January 28th, 2008 by aaks
Life sometimes seems overly difficult and it can be easy to forget why you keep on keeping on. One of the greatest ways to keep that brighter future in mind to get through the day is by using the power of positive affirmation to help you remember why you are doing what you are and how rewarding it will be when you get to where you are going. Positive Affirmation should be utilized in different ways, individually or together in order to help you focus on the positive aspects of a situation even while you are dealing with a negative.
Thoughts, dreams, goals and even distant desires are all good material to be used in the process of positive affirmation but it need not be some distant point in the future to be effective. Thoughts from happy moments in the past are also great reminders as well. No matter how difficult life may get, it has been better and it will be better once again. Pleasant memories are easy to hold in your heart and in your mind, but sometimes it is also nice to have something more to remind you while you are still in the game. It cannot only be about moments in the past but expectations of the fulfillment of hopes and dreams for a future as well.
Living in the past will not help you to attain the future that you desire. Therefore, try and find something that is useful to help you concentrate on getting through today to help you to find the way to your future. In days of old, relatively speaking anyhow, it was common for people to own cedar chests, which were filled with things that reminded people of pleasant moments in their life. These chests would also hold keys to their dreams for the future. Whether it was a wedding dress to be used at a future date or a picture of something from the latest Sears catalog, the chest held physical reminders of their dreams.
Cedar “Hope” chests may not be practical for everyone and they certainly do not pose as a constant reminder of all of the great things yet to come. Scrapbooks were a very popular method for keeping pleasant reminders for a long time as well. While it is not as common today as it once was, this is still an excellent way of keeping happy memories and pleasant dreams altogether for the sake of having a source of inspiration and positive affirmation nearby.
Still, even these, being much smaller and more compact, are not always a viable option. This is especially true if you are having difficulties away from your home where it may not be practical to keep such mementos. In this case, you can still try something relatively simple especially with advances in technology. If it is a new home that you are dreaming about, search the internet far and wide until you find photos of your dream home. Small photographs can be printed cheaply and easily as constant reminders of why you are working the way you do and enduring the circumstances that life throws your way.
Do not tuck the photograph away in your purse or your wallet though. Keep it handy so that you can put it out when you have the opportunity. If you work at a desk, keep it in a frame on your desktop. If you work at a machine, place it on the machine where it can serve as a constant reminder of why you are not quitting. While it may draw some strange glances at first, you may be surprised how many of your co-workers at least agree and others will even begin doing the same thing.
Positive affirmation is about dreaming and remembering happier times and looking forward to better times. Those dreams will have a much harder time coming to the surface unless you actively pursue them. The best place to start is by affirming those things that you desire on a daily basis. While it will be up to you to make them a reality, having constant reminders is a great place to start.
Ward Tipton has been an author and editor for over twenty years. He has specialized the last three years in writing for some of the most prominent Internet Marketers around the world. He is now breaking out on his own and slowly but surely breaking into the world of Internet Marketing from a unique perspective and with a style and abilities that go much farther than his power of persuasion utilizing nothing more than the written word.
His latest site, Entrepreneur Culture will undoubtedly prove to be a valuable resource for anyone who ever wanted to learn anything at all about writing.
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January 28th, 2008 by aaks
Why is visualization a powerful tool for change? We are constantly visualizing, whether we are conscious of that fact or not, and what we visualize determines a lot of what we get. For example, if you worry about the future, saying to yourself that you do not know whether you will have enough money, or that perhaps your health will deteriorate, or that your relationship with a friend or spouse is gradually going sour, in all these cases, you project a negative outcome into an unknown future. What happens when you do that? A whole lot, and none of it good! Let us look at this a bit more closely.
We tend to think that worry helps us avoid bad things. After all, if we did not worry, how would we manage to take the precautions that enable us to survive? But this reasoning is largely false. Why? First of all, worry or negative feelings focused on the future creates stress, and stress creates discomfort, illness and pain over time. So your worry only guarantees that you will have a problem, a problem created by your state of mind. Second, worry makes us unreceptive. Have you ever tried to have a good conversation with someone who was worried, and did you notice how difficult it is for them to engage with you? They cannot pay attention! When we worry we are all full of ourselves, in an unpleasant way, and we do not have any time or energy to let in good things. No wonder bad things happen. People get tired of hanging around us, trying to be available for positive experiences!
