You need that other people love and admire you but you are still able to be critical towards yourself.
Although you have a few weaknesses in your character, you are generally able to balance them.
– You have considerable capacities that you did not used yet to your advantage. – Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic. – Outside disciplined and exercising self-control, you tend inside to be anxious and uncertain. – Sometimes you even have serious doubts if you made the right decision. – You prefer a little change and variety and are unhappy when you are stuck within restrictions or limitations.
– Sometimes you are extroverted, talkative and sociable, while in other times you are introverted, cautious and reserved. – You are also proud of yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept the statements of others without satisfactory proofs. You consider unwise to be too frank by revealing yourself to others.
Good collective effort Greenwave and Stormclouds! We are conformists because in reality, our DNA carries a cooperative gene, rather than a competitive one. We WANT to help each other! We are taught to compete rather than cooperate. No wonder so many people are unhappy. AND, we aren’t advanced enough to have this many people on Earth. Hence, resource wars.
If you were drunk or addicted to something or mentally aberrational, could you recognize that your behavior was different? Do you know what makes you cry or what makes you angry? Unless emotions are intensely experienced, many people find difficulty in describing or relating to their feelings. They sometimes even deny experiencing the emotions of love, fear, anger or pleasure, because of the lack of conscious awareness of such emotions. People may even feign love or pleasure to cover up unhappiness and low self-esteem.
Some obese people are unable to tell the difference between being fearful, angry or hungry, and so they lump all those feelings together as hunger. Then they feel better about themselves by eating.
The hunger for food and sex also gets confused in some people, whereby food is then used to gratify sexual frustrations.
Sexually promiscuous people sometimes cannot distinguish between lust, compassion, sorrow, gratitude, kindness — and love!
When you practice identifying your emotional states as they happen in your life, you learn how better to manage them. You also learn how to honestly know yourself better as well.
As an exercise with a partner, begin by identifying how you feel sitting in front of him (her). Are you excited, perplexed, pleased, enthusiastic, curious, embarrassed, confident, bored, elated, sad, happy, frightened, confused, aroused or what? Probe yourself, be honest and identify your emotions to your partner. Since your emotions
are often only temporarily acknowledged, you may only have momentary glimpses of feelings as they pass through your mind. Consciously observe, tune into and identify your emotions as they pass, and relate them to your partner. Afterwards, reverse the roles, and let your partner do the same with you. By consciously identifying your emotional states, you begin using more of your upper brain regions involving mindful behavior.
As another exercise, bring your conscious attention to a primary emotion you have been experiencing recently in your life, and identify this feeling to your partner.
Where in your body do you feel it? Is there any discomfort or any pleasantness in your abdomen or chest area? Tune into any subtle changes that are happening in your mind or body. What other emotions do you find connected to it? Identify all of these to your partner. Then reverse the roles, and let your partner do the same with you.
By identifying your emotions honestly to your partner, a close friendliness often develops that ordinarily would not be experienced with superficial conversation.
If you practice identifying your emotions to yourself and others often, there will be much more emotional clarity and integrity in your life, and your friendships will be based on genuine feelings rather than false pretenses. Not surprisingly, a self-healing process often results due to this more complete usage of the brain.
After you get good at consciously identifying your various emotional states, you can practice using those emotions that make you feel good about yourself over those that are self-destructive before beginning a considered action. You can even visualize doing an action first, and study how you feel before you actually do it. Experiencing
better emotions can improve your learning potential, your intelligence, your job performance, your interpersonal relationships as well as your physical health. By clarifying and identifying the emotional experiences that really make you feel good inside, you can better determine what you really want or desire as important in your life. The next time you experience a particular exceptional feeling, take the time to be mindful of it so you can remember it better and reproduce the feeling later when you want. Explore how your inner self is reacting to it. After a conversation or after
reading a novel or after seeing a movie, get into and identify mindfully whatever emotions you feel. By doing this frequently, you’ll be able to reexperience favorable emotional states more easily in the future while avoiding unfavorable ones.
Many thought processes and the emotions connected to them are often unconsciously replayed over and over throughout the day and even throughout the night, and are directly responsible for your daily moods and behavior. You can change this unconscious inner movie with a consciously directed movie of your own.
As an exercise, create right now a positive movie of your past experiences involving courage, confidence, happiness, unconditional love, compassion, forgiveness, appreciation and enthusiasm to play over in your mind. (If you have trouble remembering such experiences, create instead a fantasy movie of where you would like to be or how you would like to be treated by some special fantasy person.)
