How to Overcome Fear and Limiting Beliefs

Fear is an emotional response to an impending threat or danger.  It is one of our most basic responses.  Most of the fears that we experience today in our society are imagined. We experience the fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success.  All kinds of fears – many of which are attached to our belief systems.   

Photo courtesy of ia7mad

I used to have a fear of going to the movies by myself.  While I longed to go to the movies, I refused to go alone.  I had a fear of being molested by a man wearing a beige raincoat that was cinched at the waist.  This was something that I had heard as a child and added to my belief system.  How ridiculous!  However, as I grew older I realized that I had this fear of going alone, but I could not remember why.  It wasn’t until I accepted that I was afraid that I was able to see what my fear was, where it came from, and how it came to be. My older brother used to take me to the movies when I was younger and in order to keep us in line he would tell us about the old man in the beige coat that would take us away and do awful things to us. What I realized was that I had internalized a lot of that story and it followed me for years.  I was 30 years old when I finally went to the movies by myself.  Yep, 30 years old.  Some people might say that’s crazy. However, in my mind I was still young and very afraid. Consequently, that was what my limiting belief looked like.  It was an old condition that kept me from succeeding and going to the movies by myself.   
 
Limiting beliefs interfere with many aspects of our lives.  There are all kinds of limiting beliefs that stop us from succeeding. Fear of Failure is a huge limiting belief.  I recently had the opportunity to meet a woman who was raised middle class, but because of her experience attending a school with children who were not middle class, she developed the limiting belief of not deserving. Because her friends did not have, she stopped asking her parents for the things she wanted. She did not want to feel like a show off because of her nice clothes and her toys and gadgets.  If she did get something she used it at home and refused to wear clothes that were better than her peers.   

Fast forward into adulthood. Her limiting belief manifested into not having made enough money to live on.  She always squeaked by with just enough money for her basic needs, but never enough for extras.  As a result of her limiting belief, she has never developed the confidence to ask for the salary that she wanted and conditioned herself to not have any idea about the amount money she wants to make.  So she lives in a world of not enough and not deserving.   

Photo courtsey of _Blippo_

Limiting beliefs can show up in lots of different ways and if the limiting belief is something that you developed as a child. It grows up with you into an adult-sized limiting belief system. In order to succeed and clear your limiting beliefs, you have to submerge and focus your mind with positive thoughts.  You have to starting creating the reality you want.  You cannot for one moment allow old limiting beliefs to enter your mind and re-root themselves.  It takes effort, courage and knowing in your gut that limiting beliefs can be overcome. 

How to Stop Fearing Change

Fear of change, keeps you small
So you avoid discomfort by making excuses.
How is that going for you?

I cannot afford it, I have to wait, I don’t know. Oh my God, I have to make that call and I forget. Why don’t they just stop contacting me? Why is she continuing to talk about this again and again? I really want to but… my head, my children, I have to ask my husband. These are some the many excuses we make up in our lives when the change you requested starts to come.

What are the excuses that have you playing small in your life? Above are a myriad of excuses that I have heard and that I have also used in my life. However, I now know when my ego is messing with me. It is working hard on stopping me from doing the things I want to do but I am afraid to do.

My fear shows up around money, I get a triggered. I feel it in my solar plexus and I start the nagging internal dialog. My internal dialog doesn’t have language, it just has feelings. However, what I have found is that if I do not choose that thing that will impact my life positively. I’ll spend the money on something or another that really has no educational or emotional impact on my life and my life stays the same. Whereby, when I think of spending money on a course, seminar, workshop and or coach that would transform my mindset, it causes me emotional upheaval in my subconscious because my ego so big. It is does not like change and responds by making me mad at myself.

I have listened to woman who, like myself, have attended workshops. It is so amazing to hear the conversations and about the way they hear things and interpret them. Be aware it is the ego, it stands in the way of your greatness. It is also has a way of being arrogant. You know that you need help, but you refuse to take it.

In my work, I hear and see a lot of what is happening in the back ground of women’s life. I hear all the little conversations and disguises that are put on when you have not set up strong, personal boundaries in your life. I also hear when you’re trying to manipulate people into doing something that you want without using your verbal skills. I also hear when you are trying to ‘fake’ knowing something when is really okay not to know it. I also hear when you job runs your life and you have no personal activities going on in your life. I hear the bitterness in some that is so bitter it impacts their whole environment. (Not a judgment, just an observation.)

