting you have chosen.

We can set the movie house as an example for this memory improvement approach. Before you enter the movie house lobby, you purchase tickets for you and your friend. You know it’s the ticket booth because you see people falling in line to buy their own tickets. Now, associate the elements you see with what you need to remember. Let’s pretend that you need to buy grocery items after seeing a movie. Seeing the long line of moviegoers to the ticket booth is a start. You can make the line of moviegoers going to the ticket booth, purchase chunks of meat instead of tickets. After getting your own meat chunk from the ticket booth, you then proceed to the lobby where you can buy popcorn and drinks served by two food counter clerks. The first clerk is named Ms. Tomato while the other one is named Mr. Lettuce. One has a head like a tomato and the others head looks like lettuce. After ordering, you are then served by Ms. Tomato a bucket of cheese bar instead of pop corn and butter for drinks.

After you’re satisfied with what you bought, you and your friend proceed to the movie theater and find yourselves a seat. Imagine the seats as giant apples. As you sit back and wait for the movie to start, picture the widescreen in front operated by four grocery clerks pulling the scenes with giant sausages stringed together from the projection screen to make the image move from one picture to another. Now that’s one wild imagination to keep you on your toes to remember the grocery items you need. The funnier the story is; the higher chances of remembering each item clearly.

From that scenario alone, important objects on the location are observed. You associate the things you see with the location easily since it involves vision, sound, smell, taste, touch and Kinesthesia (or the awareness of body position). All of the strategic points mentioned make Journey System, another memory technique, an easier method in remembering things you need to remember and placing them in a known place for easier memorization without any pressure.

Try other memory techniques and discover the natural memorization ability you never knew you had all along at http://memory-improvement-techniques.com/.

In a short while,we arrived in the Big City.It was, as always, impersonal. We parked the car and walked through the never-ending crowds to a waiting cab. Gideon handed the driver an address and a few minutes later we stepped out in front of a tall building on an obscure side street. We walked up to the door, entered the lobby and were soon on our way to the thirty-third floor.

We stepped out into a long hallway. I took a few moments to straighten my tie and comb my hair. At times the winds of the Big City could be exceedingly fierce. At the end of the hallway was a large door bearing a sign that said: “G & M Enterprises, Inc., World Headquarters.”

“These are the people you work with, right, Gideon?”

He was a bit more relaxed now. “Yes,” he said.”It’s about time you got to meet my boss. There’ll also be another friend of mine here. You remember Marla?”

“Marla will be here,too? Oh yeah, I forgot that she works for this company, too. It’ll be good to see her again.”

There was that twinkle in his eye and I knew that he was back to his old self, again. He pushed open the door as we walked into a reception area that was both simple and, at the same time, elegantly decorated. There were paintings of strange symbols on the walls. A receptionist looked up and smiled. “Hello, Gideon, and welcome to our office, John,” she
said.

“You look well, Mary,” replied Gideon.

“Won’t you sit down, please. Marla is here already. It will only be a few minutes,” said Mary.

In a short while Marla joined us and we renewed old acquaintances. She seemed quite pleased to see me there. The receptionist left for a few moments and when she returned, she announced, “The chief will see you now.”

She escorted us through the main area to an office with a sign on the door that read: “President and Chairman of the Board.”

“Gee, Gideon, you know the big boss,” I teased. As the door opened he said, “You’ll enjoy this meeting,John.”

We stepped into an office thickly carpeted in celestial blue. The office was luxuriously decorated and contained several lush plants dramatically placed throughout the well-lit room. On the far side was a large, ornate desk behind which sat a rather imposing figure. We walked over and Gideon proceeded with the introductions.

“John, I’m pleased to introduce you to our chief executive officer. He is president and chairman of the board of G & M Enterprises.” I noticed a tremendous respect, but no fear in
Gideon’s voice as he continued, “I want you to meet God.”

To read the rest of the story visit http://www.spiritual-simplicity.com

What’s the best gift you can give yourself at any time of the year?

How about overcoming the pain caused by someone you loved and trusted?

What happens when you’ve been wronged by another and you want to move on? How do you let it go – get on with your life – and make sure it doesn’t happen again?

The short answer is that you forgive yourself for attracting them into your life – so you don’t have to continue to carry the burden around and so that you don’t repeat the same experience with another person.

You forgive yourself for ALLOWING it to happen – not for causing it to happen.

