Life only comes around once, and we should all look to life to its fullest. Our lives are spent creating bonds with the people we love and the people who are closest to us. Everyone should look at leaving behind pleasant memories of life to their loved ones. However, we create many situations for ourselves where feuds and conflicts arise between family members and friends. While it is a natural thing for everyone to not be able to agree on one point, there are instances where you, as an adult in the family, can do a lot to settle such feuds.

Family feuds are among the worst kinds of conflicting situations that we come across, and it is painful in some ways for both parties that are involved in the feud. A very necessary component of celebrating life is family, as we are closest to our family members in many ways and spend a large fraction of our time with loved ones. If that time is tainted by a feud, then we should do our best to resolve such issues.

We can resolve family feuds by making family members sit down and share their experiences and needs accordingly. This is vital for the maintenance of order in the family, as a broken family goes through a greater amount of suffering when a loved one departs. As such, celebrating your life is important, and you can only do so with a family that functions as a single, cohesive unit.

There are instances in our lives where feuds and arguments turn ugly. In cases of increased hostility, we end up not speaking to our loved ones. This is a serious hindrance in living a life that is packed with wonderful memories. Ever so often, sibling rivalries also cause people to stop speaking, thus creating additional tension. As a resolution, we should look to eliminate such sibling rivalries, as such instances become a cause for sorrow for the family, especially when a loved one passes away and solidarity is needed to bind everyone together.

It is also common for families to lose touch when they are far away from each other, and the loss of a loved one is particularly painful when there is fallout between family members. The worst scenario here is that we may not come to know of the loss of a family member on time. Therefore, we should all look to resolve any existing conflicts that we have within our family and celebrate our time on earth by spreading love among all our loved ones.

During times of grief, loss, and trouble, it is only our loved ones who are around for help- even if we don’t expect or want any of it. HKH Funeral Homes is one of the reputed funeral homes that can help you wade peacefully through troubled times by encouraging family solidarity during memorial services. Howard K. Hill Funeral Services has had the privilege of serving families in communities such as Suffield CT, Meriden CT, Hartford CT, New Haven CT, Bloomfield CT, Windsor CT and Hamden CT. We would like the privilege to serve you too. Call us at (203) 551-9639 or visit our blog at: http://connecticutfuneralhomeblog.com/

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Fear of the unknown is the main reason that people resist change. Millions of people destroy their mental and physical health by worrying about things they can’t control, even when the majority of their fears never come true.

Our ability to succeed in a rapidly changing world depends on our capacity to take charge of our thought processes. Our attitude in the face of change is far more important than where we were born, who our parents are, where we went to school, or who we know.

This 3-step strategy will help you to overcome your fear of change:

1. Pay attention to your internal dialogue—all the thoughts rushing through your head. Write down every negative thought (all the things that could go wrong—all the reasons you can think of for not moving forward).
2. Now write down your worst-case scenario. What’s the worst thing that could happen if you move forward with your plan or decision? What if your worst-case scenario comes true? Would it be impossible to fix? Would it really be as bad as you think?
3. If you’re still convinced that the action or change you envision is a positive one (or if it’s something you have to do whether you want to or not), take the next step immediately. Even if your worst-case scenario comes true, it won’t be nearly as bad as you thought it would be.

Even good changes seem threatening before we take the first step. The next time you feel yourself resisting a change that your family and friends think would be good for you, ask yourself what’s holding you back. If it’s something you have to do whether you want to or not, ask yourself what you hope to gain by resisting the change.

With each step you take toward carrying out a necessary or a desired change, you’ll be in a better position to carry out the next change in your life. You’ve already proven to yourself that you can manage change successfully.

Even if your worst fears come true, they can’t stop you from accomplishing your goals if you maintain a positive attitude. If you fail today, there’s always tomorrow.

Share your story

Tell us about a time when you felt the fear and did it anyway. As a result of that experience, are you better prepared to manage change in your life today?

‘Tis the season for making resolutions…that are fizzled out, filed away, and forgotten by the first week of February.

The things we want to change—bad habits such as smoking, overeating, or buying things we don’t need—are like icebergs. That’s why New Year’s resolutions fail: They only attack the part of the problem that lies above the surface.