I also have the keen intuition of knowing and recognize when someone else’s anxiety is coming from being overwhelmed, not trusting or being present with your life. When you have all the accoutrements that money can buy, you’re great at your job but you do not your personal life. You’re amazing people, you are strong and many times you are very very afraid of your own personal power. Ask me how I know. I have been there.

It does not work for me that woman do not know their power, they feel something other than their true selves all the time or suffer inside from behaviors that no longer work for them. All because they are afraid of what people are going to say about them. It is important to know that it is none of your business what people say about you. Ladies the fear of change, the lack of confidence and self esteem in your personal life keeps your small in your personal life and to avoid discomfort, you make up excuses.

Hey How is that going for you.

Call me and let me know

How to Stop Feeling Guilty

Guilt leaves you feeling YUCKY. Guilt is a very dis-empowering action. The majority of the women I come in contact with as a Confidence and Self Esteem Expert experience tremendous guilt. They feel guilty around their children, friends, family and the list goes on. However, when you are in love with yourself, you have a strong sense of security and you can step out of the guilty behavior. Letting go of guilt enables you to make deliberate choices allowing you to own the process of loving yourself.

One experiences Guilt when they do not act or behave like the rest of the group or clique. You will often experience ridicule or criticism because they want to you to behave or act in a particular way. So they will try to gain power over you by trying to make you feel guilty. Guilt is used by everyone. However, when you have confidence and a strong self-esteem, this form of behavior has no power over you because you come from your heart as you are courageous. With courage you know that you are in charge of your life.

When you do not have courage, lack confidence, and self-esteem, you come from a place of manipulation. You engage in power struggles to get a desired behavior from another person. Many people use silence coupled with withdrawal of affection/love to dominate their friends, family and children. This kind of behavior just is not loving. You are further endorsing that you are not enough, or that you are not acceptable for other people because you have to engage in power struggles to get what you desire.

If you engage in this kind of manipulative guilt breeding behavior, it is important that you surrender this combative tactic. We all want to experience freedom without guilt but to experience freedom we have to let others experience the freedom we want for ourselves.

Learning to detach ourselves from reactions and our emotions is necessary when the negative takes a hold of you. When we pull ourselves out of center where we lose all sense of who we are because we have become upset, bitter and all manner of things that separate us from others. You have to learn to love yourself with kindness not from a place of judgment; judgment separates you from others and yourselves. It sets you up to fail so you cannot be free. When you judge people for the things they do, what they have, do not have or how they act, you are also setting yourself up in the judgment that you have woven for another. When you set up this kind of web, you have now told yourself that you can only accept yourself under certain circumstances and conditions. If attaining these conditions and circumstance becomes difficult, you have now put yourself in a place where you have no freedom. You have now placed a very harsh way of being on yourself, filled with self-criticism, where you are not good enough. When you give up and love yourself unconditionally, you will experience yourself with naturally experiencing confidence and self-esteem. Confidence and Self-Esteem will naturally attract positivity to you.

Make time for happiness

A good portion of women are too busy making themselves busy so they don’t have a minute to look at the true picture of their life.  They are too busy to call a friend or too busy to return a call.  They are too busy to be the yes that they said they’d be.  What is all this busy-ness?  We have a ton of technology available to us at the drop of a dime.  Literally a drop of a dime and yet we are way too busy.  Now the with cellphones less than half a yard away from your elbow inside your bag or pocket it remains impossible to return a simple call, to a client, a potential suitor, a doctor anybody.

Two happy girls

Well, you don’t understand, I am really busy.  How busy can you be?  Are you running a small country?  What is it that you are doing in your life that has you so busy that nothing has changed in the last 3 years? I have a running conversation with clients that say to me that they are too busy to do something that they say is important to them.  Important things like their friends, their health and wellbeing.  They want to date, fix their finances or change something in their life.  Well, what I say is you are not running a city or a small country.  For instance look at Rudy Guilliani, the mayor of New York City 1994-2001. Here was a man that was busy, running NYC, visiting other states and countries and still he still found time to have a wife and then cheat on her.  Now that’s busy.  If you not running a small city, visiting other countries having a marriage and an extra marital affair, you’re not that busy. Come on!

