If you have a low self-image, you tend to struggle more with confidence and fear of rejection. You are less likely to take risks, and I certainly can say that dealing with change will be frightening if you are afraid of going into the unknown.

Now I hear people say often, “a part of me feels like…” I say it myself at times. What most people do not realize is that these “parts” of us can run your life. If you believe the real you is this “part” or that you are your thoughts and memories, you will be a set up for the stories and dramas that you tell yourself are “just the way life is”.

Actually, our life experiences are a reflection of the way that we see ourselves.

“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are” ~Anais Nin

There’s science for this. You see there is no “out there”. What we see and how we see it has more to do with our perception. We are conditioned to believe that what we do is WHO we are. Actually your “part” that is feeling a certain way has more to do with the way that you wired your brain to think of yourself.

So, for example, if a part of your feels afraid to public speak, it may be related to self-images you have remembered from childhood. It could be when little Johnny laughed at you at the school recital, and you did not realize that his laughter had nothing to do with you. It was just his opinion or perhaps he was not even laughing at you, he could have been daydreaming and did not even notice what you were saying.

We make up stories like this all the time and then we go as far as attaching our very identity to the feelings that we have. If you over-identify with these “parts” you will think that they are the “real deal” the real you. Actually, there is the Mental Me and then there is the real me, the “Magnificent Me”. This Magnificent me is the spirit, the Observer, the Being of me.

What we do is separate from this Self but we get it all tangled up and confused and start judging our behavior as if it is WHO we are. Once we confuse “the what” with “the whom”, once we believe that the “part” that we play on the stage of life is the real US, our self-image and self-esteem gets involved.

Is Denzel Washington the part that he plays in his movies? No. He may feel the pain of his part if he really gets into the role, but at the end of the day, he is not that part. Well it is the same with our spirit Self as it plays the roles of human. Roles are behaviors; they are not identities.

Also remember that you cannot control what others say about you or how they perceive you. What matters only is how you perceive yourself. If you have a behavior that you want to change, change it. It has nothing to do with the Being of you; it does reflect your character (see the similarity to acting again – character?), and values but these things are fluid, they change.

Your consciousness is infinite; the only thing that constricts it is your own perceptual system – the way you wire your brain and mind. You want to play a bigger game in life? Then upgrade your parts. Until you learn how to do this, you will “get played” by the projections of others and the disempowering stories that you unconsciously create for yourself via these parts. Come and learn how to retrain your brain to win at life from the inside out. Your self-image and level of confidence can be aligned with your inner Authentic Self for true empowerment.  What do you think?

This is a part of the very problem we are faced with – worry and focus on disease. Your brain does not like stress; in fact it is toxic to brain cells and a health hazard in general. I believe that the financial pressure from our existing system will likely be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.

I don’t care how much money is pumped into the system, until the waste stops and people change their paradigm, their belief system about HOW they think – about themselves, their bodies and life in general – the system is going to fail ultimately.

What do I mean by “how we think”? We focus on fear and what we don’t want without realizing that this is not only damaging our brains, it’s creating the very havoc we see in our lives. The hormones and processes that are released in your body when your worry and stress (both based in fear) can not only kill off brain cells, it can damage your heart, your immune system, your digestive tract and your musculoskeletal system…among other things.

Now, instead of business as usual, which is to believe that if you could just pop a pill or make other people act the way you want them to behave, if you make the time to decide to change your mind – and I do mean change your brain and mind – you can begin to shift the gears that lead to destruction in your health.

Also, you can save yourself a lot of pain, suffering and money. The answer? Learn “brain hygiene”, in other words learn how to cleanse your brain/mind of the pollutants of negative thoughts/emotions which boils down to fear. Until we learn how to obtain and maintain peace within ourselves, we can forget about seeing it “out there”.

Peace of mind begins within; you will not be able to buy it or to obtain it by trying to “fix” others. What we judge harshly in others are only projections from our own perception, parts of our story of the “Mental Me” that we don’t want to deal with.

Mindfulness meditation has been shown quite scientifically to slow down the runaway train of the busy mind and the benefits range from improved physical health to happy relationships. And, by default, good physical health and great relationships almost always translates to improved financial health.

At the root of all three is spiritual health. When we learn to take our ego fears and release them and rewire our brains, we can get the “cataracts of the soul” out of the way so that our inner Light can shine. The power of Light and inner peace is a force that can change not only your world, but also the world. A healthy you will create a healthy world. Any thoughts?