Right now you may be in some sort of a mental prison. There may be a lot of resentment and other similar feelings. And what you’re feeling now – the bitterness, the resentment, the anger, the hurt; WILL influence your future relationships.

Bitterness only leads to more bitterness. Hurt leads to more hurt.

Forgiveness is a way to clear out those old feelings from the past so you will be better able to believe in yourself and trust yourself. Not to mention you’ll be wiser and more perceptive.

But are you responsible for what they did?

No, absolutely not. You don’t forgive yourself to make them ‘not guilty’. You created your reality and they created theirs.

And the realities overlapped.

A cheater is basically that way before you meet them.

A betrayer is a betrayer before they come into your life.

The question is – why did I attract someone like this into my life?

Of course you didn’t KNOW they would cheat or betray you when you first met them. But then, maybe there were little hints and clues you ignored. I don’t know.

The point is, you CHOSE to allow them into your life. You allowed it to happen.

That ‘allowing’ is your responsibility; something you can forgive yourself for.

The value of forgiving yourself is –

first of all, it’s empowering to accept responsibility for YOUR contribution. Yes, I understand you were wronged. They engaged in hurtful behavior that was unjustified.

By forgiving yourself, you don’t say their behavior was acceptable. On some level, they must ‘pay’ for what they did. But that’s not your business. (I understand many try to make it their business!)

But you would be much more productive by dealing with YOUR contribution to these events. And not worrying about their contribution.

“They’ll get theirs.”

But look at the damage it does to YOU by not forgiving yourself.

Maybe you don’t believe in yourself anymore.

Maybe you don’t trust yourself to make good decisions.

Maybe your self-confidence is lacking.

Maybe you’re carrying around a ton of pain.

And I would guess many other problems as well have come up because you’ve been wronged.

Forgiving yourself can heal the damage they caused.

Also, you don’t let someone ‘off the hook’ by forgiving yourself for what they did.

YOU LET *YOU* OFF THE HOOK BY FORGIVING YOURSELF.

Sorry to shout, but I want to make that point clear. By forgiving yourself, you empower yourself. You free yourself from your own private prison of pain.

Forgiveness is a strength; it empowers you.

By not forgiving yourself, you are not honoring or respecting yourself. You’re saying you don’t matter.

Forgiveness creates freedom. Forgiveness is liberating. Forgiveness is a positive, pro-active decision. It’s a deliberate choice from a position of power and responsibility.

It’s an act of character and integrity. It takes courage. I admit it’s not easy to be kicked by someone and then forgive YOURSELF for being kicked. Because, “It’s not me – I didn’t do this! It’s THEM!! They’re the bad ones!”

But finding your own contribution to being kicked is like finding a foothold to greater power and greater strength. You will become ‘more’ if you forgive yourself for being wronged.

It takes enormous courage to let go of the blame. So often we seek our strength in blame. We anchor to it. And the thing is, we really are justified to blame!

We really WERE wronged. Nobody would deny that. It’s obvious.

But what I’m saying is to go beyond the obvious. If blame really did solve problems, what a wonderful world this would be!

But blame doesn’t solve problems. In fact, it locks those problems in place.

The trap is, you really are justified in blaming. But if you do, it keeps those painful feelings in place. You can’t grow and stretch and reach for more in life when you’re blaming.

It’s like putting your feelings in the freezer. And then you have to tote that freezer around with you every where you go.

Blame is like being seduced by a beautiful woman with a hidden agenda. You think she really does like you when all she wants is your money.

If you know her game, you can easily resist. If you turn a blind eye, you’ll get taken.

You think blame is your friend, but really all it wants is your power. You must give up your power to blame.

I know it doesn’t seem that way, because we always get a cheap hit of power when we blame. But it never lasts.

It’s like spending on credit. There’s no problem until the payment comes due!

But to me, the biggest benefit of forgiving myself for being wronged by another is that it helps to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. “I’ve suffered enough. I don’t want to go through the same situation again.”

But if I don’t forgive, then most likely I WILL repeat the same mistakes again. Or else, I’ll try not to love anyone else for the rest of my life. Which is almost impossible.

More likely, since I haven’t explored the reasons WHY I created a hurtful person into my life, I’ll create another hurtful person into my life.

Then I’ll have to go through the same pain again.

Just thinking about that is depressing!

You want to live a better life, not repeat the pain of the past.

Forgiveness helps to make things better. So next time, you’ll have a better chance of finding someone who’ll treat you with respect.

