Archive for December, 2009
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
 Ego is a concept that I believe is very important to consider. What is ego? Ego is your personal sense of “I”, who you think you are and it is formed in an area of the brain that forms “autobiographical memory” – the story of who you think you are.
I’ve heard of many opinions regarding the ego, most of which are dismal. The ego is considered “bad” and something to get rid of by many. I used to wonder about this myself until I realized the role of ego in the “Game of Life”.
Neuroscience really helped to clarify it even further for me. Ego is that part of your perceptual system (Nervous System), that allows you to pretend and via the five senses unconsciously believe that you are separate from everyone else and the surrounding environment.
I say, “pretend” because even quantum physics is now teaching that at a sub-atomic level, everything is connected. There is no such thing as “empty space”. We are swimming in a sea of energy and yet we are like the fish in the ocean that asks “where is the water?” or “what water?”
We cannot sense it with our five senses but we do have more than the physical five senses. Ever heard of something called “intuition”?
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Practical Spirituality, Self-Esteem
Posted in Cataracts of the Soul-Fear, Ego | 1 Comment »
Monday, December 28th, 2009
 Self-Esteem and its role in shaping your destiny should not be underestimated. The way you view yourself, from body image to sense of self-worth can determine whether or not you suffer through life or if you feel empowered enough to pursue your hearts desire or suffocate your creativity.
I read an article online where in New York, protesters marched outside of Ralph Lauren’s headquarters to bring attention to the continued media onslaught of distorted female body image using Photoshop and other digital photo-altering software. The president of NOW-NYC is quoted as saying,
“Starting at younger and younger ages eating disorders, low self-esteem, and a preoccupation with appearance plague women and girls. Ralph Lauren and the advertising industry are complicit in making real women feel less sexy and less beautiful than they really are.”
I have to agree. This is why I’m so adamant that confidence has to come from the inside out.
As long as your attention is snared by outside influences that attempt to keep you feeling inadequate about your own sense of value and self-worth, you will be a sitting duck for spending your money on every gadget and new “beauty product” or fashion statement that goes across the airways in advertising. I realized years ago that body image marketing disproportionately targeted women.
Also, being female and around women quite a bit over the years, I realized a long time ago that we generally have greater self-image problems and a lower sense of self-esteem than men. No doubt, the social images influence this outlook. While men tend to hide their low self-esteem with achievement or sports, historically (though this has shifted in recent years), women tended to seek approval from others, including men, to feel valuable.
I remember even being told growing up that if I was too smart, that I would have a difficult time finding a suitable husband! Thank goodness I did not buy in to that idiotic belief. My feelings were, somewhere on the planet, out of billions of people, there will be someone that I am compatible with should I so choose to marry. I was right.
The point is, we need to empower ourselves with the understanding that perception affects reality. Reality is relative based on what you believe to be true. Learning how to separate your sense of self-esteem from your thoughts about your self is powerful and is a function of learning to live more present and becoming aware of your thoughts and choices.
The more I consciously take my power back, the healthier my self-esteem becomes. Self-esteem that is authentic and stable truly comes from the inside out. Do you think that healthy self-esteem matters? Here is the Ralph Lauren article (click here).
Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Self-Esteem, Self-Image, Self-Mastery
Posted in Confidence and Self-Esteem | 5 Comments »
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
 Ego often gets a lot of negative press. The word ego is derived from the Latin word for “I”. The key is not to confuse this “I” with the “True I”, the essence, the being of who you are. Ego is a mental construct of who you think you are and herein lays the problem.
Because our ego forms early in life, when we are operating with plenty of emotion yet lacking in logic, we often create these “Mental Me’ ego stories based on the logic of a 3-year-old. This would explain why to your conscious mind it makes no sense how a subconscious belief that you are not good enough, or a “bad girl”, is still running your life.
When these beliefs of identity are wired into our brain and nervous system, we did not have the mental maturity to use logic in the formation of the stories we created. If the teacher calls little Johnny a bad boy because he talked too much (according to the teacher’s standard), little Johnny cannot reason that the authority figure (the teacher) is having a bad hair day perhaps.
What the adult says about the child is only the adult’s opinion anyway. In reality, the child’s identity is not changed by the words of the adult. In reality, our being is independent of what we do.
You see, what you do, what you think, is NOT the same as who you are at your essence.
I have discovered for myself that as I started to heal the stories of the Mental Me, as I learned how to release the cellular memory of those stories, and even sometimes reframe them, my sense of identity, my self-image dramatically improved. Does this matter? You bet it does.
