Archive for November, 2009
Monday, November 30th, 2009
 Emotional healing is an idea whose time has come. I believe that it comes none too soon as we move into the instability of our future. Instability is always a reality when you stop and think about it. The “future” is not predictable and there is much mystery to life.
We get into trouble when we start to buy into the idea that we can control everything and start wanting guarantees about what tomorrow holds. As a very young child, I started out in life feeling insecure and not wanted. It had a lot to do with my family position, gender and even religion.
The bottom line is, as a child, I was emotionally immature and had not developed much logic and I was physically smaller than the adults, of course. This is a set up for feeling fearful and setting off the survival instinct in our brains. Between adults who were not aware of the damaging effects of impatient words and the dreadful feelings of rejection, I eventually decided to repress my feelings and emotions.
Of course the adults around me encouraged this, as they did not want to deal with emotion either. The problem is, emotional wounds will hide out in your body until they are released. Emotions are not “bad” or “good”. They are just energy with a given charge or frequency.
The frequency will either match love or fear – simple as that. Love heals while fear steals. We all intuitively know that love feels desirable and fear does not. As long as I repressed my anger, grief, sadness and other pain, they built up in my nervous system and they started to constrict my field of vision for my life as well as to impact my physical heart. It can affect different people in different ways.
Memory is literally stored in your body at the cellular level. In my early twenties, I started to show symptoms and signs of a heart valve problem. However, once I realized that the emotional pain was literally capable of killing me, I began the journey of emotional healing. Not only has my vision expanded for my life, but also my heart is completely healthy. The pain of a “broken heart” can literally translate to heart “dis-ease”. Here are some tips to consider:
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Tags: Confidence, Emotional Healing, Emotional Pain, Empowerment, Happiness, Self-Esteem
Posted in Health | 1 Comment »
Friday, November 27th, 2009
 Empowerment and confidence, I have come to realize is a journey and one that requires that we bring along with us the same three friends that Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz discovered on her journey down the yellow brick road.
I was in a video store today and I had a great “aha” moment that inspired me to write this post. While standing in line I saw a large poster of the Wizard of Oz and the four main characters walking arm-in-arm down the yellow brick road.
Who are these three friends? Think for a moment- who where the three characters that Dorothy met one her path that helped her survive and complete her journey to uncovering her own inner power? Yes, it was the lion (needed courage), the tin man (needed a heart) and the scarecrow (needed a brain).
Recall that when she met them, they were (or thought that they were), missing these traits. By the end of her journey, they had them – and Dorothy realizes by the end of the movie, that that which she was searching for, was “here all along”. Here’s the lesson.
As a society, we have been taught in early childhood, (interesting that this is an early childhood favorite movie) that we need to control and repress our feelings and emotions. In fact we often feel ashamed of having “bad” feelings as an adult and we tend to avoid this pain at all costs!
Yet, if we were taught how to manage our feelings without having guilt and shamed heaped upon us in various ways, we could accept feelings without it turning into explosive drama. We could start out earlier in life befriending feelings and emotions and learning how to integrate this part of our psyche in a healthy manner.
If we did, they would not block up our energy flow and build up pain that causes dis-ease and dysfunction. The fact is, most of us have become so fearful (no lion, no courage) of pain, shame and guilt around the stories that our “autobiographical memory” ego storyteller has created early in life, that we cannot even begin to accept the friend of “heart” (tin man) to begin the journey.
We have no courage and we refuse to look at the heart. We tend to travel the road of life only with the scarecrow (brain, intellect) and wonder why we feel incomplete? We often feel that something is missing. Well, it is! We become numb after years of rejecting the other part of ourselves – heart, or feeling nature!
I have come to realize from living a blocked emotional life for so many years, that once I found courage on my journey, that I was able to accept the companion of feelings/heart, along with my brain/intellect.
