Archive for January, 2009

by Janis Mclellan
If you have ever thought that there was something more to your life than the everyday hustle? As children we have huge dreams, anything is possible, and the only thing that matters is fun. Children live in the moment, when they want to do something they just can’t wait! This feeling all kids have and their way of life may get covered up and forgotten as they grow older but it never goes away. Inside all of us is an inner child, sometimes called the basic Self in order to succeed in life we must get to know this basic human being.

In his book Way of the Peaceful Warrior Dan Millman learns valuable life lessons about the seven levels consciousness and the three selves. On his journey Dan discovers that the basic self closely resembles the characteristic personality of a child of a four to seven year old. Even though your basic self has more confidence and strength than a child the qualities are the same. Just as a child, the basic self is closely in tune with the physical body but not so in touch with the conscious brain. It takes time for a child to learn to listen to their conscious and their sense of right and wrong.

Our Basic self is the source of bodily wisdom, and is where our instinct, intuition and gut feelings come from. The basic self is in charge of our body, it uses the involuntary nervous system to generate our energy for life and keep us out of danger. Just like a young child the basic self is open to subconscious energy healing.

When our subconscious is content and the basic self is relaxed we are likely to have more energy, inspiration and playfulness. We tend to be more loyal yet spontaneous with much greater determination.
Sometime we let our conscious get control of us, when we are working too much or there is too much stress. When this happens we ignore and suppress our basic self, devaluing it so that it becomes blocked. The basic self will withdraw and sometimes sabotage our bodies, this will lower our immune system giving us a higher risk for illness.

In order to stay healthy and create a higher state of awareness, we must become conscious of our subconscious. Listen to your instincts, follow your gut feelings and take time everyday to clear your thoughts. By challenging ourselves we a can actually have more energy and sense of self worth, in the long run this will lead to better overall health.

Janis resides in western Canada, among the mountains where she studies the Buddhist religion and practices reiki healing. Janis loves making Buddhist t-shirts, gifts and apparel to spread the knowledge of enlightenment. All of the images used on the products are hand drawn with high quality graphics and historical accuracy a priority. Visit her website at http://buddhistbackground.blogspot.com

Article Source: The Basic Human Being

by Gigi
Self-doubt and lack of motivation are the causes of personal failures in the lives of millions of people. Not living up to your true potential can lead to anger and depression. Overcoming procrastination and building a positive self-image is not impossible. There are some very practical steps you can take that will lead you to personal success and keep you motivated.

Fear of failure (or success) and a lack of energy lead to procrastination. People who procrastinate become frustrated and generally accomplish nothing. To change this negative behavior, you must first identify the things that cause you to procrastinate in the first place. Feelings of fear, rejection, and unworthiness take a real toll on your self-esteem. Taking steps to improve your self-esteem will make a huge difference in your energy level and will motivate you to make other positive changes in your life.
Human beings are motivated by two things: pleasure and pain. Make a list of the things you would like to accomplish and how you will reward yourself when you do reach your goals. When you are making your list, be sure to include the consequences you will suffer by procrastinating.

Keeping the reward in mind will make it easier to stay motivated. Overcoming irrational fears and phobias are crucial to your self-esteem and energy level. The act of procrastinating itself creates self-esteem issues. Guilt, stress, and anxiety are results of low self-esteem and lack of motivation.

Procrastination is a habitual behavior. You can break the cycle of self-doubt and procrastination if you make the decision to do so. Keep a list of the things you need to accomplish, both long and short-term goals, and reward yourself for each thing you cross off your list. It is not easy to break old habits, but it can be done and soon you will find that the new behavior is second nature.

Keep in mind that your emotional health is closely related to your physical health. A sensible diet and exercise will do wonders for your self-image.

You will find that when you make an effort to change your negative behavior you will have more energy and your self-esteem will soar. Procrastination will no longer control your life and you will be motivated to accomplish your goals. You can change your self-image and become a highly motivated individual if you take the time to find out why you lack motivation and take steps to improve your self-esteem.