What we learn is not only contrary; it’s often outright backwards. We think that how we think about ourselves is independent of how others think of us. In fact, we think that what others think about us is more significant than what we think about ourselves.

For example, from the time we are two, we are unconsciously taught to seek for love, security and self-esteem outside ourselves. This is where we first start “looking for love in all the wrong places”. We are taught that the opinions of others are more important than our own, and that our significance comes from our associations, titles and material possessions.

Considering that these are all external to our very Being, it is no wonder that we give our power away regularly. We even make the mistake of trying to “get” love from others when we don’t even give it to ourselves.

Actually, we are love by nature. If you are a part of Life, Spirit (wake up call – if you are not, then how are you alive to even read this?) then your source of love is coming from the inside out. This is where love originates, from Spirit.

The problem is, we have lost sight of ourselves, our True Self that is. Instead, we become so lost in the illusion of the “Mental Me” the part of our brains that forms the “story of who we think we are”, that we think that we are these thoughts of ourselves.

Yes, there is an area in your brain called “autobiographical memory”. I call it simply ego or Mental Me. Ego means “I” in Latin. You see, the ego isn’t “bad”; it is just a function of your nervous system to help you feel like a separate individual, it is your “social identity”. Where the danger comes in is, when we lose sight of our inner spiritual self and buy into the belief that life is all about the “survival of the fittest” and that we are all alone we get into trouble. We unwittingly train our brains to focus on lack and FEAR (Fictitious Evidence Affecting Reality).

Now here’s something very important. Perception rules and reality is relative. Your brain will wire into your body what you keep your focus and feelings on long enough to form a belief. It then will slip into your subconscious mind and affect how you perceive the world and others. Here’s the important key: how you see yourself is really going to be reflected back to you from others, meaning if you don’t love yourself, you will continuously interpret the behaviors of others as being unloving toward you.

In fact, you are likely to actually attract the people, situations and circumstances to prove you “right” – that you are unlovable or whatever other lie you believe. This is called the “Mirror of Life”. The brain is not discriminatory. It is a faithful servant to find what you are looking for especially unconscious beliefs, as these are very powerful.

If you don’t give yourself love, don’t ever expect to receive healthy love from others. Oh, you may attract lots of dysfunctional drama “love”, but you will always be searching for love when you don’t feel it for yourself first. Or, you will somehow not achieve the level of success and happiness you desire because you have unconsciously cut yourself off from the awareness of the love within for you from the Universe.

It’s all here, right now – if you can only perceive it! Love flows to and through you, but you can block it with self-rejection. The first step to core confidence, true empowerment is to learn how to love and accept yourself. Then you can come from a place of abundance instead of neediness.

Then you can free yourself from the shackles of shame and live the abundant whole life with whole relationships, first to self and then others. As you give love to YOU, you will magically start receiving it from others. I have absolutely experienced this for myself as I came from a place of “enough never enough”, I’m unworthy, unlovable etc. Empowerment is just that, power from within.

And it begins when you look within and remember who You are and that you are already ok – just because you breathe. What do you think?

One thing for sure is that we cannot solve some of our current challenges by looking in our current memory toolbox of how to solve problems. The consciousness or “mindset” that that got us here will not be the same ways of thinking that help us to change the world.

I don’t equate change with “bad”. Why not just see things as evolving to the next level, especially when it comes to individual growth? Now here’s the dilemma – the Universe is still expanding and unfolding, yet, because of the way that we have as a whole conditioned our brain we tend to fear change.

We are still “unfolding” just as the Universe is. While there is more to us than meets the eye, meaning at our core we have a spiritual essence, a “True Self”, we still live and experience life as human beings living in a physical body.

Without this body, you cannot effect change or be alive as we generally think of it relating to being on the earth. So, while I’ve heard the saying “we are spiritual beings having a human experiences”, we need to learn how to skillfully live into both aspects of our natures.

We need to become aware of how to manage our human body’s sensory/perception system – the brain and mind. Otherwise you can be so “heavenly bound that you are no earthly good”. Enter Neuroscience.

What I love about the expanding field of science is that while it is not infallible by any means, and while there is often not black and white consensus to the outcome of research (why would there be considering scientists are human also the last time I checked), the information and insights gained in the past decade can go a very long way with helping humanity to consciously begin to switch gears from a fear-based/competitive paradigm of the world to a more love/good for all paradigm.

A new paradigm could come from a place of developing the talents of individuals to be contributed to the whole. People could thus become more self-actualized and self-sustaining while at the same time society can move away from lack focus and keeping the “next guy” down. What is good for individuals will be good for the whole and the planet if approached from a higher level of awareness.

