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newtonmediagroup · 4 years

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Change What Will Improve Your Life Most Dramatically – Your Mindset

Mindset Makeover

Tame Your Fears, Change Your Self-Sabotaging Thoughts

And Learn From Your Mistakes

Make Assertive And Mindful Choices by Steven Schuster

Get the audiobook from Audible at https://bit.ly/mindset-makeover-schuster

Visit or subscribe to the Voice over Work podcast at https://bit.ly/VoW-pod

For narration information, contact Russell Newton at https://bit.ly/VoW-home

For production information, visit https://bit.ly/newtonmg

Think critically. Improve your decision-making. Control your thoughts. Sort out irrational fears. Cluttered, neurotic thoughts invade our mind more often than we realize and we end up living our life in anxiety, triggered by thoughts that are unfounded and are easily avoidable.

Mindset Makeover will highlight the main cognitive mistakes we make and how to change them for peace of mind. Stop reacting based on your old mindset. Your mindset becomes so internalized that it makes decisions without you being aware of it. But do you have more bad habits than good? This book will help you discover how your mindset is working against you.

Aided by scientifically proven research and practices, Mindset Makeover will help improve your critical thinking skills and develop better judgment in battling self-sabotaging thoughts. Learn how to face and solve your problems in a constructive way.

Mindset Makeover is a thought-provoking, science-backed guide which guarantees a complete change of worldview. Find what are the thinking quirks holding you back from quick, rational thinking and decision making and change your life for the better.

Change the one thing that will improve your life most dramatically – your mindset.

•Switch from an inward mindset to a less self-centered one.

•Find and fix the thoughts behind your personal ineffectiveness.

•Learn the easiest and quickest form of meditation.

•The counterintuitive reasons why the attacks you perceive aren’t actually about you. Learn to “thrive in an unknowable future.”

•The surprising benefits of ditching exceptionalism.

•The real reason behind your stormy emotions.

•The difference between being neurotic or psychotic.

•10 methods to use neuroplasticity to rewire your brain.

Having a clear mind you’ll find better solutions to your problems.

•You’ll think more creatively.

•You will see opportunities where you saw only obstacles before.

•You won’t feel like the target of everybody’s criticism anymore.

•You’ll have better judgment and a less self-centered worldview.

•You’ll get better intuition and predict events more accurately.

Mindset Makeover won’t help you reinvent the wheel, but will show you how to improve your personal relationships, release you from fears, and show you a different approach to life.

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Sometimes the most common things surrounding us are the hardest to notice. We spend our days killing our brain, wondering about the great questions of life. Living life at full speed, we are too preoccupied reaching some goal, some expectation. We don’t stop wondering about the platitudes of life. Although, doing it from time to time would improve the quality of our lives a lot.

Humans are thinking beings. This ability differentiates us from other species. We know that we think. Our cognitive habits develop more and more as we age. We learn from our parents. Later we attend school, university, we get a job, read lots of books, watch tons of movies, and connect with other people. Each of these activities involuntarily influences our way of thinking. Cognitive experiences shape our view of the world. Everything that we’ve personally experienced goes through our own filter and becomes legit. Real. More real than the things we didn’t experience. Even though what we believe might not be true all the time.

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. My grandmother had very strict opinions about various aspects of life, and she was very vocal about them. She told me that people using face creams would end up with deep and numerous wrinkles at an early age. She also told me that I should never wear any kind of underwear but cotton ones because they are the only hygienic kind. She taught me to wash dishes, to set out clothes to dry in a particular way. I could go on and on.

Recently I noticed that the beliefs she instilled in me are still alive, and I am very defensive when someone contradicts them. I had a quarrel with my wife about what material underwear should be made of. I had a bad gut feeling when I bought my first anti-aging face cream, hearing my grandmother’s voice echoing that my skin will look like the backside of an elephant soon enough.

I started reading scientific articles about all the “unquestionable truths” my grandmother told me. As it turned out, most of them were either outdated or genuinely wrong. I felt somewhat offended by the evidence showing me that I was wrong about so many things. And especially hurt that some raw, heartless science material contradicted my late grandmother, who gave me her best knowledge.

It’s so much easier to believe what we hear from our loved ones. If you’re like me, you hardly ever question them. You don’t run to verify what your dad said about car engine malfunction. You don’t contradict what your mother says about marriage management. You have a cognitive bias toward those who touch your emotional mind.