What’s really going on is that you do not have a system to manage yourself, and you do not have a relationship with your word.  How do I know this?  Well, I know this because when the conversation comes up about you being unavailable, not following up on your promises, and not being your word, then you get triggered.  You shut down become resigned.  Some of you might even become angry.  This is not a judgment; it is something that I have experienced.

If all the things that you say you would love to have or experience are really that important to you, then it is important that you carve out time for yourself.  There is more than enough time in the day to handle what it is that you say that you desire.  The first question to ask yourself is: Am I happy?  What’s happiness got to do with time? What has happiness go to do with anything?  Well, I have come to understand that people that are happy with themselves desire to remain happy.  They share.  They are often times enjoying the work that they have chosen for themselves.  They are busy, but they are organized.  It is this kind of happiness that is important to them.  They do not want anything to interfere with their happiness.  So they make the time to do the things that is important to them and schedule time to handle all the other things.  They are happy and they want to share it with friends so they create time to talk with friends.  They are not interested in getting sick so they will create time to go to the doctor and keep a handle on their wellbeing.  They have created structure to keep on doing the thing that they enjoy doing.

 

 

 

Happiness is something that one can do for oneself. However, it is something that is better shared with another.  When you are happy in your life you become aware of whom you are.  So if you desire a deep relationship with another person, it’s important that you become aware of yourself.

The comments above are not here to make you feel wrong or written as a judgment.  I have written them as a way to have you look inside and understand that sometimes you are not aware of what you’re doing or how it impacts your life and the lives of the people you say are important to you.  It is important to see them so that you can realize how important it is to learn to concentrate and focus your mind where you choose.  You can elevate your thinking and your choices to a higher ideal rather than just merely having a view or no view at all and remain stuck thinking that your business is real and you have no time.   Then when people say that you are not managing your time or you wasted their time being busy, you don’t find yourself feeling attacked or defending yourself.

It is as though you are too afraid to take a minute to just sit down and smell the roses.  Many  women have discovered the age old art of making themselves wrong so they have something to distract them from just taking a minute to sit down and reflect.  Happiness appears as this elusive thing they are searching for.  Some are looking for it in the arms of the next lover before completing with the last one.  Some are looking for it at the end of the credit card in the next pair of designer shoes.  This is not a judgment.

What I do know is that a lot of woman are really craving, desiring and would like to have the kind of happiness that just makes you heart sing.  The kind of happiness that you feel when you are taking time out to do something that you really enjoy doing, that ignites your passion and get your juices flowing.  No ladies, not that kind.  At least not at this moment;  I mean the kind of passion that I experience when I am riding my bike and the wind is whipping around my helmet and I see life’s pleasures like a flower that had just broken through the earth.

 

 

How to Feel More Secure

Security exists internally.  Most people look for security as an external experience.  They think it is either something or someone in the world that can give security to them and that makes them feel secure.  No one or nothing can make you feel secure.  Security is something that you give to yourself first.  Like most things, if you cannot give it to yourself then no one can give it to you.  Nothing or no one can give you the security you are looking for, so if you are seeking it in a boyfriend, girlfriend, marriage, money, none of these things can make you feel secure until you feel internally secure.

 

Image of Woman typing on computer

 

Security, acknowledgement, and praise are all individual personal feelings.  One of the only ways you can ever feel secure is by giving security to yourself. The love that you need, a sense of belonging, a feeling of safety in your world, being able to self-validate, acknowledging yourself and recognizing your own accomplishments are the gifts that you give yourself.  Ultimately only you can fill your needs.

 

Security is a sense of having something in your life that calls you, that is bigger than you are it pulls you, your attracted to it.  When you are secure in your life the petty upsets are small in comparison to what  you’re up to.  When you are secure you have projects, you are growing and you are not looking outside of yourself for love.  You don’t have unattainable rules in place to give you a sense of security.  You are busy loving you and loving another in that order. You are not looking for the person to love you.  You’re not looking for the person to call you to check in, or you are not waiting to hear the words I love you.  You are being I love you- it becomes your natural way of being and your experience of love lives freely.  That kind of love is not a demand that is practiced in a specific way of so many calls a week, so many hugs, keeping score of how many times the person says I love you. The bickering about who always says what first.   That kind of love is not secure and has no space for freedom in it and the joy is sucked out of the love in a way that causes insecurity and you can become shut down or anxiety driven.