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Life Purpose, Self-Esteem
Posted in Empowerment | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
 Health is not something that can be obtained only by exercising, and certainly wishing and hoping that youth can be maintained by the next great anti-oxidant or energy juice is yet another self-deception. I’m all for these things as supplements to the main ingredient for health on a spirit, mind and body level – emotional health.
When we as a society stop conditioning ourselves to run and hide from feelings and emotions, we will really reform health care. In fact, it can finally move from disease care to real health maintenance. Just look at the word “disease”. You can break it down to “dis – ease, or “not at ease”.
This is the source of most of our disease. Stress is a sensation of overwhelm, and when we live in our heads to the neglect of our hearts and bodies, it’s no wonder heart disease and stiff bodies start to develop over time. It is not age that is doing it; it is the fact that negatively charged emotions that have been repressed over time takes its toll.
These emotions are hiding out in the body at a cellular level for sure and I believe also in the bio-energetic fields of the body. When I started facing my feelings and learning how to change the way I thought about emotions and feelings, I really became empowered to change my life.
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Tags: Confidence, Emotional Healing, Emotional Health, Empowerment, Health
Posted in Health | 3 Comments »
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
 Law of attraction works positively when we are aware of how to manage our inner or emotional guidance system in a healthy manner. The issue is, most of us are emotionally blocked and are resisting healing these blind spots that are clogging up our body’s system.
Emotional wounds and baggage, usually from early childhood even keep us from seeing our vision for our lives clearly. When we are looking through veils of fear, self-doubt and rejection, the Law of Attraction will only bring to us that which matches our current energetic personal vibration.
This is why even though in our heads, our conscious minds, we think we are sending out a belief for more health, wealth and happy relationships, we continue to only receive more of the same of what we already have. I’ve learned from experience that willpower can only take you so far.
Even when you willfully push ahead and obtain the money you think will make you happy, you will discover that not only does it not bring happiness, but also often it will seem like you have holes in your pockets because you cannot maintain the lifestyle. We can only maintain what is ours by right of consciousness.
What you see in your mind, and feel in your body with expectation, is what you get.
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Tags: Confidence, Emotional Healing, Empowerment, Law of Attraction
Posted in Law of Attraction | 11 Comments »
Friday, November 20th, 2009
 Happiness is subjective and in essence is tied to inner peace. When I read some spiritual literature, I’ve come across the idea that to have desire is somehow a source of inner pain or is something to be avoided. I’ve even met people who believe that it is spiritual to have “no desire”.
Stop and think about it.
If I want to have no desire, isn’t that a desire? Another way of looking at it is, “I desire to have no desire”. Well, THAT IS a desire! I think to try to free your self of desire will only lead to frustration.
What’s the point of the human experience if we are to ignore our five senses? May as well be dead, actually, if you cannot feel or experience anything anyway. I prefer to make the distinction between desire and lust, perhaps, meaning that lust is more about being attached to something and feeling that you cannot have peace or be whole without it.
For example, I have goals, which help to keep me challenged and engaged in life. However, if things don’t turn out as planned, when I am living in the present moment and have a sense of surrender and trust that the universe is running based on principle, I can give room to the perception that perhaps I’m not seeing the “big picture”.
Perhaps my energy is not matching what I want to attract into my life at this time. Perhaps, my inner guidance knows something that my human senses are not appreciating. Perhaps, there is something bigger and better down the road, as long as I don’t allow myself to become impatient or frustrated in this moment.
I don’t believe it’s possible to have no desire and the pursuit of happiness this way will only lead to more unhappiness.
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Tags: Ego, Empowerment, Happiness, Inner Peace, Personal Power
Posted in Happiness | 2 Comments »
Sunday, November 15th, 2009
 Ego is a word that is being discussed more often these days. Ego can mean different things to different people. From a neuroscience standpoint, I define it as formed by the area of our brains that form “autobiographical memory”. It is the story of “who we think we are”. Our sense of identity I call the “Mental Me”.