Third, worry creates what we worry about. Energetically, we draw to ourselves what we are. We tend to blame the world for our experiences, but the truth is, we often bring those experiences into being through our own consciousness. Happy people are drawn to happy people. Loving people are drawn to loving people. If we want happy or loving people in our lives, then we must be happy and loving ourselves. We tend to think we will be happy and loving IF we get happy and loving people in our lives, and so we wait, and wait, and wait, and hope, and hope, and complain, and wish. But everything happens the other way around. BE happy, and you will DRAW happiness to you!
Like all powerful abilities, visualization is simple, and its power depends on regular, daily, even hourly practice. Begin your day by spending five minutes imagining to yourself how you would LIKE the day to be, as opposed to how you EXPECT it to be. Notice all the negative expectations you bring into your life, and see if you can loosen their hold. Then go through the day remembering your visualization with each event and encounter. When things are not working exactly as you would like, come back to yourself and see yourself as you would like to be in the situation.
Effective visualization is not so much about seeing things happening the way you want them to, as it is about seeing YOURSELF being the way you want to be: proactive, loving, energetic, successful, kind, you name it! Keep in mind, especially when the going gets rough, that you attract to yourself what you are. If you want wonderful things, be wonderful! If you want health, see yourself as healthy! Then keep on doing this, despite other energies that come around you, until you gradually truly become what you see yourself as being, and the world around you changes to reflect you. Enjoy your journey! Let it become more and more effortless!
© 2007 Ingrid Bacci, PhD. All rights reserved.
Written by: Ingrid Bacci PhD, CST, an internationally recognized healer, bodyworker, author and teacher of self-empowerment. For free information and products on self-empowerment and mind-body healing from chronic pain and stress, visit http://ingridbacci.com For Ingrid’s books, a) The Art of Effortless Living, and b) Effortless Pain Relief, go to http://amazon.com
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January 24th, 2008 by aaks
Self-improvement is always in vogue, for we can improve self until the day we pass on to that other world. Our mind can never be overfilled, and when it is filled with constructive, useful, information and knowledge we will improve.
So self-improvement is a good activity to engage in.
1. First, we need to decide in what area, or areas, we want to improve. Required is a review of our life today, not yesterday, but today. Then we will see what is actually needed to improve self.
2. Secondly, an improvement plan should not be any “pie-in-the sky” plan or effort. Discard anything that is dreamy, fantasy, or that does not serve the realities of needed improvement.
3. Look at several plans as needed, then choose the one that is most needed today. Such plans may be for personal behavior growth, family life, job enhancement, spirituality, and more. Choose the one most needed now and put all other plans in abeyance until that most important need is firmed up in a plan for improvement, and put into practice or completed.
4. Insert goals. These should be accomplishment markers that reveal points of completion as the plan is completed. These goals should not be so high that you may not be able to reach them, nor so low that apathy sets in and the plan is dropped. Goals should be challenging yet be aims that are comfortable for you.
5. Self-improvement plans need a comfortable place to follow them. For physical exercise the gym once a week may be needed, but it could be more comfortable to have an exercise machine at home in an area out of the way where interruptions are unlikely. The acquisition of knowledge may need library use, or a mentor who can engage in useful discussion with you, and surely a place at home where you will not be interrupted during a period of reading and study.
6. Implementation of self-improvement plans should be like on-campus college studies, or that job you pursue everyday. If you are working then select a time of day, 2-3 times a week for your efforts that you are comfortable with, and let it be known that you are not to be disturbed unless there is an emergency, and stick to it. At the start a schedule may be hard to keep partly because you do not see immediate results, but do not let that fool you into laziness, or missing your schedule dates. If necessary force yourself to keep at it.
7. Your intensity level should be that level that is interesting, and comfortable for you. Intensity can vary for each person, so you must set your own level. It is similar to physical exercise where too high an intensity level can result in injury. Mentally, a too high intensity level can result in burn-out. The tendency at the start to jump on it and beat it to death quickly should be avoided. The word comfortable has cropped up several times, and there is a reason for that frequency. For physical exercise one needs to allow the body to absorb the higher physical activity safely, and to thus improve physically gradually, and retain the improvement. The same is true mentally. There is a need to feed the mind new knowledge at a rate that allows the mind to absorb all the material in each session, learn it, and understand it, and thus be better prepared to implement it into your life.
8. Remember that there are no failures, except in your own mind. When you decide that it has failed, it has actually failed for you will then forget all that you have learned. But when you realize that even if you did not meet that prime goal, you did grow, and you did improve. Regardless of the outcome the program and effort was not a failure.