You see, we are all making up the story of the human drama anyway, so we may as well give the chapter a happier ending than we have historically been doing in the past few thousand years. Given all the chaos both within us and in the outer environment, I think the new science as arrived in a nick of time. Why?

We have been so out of balance in the way we use our brains that we generally are stuck in the “logical” brain, and this side also tends toward fear and separation. It is time to learn how to change with conscious intent not only how we see ourselves but also how we see others since again, this is due to perception and the stories that we wire into our nervous system. Most people believe that “reality” is a solid “out there”. Einstein said decades ago:

“Reality is an illusion; albeit a very persistent one”

The more science I’ve learned and blended with my intuitive mind and ancient success principles, the more I have been able to dump my own self-limiting beliefs and cast off a sense of low self-image. This is critical if we want to experience world peace. Why?

It is because we cannot have compassion for others until we have it for ourselves. Until there is self-acceptance, just because we breathe and no other reason, we will continue to struggle with comparing ourselves with others, greed, envy and a host of other negative emotional experiences.

No one can tell me otherwise, as from my point of experience, it has only been since I’ve become aware of how I was negatively wiring my brain and nervous system with self-limiting, deprecating beliefs and stopped doing this that my quality of life has sky-rocketed. Since I’ve learned how to release these negative cellular memories my peace of mind has been on a trajectory upward.

I’m all for ending human suffering and I think that we will take a giant step in this direction when we learn how to embrace change and this can really only be done when we learn how to set ourselves free from the tyranny of the fear-based stories we unwittingly have wired into our own brain. Train your brain to win from the inside out. It is more than possible; it can simply become your new “reality” if you open your mind to change. What do you think?

I think this is a good thing as I see room for growth and improvement in our society and in the way we treat others, the planet and ourselves in general. It is also time to integrate our power and stop breaking ourselves into different “parts” some which are less important than others and creating a sense of insufficiency and lack regarding our own worth or belittling the value that we place on our own gifts and talents.

Now, instead of focusing on what is “wrong” it is time to take your power back and learn how to get to where you want to go. As long as you stay focused on fear and what is wrong, your brain will help you to stay there. You see, what you focus on expands and what you resist persists.

This is just the way your mind and body work. Your brain does not judge your choices per se, it only brings to you, like a missile seeking machine, that which you truly expect and believe.

Also, we have been conditioned to only use our intellect that is operating only 10% of what runs our daily lives. You see, most of what runs our day-to-day operations is unconscious. We just don’t know what we don’t know and what we think is true, in general is based in lack thinking, competition and “survival of the fittest”.

Well, this is only one paradigm but your “reality” will show up based on what paradigm you buy into. Intuition, which is a right brain and bodily function, is very important in our changing times. It will bring you creative ideas, wisdom for operating your relationships, lead to opportunities and guide you in ways that the intellect cannot.

Also, while we need our intellect, it can only draw from the pool of beliefs that have already been filed away into our “memory banks”. It is not the most resourceful or creative, but it is very good at getting things done in the world of form. If we did not have any intellect we would not be able to give manifested form to our ideas.

The important point to realize though is that the ego, the sense of self that you “think you are” resides in the area of the intellect. Ego is not bad, it is just that if you have assigned self-limiting “stories” about yourself and it becomes wired into your nervous system and stored in our cellular memory, your “memory bank”, you will block your intuition and limit your opportunities.

Neuroscience is revealing the power in operating these two areas in an integrative way. I’ve always been right and left “brained”, but there were some years that I repressed my intuition and creativity, and I was not very happy during those years. In order to develop emotional intelligence, effectively network and collaborate with others and make healthier choices, we are now going to have to get in touch with our own inner guidance.

Haven’t you noticed just how disempowered you feel when listening to the various sources that vie for your attention? They constantly tell you that you are “not good enough” or would have you focus on the sky falling in.

To be a whole, empowered woman, you must first be willing to open your mind to new information that will allow you to pull the pieces together in a way that enables you to let go of stories that hold you back and use the new information and paradigms I speak and teach on to literally co-create your own version of the next level of unfolding the phenomenal woman, you already are.

Intuition is powerful and understanding how to allow it to develop and just how important it can be to the success of your business, relationships and health is empowering. Yes, intellect is needed, yet to be your personal best, you need to integrate the two and realize the power you are losing by ignoring or repressing this very important function of your mind. I

t’s time to eliminate the fears that block you, the “cataracts of the heart and mind”, of misperception, and glow on and let your life shine!

