Empowerment is just that – power within, coming from the inside out. This blog post is introducing my new video series, “BreakThrough to the Real YOU”. Do you know that there is an area in the brain known as the area of “autobiographical memory”? It is the STORY of who you think you are. When I wrote my book, “Empower Up and Play Big: Winning at Life from the Inside Out”, I called it the “Mental Me”. You can also call it “ego”.

Ego is just your personality and even in the word personality is the word “persona” which means, “mask”. Ego is not “bad”, in fact you need it to play the roles in life that you play, and unless you plan on eliminating this area of your brain via a stroke or something, you WILL have an ego to manage. The ego serves an important role.

You just need to understand that it is not the Real YOU and that these stories that form the ego often need to be updated and rewritten as they often disempowered you. I used to think of myself in very negative terms; notice I said THINK of myself. This is what forms our self-image. And the cool part is that we are really making it all up.

If it is keeping you small, then learn how to Self-correct it. I say “Self” in that the True You, the Authentic Self is the real you anyway. I call it the “Magnificent Me”. In Quantum Physics it is called the “Observer” or “Consciousness”. This is where your life force power comes from. When you make the time to listen to your intuition and nurture this spirit self, your essence, you can get in touch with your unique soul “blueprint” so to speak so that you can live the life you came here to live.

Not a life that is weak, fearful and disempowered, but the life you were meant to live – one that is creative, adventurous and fun. Aren’t you tired of struggle and feeling insecure? Comparing yourself to everybody and everything around you? This is no way to live.

I think all of this change going on in the world is a good thing. It just gives us all more incentive to stop playing small and to breakthrough the Mental Me stories, or “Cataracts of the Soul” and live our lives at a more empowered level. What do you think?

Common knowledge is often simply hand-me-down opinions that have been accepted as “just the way life is”. There is not a way life is that is universally true. What determines how you see life is the filter that you see the facts around you through, known as perception.

Perception is the lens we interpret through and if your brain has been unwittingly wired, particularly at a young age, to see life as threatening, this viewpoint will color the way that you see the world.

I’ve come to call these filters that keep us from connecting with our Authentic Self, sense of power, wisdom and peace of mind as “cataracts of the soul”. We all have many gifts and talents that are unique and would make a positive difference in the world.

Yet, once we develop perceptions about the world around us, our brain and nervous system keep us focused on the people, places and circumstances to keep our established perceptual systems in place. This is often the reason why change is challenging and why we stay stuck. It is difficult to have happiness, health, wealth and great relationships when your filter says, age brings disease, money is hard to get and people cannot be trusted.

The answer is to re-educate yourself while at the same time learning systems and processes that allow you to release the old perceptual memory from your nervous system/body. You can then learn how to more easily rewire and retrain your brain.

A practical example of how this plays out in your life can be seen from an article I read today about an “Aha” moment that Jada Pinkett Smith had. In the article you will note that she says that she micromanaged everything because:

“I grew up in a neighborhood in Baltimore that was like a war zone, so I never learned to trust that there were people who could help me. I was also stuck in the idea that taking care of others was the way to create good relationships. As a result, I tried to micromanage my world”.

Notice her response is based in fear. The nervous system does not judge, so whatever you feel from an emotional and intellectual level will dictate the quality of experience you have. If your perception about a given set of circumstances feels threatening to you, you will automatically, like a robot, revert to your old habitual perceptual pattern.

I totally relate to what she says here as I too once had this challenge. I’ve come a very long way, yet it is an evolving process. What has helped me the most is to realize that my brain is creating these “cataracts of the soul” and with awareness, they can be eliminated. Yes, your True Self is powerful and amazing, yet the fact is, you will not express if your nervous system is wired to cover over and hold back the expression of this Essence, the Real You.

It takes awareness because 90% of what runs our life is unconscious. This is why I re-educate my clients on the new science of the brain and nervous system, as it helps the fear center in the brain to quiet down enough to open the door to new understanding. It is also very important to understand how to release these “blind spots” at a cellular level where they are held.  They keep us from shining our light, and dull our life.  They also keep us focused on fear and what is wrong with the world and cause us to miss opportunities to grow our businesses, relationships and maintain our good health.

Since I’ve learned how to do this, it has become much easier to flow with life and to expand the vision for my life. I am no longer looking through the cloudy lens of fear and childhood experiences that color my world darkly. This is why I called my coaching system, “Breakthrough to the Real You” as it shows people how to eliminate these self-limiting perceptions simply and also retrain our brains to support us to actually live our purpose and desired outcomes.

We can release the stories that keep us playing on a constricted stage of life and learn to choose our destiny instead of staying stuck and missing out on what could have been if we only could see life clear enough to avoid falling into the ditches of “common knowledge”. What are your thoughts?