9. Early during such programs it may seem that you are not gaining, but that is false. Stick to it and one day you will realize the improvement that has taken place in your life. Others already have seen it, and now you see it. It is a great feeling !
10. What is left is for you to get at it, starting at the start, and then follow through to its end.
Whatever the area it is true that no matter how expert, or good, you have become, there are those better than you at it. What that tells us is that we can all improve during our whole life. Even acknowledged experts can improve. We can improve.
Have a go at it and you will be pleasantly surprised at the results.
http://www.geocities.com/mobleria/me.html list more information about the author, and provide resources that a publisher would be interested in, and some of the expertise that supports viewing his articles and these materials. Paul is interested in writing from article size to books and invites anyone interested to contact him.
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January 24th, 2008 by aaks
How many times have you blamed someone else for your own mistake? We do not like to think that we do that but take a look at yourself sometimes and hear what you are saying. You may be surprised at what you hear.
In church recently, I was making a purchase in their store and the cashier was letting her daughter press buttons on the keyboard. When I handed her my credit card she had just finished telling the daughter I was writing a check. The daughter immediately pressed the check button following the mother’s instructions. As the mother took the credit card she began chastising the child and said, “See this is why I don’t want you touching buttons” and she had to void the order and start over again. The girl stated that she had only pressed what the mother told her.
The more genuine we can be with ourselves the more genuine we can be with others. The closer we can get to know ourselves and admit that we were wrong the closer we become to self-actualization.
Here are some things to consider:
1) How often do I blame something on someone else when really it was my wrongdoing?
2) Who is it that I am blaming?
3) Do I make excuses to get out of my situation?
4) What excuses do I make?
5) Is there a pattern?
6) Why do I blame others instead of accepting my own error or misjudgment?
7) What can I do differently next time?
Other people do notice when we step into a blaming mode. We will feel better about ourselves when we can take ownership of what we do and say. Better yet, when we make a conscious decision to let go of a negative aspect of ourselves, we make room for a positive one to take its place. A win-win for everyone!
And now you are invited to receive 3 free body/mind/spirit tips on boosting your immune system at http://www.creatingbalanceinyourlife.com - You can visit her humor blog at: http://www.healingwithhumor.blogspot.com
Donna Marie Laino is a nurse, humorist, motivational speaker and success coach. She also uses humor as a holistic practitioner and Certified Laughter Leader to deal with life stress and health.
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January 24th, 2008 by aaks
Most people want to change - to do better, be better, achieve more. Many don’t know where to start. There are three things that must be present if lasting change is to take place:
- Know who you are and what you believe - this is bedrock. This is not an easy task. It takes time and attention to get to know yourself. In our world of constant communication and instant everything, this can be a challenge. You don’t have to take long periods of time - hours and hours of meditation are not essential unless you are a yogi. But daily time with you is required. Take a walk with a purpose - to learn one new thing about you. Or give yourself five minutes every morning to reflect on your strengths and, oh, yes, your weaknesses. What are your good habits and what are your bad habits? What are your likes and dislikes? Pay attention during the day for clues to this. “I just love ___________, I really would like __________ or I just can’t stand ___________, I never want to __________. This will lead you to some important information about you. What are your beliefs and disbeliefs? I had a friend who says, “If you don’t know what you stand for, you’ll fall for anything.” Cliché, but true. The interesting and challenging thing about this is that it is always changing. As you get new information and as you raise your level of consciousness, much of the self-knowing will change. Be aware of where you are and what you believe on an ongoing basis. Know what you believe about love, family, God, money, society, politics, relationships, work - all the important areas of life.
- Know what you want. This will change as you change and grow but you need to know what you want now. Have a clear vision of what it is and how your life will look when you have it. Do you want a better education? more money? a love relationship? a new house? a compassionate heart? a child? more stuff? a healthy body? happiness? Make your list. When you have your list made, ask yourself “How can I acquire/achieve these things? Are you willing to work harder? Are you willing to make temporary sacrifices for long term gain? Can you manifest it? Visualize having it - bring all your senses into play. Play with it until you can see, feel, hear, touch, maybe taste what it will be like when you have it. You may find that you don’t really want it or are not ready for it now. This process cuts down on impulsive decisions that may make a lasting change that you are not happy with. It also gives you the assurance that it will be worth the time, effort and money required.