Gigidreampursuit.gigi@gmail.comwww.dream-pursuit.com

Article Source: How to Overcome Procrastination and Self-Doubt

by Doug Hart
Good Day,

I was thinking about how our habits seem to shape our lives, whether it’s the habit of getting up on time (or late) every day, the habit of being healthy and eating right, or habits like getting really ticked off when someone cuts you off in traffic. Do you have bad habits? I guess we all do, right? Maybe that’s a hard thing to admit, but take a few minutes to think about it…I’ll wait.

Did you write down 1 or 2, or a whole list of bad habits? What is the cost of those bad habits, I wonder. We all try our best to avoid bad habits, at least that’s what we tell ourselves. And every year on January 1st we make our resolutions that maybe this year we can eliminate another bad habit or two. What do you think would happen if we suddenly decided to make a list of “good” habits that we wanted to start or maintain, instead of focusing on those bad habits and how to quit them? Wow, what a concept. Focusing on what we want, instead of what we don’t want? I know, you don’t do that. But you would be amazed at how often people do, without realizing it, they are focusing so much on what they don’t want that they seem to get more of the same. That is, of course, the Law of Attraction, which basically states that you get what you think about most. So if you’re trying to lose weight, don’t think about how fat you are, think and focus on becoming more fit every day.

I’m getting off track here though. What I really wanted to discuss is the many good habits we could all be focusing on, not just losing weight. My list looks something like this:

1. Be unrelentingly positive at all times
2. Be focused on the bright future you have
3. Develop the habit of good moral values
4. Make discipline your daily habit
5. Make it a habit to help others, every day
6. Have gratitude for the wonderful life you have

This list is for me, I’m not saying it fits with anybody else plans for the near future. But if you really want to be a better person, reach your goals, and make the most positive and successful life you can imagine, filled with happiness not only for yourself but others around you, make a list too. Think about what you need to do in order to fulfill your life with the best you can possibly have, whatever that may be. Make your habits live up to the kind of person you know you need to be, but don’t think of the “bad” ones you already have. Think of the good habits you wish to develop, the bad ones will take care of themselves soon enough when you realize you are too good to keep them. Soon, your personal power and your self-esteem will be so high that any bad habits you have will disgust you and they will be stopped post haste. Just make sure you take action on this, as everyone the time we have is limited! So make haste and get busy….

To your continued success and happiness!

Doug Hart, CHO of GetPassionForLife.comI’ve spent many years studying psychology, philosophy, NLP, and motivation. My particular focus is on the biggest question in life - what makes us happy? I think lifes more of a journey than a destination, and I would like to make your journey much more exhilarating, passionate, loving, and unforgettable! Take the time to visit us at the happiness place.

Article Source: Get the power of habits and find happiness faster!

by Ralph P. Brown
This is one of the most profound single sentences ever uttered. It is from Konosuke Matsushita:

“The untrapped mind is open enough to see many possibilities, humble enough to learn from anyone and anything, forbearing enough to forgive all, perceptive enough to see things as they really are, and reasonable enough to judge their true value.”

There are five values in this forty word sentence that work towards an untrapped mind. You could spend a lifetime learning each of these values and incorporating these into your life and it would be well worth the effort. Just think what it would mean to you, to your family, to your place of employment or to your community if these values were at the heart of your life.

Let’s take a look at each one:

HUMILITY: Humility is recognizing that we are no greater or less than any other creature. Whether we are leading or following depends on which way we are facing in the circle. The humble know the same is true of teaching and learning and they accept both roles with equal deference.

FORBEARING: Another word for forbearance is tolerance. Tolerance is closely related to humility in that it acknowledges that we all make mistakes. You want to be just as quick to overlook the mistakes of others as you are to have others overlook yours.

FORGIVENESS: When someone commits an egregious error against you, do you allow the light of forgiveness to shine - or do you allow the pain to fester? I like what Samuel Clements said about this, “Forgiveness is like the scent of a rose left behind on the heel of the foot that has crushed it.” Lack of forgiveness traps the mind in negative and harmful energy. This energy is corrosive and damaging.