Briefly jot down the main points of those experiences in a notebook if necessary. Recognize and tune into the good feelings you are experiencing so that you can recreate those feelings whenever you need them in the future. Later, you should immediately use this inner movie to switch from any negative state, like guilt, depression, sadness, fear, anger, lust, worry, etc. You can also replay this movie just before retiring at night, and again just upon arising in the morning to positively jump start your day. By getting into past positive, emotional experiences and reliving them often, you can enhance the expression of those emotions in the present moment.
Remember, you have the power to choose your state of mind to anything you wish.
These days we hear a great deal about coaching. And what is it really?
We are certainly familiar with the idea of a sports or an acting coach – prepares/encourages an athlete or actor to perform at the top of his/her game/profession. This is the basic premise of other forms of coaching as well. Today there are coaches for all sorts of activities – career, business, relationships, communication, health, life, etc. These coaches encourage a person to set and achieve desired outcomes while identifying and seeing beyond their perceived limitations.
A critical on-going activity for the coach is creating a safe and supportive environment within which the client can identify and achieve a desired outcome. Once a desired outcome is identified, the coach assists the client to:
Identify limiting beliefs, conflicting values or thought processes that hold him/her back.
Explore ways and means to address these obstacles and to see and experience the world differently.
Align his/her internal resources (power of the mind) with his/her external resources (finances, networks, communication skills, etc.) to reach this desired outcome. It is when we align our internal and external resources that we have the greatest potential to achieve our desires in life.
Prepare a strategy or workplan to achieve the desired outcome.
Stay the course. The coach reviews progress and serves as a sounding board as the client makes progress towards or modifies his/her desired outcome.
Distinguishing Between Coaching and Other Activities
To distinguish between coaching and other activities, consider the following generalizations – realize there are overlaps between all of them:
Coaching is the process of assisting clients to identify and align their inner and outer resources by creating a safe and supportive environment, precision questioning and appropriately contexted feedback.
Mentoring is the process of providing guidance and sharing of expertise/experiences. A mentor may or may not have received training in how to transfer his/her knowledge.
Training is the process of informing and transferring information, knowledge and skills.
Counseling/Therapy is the process of healing and addressing issues from the past that are having an impact in the present and potentially the future.
Consulting is the process of providing advice and solutions based on expertise in the area.
Everyone of Us is a Coach
Whether you are a friend, son, daughter, parent, manager, co-worker, professional in the helping professions, …, you are coaching others on a regular basis. Sometimes your coaching is well-received, other times not. What’s missing? Could you be a better coach?
How You Give Your Power Away (Steve Pavlina)
One of the themes that repeatedly came up at the last Conscious Growth Workshop was the problem of giving your power away. Instead of focusing on your true desires, you erect false structures in front of your desires and then feed your power to those structures as a delay tactic.
Here are some typical scenarios of how people give away their power in different areas of their lives:
Relationships
Let’s say that your true desire is to be in love. You want a relationship with someone special. You want someone that you can smooch, cuddle, play with, and make love to. You want to be with someone who totally loves you just the way you are.
But instead of focusing your power on creating that, here’s what you do instead. You decide that before you can attract a new relationship, you need to get into better physical condition first. You have to “fix” your diet and hit the gym for a while. You need to lose some weight.
Or maybe you decide that in order to be more attractive, you need to get your career on track first. Maybe upgrade your finances a bit.
Or maybe you hold yourself stuck in a relationship that isn’t what you want, one that will never become what you truly, deeply desire. That relationship serves as a convenient block to keep your true desires out of reach.
The basic pattern is that you decide something else has to happen first before you can attract the relationship you truly desire. However, those extra steps you add to the process are not absolute prerequisites for your desire. You’re using them as excuses, creating unnecessary roadblocks to delay yourself from receiving what you want in the present moment. You push your goal into an imaginary future instead of allowing it to come to you right now.
Career
Suppose your true desire is to do work that fulfills and inspires you. And you want to do it in a way that’s practical, grounded, and financially sustainable. You want to make a positive difference in the world. You want to contribute and to feel good about it. You want to feel passionate and motivated while working. You want to express your creativity and enjoy positive, worthy challenges.
But instead of using your power to create that, you stick with unfulfilling work to make ends meet. You feed your power to your bills, as if those small pieces of paper somehow control your destiny for the near future (which includes ALL of your present reality). You use your bills as artificial barriers to delay you from experiencing what you actually desire. Do you realize how stupid that is?
Alternatively, you might feed your power to a vision of building a new business that you believe can make you a lot of money. Once you achieve a certain degree of financial abundance, you tell yourself, then you can use your wealth to finally have some breathing room to figure out your purpose, do what you love, and make a real contribution. Step 1: Become a worthy millionaire. Step 2: Do something more rewarding and fulfilling.