Because you respected yourself enough to forgive YOURSELF for what THEY did.

You forgave yourself for YOUR contribution; because you played a part in what happened.

You are not a spectator in your life.

You’re not a helpless victim.

You created what happened.

Not by causing, but by allowing.

You allowed another to hurt you.

Now, you will turn it into something good by changing yourself.

And the way to change is by recognizing what happened, feeling the impact of what happened,and forgiving yourself for why you let it happen in your life.

And later, if you choose to forgive them as well, that’s great. But always forgive yourself first – as an acknowledgement to yourself that YOU are in charge of your life – not them.

Why didn’t they go ruin someone else’s life instead of trying to ruin yours? You may never know.

But the fact is, you let them in, they betrayed you, and now you’re left to pick up the pieces.

Okay, you will.

You’ll be a winner. You’ll take their sucker punch to your gut, and you’ll become a better person. Not a bitter, beaten loser. You’ll take the pain they tried to dump on you and use it to become strong and powerful.

You’ll find the good in their act of wrongness.

While they will in all likelihood continue to be a punishing person.

Maybe someday you’ll forgive them for their misdeeds, but for now you’re ready to grow and heal and move on.

Remember the old saying –

Living Well Is The Best Revenge!

Forgiveness can be that first step to living well.

In the first part of this two-part article, we discussed, from my viewpoint as career educator of more than 30 years, the fact that preschools and families are increasing stress on preschool children. To clarify, we worked through a brief definition of preschool stress, and looked at the underlying reason for preschool stress.

Finally, we considered the basic requirement of preschool stress relief. We pick up at that point.

Basic Requirement of Preschool Stress Relief

Stress relief techniques for a preschool child must be fashioned in accordance with the underlying reason for stress: the child’s need for control.

Establish Boundaries

Preschool stress relief depends on the establishment of boundaries. We must establish physical boundaries to keep a child safe physically. We must also establish emotional, mental, and spiritual boundaries to give the child safety. As long as boundaries do not exist, or can be knocked down, children will experience stress in seeking them. Here are a few examples of preschool stress relief in action.

1. At reading time, the physical boundary is the reading circle, reading rug, or whatever part of the room you designate. The child is to be there and nowhere else. Doesn’t this create preschool stress? No. It is strong preschool stress relief. When children know clearly that only one location is acceptable, control is established for them. They do not need to seek control by responding inappropriately. They can relax.

Preschool stress relief requires us to teach children these boundaries and help them understand that they will be happy and safe within them. They never have to test the boundary. We help relieve stress.

2. When an adult gives a command or makes a request, the mental and emotional boundary is immediate and full compliance. Adults set the boundary once, with no counting involved. The amount of time children wait to obey is the amount of time they are outside the boundary an unhappy place to be.

If we want to provide preschool stress relief for children, we will be sure they understand that remaining outside that boundary is inappropriate. We do not ignore their disobedience. We make obedience important. We reward it, and remove the need for decision.

3. Stress relief techniques for a preschool child also establish control for the child when it comes to expectations that children will get along with one another. This expectation is not unrealistic or burdensome. Preschool stress relief in this area takes the form of instructing and showing that good things result from efforts to get along. If we separate children who are unwilling to cooperate with one another, we add to the stress, making it difficult for them to know what to do. Our voices tell them they must get along, but separation rewards their failure to do so.

Give Responsibility

Preschool stress relief gives children responsibility for their actions. It does not blame refusal to stay within boundaries on circumstances outside the child. Life will always contain circumstances beyond their control. Preschool stress relief helps them learn early that appropriate responses to stress are based on boundaries, and their responsibility to stay within the boundaries.

Stressful Crayons

A good object lesson in preschool stress relief is to give children a coloring page and crayons. Talk to them about how unhappy the crayons will be if they go outside the lines. Tell them the lines are there to make it easier for the crayons. If they had to color a parrot (or whatever the picture) without lines to guide them, it would be much harder. It would make the crayons feel anxious. They could not be sure if they were doing it right. The lines make the crayons happy and relaxed.

As the children color, explain that they are like crayons. They need lines. They need boundaries. As long as they stay inside life’s lines, they will be much happier.

Conclusion

Preschool stress relief is not complicated. We should not make it so. Teachers and parents who focus on natural, common sense boundaries will achieve a high level of preschool stress relief without struggle.