PERCEPTIVE: One of the hardest things for man to do is NOT form an opinion about people, places, events or anything else. Even if we know the nature of something it is not until we know how it relates to all other things that we learn wisdom. We must have all the information we can get before we take the things we have perceived and reason upon them.

REASONABLE: Determining true value can be tricky because our reason can be short-sighted and stop once we see that (insert person, place, thing or event here) benefits us here and now without seeing the possible long-term effects. For instance overeating, over spending and excessive drinking may provide joy in the short term but have deleterious effects in the long run. If our reason is short-sighted in its scope and we fail to perceive far enough, then our reason is limited. Sometimes to our detriment.

You may have noticed how each value seems to hinge on the one before it. This is one of the reasons the quote of Konosuke Matsushita is so profound. How far can this quote take you in your self-development? In your career? In your relationships? For Mr. Matsushita this philosophy has taken him to the head of one of the largest electronics corporations in the world, Panasonic including all its subsidiaries.

How you get this to be a part of your life is different for each person, but the pursuit of such a life is in the best interest of everyone!

Ralph P. Brown is a Mohawk Indian of the Akwesasne tribe. He is a self-taught artist who draws inspiration from his native culture, nature and his unique perspective on the world and his spirituality. He is the author of soon-to-be-released “Awakening the Eagle: A Guide to the Medicine Wheel” and “13 Virtues to a New Life: A Journey Around the Medicine Wheel.” Visit his web site at http://www.mirroredwindows.com for additional insight, stories, lessons and visual creations.

Article Source: The Untrapped Mind … in 40 words

by Doug Hart
Good day,

Whether know it or not, you may be missing the main ingredient to success in life. What is it? It’s what makes you keep going when you really don’t feel like working any more. It’s what causes you to keep making changes at your job, or business, or whatever it is you do, until you are totally satisfied it’s “right”. It’s what makes good people great, and keep doing what they do year in and year out.

Ok, if you can’t guess what I’m talking about I must divulge the secret - one word, discipline. Yup, that’s it. Without it the smartest person can’t do much at all. Without it, the most talented people in the world fall flat on their faces! It’s the one thing you just can’t be successful without, am I right? So do you have enough of it yet? Could it be that is the main reason you aren’t reaching the kind of success you have been looking for?

I speak and write a lot about having passion for what you do in life, whether it’s your job or business, and I still think that’s extremely important to success as well. However, without the discipline to keep focused on what you need to do every day it’s very hard to accomplish what you need to do. As they say, good intentions are useless without the follow through, and that is done with discipline. You don’t have to be a drill sergeant, but if you can’t make yourself do what you have to do on a daily basis, you are just not going to make it this competitive world my friend! It’s that simple…

So I guess the question begs - if I don’t have enough discipline, how can I improve it? Is it something I can fix? Of course, being lazy isn’t a genetic defect, it’s just a bad habit like many others. If you have that habit, then you have to break it fast. Will it take some work? You bet, it’s gonna take a bunch of work. Like any bad habit you have to first resolve yourself that it can be changed, and they way to break any habit is to be conscious about it and know your weaknesses. You aren’t consciously being lazy, are you? It’s something that you do without thinking most likely, so start being conscious and in control more each day. Also, write down the things you want to accomplish on a daily basis, this forces you to think about what you know you need to do, and the excuse of “I forgot!” is totally taken away. If you need to, keep that list with you at all times. I must say, I make the lists myself nearly every day because I know if I don’t I will forget something, so do it! If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn’t work for you, try harder or try something else. Everybody is different, but some things like this work for almost everybody.

You know, that’s the thing about discipline. If you don’t have any at all, it’s going to be a bunch of work to develop it. But the work will be well worth it, because you will notice your productivity will explode and you will find you can accomplish much more on a daily basis.

Doug Hart, CHO of GetPassionForLife.comI’ve spent many years studying psychology, philosophy, NLP, and motivation. My particular focus is on the biggest question in life - what makes us happy? I think lifes more of a journey than a destination, and I would like to make your journey much more exhilarating, passionate, loving, and unforgettable! Take the time to visit us at the happiness place.