- Take responsibility for yourself and for your life. No one, absolutely no one, can do this for you. You can get help if you need it but no one can do it except you if it to be meaningful and lasting. You can copy someone else but it won’t be real for you. I heard someone the other day complaining that his parents had not left them enough money for him to live on. Excuse me, it wasn’t his parent’s responsibility. It was his responsibility as an able bodied, intelligent, educated adult to provide for himself. Employees blame the boss for their failure. Students blame the teacher, their schedule, their parents. We’ve all heard people playing the blame game - perhaps we’ve played it as well now and then. It’s only when you are honest with yourself and take responsibility for all phases of your life that real growth will occur.
When these three things are present, most of your self improvement will be done. You just need to add the finishing touches. Yehaw!
Irene Conlan has a masters degree in nursing, a doctoral degree in metaphysics, is a certified hypnotherapist and an ordained minister. She practices holistic hypnotherapy and officiates at weddings in Scottsdale, Az and the Phoenix metropolitan area. Irene can be found at http://www.theselfimprovementblog.com
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January 24th, 2008 by aaks
Believe it or not, it isn’t difficult to harness the brainpower all of us possess, if only we knew how. Indeed, it may come as a surprise to learn that throughout life, on average, we only use about 25% of our brain - including the university educated intellectuals in our ranks!
As a practising psychologist, I frequently meet people who desperately want to increase their powers of learning, heighten their intelligence and perception - make a better life for themselves and their families, in fact!
Most of the time, people think that super- brain power and function is beyond their reach. They mistakenly feel that super intelligence is only for those who are born with such potential. Yet…they couldn’t be more off beam. The simple fact is - we all have the intellectual potential - it’s just that most people don’t know how to cultivate it and use it.
From the day we are born until the day we die, our brain receives and stores millions upon millions of facts, figures and experiences. This storage space is our memory bank, just like a computer but much more adaptable and complex. Our brain is us, our very being - that which makes each and every one of us individual. It is part of our Soul, dictating on a higher plain what we think and feel (our emotions). It can think positively or negatively, thoughts which can make us feel well or ill (psychosomatic - mind affecting body).
To keep our brain healthy and efficient requires exercise, just like the muscles in our body. Like a car engine, it requires top-quality fuel for peak performance. Most people fail to realise that the foods they eat (or don’t eat) have an influence on the brain, some foods dull its performance and others help fire it into action. It is often said that physical tiredness is healthy and mental tiredness is unhealthy, a basic truth, in fact. However, it can also be said that a tired brain is due to our own doing, our general lifestyle and/or lack of brain training.
You don’t have to pump iron and break a bead of sweat to train your brain. Why then, don’t we do it? Simply, because we take it for granted. We expect it to perform day after day without complaint. Or if it does begin to cry out for mercy, we either get a headache (commonly caused by the neck and shoulder muscles cramping up due to stress) or become tired and feel out of sorts. Yet, it need’nt have happened - if our brain had been exercised and trained in the proper manner
What does it take to have an efficient, intellectual brain with a high IQ? Not a lot really. Indeed, you can do it at any time of the day, even as you sleep. One simple ingredient is learning to concentrate solely on concentrating on what you are doing at any moment. No…I haven’t made a typing error. I’ll say it again - learning to concentrate on concentrating on what your are doing! This is commonly known as ‘hyper-concentration’, completely blotting out everything other than what you are doing - thinking, working or relaxing. You cannot improve your brain power and intellect without ‘hyper concentration’ a skill that can be learned in next to no time, believe it or not - and you won’t even strain a bodily muscle. Remember, you can train your brain anywhere and at anytime -once you know how.
Mental discipline is another factor in having healthy and positive thoughts. No problem is insoluble, if you know the most important rule required to tackle it. That basic rule is ‘positive thinking’. In other words, never cross a bridge until you come to it. You see, imagining the worst befuddles your positive thought process. Your imagination runs riot and you can’t see the wood for the trees, so to speak. The cause of the problem totally eludes you. Therefore, you cannot find a solution. Here, hyper-concentration and problem solving become closely linked - one cannot work without the other. Self-doubt and a fertile imagination never solved any problem. These two negative ingredients lead to inefficiency, mistakes, ineptitude, self-consciousness, depression and many other self-destructing and inhibiting forces.
So, contrary to what you may think, you have the brain power within you to progress in life. To become someone who is the success story you never thought you would be. All it takes is knowing how to go about it!
