Posts Tagged ‘Happiness’
Friday, August 13th, 2010
 Happiness is truly an inside job. It’s been said that material things, and money won’t make you happy. It never was meant to. Poverty and lack won’t make you happy either. There is an article today in the New York Times, “But Will It Make You Happy?”
The issue is, nothing outside of yourself is going to give you the joy and happiness that can only be found within. It’s there already, yet it is covered over by the illusions of life. What are some of these illusions? The very belief that anything outside of you is the SOURCE of your joy is a major illusion.
The outer is really a reflection of your consciousness. It is a summary of what you have been “being”, “doing” and the perception of what this translates into manifestation, what you have. Even if you have many material possessions, if they were obtained in a state of being of ungrateful, whining, complaining, “not enoughness”, you will still feel unfulfilled when you obtain it.
If we feel dis-satisfied with ourselves, and that we are “missing something”, when we go to find it by getting whatever we think that is, we will still feel that negative feeling as the material things cannot fill a spiritual void. I get this. I get it because I’m aware and actively, mindfully addressing it in myself.
It is a process. It is not that I am broken and trying to “fix” myself. I’m just simply peeling away the “cataracts of the soul”, these illusion, beliefs that filter over the light of Spirit and distort how I see the world and myself. As I dump the conditioned beliefs handed down genetically, by society and the stories I created and wired into my brain/body before I realized this, I see life through new perceptual eyes.
The key to happiness is to BE happy – NOW. Now is all there is. You may have to deal with releasing the energy patterns in your body’s cells and energy field (this is getting into science now, not simply woo-woo, so keep your mind open if you want to grow).
(more…)
Tags: confident women, Happiness, Peace of Mind, The Confidence Doc, Valencia Ray, women empowerment
Posted in Happiness | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
 Happiness and peace of mind seems to be on many people’s minds. After all, happiness and peace of mind are two elements that make for a life well lived. The challenge though is being clear enough to stay focused on principles that allow us to avoid getting pulled into the trap of “common knowledge”.
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:
(more…)
Tags: Brain, Breakthrough Fear, Empowerment, Happiness, Self-Esteem, Women Confidence
Posted in Cataracts of the Soul-Fear, Happiness | No Comments »
Monday, June 7th, 2010
 Empowerment and being able to navigate the fear of change go hand and hand. Please hear this without judgment; if you keep doing what you do, you will keep getting what you are getting – no exceptions. It is all to common for people to want a thriving business, happy, fulfilling relationships and good health without adjusting their attitudes and behaviors.
There’s truth to the saying “your attitude determines your altitude”. So, why is change so challenging? There can be several reasons, yet at the root of it is social conditioning. This conditioning is not really intentional; it is actually habitual and passed down through generational thinking. We often think that the way we see life is just “the way it is”.
Actually, reality is “mind-made”; it is a way of seeing or perception. Perception rules as it wires your brain to see what you have decided to believe as true – whether it is or not.
Once you believe something, your brain will seek to prove you right. It becomes a “self-fulfilling” prophecy as your nervous system will screen in the things it has been wired to look for and screen out the things you decided don’t work or may be harmful to you.
Of course these things could certainly just be relative and based on assumptions that are not even factual. It does not matter; this is why what you mind matters. What you keep your attention on can ultimately manifest in your life, so it can manifest, or turn into matter (a science term for physical form).
The trick is to stop focusing on what you fear or don’t want. If you associate change with “don’t want” or “bad”, then your emotional reaction will gear up for battle in the classic “fight, flight or freeze” response.
(more…)
Tags: Career Transition, Confidence, Empowerment, Happiness, Neuroscience of Change, women in business
Posted in Empowerment, Money and Career | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
 Self-esteem is essential to living free of external “busy bodies” that want to tell you have to live. It is very important to love and accept yourself if you want freedom of expression and to live out a high level of your potential gifts and talents.
As long as you are “looking for love in all the wrong places” you will not find it. You must first begin within and then you will see it “with out” – out there in the world. Now ego gets a bad rap and a lot of people who are seeking spiritual principles are inclined to think that they need to get rid of it.
Another challenge I see in people seeking spiritual awareness is that they tend to judge almost everything in sight! Well, one spiritual truth that has made all the difference in my world is learning to stop judging people, including myself – actually, especially myself.
As I’ve come to embrace the “shadow” parts of my ego, forgive myself and “upgrade” the beliefs around these parts of my self, I’ve become more compassionate and loving towards others. Judgment is a tool to show us where we need to develop compassion in ourselves, for others and ourselves.
It is not about condoning behavior; it is about transmuting it. It is about changing the energy around the beliefs about the behavior as a reflection of who you THINK you are. You see, what you do is NOT the same as WHO you are.
(more…)
Tags: Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Happiness, Self-Esteem, Self-Mastery
Posted in Confidence and Self-Esteem, Practical Spirituality | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
 Core Confidence is having the courage to unplug from the beliefs of society that keep us playing small. I’m very happy and hopeful for the use of the advances in neuroscience.
We have learned more about the brain, mind and nervous system in the past decade than in all the recorded centuries combined.
Why now? There can be several reasons and the ones I feel are surely relevant would be the following:
1. New technology
2. Open-minded scientists who are willing to explore the unknown instead of only staying within their “controllable” comfort zone.