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Self-Esteem
Posted in Ego | 5 Comments »
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
 Happiness is something that many people pursue. If you are pursuing it, you are on the wrong track out the gate! Happiness is not “out there”. It is not something to be “found”, as it is not lost.
It is really a matter of remembering, waking up. Remembering that you are more than merely human and that it is your “response-ability” that is a secret to your power to BE happy. You see, happiness is really a state of being. It is an “inside job”.
This time of year it is easy to get sucked into looking for happiness in things, and the “holiday season” is a great marketing tool for many merchandisers. While this is all fine and good, if you are expecting to experience lasting happiness, it would be wise to spend time getting in touch with your inner guidance, and cultivating your core confidence instead of seeking happiness in the next great gadget, outfit or piece of jewelry.
Again, I’m all for enjoying a variety of experiences here on our beloved planet, but if we don’t develop the awareness that we have choice as to how we respond instead of just continuing to react to external stimuli, we will easily be manipulated by others who don’t have our best interest at heart necessarily. Also, if we are depending on circumstances to “make us happy” – good luck.
The last I checked the only thing one can really count on in the physical world is, you got it – change.
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Tags: Confidence, Happiness, Self-Esteem, Self-Mastery Spirituality
Posted in Happiness | 27 Comments »
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
 Spirituality for me has to be practical or else, it just does not make sense. Yes, I do often live by faith, but there is a difference between faith and believing a paradigm just because you were told to believe it. I’m grateful to be beyond the point in my life where I hang on to “tradition just because”.
If it does not empower me to live a healthy, happy and prosperous life – it just has to go. The ideas have outlived their welcome. There was a time in my life when I used to blame the devil for the drama in my life.
It was a funny thing; I wondered how was it that this devil knew all of my thoughts? How was it that it could “make” me do anything and how was it creating the drama in my life and fear thoughts? Here’s something interesting – spell devil backwards and notice what you get.
Devil is “Lived” spelled backwards. Well, knowing what I know now, I’d say I was living my life backwards all right. In fact I commonly lived with regret and worry all the time. Or, I was unforgiving and bitter about something from my past. I rarely lived in the present moment.
Here’s something else. Notice that “evil” is “live” backwards. I personally don’t see life as “the devil made me do it” anymore at all. In fact, the closest thing I see to some devil is a wounded ego. I don’t believe that the ego is the enemy; it is just that if your thoughts and your sense of self formed in the brain’s area of “autobiographical memory” is full of negative perceptions, you will wire your nervous system with negative self-talk.
Your ego, or “false sense of self” just needs to have its stories re-written, so to speak. These thoughts/beliefs literally get wired into your body at a cellular level. Well, when your negative wounded ego storyteller gets going, you start thinking negative thoughts and acting on them.
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Self-Esteem, Spirituality
Posted in Ego, Practical Spirituality | 14 Comments »
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
 When I use the word self-esteem, I am referring to self-image and the way that one feels about their own worth and value. I am of the firm belief that healthy self-esteem matters and is not the same as arrogance or narcissism.
I believe arrogance is a telltale sign of insecurity. It is the ego’s way to covering up and hiding inner fear of inadequacy. One may as well have a neon sign on their forehead that says “I am hiding my pain and shame” when they mistreat others in a rude and condescending fashion.
What I have found to be true within my own life is that the more I come to love and accept myself, the less judgmental and more compassionate that I become with others. What we do is not the same as who we are.
When we behave in a way that is harmful to others, of course there should be a penalty (even if the law doesn’t apply the penalty, karma takes its toll). It’s a matter of reaping and sowing. I am not of the school that karma is “punishment”.
It is really about getting back what you put out. So, when we plant seeds of love, we will reap a harvest of love – eventually. Now realize that some of what we reap is not obvious in its origin.
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Emotional Healing, Emotional Pain, Empowerment, Self-Esteem
Posted in Cataracts of the Soul-Fear, Confidence and Self-Esteem | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
 Ego used to be a term that I rarely heard except when someone was referring to arrogance as in “you have a big ego”. It was ambiguous at best. I find it interesting that I can actually now use that term in relation to neuroscience. “How so?” you may ask. Can you keep an open mind?
“In times of change the learners will inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists” ~Eric Hoffer
Ego in Latin is translated “I”. It is the false “I” however, as it is the sense of self that is tied to the area of the brain that forms the “autobiographical memory”, or the story of who you THINK you are.
In my soon to be released book, “Empower Up and Play Big: Winning at Life From the Inside Out!” I refer to it as the “Mental Me”. It is the mental construct of your self-image. I have come to understand that it really is a “false self“, so to speak.