When it comes to accepting what foreigners say, there are two kinds of people: those who are skeptics to their very roots and who double-check each individual piece of information they heard, making sure that the source was accurate, and there are those who believe everything they hear. People are more inclined to believe information espoused by an expert, a professor, or famous people than they are to believe a “nobody.”

Regardless of which group you belong in, you are positive your way of thinking is correct. This is just one out of many cognitive biases you have. You think a lot about the everyday information that needs processing, but you hardly ever think about how you think. And how to think. The moment you read this sentence your blood pressure probably rose a bit, and you said to yourself, “I know how to think. I have a college degree. I have a successful business. This is proof that I know how to think.”

This happens with all of us. We process a lot of information. We accept it or reject it. Either way, it shapes our way of thinking. But what is our thinking made of? Why is it that the same concept can have totally different meanings for two people? Where do individual templates of beliefs come from? Are they hard-wired, genetic, or do they get their shape by absorbing cultural and environmental impulses? Can we change our beliefs? How can we become aware of our blind certainty instead of locking ourselves into a cell of close-mindedness?

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inthesummerswelter · 5 years

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recipe for disaster: chapter eleven

The heavy oaken door swings shut, hard enough to start a deafening reverberation through the main part of the chapel. Wincing, the sister who had instigated the push shuffles along the back of the pews, collecting the odds and ends picked up after every service by the ushers. They keep all the cast-offs in a small room in the cloisters, to be donated to local charities after a month or two if nobody has come forward to claim their misplaced possessions.

Bending over to pick up a toy truck that had rolled underneath the back pew, she huffs with the effort of straightening out her spine on the way back up. It's been a long time since she could have been considered a spring chicken, and, on the dreary weather days like these, when there's more drizzling rain than sunshine, her bones have a tendency to ache more than she'd like.

On her way out of the vestibule, she almost runs into a young woman, who, thankfully, has already set her umbrella and mac next to the side entrance, and is in the process in stepping out of her dripping wellies into dry slippers that the sister presumes she must have pulled from the bag she's carrying.

They exchange pleasantries, mostly regarding the weather, and continue on their separate ways.

Later, when the sister has retired from the late-night obligatory cloister bridge game, she does a quick round, checking all of the doors and windows to make sure the locks stay tightly closed. It's a remnant habit lingering from her life prior to joining the convent, and one that she's never really found the need to do away with.

Practicality never hurt anybody.

However, on her last circuit of the main section of the church, she notices a still, dark head bowed over a pair of pale hands resting on the top railing of the pew, a ragged tissue nearly wrung out to its death.

She hesitates, her own hands going reflexively to touch the prayer-beads hanging around her left wrist, before slowly walking forward, sensibly low heels eliciting soft creaks from the carpet-covered old floorboards.

"Dear," she says, in a gently questioning sort of tone as she nears the figure. "Dear, is there something troubling you?"

Of course, she already knows the answer. This isn't the first time she's happened upon the girl staying late into the night with the rows of pews standing sentinel to her silence. It's, rather, perhaps the seventh or eighth time in a row.

To even the most casual outside observer, it becomes extremely obvious through this kind of behavior that something, indeed, is most troubling to this young soul.

There's a quiet sniff that echoes across the vaulted ceilings, and the girl begins to move, drawing herself up from the kneeler slowly, with stiff limbs.

"No, thanks. I'm - I'm fine."

A quaver in her voice belies her unstable state, and the nun clucks her tongue unconsciously, now entering the pew and settling down next to her on the bench. She settles a tentative hand on the younger woman's shoulder.

"Love, if there's one thing I've learned with my time in the church, its that when you see someone talking to themselves, usually things aren't alright."

A hiccupped laugh is her response, and there's rustling in the girl's lap before she shows off a silver filigree frame to the nun, saying, "But I'm not talking to myself. I'm talking to them."

A black-and-white wedding photo, of a dignified East Asian man with a wide smile curling across his face, matching that of his willowy bride's, who is clad in a delicate white gown of antique lace. They stand in front of a rose-covered arbor, hands entwined in such a way that the matching bands catch the light of the afternoon sun.

"Why don't you tell me about them then, okay? I promise it'll help things. And, if it doesn't, I'll go wake the father for you."