It is a travesty how some researchers fight off new information that conflicts with what they want to perpetrate or believe. Knowing the tricks that the mind can play though, I think that sometimes this is done innocently. Our fear-based mindsets tend to want to hold onto predictability so unless there is a deeper awareness of the willingness to embrace change, it is common for people to close their minds to information that conflicts with their existing paradigm of the world.
Today I saw on the Oprah Show a conversation regarding weight and self-love. Overall, the message is one that I talk about often, which is that self-love and acceptance needs to be the starting point to personal growth and empowerment. There is a myth perpetuated within the psyche of most people that beating ourselves up is perfectly acceptable as a way to change behavior.
Talk about ignorance, this is just want you need to avoid! What you resist persists and creating feelings of shame is the last thing you want to do if you want to feel “good enough”. Just think about this – you are trying to feel good enough by beating yourself up. This is backwards.
Think of the flower garden since it is springtime. When your perennials come through the soil they look scrawny and dull. Or, if you plant a seedling, it starts out puny looking. Do you step on it? Do you spit on it can call it stupid, ugly or too skinny/big?
(more…)
Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Happiness, Self-Acceptance, Self-Esteem
Posted in Confidence and Self-Esteem | No Comments »
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010
 Staying healthy and stress seems to be on a lot of people’s minds lately. I came across an article just today that referred to the new study done by Dr. Anil Sood and others in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, that demonstrates that when experiencing stress, mice and humans had acceleration in the growth of cancer cells, in this case, ovarian.
The bottom line – stress is hazardous to your health. Many people do not realize that the chronic feelings of “overwhelm” that they feel – you know, not enough hours in the day, long “to-do” lists and not enough rest and sleep – is really what stress is.
It is the feeling that you cannot control what is happening to you and it is also the fear that you are under threat of some kind, be it job loss and even feelings of insecurity. Yes, it has also been shown that low self-esteem can trigger this stress response in your body. So, is stress something that “you cannot help”?
Do you believe that if your environment where different that then and only then, you can overcome overwhelm? If you believe this, you are like most people. I used to buy into this one back in the 1990’s. It was then that I first experientially realized that stress starts within, it is an inside issue.
It is not the “facts” that cause stress. It is not the things that are happening around you as much as it is the “fiction”, the story about the meaning of the facts. It is about where you are putting your focus and whether or not you are taking care of your mind and body – from the inside out.
(more…)
Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Happiness, Neuroscience, Self-Esteem, Staying Healthy, Stress
Posted in Staying Healthy | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
 Staying healthy is the goal of most people. As I look at our healthcare system, it has never been as important as it is today to be proactive in staying healthy.
Between the expense healthcare and medication, the threat to your financial stability and the questionable “scientific” data that supports that taking a million, kazillion (I know this is not a valid term) drugs is acceptable, I’d say one had better do everything possible to maintain their health as naturally and as cost effectively as possible.
Did you know that there is a definite mind-body connection and that stress is related to the reason for 75-90% of all primary care visits to physicians? Actually, I could have told you this without any fancy statistics.
It just plain makes intuitive sense. When you are angry and upset, notice how your body feels. Notice how much more difficult it is to concentrate. Then notice how you feel when you are joyful and happy.
In fact, have your blood pressure checked as you blow a fuse. Have it checked when you are in a relaxed state. It is likely that it will be high with anger and normal to low when relaxed. A relaxed state is a healthy state. I want to pick on worry in this blog post today though, because it is so epidemic.
I had the clerk in my neighborhood grocery store yesterday, tell me in definite “I will not change my mind terms” that there were “no jobs” available for her son to obtain in all of the United States, and that he would have to leave the country to find a job in his field.
Unless he made horse and buggies or telegraph/typewriters, – you know, something we don’t even use anymore – I doubt that her statement is true.
Yet, she obviously looked worry and upset as I discerned her energy and noticed the contorted expression on her face. I’m going to give you 7 reasons why you don’t want to go there. Worry is essentially faith for what you DON’T want. Simple as that.
It hasn’t happened, the person is just imagining it to be happening or is expecting (faith) that it will happen. Why not expect the best? Or at least remain neutral. In a nutshell, people generally worry because we are conditioned to do so.
As a world, we have so trained our brain to live in fear and expecting the next disaster that our nervous system is always on alert to “fight, flight or freeze”. This is what the stress response is.
(more…)
Tags: Brain, Empowerment, Happiness, Self-Esteem, Self-Mastery, Staying Healthy, Stress
Posted in Staying Healthy | No Comments »
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
Happiness and peace of mind is not something that will be found outside of you on any long-term basis. All of the rapid change and commotion that is going on in the world today is a reminder of this.
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.
(more…)
Tags: Change Your LIfe, Confidence, Empowerment, Happiness, Overcome Fear
Posted in Happiness | 4 Comments »
Monday, March 29th, 2010
 Empowerment is not just about confidence and speaking up or taking risks. It’s really all-inclusive – relationships, finance/career and health. Integrative empowerment involves spirit, mind and body. One of the reasons we struggle throughout life is that we are taught to compartmentalize ourselves.
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.
(more…)
Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Happiness, Peace of Mind, Staying Healthy
Posted in Happiness, Staying Healthy | 2 Comments »
|
|
|
