Archive for September, 2009
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
 It is empowering to feel clarity and excitement about experiencing what you want in life. When you feel that you know what you want, and you’ve taken the necessary inspired action to materialize it, chances are you feel pretty good inside.
It certainly appears to me that at the heart of the matter what everybody is searching for is happiness and inner peace. These two can only come from the inside out, and they are companions of love.
Not the Hollywood version of love, or the dysfunctional/co-dependent “I can’t live without you” kind of love. I’m referring to the kind of love that is the rock of power, the Love that come from your core, your Spirit and it never fails.
As long as you stay distracted by externals, via the media or by looking for love in all the wrong places, you will never find the inner peace and power that is your birthright and is waiting for you to turn within. As long as you do not go within, you will go with out (external) and you will live without the sense of empowerment that is deep down inside, that you sense is possible.
Happiness is not a person place or thing.
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Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Happiness, Purpose, Self-Esteem
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Sunday, September 27th, 2009
 Self-esteem, or your sense of self-worth, will affect your experience of life on every level. It is fundamental in forming your level of what you expect to receive in life in every area of your life, from relationships, to finances. It is not to be taken lightly. One way that we get hooked into feeling of low self-esteem is when we associate what we DO with who we ARE.
What we do, the actions that we take, the “mistakes” that we make or the roles that we play strictly speaking does not define who you are at your core, your essential nature. This is very, very important for when you define your self-esteem by your roles, or your degrees, how much money you have or your outer appearance, you are subject to so much fluctuation and fluidity that inner peace will be virtually impossible.
In general, up until now, very few people were aware that what we think is not the same as who we are. These people, whose writings you can find in historical records, were aware that “as a man/woman thinks in his/her heart, so is he/she”. Heart referred to the feeling nature, for you do not really believe something unless you feel it in your body.
However, with the advent of the Internet, new findings in neuroscience, and a rise in conscious awareness, there are increasing signs that the tide is turning. With so much fear and chaos going on, those who refuse to give up and instead open their minds to change, are now more readily than ever able to do so. Once you can begin to grasp the concept that YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS, and that your intrinsic value exceeds your human experiences, you can begin to release the old habitual thinking patterns that hold you back.
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Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
 Your reality is relative – did you realize this? Science clearly shows that “reality” begins on the inside of us based on our own personal perception or way that we see life, beliefs and experiences. Have you ever heard someone say, “You need to face reality”? I have to ask, “whose reality”.
You see, your reality is not my reality. We view the world through different eyes, through different lenses. This is very relevant at this time in our history. Right now, I’m hearing a lot of fear messages being generated over the airways and occasionally I’ll bump into someone who talks about doom and gloom – I quickly excuse myself from the conversation and move on.
This does not mean that I do not notice that Wall Street has tumbled, the health care system needs to call 911 (I practiced medicine for over 20 years after all, I was an insider), the housing industry is generally in quicksand, and the workplace is shifting rapidly. Yes, I do live on this planet and I live in Chicago.
However, from my perspective, these are not doom and gloom times at all. In fact, I see it as a time of opportunity to wake up and shake up any of my old paradigms that may be holding me back from living a life I truly love. Because I have chosen to adapt instead of trying to hang on to a dying dinosaur, I feel like I was born for “such a time as this”.
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Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Neuroscience, Self-Esteem
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Monday, September 21st, 2009
 Empowerment is just that – power within. It is about coming from your authentic Self and being willing to live the creative life that you are born to lead. Confidence that comes from this center is as about as unshakable as one can find in this human experience.
Confidence is not about acting as if; it is being, knowing who you really are. With this type of core confidence comes living with ease and grace instead of worrying about what everyone else is thinking about you. So, who do you think you are?
Generally whatever most people come up with, I call the “Mental Me”. The Mental Me is the story of who you think you are. There is an area of the brain that records “autobiographical memory”, the story of who you think you are. Interesting. Am I saying that the stories of our lives are made up? Essentially, yes, it is what you remember it to be and memory is formed with thought plus the emotional charge attached to it, which forms feelings. Feelings are hanging out in your body, memory hidden at a cellular level.
The ego is another name for the Mental Me. Ego is not the enemy; it allows us to have a sense of identity. If you live in a human body, in order to be a social being, you need to be identifiable, right? Also, you have unique gifts and talents that need human expression, correct? Then we need this ego to play the game of life.
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Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Self-Esteem, Self-Mastery
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Friday, September 18th, 2009
 Confidence as a survival skill is being called upon in our changing world in more ways than one. With all of the change in the work place, it is estimated that the largest area of job growth will be in the arena of small business and entrepreneurship.
I have always been an entrepreneur for my entire adult career and I can tell you that it will either build your confidence, or you will ultimately sink. It does not matter what your IQ is.
In fact, I’ve seen people with highly respected PhDs and MDs freeze like a doe in the headlight when it comes to getting out into the “real world” on their own and leaving behind the predictable world of academia or corporate America.
I recently heard that the dental department at the University of Chicago shut down and released all of their staff to the wind. They will have to either find new jobs, or start a new business or change professions. Either way, it will be a scary proposition if change is not easily dealt with.
Change can certainly be scary, but the key is not to run from the fear. Feel the fear and “do it anyway”. Granted this pep talk can be easier said than done. However, by learning new information on how your mind and brain really works, getting coaching and using tools that help you to release the negative conditioning that keeps you boxed in and playing small, you can rise to the occasion of our changing times.