Article Source: Try the magic ingredient to your success now

by Former Retiree
You are on a journey to master your mind power in order to direct your mind to produce or attract more of the things and conditions you desire. It is going to take conscious persistence on your part to finish your journey. Always take another step toward mastering your mind power and always take another step toward your desires.

Life will not generally tell you in advance how many steps are necessary to achieve what you want to be, to do, or to have, so it is imperative that you keep your objective consistently in your imagination and keep mentally moving toward whatever it is. Life does tell you that if you persist long enough, you will succeed.

If you doubt the power of persistence, I invite you to take a trip (or another trip) to the Grand Canyon either in person or online. From the top of the Canyon, look down at the Colorado River a mile or so at the bottom of the Canyon. Bring to your mind the fact that the River once flowed at a height that approximates where you stand. The River persistently flowed for thousands of years to carve out the Grand Canyon to the present depth.

You need not worry, as you will not have to persist in your efforts as long as the Colorado River has; but you must persist for as long as it takes to achieve or acquire what you desire. To quit on your desires once makes it too easy to quit on them again and again and again. Soon you become what the world calls a quitter. A QUITTER NEVER WINS AND A WINNER NEVER QUITS!

This age of mass advertising, wherein the messages that YOU NEED INSTANT GRATIFICATION are so consistently embedded, may have convinced you that if you have not obtained what you desire in a few days, a few weeks, a few months, you all too quickly turn your attention to other pursuits.

At times it might seem that life is playing tricks on you. It places desires in your heart and mind but it also seems to place obstructions between you and your desires. Instead of you persistently focusing on your desires and figuring ways around, over, or through the obstructions, you persistently focus on the obstructions. Of course, the more you focus on them, the larger they seem to grow in relations to your desires.

Life is really not playing tricks on you. In all likelihood, your mind has been inundated with false beliefs about obstructions from your environment at a very early age. By the time you get sick and tired of being sick and tired to the point where you decide to attempt to improve your life, you have become your own worst enemy when it comes to focusing on obstructions in our mind.

You must neutralize or eliminate self defeating words and phrases like can not, impossible, will not work, hopeless, out of the question, and retreat. Replace them by consistently and persistently using words and phrases like stick with it, it might work, it will work, hopeful, possible, charge ahead, and I will find a way.

Without persistence, it is likely that you will not be or have what you desire. Persist until you succeed.

This I know for sure. You can claim or re-claim control of your own mind power. You are the most miraculous of all living beings on earth. You are the owner of a mind that is so stupendous, that as you truly begin mastering your mind power and consciously using it, there is no dream that you can dream that you cannot achieve.

Harold L Lowe retired at age 62 when his six-figure income position was eliminated. He now wishes to share some of what he has learned since then and some of his experiences as well through articles. He is now studying The New Think And Grow Rich with the author, Ted Ciuba, a founding member of the World Internet Summit. To Claim A FREE Copy Of The Book That Inspired The Movie/DVD/Book, The Secret, Go To: Power Of The Mind

Article Source: Mastering Your Mind Power: You Must Persist To Succeed

by cindy kludt
I had seven wonderful women at my office last week celebrating my birthday. There was almost one woman for each decade, but not quite. Not only did we celebrate my birthday, but what I wanted to celebrate was the Divine Feminine or the Goddess in every woman.

We had a great time and toward the end, I had each woman pick a card from Doreen Virtue’s Goddess Guidance Oracle Cards (I am getting to the part that has to do with healing our losses).

These are beautiful cards, colorful and artistically rich. They were given to me by a good woman friend of mine who was sick and unable to make it to this celebration. I had these cards in my car and hadn’t used them much. I thought it would be fun to get them out and ‘for a lark’ have each woman pick a card to see what the Goddess Oracle has to say to each one of us.