Is that the absolute “Truth”? How do you know? Who told you this? Why do you accept it as true? These are some of the questions I eventually asked myself, as I broke free from the fear of “thinking outside of the box”.

Granted, at one time in our social history we were highly likely to die if the “tribe” kicked us out of the group, but nowadays, with so many options available, you can always find a new “tribe”.

I know that there are feelings involved, however, I’ve come to the conclusion that if someone does not care enough about my well-being to support what is dear and near to my heart (they don’t have to agree, but they don’t have to reject me over it), then it’s just time for me to get over it and move on.

The more comfortable I am in my own skin, the easier it is to move on. After all, I have to live with me; I have no choice (I don’t a have desire to check out of my body). I just say, “there’s only you and me so let’s just disagree” and move on if we cannot work it out – no harm done. Anyway, as far as forming our self-esteem, what we believe about our selves come from a variety of sources when we are not aware of what belief is and how it rules our world.

It comes from genetic tendencies, (karma for some), environmental factors (religion, schools, society) and childhood stories that we innocently make up about ourselves. Children believe that everything is their fault in general, and typically blame themselves for everything that upsets them. All of these things create the story of who you think you are. In fact there is an area of the brain known as the area that records your “autobiographical memory”.

Folks, we are making it up as we go. Our self-worth is the story of our self-esteem that we believe. Confidence comes with taking action in a conscious manner despite some feelings of fear. We selectively remember events based on their emotional memory and we interpret these events according to our own individual perception. Perception is based on thoughts, feelings and emotions, how you “see” the world.

The more fear-based you are, the more challenging the story. If you tend to perceive the good in self and others, the more pleasant your perceptions will tend to be. The fear-based stories about “how life is” that are typical of where most people live their lives are nothing but “Fictitious Evidence Affecting Reality”.

Especially when it comes to thoughts about who you think YOU are as a person. Yes, reality is relative. It is based on how you perceive the world, what you notice and stay focused on. This world is full of dramas of every kind and where you find yourself ultimately is related to what you believe and expect to find. Our brains look for what we’ve programmed in, and tends to ignore what we don’t expect.

Belief is ultimately something that you have accepted as true and now identify with, so you keep looking for it and unconsciously noticing it in the world around you. Think people are mean and envious? Be it unto you, as you believe. Think people are kind and supportive? Be it unto you, as you believe. I’ve been on both sides of this belief and I can tell you that I found what I was looking for in either case.

It just depends where my own dominant vibration is as to what I attract and experience. I am now more and more disciplined about focusing on where I am going, what I want instead of where I have been and what I don’t want. So since I want more love in my life, and a healthy sense of confidence and self-esteem, I choose my thoughts wisely and examine the nonsense that does not take me there.

I am no longer accepting as true beliefs that are really just opinions of others about what they may think about themselves or me, but that is none of my business. We raise our confidence and self-esteem by re-wiring our brains, creating new stories, and our bodies will naturally start moving in the direction of where we want to go.

Confidence and self-esteem starts with changing your script to a more productive way of imaging (imagining) yourself. What are your thoughts about this?

Now of course, this is my perspective and this is not a matter of “right or wrong”, it’s just a perspective. However, since the “proof is in the pudding”, for me, as long as I get results, it does not matter if the experience is shared by others or not, but what I do know is, if the actions are based in principles, the results are reproducible.

What’s cool about brain science is that it also helps to substantiate these principles. For example, other than the fear that is used to protect us from physical harm, experiencing chronic psychological fear is not only a threat to your health, relationships and finances, it can keep you playing small and limited your whole life.

I refer to this kind of fear as Fictitious Evidence Affecting Reality. In other words, we are the authors of our own fear-based stories and when we learn how to separate our True Self from the Mental Me, the story of who we think we are, we can once again begin to see life as an exciting adventure instead of another day of struggle, stress and “survival of the fittest”.

It’s all about perception. It was Albert Einstein who said:

“Reality is an illusion; albeit a very persistent one”

Reality is relative. Science shows that your outer world and experience is truly a reflection of how you think and feel.

If you look for and expect the worst, your brain is set up to find it. In fact, the same chemicals are released in your body for the response of fear and excitement. The difference is in what the stimulus in your life means to you.

Likewise, when you learn how to eliminate the blind spots that keep you stuck in fear-based patterns, your whole life can open up and you will see the truest vision for your life. I know as I once saw the world as lonely and “dog eat dog” (who was that person? This seems so not me now!).

