Articles from the TimBrunson.com blog

Let's face it. Everyone has to deal with stress. However, how do we know that our stress level is so excessive that it affects our health and a bad sort of way? I am focusing here of what is known as negative stress. Generally, this occurs when a person's ability to handle a situation is exceeded by the perceived difficulty. For many people this motivates them to look within and find resources, which may be used to increase their level of performance and confidence. For others, stressful situations may cause them to automatically cower, become defensive, and do their best to hide and avoid. Nevertheless, for both groups should stress become a chronic part of their lives, they will most definitely suffer mentally, physically, in regards to their performance level. So, if you want to observe the negative consequences of excessive stress, for what should you be looking? Experts normally...

What is happiness? Some would define it in terms of being contented with what you have or are experiencing at the moment. Others would explain it in terms of what they own, where they live, and how much money they make. As a therapist, people frequently tell me that they determine their happiness by how others treat or regard them. Unfortunately, in that case they have completely surrendered their happiness to the whims of others. That is not a condition that I recommend. However, I am now going to recommend that you consider another approach to happiness. Consider your dominant thoughts. Are you constantly ruminating and worrying about something that happened in your past? Or, are you obsessing about an event that may occur in the future? All the while, you are ignoring every passing moment. Just think of all the beauty that you are missing. Perhaps, if you took some time to...

There are those among us who we admire for their ability to perform a particular skill with a high level of expertise. We wish that we could likewise train our mind and body to achieve in such a way. However, we feel that somehow they are special. Perhaps it is because they started young in life. Or, it could be because they had the opportunity to spend thousands of hours perfecting their abilities. This too often leads to feelings of hopelessness as you quickly begin to feel that such performance will always be beyond your grasp.

Teachers and coaches have always attempted to instill model behavior in aspiring scholars and athletes. However, in the 1960’s Richard Bandler and John Grinder came up with a new approach to replicating behavior. The collection of techniques that they – and their intellectual successors – came up with became known as Neuro Linguistic Programming or...