 

Woman looking out window

 

When you are secure you have an experience of growth and expansion in your life.  Your view of the world is a bigger place and the feel of the universe is abundant you feel known. When you feel secure you are open, you share yourself abundantly, you are willing to take risks and you experience an opportunity to be who you really are.

 

Many people are on a mission to keep their world safe by not speaking up for themselves, or no speaking at all.  Feeling like they cannot trust anyone and always living in a space of fear.  Consequently, when you live in a space of fear your world gets smaller and you experience even more insecurity.  However, when you face your fears your world expands and you feel stronger and secure in other areas of your life and you discover that you true feeling of security exists when you can meet your own needs without being a demand for security from others.  Give yourself a life filled with happiness where security is your own responsibility and what comes from others is a blessing that is received with gratitude.

 

 

 

What Does Present Mean To You

I would like to you to take a few minutes and really think about the word present and what it means to you.  Present.

Fall leaves

 

Are you being present to everything in your life? I want you to just stop for a moment and watch your thoughts go by as you focus on the word present and how it occurs for you in your life.

 

Watch the feelings that the word present conjurers up or even if you get no feeling at all.   Be present to it.  There is no right or wrong way in your feelings – they are yours and yours alone.
Now I want to do a little experiment, this experiment is a contrast.  I would like you to think of the word past and what it means to you.  Past.  I want you to look at not everything but some thing in your past.   Then take a moment and watch your thoughts about your past.  I want you to watch them go by and look at how it occurs in your life.

 

See where in your past are you stuck and what are the feelings that come up or even if there aren’t any feelings at all. Focus on your past.  Look at what you feel, smell or taste.  Just be with it.

 

Now I would like you to do the same with your future.  I would like you to focus on the future.  Look at it for a moment – how does it make you feel or not feel.  Does it look bright or does it seem scary? Do you have control in your future?  Focus on it.  Watch it go by and how it occurs to you.
What are the images that you create about yourself when you speak to other people? Are their people that you can share yourself with completely ?  Are there things about yourself that you can candidly share that lift you up or pull you down?

 

How do certain images about yourself get played out in your life?  Are they healthy?  What do you do to keep them at bay? Do you have external ways of keeping them at bay?

 

I would like you to create a high image of yourself, seeing the things that you really would like to accomplish.

Exercises

1 – I would like you to create an image of yourself and then ask your friends to hold that specific image for you.  Ask them to picture you succeeding at something that you really want to accomplish.  It does not matter what it is, what matters is that it is important to you.  This is a very confronting exercise.  You have to be willing to hold yourself accountable.

 

2 – What is something that you would like to give up in this present moment? How has that thing impacted your life?  Is it something that belongs to you that have created.  Why did you create it?  What was the purpose – Happiness, Protection, or a Value?  What did you use this for? What would your life look like if you gave it up?

Haters

You know you’re a Hater, just admit you hate on everything about yourself. You hate on others who reflect the things you hate about yourself, whether they are successful or not.  You haters are everywhere.  You hate on yourself and you destroy your dreams, by saying things like: ‘Its too hard.’  ‘I don’t have enough time.’  ‘I don’t have the money.’  You’re a hater and some of you are lazy haters.  You use your hate to sabotage yourself and make yourself wrong.  Get real, you know you do.  As a personal life coach working in Brooklyn, I work with people all over the nation.  I also have clients in France and England.  Hating is not a national practice, it is a universal practice.  As a hater, you are always looking for things to hate on yourself about.  You’ve worked really hard to build your confidence and self-esteem only to smash it across the rocks.  How long you’ll sit on the rocks is entirely up to you.

 

Being a hater impacts your world from the inside out, eroding your confidence and self-esteem.  This has you point the perpetual finger at another person or thing, instead of being responsible for your actions.  Haters, hate themselves, that is what they do.
In order to avoid haters, it is important for you to look inside yourself and realize that you are the one true hater.  You are the saboteur; you are the killer of your dreams and ideas.  You’re the one that does not keep your word to yourself or others.  You are the one that is constantly in fear, hiding your greatness.  Many of you believe that the hater is external, when in fact the hater is with you 100% of the time. The big truth is it’s internal.