As I began to understand that I am not my thoughts and that beliefs are very changeable and are only relative “truths”, I began to deconstruct the fear thinking, have compassion for myself and instead I have come to develop trust in Life and see change and challenges as an adventure, spurring me on to bigger and better things.

Let’s face it; the one thing in life you can count on is change. Everything is changing all the time. The issue is, are you expanding or contracting? Fearful or excited? Be mindful that if you continue to focus on what you don’t want and fear, science can even show now how you are much more likely to get that very thing – especially if you have strong emotion associated with it!

The more you fear, the more the disempowered and unhappy storyline called your “life experience” will manifest in your life. Learn how to release the fears that bind you so that you can authentically create a life that you love. I’m doing it, and you can too!  Are you doing it?  If not, ready to go for it?  What do you think?

“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!

2. Heal the past, now is all there is – Technically speaking, there is no past or future, only the memory of past and future. Your physical body can only be here now. To the degree that your mental body is not here, you are scattering your energy and keeping yourself disempowered. Past hurts and pain are memories that can be released from your “bodymind”

3. Now is your point of power – There truly is power in the now. When I am focused in my body, that is, embodied instead of in my head, I can feel more energized and efficient in making things happen. When our sense of now is expanded, creativity also flows more freely.

4. Choosing to focus on gratitude instead of fear is a powerful antidote to dissolving the fear in your mind. You get to choose what you focus on to the degree that your intention is clear, and your attention is focused. Intend to find everything in your world to be grateful for and your perception will shift.

Empowerment is truly and inside job. It all starts with thoughts, feelings and emotions that form your perception.  Then, once our perceptions form, a feedback loop helps to hold us in unconscious, automatic patterns of belief.  What we believe we perceive, the way we perceive, we believe.  Have you noticed that you can shift your beliefs through awareness?  Any beliefs you want to change?

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”.

When I was a child, I LOVED the metaphor of the caterpillar to the butterfly and pretty much from the time I learned this concept, I connected to it from my heart.  I’ve connected to butterflies decades before they became symbolic of our times.

It as a personal metaphor, a journey of my own expansion, from the limited, vulnerable caterpillar, to the beautiful, graceful, freedom loving butterfly.  I believe we are at a crossroads in our world, and I am very hopeful that people will seize the moment and take advantage of opportunities to heal their limited thinking and fears, and rise up and take their places on the stage of life.

Everyone has a purpose and is here at THIS TIME by no accident.  Brain research is clearly showing how what we think wires our brains and these connections can either be strengthened or changed by conscious choice.  The key is CONSCIOUS choice.

We have to wake up, and take responsibility and if we do, we can create a world that is sustainable and a life that is meaningful, happy and overall peaceful instead of the chaotic world that we UN-consciously created.

Understanding how our Spirit, mind and body is connected and our connection to others is crucial to this process.  I am thankful for the objective and ‘soft skills’ discoveries of positive psychology and neuroscience.

It took a while, and now I realize that the only thing that I can absolutely count on is – change. Even as you live life with awareness of Spirit, flexibility is central to a life of faith. Things don’t always go as planned and some experiences take time to understand the good on the other side of the seeming abyss.

Today another Halloween is passing. I used to feel sad, even while I was in the moment of experiencing fun with my children when they were much younger on this day. I dreaded that my children would “one day” be too old to go trick or treating with me – that they would rather be with their friends instead of me. It was a habit I had of focusing on lack instead of fully enjoying the present moment. This of course, blocked my full enjoyment in those now moments.

Fortunately, I eventually figured this out. The energy that we feel in the now moment is creating our future. This used to keep me in a perpetual state of dis-satisfaction as I could not really feel happiness to the extent that I could have. I could not really enjoy the pleasure of funny faces, costumes and laughter as I felt the melancholy feelings that “one day” they would leave.

Well, one day has arrived. My daughter drove off to go out with her friends, no déjà vu for her. My son even choose to skip going to the Northwestern Football game that he and my husband have season tickets for to be with his friends for Halloween. And me? – I’m here writing this blog post!

Good thing my joy is now more often than not centered within instead of looking to maintain happiness by controlling the people around me. Life is change; this is for certain. Learning how to adapt to the seasons of our lives while enjoying the fun, joy and challenges as they happen, in the end will lead to a life well lived.

Inner peace can only truly come from an awareness of the inner presence of Being. What about you, do you appreciate the gift of today called “the present”? Namaste!