To find out more simple tips on how to increase your brain power and put your IQ through the roof, plus many more freebies on the subject - click here; http://www.clanpublishing.com
James Keith is a practising psychologist specialising in intelligence building and self-improvement. He has also written many specialist papers on the subject.
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January 24th, 2008 by aaks
We convince ourselves that we what we think is the TRUTH. Our thoughts are the facts. After all, we are putting our ideas into words, so doesn’t that count for something?
If someone writes about something, doesn’t that mean it is the truth?
If we choose to read only non-fiction books because we are only interested in being objective, unemotional and dispassionate, are we really choosing to be any of these? Or are we just fuelling our beliefs?
All beliefs are assumptions; all beliefs are unproven convictions. If they were anything else, they would be proven facts and we would not speak of them as beliefs.
If we accept the belief that we can separate our behaviour from our emotions, that we are truly ignoring our feelings in making decisions, then everything we do in our career will simply re-enforce that belief.
Beliefs form a closed loop in how we think. You believe something is true and you discount anything that would go against or disprove what you believe. You direct your attention to, and make more important in your mind, those things that prove your belief.
Because you believe you are more intelligent than other people, those people should not insult your intelligence be doing or saying something that insults your intelligence. You are not a fool therefore you do not tolerate fools lightly.
But what is intelligence? How do you measure it? No one has been able to define intelligence in a way that it can easily be measured without a whole series of assumptions.
We all use the word intelligent as though we really know what it is. We certainly believe that we are intelligent. Yet intelligence has not be clearly defined or measured.
We use the word soul or spirit as though we really know what we are talking about. Yet, the soul has not been factually and scientifically identified.
We can speak words that the human being is an emotional, spiritual, rational or physical being but can we prove it?
We have difficulty proving that these characteristics are separate one from the other. It all depends on your perception and perceptions depend on your beliefs. Perhaps we should stop talking as though our behaviour makes us a fragmented human.
So our language and the definition of words clearly influence how and what we think about. If our language only supported counting to three our concepts about size and numbers would change the way we think about everything. And, there are civilizations that did exactly that.
That is the essence of belief. We use words as though we know what they mean and behave and think as though they are facts.
Beliefs are convictions based on a lack of proof. Our beliefs are so built into our way of thinking that it is difficult to separate real facts from imagined. In fact, we cannot separate our thinking from our beliefs, no more than we can separate ourselves into emotional, rational, spiritual and physical parts.
Yet we can put words on those things as though we really know what they are as though we can see something in our behaviour that identifies each separate part, but in fact, they are never separate. They are all part of the one and same person.
That is the problem. Words do not necessarily match the facts. We can talk about intelligence, for example, as though we really know it exists, but we have a difficult time proving what it is.
Just because we can speak a word that we can look up in a dictionary does not make it any more factual than another word which we do not believe.
What we believe now are truths. What others believe are myths and therefore evil.
Whether we choose to believe something or not doesn’t make us superior to anyone else or give us any special advantage. They are our beliefs.
Often we believe something because we are told that unless we believe it there will be consequences. Believe this or you will be punished either now or later.
And we can all prove our beliefs because we have conducted a lot of mind experiments even if all thought experiments are just science-fiction. Every science fiction book I read when I was twelve was a thought experiment.
We all make assumptions and judgements living day to day. Choose to believe or not believe, it makes no difference. You cannot prove a belief either way. And you are still just believing.
Beliefs are something we know because we just think it is so. We interpret our experience as though it proves what we know.
And round and round we go again.
I believe it is important to believe and to allow others to have their own belief unless they threaten the well being of others.
But then, maybe it is all just tricks of the mind.
For more feature articles go to http://www.themeaningisyou.com The author has many years experience, writing and reading for self development.
I offer this to you as a guide to every day happiness. If you feel your need is more than you can manage with this training, consult a neuro-therapist or cognitive therapist or other professional.
Copyright Gilles Hamann 2007
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January 24th, 2008 by aaks
It is possible to release your past regardless of how painful or deprived it was. Through these personal development techniques you let go of all your emotional baggage and start fresh.
Once you release your emotional attachment to your past you are free to enjoy the present. From this powerful place of being happy and content with where you are you can then begin to create the future of your dreams.