We can’t just dump a bad habit as if it were a throwaway bottle or a worn-out appliance. To make a lasting change in any significant area of our life, we need to understand the complex pattern of behavior that the habit is rooted in—all the underlying thought processes and choices that feed and sustain a bad habit in spite of our best intentions.

Every New Year presents the opportunity to discover one of life’s simple truths: As long as our underlying priorities remain the same, our heartfelt resolutions are doomed to fail, no matter how noble, sincere, or urgent they sound.

The secret to a happier, healthier life

Joyful, abundant living has nothing to do with New Year’s resolutions. It’s a result of understanding

1. Why resistance to change keeps us from achieving our potential
2. How to overcome the fear of change
3. When to seek change, and why we should seek it

In our next three posts, we’ll take a closer look at these three key areas—together, they account for the 90% of the iceberg that’s below the surface.

In a nutshell, the secret to a happier, healthier life is to realize that you can choose to take charge of your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions. Accepting responsibility for who you are is the first step in overcoming harmful habits and replacing them with healthy ones.

Share your story

When you get serious about making change the No. 1 priority in your life, your bad habits don’t stand a chance. Post a comment to tell us about a change you want to make in 2010.

When life is turned upside down by the threat of a major disease or the loss of a loved one, we can feel terrified of the future. Imagine how Frodo Baggins felt the day he was forced to leave his cozy life in a village called the Shire.

Frodo, the hero of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, had just been chosen for a mission that would determine the course of history—not the sort of after-school assignment he would have volunteered for.

Talk about a major life change: On the way to accomplishing his mission, Frodo is stabbed by a ghost, chased by all sorts of nasty, sword-wielding creatures, and almost eaten alive by a spider that’s as big as a bull. Forget about “adapting to a new normal”—Frodo is just trying to stay alive from one minute to the next.

When bad things happen

There’s an unforgettable scene in The Fellowship of the Ring, Peter Jackson’s film version of the first book in the Tolkien trilogy. Exhausted and afraid, Frodo is beginning to lose hope.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” Frodo says to Gandalf, his mentor and friend.

“So do I,” Gandalf replies—“and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

You probably don’t have carnivorous spiders stalking you. But I’m sure there are days when you feel as if you did. Like Frodo and his friends, you might be facing a life-threatening struggle. Like Frodo, you’re wondering why it had to happen.

We can’t control everything that happens in life. But we can learn to cope with change by letting go of the bad and holding on to the good.

Tell us your story

Tell us about how you coped with a major life change. Sharing your story is a vital part of the healing process.

On Saturday, October 17, Jasper Howard, a cornerback for the UConn football team, spearheaded the Huskies’ defense in a 38-25 win over Louisville at Rentschler Field. Nine hours after his career-high 11 tackles and a forced fumble that halted a Louisville comeback, Howard was dead, yet another victim in our nation’s continuing saga of on-campus violence.

Lesser tragedies have decimated football teams before. Indeed, UConn’s next three games—at West Virginia, Rutgers, at Cincinnati—were heartbreaking last-minute losses.

Something happened after that—a season that could have gone sour turned into a season of heroes. It started with an overtime victory at Notre Dame, which UConn coach Randy Edsall called the biggest win in the history of the university’s football program.

In its last two games, UConn demolished Syracuse and—in drama befitting such a season—defeated South Florida on a last-second field goal. The Huskies will try to win one more for Jasper Howard when they play South Carolina at the Jan. 2 Papajohns.com Bowl in Birmingham, Alabama.

What are heroes made of?

The cells and tissue in the human body renew themselves so quickly that we have new skin every 30 days. Even more surprisingly, we have a new skeleton every six months. Change isn’t just inevitable—it’s always happening, day by day, hour by hour.

When we understand that nothing stays the same—not even our skeleton—we’re better prepared to cope with potentially devastating changes, such as the loss of a loved one.

When a change in your life seems more than you can manage, or when change is terrifying, take heart: Even heroes feel afraid. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.”

What are heroes made of? They’re made of the same cells and tissue as the rest of us. This New Year we’re all Huskies: Be a hero today to someone who needs you.

It only takes five minutes.

Share your story

Are you dealing with the loss of a loved one this New Year? Share your grief with us so that we might also share in your healing.