I often see very bright young people obsessing over grand plans for a career path they believe will make them rich. When they tell me their plans, I usually get nauseous. Most of the time their plans are heartless. Stupid MLM crap is common, not to mention lots of ideas for me-too Internet businesses that don’t really need to exist. The whole scheme is centered around trying to make as much money as possible, so they can eventually cash out and later do what they love and make a difference. They feed their power to these false plans as a delay tactic, so they can avoid summoning the courage to start making a difference right now. It’s a cowardly ploy, a classic case of giving one’s power away.
Social Life
Suppose your true desire is to be surrounded by friends and family that uplift, encourage, and support you. You want to be around like-minded people who are smart, fun, and happy. You want to hang out with people who empower you.
But instead using your power to create that, you feed it into your existing disempowering relationships. You obsess over what others think about you, people who really don’t encourage you to be your best self anyway. You worry about what your Mom thinks about you. By clinging to disempowering relationships of any kind, including blood relationships, you block yourself from receiving what you truly desire. Seriously… who the hell cares what your Mom thinks anyway? Let her live her own life. You go live yours.
Alternatively, you may feed your power into relationships with your TV or your computer instead of real face-to-face connections with human beings.
Again, the pattern is giving your power away to something you don’t even want as opposed to channeling all of your power into what you desire. When you feed your desires, you simultaneously starve your non-desires. If your Mom keeps sending you critical emails that bring you down, simply flag her email address as a spammer and be done with her. Then go out and recruit fresh social connections with people who are willing to support and encourage you along the paths you wish to explore. Be loyal to those who are supportive of your desires, not to those who do the opposite.
Stop Creating False Prerequisites
The idea of feeding your power to your desires is incredibly simple. All you need to do is decide what you want and then focus your thoughts, feelings, and actions on those desires. Identify your desires and then run straight at them. Be totally shameless about it. Intellectually this is not a difficult concept to understand, is it?
Please take note that moving directly towards your desires is not remotely the same as erecting all sorts of silly prerequisites in the way of your desires.
Sure some goals involve multiple steps, but let’s get real for a moment. Are your plans clogged with steps that are not absolute prerequisites for getting what you ultimately desire?
Losing weight and getting in shape are not prerequisites for attracting a deeply loving relationship with someone you’re incredibly attracted to. This is not even close to being true. If you need proof, simply go outside and look around for a bit. This line of thinking is nothing but a silly limiting belief. If you want to attract a wonderful relationship, you can begin feeding your power to that right now in this very moment. There is no need to block it. Nothing else needs to happen first.
Making millions of dollars is not a prerequisite for doing what you love and fulfilling your life purpose. Nor is having all your bills paid. Nor is being debt-free. You can start doing what you love today. Nothing else needs to happen first. Imagine if Gandhi or Mother Teresa or Jesus said, “I really need to find a way to make millions of dollars. If I only had enough money, I’m sure I could get something going here.” Maybe you should follow their lead and stop trying to use money as a substitute for real power and courage.
Improving all your broken, disempowering relationships is not a prerequisite for attracting an amazing social life. Your social skills don’t need to be upgraded either. You can simply let go of the dysfunctional relationships and immediately begin feeding your power to create the social life you desire. Nothing else needs to happen first.
The Connection Between the Unconscious Mind and the Body (Tad James)
The doorway to success in hypnosis is the Unconscious Mind.
Your Unconscious Mind not only holds information that is outside your consciousness, but it also manages sensations and body functions.
A moment before reading this sentence, you probably were not aware of the feeling of your feet against the floor, or your back against the chair. You have sensations coming to your body all the time, but you remain unaware of most of them. In addition to managing all these sensations, your Unconscious Mind keeps your heart beating, your blood circulating, your digestion working, and your lymph system operating.. . and makes your eyes blink without your conscious awareness.
Your brain receives input through your five senses.
See
Hear
Feel
Taste
Smell
Whenever you ‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘feel’, ‘taste’, and ‘smell’ something (stimuli), it enters your nervous system as an electrical impulse through a neuron (nerve cell). Once the electrical message reaches the end of the neuron (called a synapse) the electrical impulse/message converts into a biochemical (called a neurotransmitter). Then, this chemical message is converted back into an electrical impulse/message when it reaches the next neuron. This process repeats itself over and over until the message reaches the brain and is acted upon.
In reality you have an electrochemical nervous system. As the chemicals change, the messages change and your brain’s performance varies accordingly. When you are positive and operating on instinct, your brain, metaphorically, runs on super high-octane chemicals. Your performance excels and you feel at your best.