Who we think we are is a story based on perception and our interpretation of experience that we have as we evolve from childhood throughout our lives. I say perception and interpretation, as it is not what happens to you, as much as it is HOW you interpret the meaning of the events.
Based on the meaning you assign, particularly in early childhood before the age of seven, you start to behave, or shape your personality to help you to feel safe. For example, when I was a young child, due to my position in my family, I often felt unnoticed and “not good enough”.
So I went out of my way to be a “pleaser” personality. Notice within the word personality is “persona” which means, “mask”. When I became a teen-ager, due to my environmental circumstances, I changed my personality to more of an aggressive “warrior” to adapt and feel safe. As adults, we wear many masks based on our environment.
We have a persona for work, for play, for parenting and often for when we are with close friends. This is all fine, however, if you think you ARE these roles and versions of yourself that you present to others, you can start to box yourself into thinking that you are “just the way you are”. Actually, we can consciously choose to adjust these self-defining roles if they limit us by realizing that some parts of our personality were formed by the logic of a three-year-old!
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Self-Esteem, Self-Mastery
Posted in Ego | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
 It feels empowering to complete a project that requires expansion into new territories. Anything that gets you out of your comfort zone can wake you up to a whole new world.
I am in the process now of finishing up the publication process of my first book. I’ve always known since childhood that I would someday become an “official” author by having books published and even then my intention was that I would have something of importance to connect with my readers on, at a meaningful, empowering level.
I used to pretend that I had books published by making up fiction stories in spiral bound little notebooks. Little did I realize as a young child, that when it comes to writing on topics that empower, it is very common to have to have had life experiences that required me to personally experience the difference between feeling confident and empowered or feeling like a victim, or having a low sense of self-esteem.
As I look back now at my journey of coming through the fires of life and overcoming the challenges, I now see why there can be a time and season for everything under the sun. I realize that it is not what happens to one in life that determines the outcome of their story, but how one responds to life’s challenges that makes the difference.
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Tags: Confidence, Emotional Pain, Empowermet, Self-Esteem, Stress
Posted in Empowerment | 18 Comments »
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
 It’s empowering to know that I can change my reality based on my perception. Perception is subjective of course, so therefore reality is also subjective. I have truly found that my reality may often not be my friend’s reality. Interesting.
“To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds” ~William James
This is a beautiful verse that is full of wisdom for everyday living. I used to also believe that the way I saw life was the “way it was”. Well, it is the way it is – for me. I have learned to change my perception, but I must say that your conscious awareness, your ability to stay present in this moment makes all the difference between being empowered to change versus feeling like a hapless victim of circumstance.
Here are some pointers:
1. Open your mind to a new way of seeing the world – Beliefs are fluid. We now can say, even from science, that belief is wired into your biology; your body is very subject to change. Just look at how much you’ve change on all levels since you were a baby!
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Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Self-Esteem, Self-Mastery
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Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
 Neuroscience has fantastic practical life application for personal growth. The metaphor of the butterfly is a personal, and loved demonstration of change for me.
Neuroscience is connected to the metamorphosis metaphor from my viewpoint. Neuroscience is the area of science that deals with the brain and nervous system in some way. It could be related to mind and psychology, the visual system itself, or biology and physics.
Because of my educational background in this area, I find it fascinating and I am grateful for the science now to backup what was called ‘soft skills’ in the past. Neuroscience is giving objective findings to support how our brains and minds work, how beliefs and behavior is formed and how it can be changed.
This is very exciting in that the quality of your life is certainly proportional to the quality of your beliefs. I think we are in the era of personal responsibility. It is time to stop barely making it through the week, the old ‘thank God it’s Friday’ mindset, and move into the lifestyle of gratitude and fulfillment.
As the author and poet Maya Angelou said, “Surviving is important, thriving is elegant”.
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Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Law of Attraction, Self-Esteem, Self-Mastery
Posted in Brain | Comments Off
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