Although you cannot change anything that has happened in the past you can change how your past experiences affect your future. The first step to releasing the past is to accept that it happened. No matter how traumatic the experience or how distasteful the memory is you must acknowledge here and now that it occurred. This is what we call entering a state of Acceptance. Many people live their entire lives wanting to change the past. They moan that if only things had been different their life would be so much better. The past is gone. It happened. There is no way to change the past so there is no point wishing that it never happened or that it happened differently. You cannot change it so accept it!
After acceptance you can enter a state of peace when you realise that the past, all of it, good and bad experiences alike have helped to form and mould the person you are today. All the knowledge, desire and love that are in you right now are a direct result of the past experiences that make up your life.
Next realise that the past has some powerful lessons to teach you. Have you learned anything positive from your past experiences? Use your past as a learning tool. See where you went wrong and make the changes you need to make today so that your future becomes a bright and welcoming place. Never use your past as an excuse to stay the way you are or to tolerate circumstances and situations with which you are currently unhappy! Realise that the past has been and gone. All you have is this moment and that is all you need to make changes.
Many millions of people throughout the centuries have overcome their own personal adversity to achieve great things. You can do the same. These people refused to accept what life had handed them. They never moaned about their past nor allowed it to interfere with their present and thus they created their future the way they wanted it to be.
You should never use the past an excuse for staying stuck in your life. Your power is always in the present moment. Use your past negative experiences as a motivational tool to spur you on. It is all about your perception! It is your perception of the things around you that determines your reality. What you focus on expands. This means you get more of what you focus on in life. If you chose to focus on the mistakes and hardships of your past then that is what you will experience more of.
But if you decide to put the past where it belongs, in the past, and fully embrace the present moment and where you are you will find yourself in a powerful creative place. Only revisit the past to learn from it not as an emotional trip. Although much of your current mental conditioning originates from childhood and early life experiences it can be changed. By making the decision now and holding the intention now that the past will no longer affect you, you can free yourself from your own self-imposed bondage.
From this place of freedom you can make decisions based upon current situations and circumstances instead of being the slave to reactive emotional thinking and acting. The evidence is everywhere that people with painful, damaging pasts have overcame them and gone on to achieve high levels of success. Look at the business world, sports, creative arts etc. There are rags to riches stories everywhere you care to look.
You may encounter past experiences that are very difficult for you to realease. At these times you should seek professional help in whatever form you feel appropriate, even if it is just a subliminal or hypnosis recording. Do something now to release your past - make the decision that it will no longer rule over your current life. Intend to be free of the past. In your own mind decide now that no matter what you need to do you will release your emotional issues. Even though you may not know how you are going to do this yet hold the intention that you will do it. When you do this and begin to live in the now you will be more content and at peace while you wait for your marvelous future to unfold.
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January 24th, 2008 by aaks
Everyone has bad habits. It’s all part of being human. A bad habit is manifested in many forms. It could be smoking, drinking, nail-biting, or even chewing one’s hair - the list could go on and on. Whatever your bad habit is, it’s nothing more than a quirk, and there’s nothing wrong with being quirky, as long as it’s done in moderation. But if you feel that your bad habit is already getting out of hand and turning into an addiction, it’s time to take matters into your own hands. With the right mindset, you can turn an addiction back into no more than a quirk - just the way it should be.
Make A Decision
The first thing you should do to keep your habit under control is to decide to do so. It’s not as easy as it sounds. You may easily verbalize your intention, but actually internalizing it to convince both your conscious and subconscious to go through with it is another story.
A good way to do it is to take the time to focus on your intentions and envisioning what you want to achieve and believing that you can achieve it. You can also make your goal more tangible by writing it down. This way, you have something physical that will remind you of your goal, whether it’s cutting back on smoking or drinking, or to stop picking your nose in public.
Start Small
Rome wasn’t built in a day. A gargantuan task like cutting back on a habit or giving it up altogether wouldn’t be done in a day either. It also doesn’t help to jump into the task head-on. A sudden change will result in both your mind and body rebelling against it. As a result, no change is made at all.
As a fact, change is a gradual process, meaning if you want to cut back on bad habits, you have to start small. For example, instead of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, you can reduce to half a pack this week and a fourth of a pack the next. You can spend less time carrying around a pencil - or maybe even switch to using pens altogether - if you’re likely to chew on it.
Distraction and Motivation
In order to cut back on bad habits, you also need to be motivated. You have to be doing it for a very good reason, a reason that you feel you can really stand up for. Without the right healthy motivation, you’ll find yourself faced with a lost cause.