"Well," she says, her voice sobering up immensely, pointing to the figures in the frame with a finger that's nearly stopped shaking. "That's my grandfather. He's dead. And, that's my grandmother. And she's dying."

In the end, after a long explanation and an even longer cry in the empty church, Penn and the nun end up standing in front of the door to the priest's quarters at nearly one in the morning, her tissue now discarded after being torn to complete shreds.

She doesn't return until three hours later, at four in the morning now.

Pushing open the solid wood door, she nearly hits Cardy where she's curled up on the entrance mat. Scuttling legs propel the dog backwards until she skitters into the coffee table, jostling a neglected and now cold cup sitting lonesome on the polished wood until it clinks alarmingly.

Penn doesn't bother to chastise her, too drained even to give a sharp look in the dog's general direction. Instead, she slips off her boots in the entryway and hooks the loop inside her mac on the coat rack to let it dry. The sun, not yet beginning its journey across the sphere of the sky, does nothing to help light up the inside of the living room well enough for Penn to successfully maneuver herself around to the kitchen.

She knocks her ankle on the rather solid terracotta pot of a tall, leafy philodendron for her troubles, nearly spilling the cup of tea she had picked up on her way to pour down the drain.

Thankfully, she had the foresight to leave the small, under-the-cabinet light in the kitchen on, which cast enough of a glow to reflect off the tiled floor and give her some direction.

Nearly two weeks since she's moved in with her gran, and Penn still doesn't know her way well enough around the flat to not crash into the furniture.

There's a rustling sound as she bumps against the edge of the counter while disposing of the tea. Settling the china down gently against the metal of the sink, Penn quickly dries her hands and reaches into her pocket, where a bunch of glossy paper had been stuffed.

The dim light barely allows her to read the titles of the brochures pressed on her by the concerned clergy.

Questions about Hospice.

Saying Goodbye: from Your Hands to God's Arms.

The Hospice Concept.

Her mouth twists up, and she opens the door under the sink where the rubbish bin is kept. Throwing the first two in, she pauses when she sees the small scrap of paper tucked into the third. In impeccable cursive script, there is an open invitation from the nun, Sister Frances, to come by the church any time for a cup of tea and a listening ear, with the landline listed in minute numbers.

It touches her, in a way.

Penn never expected anything to come from her forays into the church, but this is a pleasant surprise of sorts. She keeps the note and tacks it onto the cork board by the coat rack in the hallway, but still tosses the last pamphlet.

Tying back her hair with the nearest band she can find – in the fruit bowl, next to the lone orange – she leaves the kitchen and feels her way around the stairs leading around to the upper level.

Floorboards creak, and she winces.

Thankfully, no noise is heard from the occupied bedroom.

It's a testament to exactly how ill Miriam Bunting is. Usually rising naturally at near five in the morning on most days, she also keeps late hours, occasionally even to the point of insomnia. However, with the developing cancer, fatigue has become the enemy, and Penn finds herself helping her gran under the quilts prior to half past nine on the bad days.

Thinking about how much has already changed in eleven days, Penn bites down harshly on her thumb in order to stave off that train of thought. In order to stave off the tears she had thought she'd already emptied herself of in the church.

Pushing open the door after taking a deep breath, she peers in to check on the slight figure curled under the mound of blankets.

Already the nausea is hitting Miriam, and it's visible in the increasing hollows of her cheeks. Not necessarily a curvaceous woman to begin with, the slenderness from the loss of the initial few pounds was hardly noticeable on her already delicate figure.

However, now she's becoming whittled thin from the inside, skin slowly beginning to cling to the fragile bones supporting her body, especially evident around the fine lines of her hands and fingers.

Penn never thought it would be this hard to watch a person die.

She waits until she can audibly hear her gran's exhales and match them to the almost imperceptible rise and fall of the quilts, then quietly turns the knob as she shuts the door to lessen the sound caused when door reunites with frame.

Crossing the hallway in a few, quick steps that carry far more energy than what is actually in her body, Penn enters her grandfather's former study. Now, after being converted into a sort of catch-all room after Penn's arrival, a cot lies flush against the dark wood of an antique secretary desk, the blankets on top folded with near-military precision.

And now the tears start to flow, before she can even get the door closed behind her.