The “real you”, what I call the “Magnificent Me”, is the awareness, the consciousness, the spirit, or what quantum physics refers to as the “observer”. The one that can see the thought, sense the thought apart from the thought. The real you has all types of potential gifts and talents that you have not even begun to develop. Not to get too convoluted here, this is the take home message: YOU are not your thoughts.
Thoughts are things, literally. Thought is energy strictly speaking. What you do with this energy as it flow through your perceptual system will ultimately determine the action you take which will lead you to your life’s destination. Now, if you have created an ego that has a low self-image and low self-esteem, an autobiographical memory that says you are not good enough or whatever, this is what will run your life and cause suffering.
The good news is, the more aware you become of HOW your powerful brain/mind/spirit work together and start to operate your life consciously, the more you will be able to take the misperceptions of your EGO and turn it into Enormous Growth Opportunities.
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Tags: Brain, Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Self-Esteem
Posted in Ego | 4 Comments »
Monday, December 14th, 2009
 The Law of Attraction is also known as The Law of Vibration. We live in a vibratory universe. I like to break down the word universe into its components- “uni” (one) and “verse” (song). Hence you can interpret the meaning to say “one song”. The more harmony we have between our head and heart, the more lovely the melody of our life.
The vibration you tune into will be what you resonate with. Therefore, if you want to attract the higher frequencies associated with love, you will need to raise your “vibe”. Haven’t you ever walked into a room and felt its “vibe”?
You see we have been using this terminology for years, but now there is an increasing awareness of what was being noticed unconsciously. The more conscious, or aware that you can become regarding your thoughts and feelings, the more you are able to attune yourself to those frequencies of feelings that bring joy and more of what you want.
This all begins with your mindset. If you are not aware and clear in your intention setting, the tendency is to default to lower, negative thinking patterns. Haven’t you noticed the Internet headlines, or when you are out and about that it is very common to hear “doom and gloom” more often than what uplifts and inspires you?
If you want to start the New Year off successfully, you will need to start tuning your mindset to success now. It is not going to just happen because you say you want it to. It is not so much your conscious thought as it is your FEELINGS, that matter. Actually, while your conscious thought can lead off and point the way, in order to change your vibration to align with success, you have to feel successful now.
The Law of Attraction is measuring the vibration of your feelings in present time, now. Now is your point of power to change. If you cloud your mind with past or future worry, you weaken your focus to create NOW.
According to studies done at the HeartMath Institute in Boulder Creek, California, the energy of the heart is 5,000 greater that that of thought alone. You will have to put your heart into it if you really want results. Just staying in your head is not going to make much of a difference. You need to align your head with your heart; it is a collaborative effort. Here are some pointers for tuning in your mindset to success:
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Tags: Brain Waves, Confidence, Empowerment, Law of Attraction
Posted in Law of Attraction | 2 Comments »
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
 Transformation literally means to rise above form, or transcend “form”. Form is what you are seeing in your world at the moment. And here is what I’ve discovered: what I see was formed by my perceptions. How I see life ultimately determines my experience of life.
My perceptual system is unique to me in many ways. My thoughts, emotions and feelings create the vision and energy that forms how I experience life. I know that most people still believe that we are hapless victims of circumstances. I used to.
It has been so freeing to realize that this is just not the case. While I cannot control everything in my world, I can control how I react to a great degree. Here’s an as yet little known point that is powerful – how aware are you that the physical world starts within the quantum field of all that is?
In practical terms, everything is energy and then the invisible, tiny particles of waves and particles “gel” into form according to our consciousness. Or, another way to look at it is what we expect to see because of how we perceive life, repeatedly shows up in our experience. It becomes a “self-fulfilling prophecy. While science shows there is no such thing as empty space and that the “observer” affects the movement of the quantum field, there is much controversy over “what is consciousness”?
Tags: Brain, Confidence, Ego, Empowermet, Happiness
Posted in Empowerment | 3 Comments »
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
 Confidence and empowerment is about acting from your center, the courage to be YOU. In order to be truly creative, you have to walk off of the beaten path. Otherwise your life is just a copycat of the next person.
You are a unique expression of Divine Love. There is no one like you and this is a great thing. I am a gardener and I can imagine how boring my garden would look if it only contained one type of flower.
Gone would be the explosive, colorful array of violets, reds, yellows and various shades of pink. It would look all the same! Again, how boring is that?
Then why is it us humans, want to look and act like the next person. It seems that most people want to be everyone but himself or herself! Why is this?
I say it is purely due to conditioning and the fact that our nervous systems are wired to survive and we have as a whole bought into the belief that conformity is synonymous with safety. Granted, at one time in our evolution there was truth to this.
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Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, No Confidence, Self-Esteem
Posted in Confidence and Self-Esteem | Comments Off
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