Well, I picked the Celtic goddess Oonagh which had a subtitle of Easy Does It; “There is no need to hurry or force things to happen. Everything is occurring in perfect timing.”, which was the perfect card for me.

Slow and steady is a difficult concept when we are in emotional pain. All we really want to do is to take something that will instantly take us out of our misery, or at the very least give us some relief.

I totally get that. And even though I’ve come a long way in figuring out how to live more in joy than in sadness or anger, I still have my moments when that dark “icky” feeling descends on me. So, why not hurry up and force myself into happiness or joy? Or, what’s wrong with taking a happy pill or drinking something that numbs you out?

Because that’s exactly what it does, it numbs you out. Even when you “act as if” or “fake it til you make it” in order to feel better, it’s still a form of forcing and it doesn’t allow for that natural, deep, internal love process to happen.

I was reading one of my professional journals yesterday about depression and antidepressants. The entire magazine was devoted to this topic. It had some very interesting facts, but the one thing that most of the articles agreed upon was that when people take antidepressants without also getting some psychotherapy, they may feel better, but it didn’t necessarily make their relationships any better, and that includes their relationship with themselves.

Healing your heart after a loss requires a commitment and a devotion toward self-love and self-forgiveness. A tenderness is required and if the healing is forced or hurried, we don’t listen to the deep stirrings of compassion in our hearts and we miss some of the eternal love that is coming our way.

My goddess card, Oonagh, reminded me of this and how very difficult it is for many of us in our Western Civilization to allow things to come forth, as opposed to hurrying or forcing or taking abundant action BEFORE we are in touch with what PURPOSE that action would really serve.

As the days get shorter and shorter, and the nights lengthen I find myself doing less and sleeping more. I get unsettled at times because of this and start berating myself for laziness.

But, no need to hurry or force things. They will unfold as they will.

I invite you all to take Oonagh’s message to heart and allow yourselves the stillness and time needed for whatever it is that troubles you. Give yourself that time to go deep into your heart; cry if you need, call on friends for support. There is much love here for all of us if we but slow down enough to notice and allow ourselves to feel it.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete tag with it: Grief and Loss Recovery Coach, Cindy Kludt (CindyKludt@thesilentloss.com), publishes “The Silent Loss” weekly ezine. If you are tired of struggling and just ‘coping’ with emotional pain (no matter what your loss), and are seeking relief from the sadness, anger, and despair, get your FREE report now at http://www.TheSilentLoss.com

Article Source: No Need to Hurry or Force

by Keith S Callister
There is a power within you, and this power contains all the things that you have the ability to accomplish, all the faculties that you need to do anything at all in your life are inside of you right now, everything you need to achieve happiness and great levels of success and inner peace are within you at this very moment. When you were conceived you had no concept of limitation, you started out in life as a single cell so small that you were not visible to the naked eye, but you had within you already everything it took to become the person you are today.

For 9 months you worked towards a future that seemed impossible, how presumptuous for a single cell to believe that they can become a living breathing human when all they had was the determination to become so. But that determination was all you needed so you went along and grew, and developed and grew some more, at one point you had a tail but soon discovered that it was unnecessary so you let it develop into something else entirely, you grew a heart that started beating just a few weeks into your development, and after you worked and grew and developed with nothing more than your desire to do so the time had come that you had been waiting for, the time had come to be born.

There was nothing that could stop you now, you were ready for the world, and you were ready so out you came. Mission accomplished! You had gone from single cell to human being with only your determination to do so.

And life is the same way, along the path that we have walked it seems that we have forgotten the lessons of our first experience in becoming something more, all you really need is know what you want to become, and have the fierce determination that you will become what you want. You already have what you need inside of you, you already have what it takes to become everything you want, every cell of your body is literally shaking with potential, so whatever it is you want to become, go out and be it! And as surely as morning follows night you will become that thing which you desire.

Keith Callister Self Improvement CoachVisit my blog at
http://winningedge.wordpress.comFree weekly self improvement articles and essays!