Now, with most menial tasks already exhausting her gran, the fact that her sheets are now neatly arranged as opposed to the chaotic state that she left them in brings on the onslaught of emotion as she pictures her gran shuffling in the room to make up her bed with careful hands, spreading out any wrinkles with tender palms, before making her way downstairs to leave a cup of tea out for her absent granddaughter.

Everything is going fast, far too fast, and Penn is drowning in the waves.

And Penn is sitting under her pop's lawn chair.

Colouring in a castle in a verdant green, listening to teasing banter over bridge games.

Learning how to press her thumb down into damp soil, making perfect troughs to sprinkle tiny, dark lettuce seeds into the earth.

Sitting on her pop's lap now, as he tweaks her nose and tells her all about the kings-under-the-mountain and the vast woods guarded by elves and the rolling hills of the lands of little halfling-men.

Visiting the hospital, not understanding exactly how all those tubes and wires are keeping her pop alive. It seems counterintuitive, and his hands are cold.

Holding a sparkly hair barrette so tightly in her small fist that the clip digs grooves into the skin of her palms, the harsh red lines contrasting with pale skin and black sleeves.

Hearing and flinching at the unmistakable thump of earth as the first shovel of earth splatters against dark polished wooden lid of a silent coffin.

Watching her breath fog up the mirror as a pair of scissors held by Zayn shear their way through her waist-length hair, giving her a defiantly mussy bob, and seeing her gran smile as she thumbs the ends of one of the many jagged pieces.

The memories pull her down deeper, until the only thing holding her together is the ragged sound of her frantic breathing clawing through the tomb-like silence, echoing in the quiet of the room. It's all-encompassing, those wretched, gasping noises, and Penn can feel her vision narrow as she keeps trying to suck enough oxygen into her lungs to buoy her up and keep her afloat.

But it's not enough, and her hands come up to the sides of her head to grip her hair tightly – painfully, to cause a distraction from the terrifying thoughts racing through her mind – as she sinks to her knees and tries not to throw up from the dread and anxiety and pure nausea flooding through her body.

Thank God that Clove stirs from his spot under the bed, napping out of sight this whole time, and pricks his ears up before rushing over to her and sticking his wet nose into her flushed face.

Chest heaving still, she pulls him into her lap and concentrates solely on the feel of his soft fur under the skin of her hand as she forces herself into a series of mechanical strokes down his back in an effort to calm herself down.

Eventually, after what feels like an age, it works. Penn's breathing rate returns to a normal level, and her hands have nearly stopped their frenetic shaking.

She's exhausted by the aftermath of the sudden surge of adrenaline from her anxiety attack, eyelids already drooping. Nudging Clove from her lap, she crawls her way over to the cot, pulling back and rolling under the bedclothes carefully, as the dog returns to his position underneath the makeshift bed.

She doesn't even feel herself falling asleep.

Moving rather abruptly from one place to another, even for just a short period of time, means, practically by definition, that one will forget things and need to go back.

Penn had to return anyway, to check on the state of her greenhouse, so the trip back to the flat to retrieve some of the dogs' necessities – an extra lead for walking, Cardy's favorite stuffed toy, a dog bed so Clove stops nesting in the just-laundered clothes – doesn't really inconvenience her.

Especially since her only job now is taking care of her grandmother.

She leaves the apartment on her bike, unzipped jacket whipping open as she pedals along.

The first stop is at the bakery, where she mumbles a hello to Michael as she picks up fresh bagels for future breakfasts. It takes less than ten minutes to complete the transaction, and she gets him to let her leave all but one of the baker's dozen she purchased behind the counter, to pick up on her return trip.

Now she's traveling along with only one hand wrapped around the grip on the handlebars, the other occupied with introducing her mouth to the fresh everything bagel as a late-afternoon snack.

Thus, she blames her preoccupation for the route she unconsciously takes. Of course she would have to bloody fucking choose the street that the restaurant is located on.

Thankfully, due to the flow of traffic, she ends up on the pavement opposite the business's front, leg swinging down in order to anchor herself against the asphalt. Clearly through the window, she can see Liam entertaining an older couple, can see the smiles and the laughter, can see the way he bows slightly and backs away from the table.

She can see the way he brings Louis fucking Tomlinson back with him.