 

Start a revolution, stop hating your body

 

Babe, you’re the one that hurts you, fills you up with feelings of rejection, no one can reject you ever.  Rejection is rejection when you see it as so.  Someone says something and you get mentally interrupted, pull yourself off course and hurt yourself.  Rejection is not what you think it is.  A person that is committed to their dream goes out looking for the ‘no’s because they know it brings them closer to their dream.  Some see it as failure.  There is no such thing as failure. Thomas J. Watson is attributed with saying “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate”.  There is no such thing as rejection, and no one ever fails.  No man, woman or child on this planet can reject you.  You reject you and you deem yourself as failure.  People can say what they say, but you are the only person that can take that feeling in and hurt your own feelings.  You have the power and the strength to recognize your own pain or the pain that you inflict on yourself.

 

If there is an image or idea that you are not happy with in yourself recreate it.  Stop deceiving yourself.  Create another truth or reality, then make your own truth of who you are by not seeing yourself as the victim.  You are an incredible human being.  Every time you refuse to accept and acknowledge your power, beauty, truth or wisdom, you’re making yourself a victim.  When you are riding the waves of your own self-pity or are feeling depressed; start by working on recognizing that you’re lying to yourself and not coming from your personal truth.  When you lie to yourself, you carry that feeling around with you and it is replayed back to you in the world by the energy that you are transmitting. Know that energy begets energy.  Believe this, your world begins with your thoughts and words.  You are not a target of some universal lotto that selected your name to be a victim in some universal drama.  It your own personal drama that you created.

Stop Hating Sign

An example is when you traverse, (I like the word traverse) the world thinking you are ‘ugly’, ‘fat’, ‘stupid’, ‘not enough’, then you will begin to set up the resonance in your energy field that you are all those things, the result of this is you will now attract people and events that mirror your thoughts.  You will begin to hear, see and experience those thoughts all around you.  Wah!  As you begin to clean up that energy and shift it to being ‘attractive’, ‘smart’ (you can learn) and ‘enough’, the universe will begin to reflect back at you.  You have recreated and now this becomes your truth.  Whatever you believe be it negative or positive, that is your word and that is what you have now created in your world.

 

Practice holding in your mind and heart a higher vision of yourself, releasing all those things that are negative and shut you down.  Replace them with positive thoughts that open up your heart.  The experience might be scary at first and feel uncomfortable, but the more you practice, like any skill, the better you will become.  Your world will become light, bright and you will be happier.  When you begin to generate higher thoughts about yourself that you are beautiful, powerful and you have enough of what you need, you will see those thoughts reflected back at you. You will see and experience abundance in your world.

 

Consequently, there is no such thing as a hater.  Remember the hater is really you turned in on yourself.

Write a description of your life as you see it and as it is today.

Find two or more qualities that you do not like about yourself and recreate them into something that you do like.

Then create an action that you would like to take to and generate a positive experience.

Finally, dissolve by sharing it with people you love.

Making Time For Friends

Friends are people you connect with.  They are people who make you feel comfortable enough to  fully share your self.  You become involved with these friends because you’re attracted to their characteristics, energy and personality.  You choose to remain friends with them because you enjoy their company and have a mutually honest and respectful relationship. You trust your friend with your secrets, ideas, thoughts and feelings.  You feel secure with these people you call friends.

Friends together
Powerful friendships allow you to give and receive.  They allow you a place to express and share your common interests and find new ones together.  Good friendships allow you to develop your self, obtain new skills and learn to relate.  The power from these kinds of friendships is that they help to meet your needs for acceptance and let you know you belong.

The company of good friends is a beautiful thing.  However, it can be for some people very difficult to cultivate and maintain.  If you remember back when you were young, making friends was easy.  You were exposed to people your own age who had similar interests and life circumstances – who were available to form friendships and whose only responsibilities were generally homework, hobbies and a few chores.  The supply of friendship and time were abundant and not much mattered.  You had plenty of time to have your friendships develop and blossom naturally.

As we grew and left school, adulthood arrived with its many responsibilities of paying bills, developing careers and looking for mating prospects. Friends started to go in various directions.  Creating and developing new friendships does not appear as abundant as they once were.  When you meet new people you’re compatible with, you have to schedule time to develop the relationship.  However, the general truth according to what people say is that they just do not have enough time.  People are constantly complaining about not having enough time.  However, we are are all apportioned the same amount of time-  24 hours per day.  It all depends on what you do with it.  Do you use it or do you waste and lose it?  Are you so booked and scheduled that you can’t muster the energy to make an invitation for lunch?  Are your lunch breaks usually booked?  Do you barely have time to take lunch cause you’re running errands or working at your desk through lunch?

friends arm in arm

Like anything you have to commit.  I have clients who are constantly telling me that they don’t have any friends and they have a hard time making new friends. However, after working with me, you discover that as you begin to align time with your priorities, your opportunities for friendship increase.  You will discover that you are the one who has to decide who you’re going to be friends with.