Tags: Career Transition, Confidence, Empowerment, Self-Esteem, Self-Mastery
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Monday, September 14th, 2009
 Empowerment is a key to developing the confidence to live a life that is fulfilling and happy. The way that we assemble our memory is based on our perception.
Our memories are our stories stored in our bodies at a cellular level. There was a story online in Live Science, June 26, 2009, by Clara Moskowitz, (Photo courtesy this site) entitled “First Image of Memory Being Made” (Click Here Live Science)
In this article is a photo of the imaging of the chemical reaction of memories being made at the cellular level in the body.
The way you remember something is based on how you viewed yourself in relating to the facts of the event at the time. Based on these emotions, a given set of feeling “chemicals” are made and stored in your body’s cells.
Now remember, thoughts and feelings are ultimately electromagnetic energy. Here’s the take home to begin to empower yourself – YOU, the real essence of you, your spirit – is not the story, the memory that you recall and “Re-Member” every time you put that old story together again (Get it? Re-member; to put together again).
I used to ruminate over all of the “you done me wrong” stories that I wired into my brain which created a sense of victim consciousness in me. I used to create guilt stories, shame stories, angry stories, and occasionally happy stories – all stories however.
The point is, once I began to realize that these memories where ways of looking at my situation at a given point in time and that they were not really ME, I could begin to separate my sense of identity from the stories and reframe the story! I can “Re-Member” them differently, with a new meaning, as a life lesson that empowers me to grow!
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Tags: Brain Research, Confidence, Empowerment, Neuroscience, Personal Transformation, Self-Esteem
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Sunday, September 13th, 2009
 “All the worlds a stage and all the men and women merely players; they have their entrances and exists and one man plays many parts in his time” ~ William Shakespeare
This is one of my all time favorite quotes as it represents how I have come to see life as “human being”. Actually, it is literal in many ways. Science is helping substantiate many areas that only a few short years ago were looked upon with fear and suspicion by many as “woo-woo” or “new age” – both of which were vague and “out there” sort of terms.
Many of the processes that I first started becoming aware of ten years ago I tried based on faith and my inner Guidance. I did not have the kind of inner peace that I knew was possible, even though outwardly, my life appeared successful by most standards. I am actually a very grounded practical person in many ways. I am also very much the visionary risk taker as well.
As I tried new modalities, I began to change. It was scary at first, but now I am certain that once you can learn to trust yourself, expand your sense of connection to the Divine and let go of the need to control everything and everybody, your life can expand and grow beyond what you could have even imagined possible!
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Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Personal Transformation, Self-Esteem
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Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
 Self-esteem, or having a healthy sense of your own value, gets a lot of bad press and there is a lot of controversy around the topic. This seems on the surface baffling to me, as what is the problem with, well, liking yourself?
Where did all of this confusion come from? There are many reasons that I have come across, far too many to mention in a short blog post, but the bottom line conclusion on a practical basis is this: who you think you are and your sense of self-worth affects every single area of your life. If you feel good about yourself and think that you are worthy of the goodness of life you are right.
If you feel bad about yourself and think that you are unworthy of the goodness of life – you are also right. The saying “be is unto to your according to your faith” is a principle of life – period.
Faith is another discussion for another time, but for this blog post, the main thing to remember is that faith and belief come from the heart. It is not just some thought that you glibly recite to impress those around you. When you believe something, you FEEL it.
Getting back to self-esteem I would say that simply self-acceptance is the goal. When you accept yourself, you can have compassion for yourself instead of judging and beating yourself up all day long, and you can have a more open and compassionate heart for others.
Now, acceptance DOES NOT mean condoning or complacency.
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Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Law of Attraction, Self-Esteem, Self-Mastery
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Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
 Empowerment is so elusive for so many people because they do not understand principles are at work all the time – whether you believe it or not! Take the Law of Gravity. You can say you do not believe in the Law, or that you think whatever it is that you think about the law – it does not matter because the bottom line is, if you jump off of your roof, you are going down!
I read an interesting discussion somewhere this week that discussed the issue of forgiveness. In summary, the author was asking the question about whether forgiving someone is necessary or really valid. On the table was also the issue of whether or not forgiveness is even possible. I had the sense that the perspective was, as it is so often, that forgiveness was for the perpetrator, versus the “victim”.
This issue about who is forgiveness for is the point of confusion that leads to the downfall of so many people. Forgiveness as a benefit is NOT for the perpetrator – it is for the person who feels wronged! “What?” you may ask. “How so”?
Forgiveness is of extreme importance for you, the person who feels harmed. Holding a grudge against someone is quite literally like taking poison and expecting the other person to die. When you hold unforgiveness and bitterness in your heart, you are setting yourself up to recycle negative energy in your body at a cellular level.
It has been shown in medical studies, that bitterness and chronically held anger is associated with such diseases as chronic arthritis and cancer, just to name a few. When we self-righteously hold someone else in bondage within our own minds, we poison our own bodies. I say “self-righteous” because if you are past the age of two, you probably have made mistakes somewhere with someone, in some relationship.
Also, this is how “button pushing” gets set up. The very things that we feel like a victim over, we are likely to react vehemently in future similar situations that remind us of our previous wound. Also, have you ever noticed that many self-righteous people often commit the same crimes that they are judging someone else for?
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Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Self-Esteem, Self-Mastery, Spirituality
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