Distraction also helps. This is pretty much replacing your bad habit with another habit, albeit a healthier and a better one. You can start developing a liking for fruit juices and drink them by the buckets, instead of always knocking back spirits. You can chew on fruit candies to take the taste of cigarettes out of your mouth and reduce craving, or to stop chewing on your cuticles.
Indeed, no bad habit is too hard to break with the right approach and a foolproof strategy. You’ll be surprised to find out one day that you’ve kicked it for good.
To cut back, you don’t only have to put away those flasks. You have to put away those money clips too to avoid temptation. Take up a hobby instead, like making personalized gifts. Visit ExecutiveGiftShoppe.com today.
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January 24th, 2008 by aaks
“The mind is the security system of the body, so it wants to be in control to feel safe.”
Mona & Giovanni - Question the Mind
We operate under the illusion that we are in control. To surrender means to yield or give up. Surrendering to a Higher Power means asking for support. It is saying we can’t do it alone. It brings us out of ourselves somehow, and gives some relief to our struggles. “As a typical baby boomer who left formal religion behind at age 19, I had to be pushed pretty far for my ego to even begin to allow me to surrender.
I see now that what happened to me was an important part of my menopausal journey. It was the intensifying of experience that often happens in the last couple of years of perimenopause. Both Christiane Northrup and Susun Weed talk about this. My restricted left shoulder, injured carrying heavy rugs, was the event that catalyzed this key part of my journey. As my shoulder froze up I became so limited physically that I went into a completely different space in body-mind and spirit. Although I functioned in my life in a limited way, my main focus was on what was happening inside me. For a few months I did what Christiane Northrup calls “hanging out in the underworld″. I like to call this place the “abyss”. There I had seemed to have no choice but to allow my worst fears, grief and confusion to be fully experienced.
A few years earlier I had remembered that I had experienced sexual trauma as a toddler, but I was unprepared for the strong emotions that arose in me, and the occasional brief but graphic visual flashbacks that seemed to come from my shoulders after I received healing bodywork. My concern was that I would lose touch with reality and ‘leave’ my body somehow. This is what I think happened, albeit briefly, at the time of the abuse. During this difficult time I remember walking down the street and saying ‘please help me’ to a Higher Power I think of as ‘The Universe’, ‘The Light’, ‘The Great Mother’ or ‘God′.
Surrendering of this nature was definitely not my usual modus operandi in the world. But I was desperate. I felt lost and alone in many ways. I knew that most people, not having made a similar internal journey, didn’t understand what I was going through.
But “thank the Goddess”, there was one person who really got it, and that was my very wise chiropractor, Christine. One day she said to me, “sometimes when you′re standing on the edge of the abyss, there’s nothing else to do but jump.” I felt comforted and validated that she understood the limbo I was in.
As the months wore on, the shoulder restriction slowly eased with the help of chiropractic, massage, acupuncture and exercises. After six months, I had approximately 80% of the mobility back in my arm. As the shoulder released, something softened and released in me emotionally also.
I asked for guidance on what to do next and soon the idea came to me of writing to Judith Duerk, author and women’s retreat leader to inquire about leadership training. My goal was to offer holistic groups for women. I went to Wyoming to work with Judith over a period of three years. I also sponsored a Judith Duerk retreat in my own community.
Out of this time in the abyss, a new ‘me’ was born. I was able to move into the next phase of my life as a mature women…a crone which has been very satisfying. I returned to school to get a master’s degree in counseling. This qualified me for my life’s work with women.
My life is not a perfect life now, now is it particularly easy. But I know who I am more and more and know what I can contribute to the world.
Copyright 2007 Ellen Besso
Through her ‘Odyssey of Change’ coaching program, Ellen Besso offers Midlife Women the opportunity to navigate the midlife maze and find joy & fullness in their lives.
Personal action plans include strengthening the body-mind connection; releasing beliefs that limit growth; & specific actions to move you forward into your ideal life.
Ellen is uniquely qualified to be your guide because she has personally journeyed through perimenopause and into an inspired life as a menopausal crone! Her professional credentials include certification as a Martha Beck Coach and an M.A. in Counseling from City University.
To find out more about Ellen’s work and read articles written by her contact:
www.ellenbesso.com or http://www.ellenbesso.com/midlifemaze
info@ellenbesso.com - 
800 961 1364
- N.Am. or 
604 886 1916 - Gibsons, BC
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