Trust is one of the issues that people who do not have friends are always concerned about.  However the lack of trust, I have discovered, is internal.  When self trust is developed, you start to give trust differently.  If it is friends and relationship that you want to develop, then you have to start taking risks and being approachable.

Here are some questions that I ask my clients:

What do you want in a friendship?  On a scale of one to ten, how satisfied are you without friendships?
What do you believe that having friends would add to your life?
What actions do you take that allow you to meet and make new friends?
What do you do that keep friends away?
What do you do that pollutes your friendship?
If you were to transform and deepen your friendships what would that be like?

Stop Reliving Your Past, Live In The NOW

How Do You Feel


When you think of a bad experience that happened in your past, do you notice how you feel it in the present moment? It feels like it is happening right now.  You feel right now the way you felt when the situation happened, you feel the same sadness and upset.  We rarely focus on the good things that happen, but we can always in a pinch, think of the sad and soul robbing situations.  Do you think that sad or upsetting situation is of any benefit to you?  All this past experience does is make you remember and feel pain.  Does dredging up the past stop you from experiencing it again? Well it can, if you use it as a learning experience.  But it you don’t, it will be an experience that remains painful.  It will be like an instant replay, going around and around in your head, making you into a victim that still feels powerless.

Picture of worried woman

Stop Being A Victim


So if you want to continue to feel sorry for yourself and behave as though you are a victim, by all means go ahead.  But, as a Personal Life Coach in the area of Confidence and Self Esteem, I can tell you that you will continue the vicious cycle of pain with no real personal growth, but the choice is up to you.
If you are willing to stop and see what you have learned from this experience you will never have to bring that experience back into your life.  You will learn where you did not take responsibility for yourself, and where you did not truly value your self-worth.  Once you see the lesson, you can give yourself the pleasure of developing character traits that will have you end the replay, enabling you to go forward in your life.

Stop Living As Other People See You

Many people were raised by parents and experienced family members that have a tremendous amount of warranted, and unwarranted complaints, or just plain disdain for them.  But stop for one second and have a look at your life.  Look at the obstacles that you have overcome.  Look at the strengths that you have developed.  We use resistance training to develop our bodies.  Maybe your parents and family members were your resistance, enabling you to develop something within you.  If only you could reflect a minute longer in the positive and look at your life in the now instead of the past, you can see the greatness that resides within you.  If you could step out of the pain and own into your power, you would no longer need to introduce yourself as your past.

Picture of Worried Woman
Case study:

A female professional who worked hard, is extremely smart, and a risk taker despite her external conversations about fear.
Past:  She did not have this or that. She was not loved and lost family members.  She had only her basic needs met as child.
Present day:  On meeting this woman, I had to hear what she went through as a child; what she experienced with the tears and the upset, how she suffered, etc.  She was a victim and decades later she is still a victim.
Actuality:  She is successful in her current career, has impeccable taste in clothes and all things beautiful, and very well put together. She is very loving, but also very defensive, and has difficulty receiving.
Being so entrenched in her past she cannot see her present situation, neither can she see her future.  The thing about the past is that when you are unhealthy regarding your past, you will fight tooth and nail to keep yourself stuck in it.

What You Can Do

If you are experiencing issues from your past, commit to working on being devoted to giving it up and changing direction in your life by being present and thinking differently.  You have a habit.  You are familiar, secure and comfortable with the tears from being upset and angry.   Try on a new coat by giving it up NOW! Keep in mind that if you want it back, it is only a thought away.

 

The moment you realize that you are not your past, you begin to have a past, and learn that life exists in the present moment.  Life gets created in the present and we are always living in the now.  Two minutes from now is the now.  Two days from now will be the now, two years from now will be the now.  We are always in the now, going to into the future and looking at the past from the now.  So place yourself firmly in the now and create NOW!

 
spy sms android

Be About Expansion

In times when the market is down, all we hear about is how to cut back.  My neighbor, an attorney, says that his job is slow, while another friend says “thank God I have other things to do.”  All around me I hear that times are tough and we all need to cut back. But my friend, a market researcher, is expanding and creating other opportunities.  Instead of cutting back and holding on to every cent like it is the last she will make, she is taking her time and energy and putting it into a new enterprise.