If my inner happiness were based on controlling the events that occur around me, I’d be in trouble right now. Yet, even in the midst of the outer instability in the world as reported by the media, I feel more grounded and less fearful than at anytime before in my life – why? For one thing, I’m learning the real power of mindset.

I no longer feel or believe that I am a hapless victim, waiting for the “other shoe to drop” or that this state I am in is “too good to be true”. No, it is true for me. It is my reality. I am getting freer and freer by the day it seems of the fear that is all too often perpetrated through the airwaves and that others seem to aimlessly focus on.

This kind of fear is simply “Fictitious Evidence Affecting Reality”; it is psychological in nature. After all, it really is not life-threatening – it only seems this way if you let your fearful imagination run away with you. Change can be a good thing when you learn how to use it to your advantage to grow.

Yes, pay attention, mindset matters. Your outer experience, how you see life and ultimately, where you find yourself depends on where you place your attention.

Once you decide that life is a certain way, whatever that is, your nervous system will look for the people, places and circumstances to make you right. It works like magic. When I used to focus on what was “wrong” with others, and myself I lived in a world of conflict, chaos and outer drama.

As I have evolved, I have come to understand that how and what I think and feel determines the way that I see life and ultimately the quality of life that I lead. This is good news. There is no shame in changing your mind. It is not a matter of “wrong or right”. The question is, are you living a life of love, joy and peace?

If not, then instead of looking for someone to blame, learn how your perception works via your brain and mind to affect your “reality”. Learn how to overcome fear and instead, live a life that is happy, abundant and on purpose. I’m doing it and so can you. All it takes is a willingness to open your mind, and reach inside and pull out some courage so that your confidence comes from your core, from the inside out!

Here are a few words on mindset that I would like to share while on vacation in Cabo San Lucas for spring break. Any insights to share?

There is too often a disconnect between how we really feel and what we do, or what we say. We talk about “pursuit of happiness” yet, when we or others attempt to come from an inner place of authenticity, if it does not fit inside of a narrow little box, there is not uncommonly, shame, guilt or blame heaped upon the one who finds a little courage to venture outside the “accepted” behavior for the group they currently associate with.

Well, I think it’s time to talk about how these dynamic impacts in a negative way everything from your health and aging, to whether or not you die with your joy and happiness locked deep inside of you. Over the many years I spent practicing medicine, I found that the people who were happiest, healthier and had the happier relationships tended to be open-minded, less concerned about what others thought of them and more likely to have a sense of humor or playfulness.

When we think that acting like an “adult” means that we have to be “serious”, or that to be successful we have to “work hard” or that health comes from focusing on avoiding being sick – we disempower ourselves in all of these areas. These are just common myths, common beliefs.

Just because a lot of people see life this way, does not mean that it is the best way, and certainly not the only way. As you may recall, the majority at one time also thought that the world was flat. What I have found is that, while there are principles or “secrets of the universe” that when followed work no matter what culture, century or educational level you apply them to, most of the stuff we believe is just a bunch of hand-me-down beliefs that may no longer apply to the current times or be in your best interest.

For example, happiness is not something that can really be obtained outside of you for any significant time. Haven’t you noticed how transient our feelings can be when tied to some person, place or thing? Or how about working hard – why can’t we be successful without all of the “sacrifice” and struggle? Of course we can, but if you only see life this way – this is the way that your nervous system will cause you to focus to “make you right”.

In fact, if your success comes easy, if you have this belief of hard work and struggle, you may sabotage yourself just because you feel guilty about life being so abundant for you. Hopefully, you get the point – much of the way we look at life is making our experience hard and full of struggle not because it has to be this way, as much as it is because this is the way we expect it to be.

You do have the right to change your mind. In fact, that is the only way you can let new, more empowering information in.

Here are 3 simple ways that you can switch your paradigm to one that is more likely to give you results tending toward more health and happiness and I use them all and they are working for me. Let me make it clear that I use to also believe, very much so, that life was hard and that success took much struggle and preventative health meant, “avoiding disease”.

For Mind Health:

1. Make it your business to escape the trap of all work and no play -
examples:

Get uncomfortable and play at the beach, get messy and wet in the sand, join a group that sets an intention to go on “play dates”, watch funny movies, this could be a long list. Let your imagination and “inner kid” come back to life. This is the best way to “anti-age” yourself. The point is, stress is a killer, accounting for as much as 90% of all visits to primary care doctors. When you play and relax, you counteract the cascade of the stress response which damages your brain cells, – literally.

For Body Health:

2. Of course, exercise and plenty or rest, but also some less often realized ideas include focusing on health and instead of fearing that you will be the next cancer victim. Worry actually weakens your immune system. Well, guess what? A weakened immune system makes you more susceptible to cancer and other diseases. Hence, the fear that you have is making you more likely to experience the very thing you want to avoid.

Your brain and mind cannot tell the difference between something vividly imagined and something really happening. You may just be scaring yourself to death with all of your fear of having a disease.