It is important to realize that your electrochemical nervous system is an alternating electrical current that generates an electromagnetic field, which is infinite in nature. The strength and quality of your electromagnetic field is felt by those around you. As your awareness increases you will realize that you can’t hide your feelings from those you interact with and they can’t hide theirs from you. That’s why you have good chemistry with people you enjoy being with and bad chemistry with those that you don’t.
What is even more important to realize is that the electromagnetic field that your thoughts create cause attractor fields which affect your life and happiness. We will talk more about the importance and power of the electromagnetic fields your thoughts generate in this chapter and in Chapter 6: Cause and Effect — Attractor Fields.
You can increase your natural abilities and happiness by consciously adjusting the chemistry of your brain’s cranial fluid. This fluid is affected by your thoughts, diet/nutrition, exercise, rest, environment and physiology…..
It is critical to conceptually understand that your brain actually secretes chemicals corresponding to your positive and negative thoughts. The resulting chemistry of your brain’s cranial fluid influences all of your natural abilities and functions. This, in turn, determines how well you perform in everything you do because your brain is like a powerful computer.
The power and efficiency of your wonderful personal computer can be increased dramatically by optimizing the chemistry of your brain’s cranial fluid. This fact is very easy to demonstrate in the world of sports with athletic performance because of the mind/body connection. …
For example, do you know the chemical composition of the gasoline that powers your automobile or how the engine in your car works? You know that if you turn on the key and step on the gas pedal, your car runs. If not, you take it to a mechanic to have it fixed. You know that if you put water in the gas tank, your car will not run. It is not necessary for you to become a chemist or a mechanic to drive your car, as long as you understand the basic principles. It may be nice to know the details, but unless you want to be a chemist or a mechanic is it worth the time to learn?
The same is true of your electrochemical nervous system. It may be interesting to know the details. …
Your mind and body function together. Athletes live and die by the performance of their bodies. From their own personal experiences, they easily relate to the concept that their negative thoughts cause their brain to secrete chemicals that immediately impair their performance. This awareness helps them to be more objective and positive when dealing with challenges. It helps them to control their emotions and increase their performance.
A good metaphor to help you understand the influence of your brain’s chemistry on your performance is a fine-tuned racing engine. Those engines, designed to run on super high-octane gasoline, sputter when using regular gasoline.
This is similar to what happens when you are negative. You put low- octane chemicals in your brain, causing your performance to suffer. When you are positive and operating on instinct, your brain, metaphorically, secretes super high-octane chemicals and your ability to perform excels as you enter the “zone.”
The Greeting (Nicholas Boothman “How to make people like you…”)
We call the first few seconds of contact the "greeting." Greetings are broken into five parts: Open—Eye—Beam—Hi!—Lean. These five actions constitute a welcoming
program to carry out in a first encounter.
Open. The first part of the greeting is to open your attitude and your body. For this to work successfully, you must have already decided on a positive attitude that's right for you. This is the time to really feel and be aware of it.
Check to see that your body language is open. If you have the right attitude, this should take care of itself. Keep your heart aimed directly at the person you're meeting. Don't cover your heart with your hands or arms and, when possible, unbutton your jacket or coat.
Eye. The second part of the greeting involves your eyes. Be first with eye contact. Look this new person directly in the eye. Let your eyes reflect your positive attitude. To state the obvious: eye contact is real contact!
Get used to really looking at other people's eyes.When you're watching TV one evening, note the eye color of as many people as possible and say the name of the color to yourself. The next day, do the same with every person you meet, looking him or her straight in the eye.
Beam. This part is closely related to eye contact.
Beam! Be the first to smile. Let your smile reflect your attitude. Now you've gained the other person's attention through your open body language, your eye contact and your beaming smile. What that person is picking up subconsciously is an impression not of some grinning,
gawking fool (though you may briefly fear you look like one!) but of someone who is completely sincere.
Hi! Whether it's "Hi!" or "Hello!" or even "Yo!" say it with pleasing tonality and attach your own name to it ("Hi! I'm Naomi"). As with the smile and the eye contact, be the first to identify yourself. It is at this point, and within only a few seconds, that you are in a position to
gather tons of free information about the person you're meeting—information you can put to good use later in your conversation.
Take the lead. Extend your hand to the other person, and if it's convenient find a way to say his or her name two or three times to help fix it in memory. Not "Glenda, Glenda, Glenda, nice to meet you" but "Glenda. Great to meet you, Glenda!" As you'll see in Chapter 7, this will be followed by your "occasion/location statement."
Lean. The final part of introducing yourself is the "lean." This action can be an almost imperceptible forward tilt to very subtly indicate your interest and openness
as you begin to "synchronize" the person you've just met.