There's more smiling, if that's possible, from all parties involved, and it even looks like the elderly gentleman is raising his glass in a toast to Louis as his wife applauds daintily.

It's quite obvious that he must have done a phenomenal job with their meal, so much so that they wished to show their appreciation and thanks in person.

It burns a hole in her gut.

She's not exactly jealous, per say, more of a growing resignation. He's obviously a talented chef and deserving of his position in the restaurant. What really gets to her is that fact that she could have been the one standing there, soaking in the praise. She could have been the one to, within three or so more months of hard work, finally actualize her dream of running a restaurant as head executive chef, on a springboard to even open her own establishment.

But it's not her.

It's Louis Tomlinson instead.

Blinking back tears of frustration and resentment and feeling like she's cried more in these past two weeks than in her whole life, Penn sets her feet back on the pedals and sets off to finish the journey to her flat.

The rest of the way is uneventful, and Penn thanks God for that, thinking that she can't possibly handle anything else unexpected without imploding from the pressure. Tending to the greenhouse takes little time, as she's rigged up a pseudo-automatic watering system that keeps the few beds sufficiently watered for the most part. The only part that requires extra effort is wrestling with the hose so she can successfully water the hanging ferns that sway from the metal crossbeams at the top of the glass-and-metal structure.

Then, it's on to the flat.

Penn putters around, picking up this and that and stuffing it into the loose canvas backpack she brought with to bring the items home in. It's not a hard decision to bring the cloisonné owl figurine that Zayn had sent her at one point during his travels, but she's debating between two of her favorite mugs when she realizes the time.

Quickly, she starts locking up the sliding glass doors and the windows, gathering the dogs' supplies on her way out. Penn's turning the key in the deadbolt lock and beginning a rushed descent down the stairway when she runs into something very solid.

"Fuck!"

Ashton's leaning dangerously far back on the stairs, clutching at the railing with one large hand to keep him from toppling backwards.

"Oh, God, Ash, I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"

He rights himself easily, grinning at her with a smile that flashes a dimple.

Jesus Christ.

"Peachy keen, Penn. I was just coming up to see you, actually. Have a mo'?"

Pursing her lips and checking her watch, a little bit surprised that she even remembered to put it on this morning, she shakes her head sadly. "No, sorry. I have to leave, like, now, and I'm still going to be fifteen minutes late."

There's a change in his expression, a different sort of crinkle around his eyes as he gives an awkward cough and pushes some papers into her hands before ruffling his hair.

“Oh, okay! Um, I was just doing a bit of research, y'know, about treatments and all that and I thought you might want to get a coffee, but it's totally fine if you're in a rush!"

She melts. Just a bit.

Leaning forward, she presses her lips to his cheek briefly, not having to stretch too far upward as she's already a stair above him.

"Thanks, Ash. That's really sweet of you."

And, now totally embarrassed at the impulsive gesture, Penn pushes past him – more gently this time, so she doesn't knock him over the banister accidentally with the dog bed in her arms – her face nearly beet-red and starts barreling down the stairs again.

(She misses the way he bites the corner of his lip as a flush starts to spread across his cheekbones.)

"Ah, uh, I'll see you later, then! Call me!" he calls after her, right before Penn leaves the building, and she tosses an affirmative wave behind her before merging with the crowds in the street.

It doesn't end up mattering that she's late.

The door thunks closed behind her, and she walks over to the kitchen, where she can see a note stuck on the refrigerator. Taking it down and shrugging off her bag, she slumps against the counter, bracing herself with her elbows.

Gran didn't eat today.

Still not feeling hungry.

But Penn shouldn't worry when she gets back, as she'll just be upstairs, having a bit of a lie-in to get her strength up. Been feeling more tired recently.

(Penn should check the ficus in the corner, though, and find the watering-can.)

She loves Penn.

(And Penn should really call Ashton and invite him over again soon.)

She doesn't cry this time until she's actually in the room.

One would think she would have no more tears to give.

But, holding one paper-thin hand and feeling the gently-fluttering pulse resting under mere layers of onion-skin, fragile and bruised, it hurts her more not to cry.

And so quiet sobs reverberate between four walls as she tries, in a futile effort, to beat back the current of time as it crashes ceaselessly around her.

#fic: recipe for disaster #5sos fic #5sos fanfic #5sosff #updates

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