I know that many people can relate to cutting back.  However, how do you cut back on the things that are important to you?  There’s a misconception that cutting your expenses equals saving money. While cutting expenses provides you with a great opportunity to save money, you need to take an additional step to actually make the savings work.

I have recently had a lot of conversations with people who are stressing out about the economical situation.  However, when asked how the stock market has affected them, they actually do not know.  Yes, the stock market has affected us all.  My portfolio has decreased significantly.  However, there are opportunities available.

Now that you have cut back on your expenses and you have that extra money, what steps are you going to take now?  What happens is that many people cut their expenses, then take the money and place it somewhere else other then paying off debt or in putting it in savings.  Most people make a savings in one area, and spend extra in another area, so the saving never materializes.

How can you know if you are saving or losing if you have no idea what your expenses actually are?  As a coach, I have clients who are always looking for opportunities to save money.  However, they have no idea how much money they spend.  They do not have a budget; they do not know what their expenses are. They are afraid to look at their credit report so they assume the worse.

Be Expansion- look for other opportunities, look at your skills, look at things that you are good at: Can you sell them? What do you enjoy doing, can it become a service?  Do not fall into parroting, e.g. people are not hiring, people are not buying, assuming that people do not want and have stopped spending money.  There are people who are not as affected by this economical situation.  People’s houses still have to be cleaned, people still have to eat, children and the elderly still have to be watched, people still want to look good.  Find out what your thing is and create opportunities to get it done.  In NYC, people have created clothes swaps to remain in fashion, offer your services to coordinate clothes swapping parties.    There are a lot of creative opportunities out there, change you conversation about cutting back and create a conversation about expansion.
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The Art of Manipulation

Have you ever had a friend that just severs ties with you and you don’t know why? 

 

Well, I have.  This was a person that I had known for nearly 20 years.  I considered our relationship to be one that was exceedingly valuable.  It was a friendship filled with fun, laughter and travel.  Even though there were significant differences in each of us, I accepted our friendship for what it was.  I loved to talk; my friend was more of a listener.  I loved to do and take action; my friend would rather leave things alone. I bought things that I loved; my friend bought things based on economical value.  I am a communicator; she left things unsaid. I cleared things up and got on with the business of life; she kept malice.  I know that no two people can ever be alike, not even siblings, so to expect any more of my friendship with her was based on clarity up until our friendship ended.

Photo by woodleywonderworks
Photo by woodleywonderworks

During my friendship, I never judged her; I accepted her and our differences.  Then one day I called her and she did not return my call.  It remained unreturned for one day, which turned into weeks, then turned into months, and now has turned into years.  The fact that she didn’t return my call or contact me still concerns me.  During that time I sent her emails, and I continued to call her worried that something was wrong.  Never once did she pick up the phone and call me.  This type of behavior is selfish and just plain wrong; it is called Manipulation.

 

Manipulation is a very sneaky and cowardly way of behaving.  It is a very disempowering way of being. The manipulator appears to have the upper hand because the person they are trying to victimize has no idea what is going on with them.  It is a way of controlling situations where you clearly do not have any power.  Powerful people state what is going on with them clearly and precisely, they do not feel the need to control or use manipulation as a way ending relationships.

 

Little did I know that my friend had malice toward me, and was using her manipulation to control this one sided situation.  An adult who has strong boundaries and a good sense of esteem allows a person to know that they have been offended or had a boundary broken. A confident person will not have another person going around in confusion, not knowing what it is they have done. With regard to my friend, how was I ever to know what it was that I was supposed to have done to warrant being banished? I was never told.

 

For me, it is not only the loss of the relationship that was upsetting, sad and disappointing, it is also not knowing what it was that I had done;  the incompletion of the end.

 

Today, six and a half years later, I am still in the place where I have no idea what I have done.  This is the kind of non-communicational manipulation that destroys numerous people, leaving them afraid to develop relationships and trust people.  Today, six and a half years later, I am not upset or disappointed for the loss of the relationship.  I now know that these were my expectations not hers.  So, I have given up my disillusionment.