For Spirit:

3. Spirit is not the same as “religious” though some people do use the term interchangeably. Happiness is generally a response to something we want. The key to peace of mind and joy though is to either desire without “needing” and wanting to control or hold on. It has been so empowering for me to realize that I cannot micromanage the Universe and it is futile to try. It is also better for my health and mind. It just makes for much resistance and unhappiness and blocks the joy that can only come from within. Joy/happiness that is lasting is coming from our core, our spirit and looking for it outside ourselves is looking for it in “all the wrong places”. The belief that you can “be happy when _________ is one of the most common self-sabotaging myths going. Let it go.

These are three real and lasting yet uncommon ways to empower up from the inside out. Notice that they all overlap in many ways, as our mind, emotions, body and spirit are one – all interconnected and until we start to bring these pieces of ourselves into a whole unit, we are not very likely to find the joy, abundance and peace of mind that a truly empowered life can bring. Do you have any other ideas to add?

Our intellect, logic and actions cannot rise above the quality of our perceptions, and emotions have more impact on our perception than what we think. This is also one reason why change can be so difficult for people.

We often think we want to change but because of our fear of feeling “bad” emotions, when uncomfortable feelings show up, we distract ourselves with all manner of drama, from workaholism to, well, all manner of additions and procrastination. And it’s not just our self-esteem and confidence on the table.

85% of all disease is stress-related, and stress is an emotional disease. Note the word “dis-ease”, or not at ease. The electrical energy of emotion is 60 times greater than thought and the magnetic energy is 5,000 times greater that thought.

In other words, when you feel good, you are a powerful attractor of that which resonates with the vibration of that feeling and when you feel “bad” you are going be on the “vibe” of these kinds of experiences. Science shows we live in a vibratory universe and like attracts like.

I use to be terrified of feeling pain, and there is a reason for this that often links back to early childhood, though not always. The long/short of it is, I discovered that once I stopped seeing feelings as something to be avoided, I was able to stop judging them and not dealing with my life.

One of the first steps to freedom, emotional freedom, is to stop judging yourself and to learn tools and techniques to separate your sense of self from your thoughts and feelings. As Shakespeare said:

“Nothing is good or bad except thinking makes it so”

There is so much relativity to life and when I let go of my judgments and fears, and used simple tools that are now available to release destructive energy patterns from my body (by the way, emotions/memory is held in the body at a cellular level so it is in your best interest to release old drama), I began to have compassion for myself and feel good again about myself and life itself.  I also became happier!

Needless to say, my relationships also improved and continue to do so. As long as you have breath in your body, you will experience emotion. They are the “spice of life” and they are just nature’s way of letting you know when you are aligned with the energy of love or fear.

Making peace with feelings and learning how to consciously deal with them is a sure way of releasing the shackles of shame that binds you and keep you in destructive patterns that hold you back from living a life you love. When you are free to love, you are free to heal.

Here is an article I found today on The Huffington Post regarding the PBS series entitled “The Emotional Life” Click Here

Emotions are not so much as “mental” as they are a part of the overall bodily physiologic process. Changing the way we see emotional repression is the next step in the journey to living healthier lifestyles and reclaiming our personal power.

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.

Taking responsibility for yourself by building your mind muscle and learning to proactively manage your emotions (which often needs healing first) is a powerful step toward leaning “response-ability” – the ability to respond. Remember that it is not what happens to us that determines the outcome of our lives.

It is HOW we respond to our situations, experiences and circumstances, that make all the difference in just how much happiness you get to experience in your daily life. Happiness is a state of being, not getting, acting or pursuing.

Here are 3 keys that changed my happiness level:

1. Start focusing on gratitude instead of complaining – Gratitude is one of the most powerful spiritual forces in the Universe.

2. Start making friends with feelings and emotions – The energy of emotion has been scientifically shown to be 60 times greater in electrical energy and 5,000 times greater in magnetic force than thought. You want this powerful ally on your side. Healing past pain and learning to consciously manage your feelings is a major way of getting back to your natural state of feeling happy.

3. Getting in touch with my own inner Guidance – Taking your power back from externals is central to inner peace. As long as the standard for what defines happiness is in marketing materials and media, you are a sitting duck for perpetual dissatisfaction.

Happiness – go within or go with out! What do you think?

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.

The key is to set your intention, but hold it loosely, being able to be flexible and shift as each day illuminates more insight. Life is more mysterious than the ego cares to deal with; this is the challenge. The ego likes predictability and HATES to deal with emotions such as fear, disappointment and sadness.

The bottom line – when we learn to see feelings and emotions as energy, a part of life and nothing to run from, we will stop trying to squash them by hiding behind “no desire”. Wholeness, happiness and inner peace includes orderly logic, as well as, what the ego considers “messy” emotions. The power is in how you look at these ingredients to being human, and how wisely you learn to manage them via your conscious awareness. Life is now!