 

Friends have disagreements.  It is important to share what it is you want or don’t want.  It is important that you share with others when you feel that you have been offended in some way or if you have caused some kind of upset, to be able to share in a way that will help clear the upset and help you remain in a positive friendship.  If the relationship should crash and burn, at least both parties will not be left in the dark.  They can agree to disagree and part amicably.

 

Take responsibility for your actions; take responsibility for your upsets.

 

People have feelings and even if you do not value the relationship, stop for a minute and know that it takes two to have a valuable relationship and maybe your friend values this relationship even if you do not. To be in communication within a friendship is learning to accept your friend for all they are and all they are not.  These steps are the makings of great friendships.

Mind Your own Business

Each and every one of us was put on this earth to do something. 

 

It does not have to be saving the earth, you don’t have to find a cure; you have to know what it is you want for yourself and your life.  So it is your birth right and duty to get on with it. Many people are afraid to do what they desire to do.   They believe happiness is measured by a percentage of about 75-90%.  They are afraid of what people will think of them. The have no idea of what their life could look like if they had the whole 100% that they are seeking. So they live their lives doing what they think their friends and families want them to so.   They do things to please other people and neglect themselves.  They have careers they don’t want and are miserable with the other 10%.  It’s none of your business what people think of you.  Do what you want and just  be happy.   Stand strong, self-validate and commit to being a contribution to someone of something.  Your happiness will be fulfilled. 

 

Discovery

 

What I have discovered is that most people want to make a contribution to others.  It is always described as, I want to help people.  I want to teach people and I want to make people happy. It is always for other people.  It is important that we understand that we share.  In order to share, we have to have.  So to give happy, you have happy, so you share happy.  The next thing that happens after a declaration is the fear of what people will think of them.   They start to worry and stress about what they’re afraid of and what people might think about them.  The truth is that people think all sorts of things and very few of those thoughts will be about you.

 

Sitting & Listening

 

I had the pleasure of sitting for an artist who is unbelievable and exciting.  This artist a woman who is in her sixties, she paints men and women in the nude. Being painted in the nude is the epitome of full disclosure.  This extremely talented woman, this artist was being very unhappy, unproductive and stuck. I listened to her talk about her life and her art; her life sounded like a very exciting life. She spoke of herself as a woman that had marched to her own drum, lived a life filled with passion and pleasure and has made a contribution with her art healing people and freeing them of their self loathing issues, cause by various negative experiences.  As she cleared how she was feeling, she was able to discover that her unhappiness was caused by her belief.  That belief was what a friend and colleague had said about her.  This colleague was someone who she had respected.  Basically, she was not allowing this person to have an opinion.  She started to believe what he said was true.

In a moment, this woman, like many people, was killing herself off.  She was not being an artist, she was not being successful, and she was not being vibrant.  She was doubtful, fearful, believing in scarcity, and not minding her own business.  By not minding her own business, she was minding the business of her friend that she had allowed to hex her.  This hexing had had ripped the passion out of her life and was robbing her of her vibrancy on a moment to moment basis.  She felt that she could not paint – that her creativity had gone.  She was lost and slowly going into energy bankruptcy as well as a financial bankruptcy.  How can a woman that had had a vibrant life all of a sudden have a sense of loss and lose her creativity?  Well, when you do not mind your business closely, you allow other peoples thoughts and opinions to rob you of your passion.  If hexing someone was a crime, then many people would be found guilty.

 

You don’t want people you love and respect to say anything to you that appears negative.  However, people just like you have the right to say anything they want and you have the right to listen or not.  Where you get caught and hooked is you that you make what they say mean something.  Simple example:  Person A says: I don’t like that painting.  You make it mean:  I am not a good artist, I can’t create and it goes on and on.  So now you walk around with that belief. I am not a good artist, I can’t paint and I have no creativity and no one will buy your work. It belief gets bigger and bigger and you in turn get smaller and smaller, you begin to feel insecure, and shut down.

 

It is important to learn that what people say is none of your business. 

 

Your business is your life, your thoughts about you.  It is important that you remain positive and understand that these sorts of statements are not personal to you.   That is what happened with this woman.  She forgot who or what she was up to in her life.  She forgot that art inspired her life and the life of the people who bought her art.  She forgot that she had a mission her in her world and that and only that was her business.

 

When we learn that it is none of your business what others say or think about you.  You can say thank you for your opinion and mean it.  Your life expands and you go back to the business of fulfilling our life mission.
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