Article Source: Unlock Your True Potential, You Did it Once You Can Do it Again

by Allison Ryan
As an ordinary citizen, you probably have strong feelings about rules and regulations in your local region or even larger issues that have an effect on the country as a whole. You may want to bring about change to human rights, animal rights or even have issues with education.

It is good to know that you have the right to make a petition about any issues to bring together others who feel the same way and make your voice heard. A petition is one of the ways in which people all over the world can make changes to improve their lives and the lives of others.

There are two main ways in which you can make a petition and present it to those who have the power to bring about suitable changes. A traditional petition involves physically collecting signatures of supporters by speaking directly to them.

An online petition allows you to post the petition online to gather a greater number of signatures from people all over the world who support your cause. Whatever type of petition you choose to make, there are general guidelines that you should follow to make the petition the best that it can be.

A petition is a document in which you state what the present situation is and why you feel that it should be changed in some way. Each organization or government agency does have requirements for petitions that are presented to them. Therefore, you should do some research to find out what these requirements are.

You may be able to find them by visiting the official website of the organization or by placing a telephone call to the appropriate office to make your inquiry and have the requirements sent to you by email or regular mail. This is a significant detail that you shouldn’t overlook in making a petition because if you do make a petition that doesn’t follow the guidelines of the organization, it will be ignored.

When you begin researching how to make a petition, it is important to choose a title that will be self-explanatory. The title should not be long. You may have to spend some time choosing your words carefully so that your title says what you want it to say and lets others know right away the ultimate goal for the petition.

All aspects of the petition should be short and concise. When you state your case in as few words as possible and still get the main idea across, you will be able to garner more support because people will realize you respect their time and do not intend for them to have to spend a lot of time reading the petition to find out what it is about.

Look at lots of examples before you start to make a petition. These will give you ideas of how you can state your case. Even though there are many sites online that provide you with a petition format that is free to use, you do have to fill in the form with the text you need.

Prepare a handwritten or typewritten draft first and reread it to make sure that you state your case clearly and concisely with no spelling or grammar mistakes. When you are satisfied with this, then you can enter the text into the online petition format.

If you do plan to make a conventional petition rather than an online one, you can still use the petition sites to help you. Once you complete the petition, you can print it off and use it in the traditional manner.

Allison Ryan is a freelance marketing writer from San Diego, CA. She specializes in leadership, motivation, and how to make a petition. To browse a petition online, please visit http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ for more information.

Article Source: Make a Petition to Bring About Change

by cindy kludt
The financial crisis is on every news channel, every radio station, every newspaper. How is all of this affecting you?

I listen and think I’m not reacting, but then when I’m alone, or when I’m writing checks to pay bills, or when a client cancels for some reason, I get caught up in the fear.

All the “what ifs” start coming into my mind. What if there’s another Great Depression? What if we can’t pay our bills? What if our kids can’t finish college? What if we have a big medical bill we can’t pay?

“Okay,” I say to myself, “Get a grip.”

I relax and allow myself to connect with what’s really happening with me and around me. What’s really going on is that in a very short period of time, we have lost our feeling of basic security. We feel that we might not be able to provide food, clothing and housing for ourselves and our families. We see the evidence in the news–people losing their homes, seniors sleeping in their cars.

This is a tremendous national loss, and most everyone in our country (and this is global also) is reacting with some kind of grief reaction. Fear, anxiety, physical symptoms, not being able to sleep, over eating, low energy, and sadness are just a few of these symptoms.

When you add this loss on top of other loses from your distant or recent past, you could feel overwhelmed with it.

Do I get upset? Yes. Do I start worrying and telling my self how bad it is? Yes. Do I get any of the symptoms I listed above? Yes.

Then why am I trying to tell you how to stay calm in the midst of all of this?

The key here is to allow yourself to be where you are. This is the first step. DO NOT resist. When we resist, we hurt ourselves (I know I’m beginning to sound like a broken record). But, the truth is that it’s not what’s happening to us, it’s our resistance to what’s happening to us that causes us the most suffering.

Think about it. I sit down to pay my bills, as most of you do. I see that I’ve spent more money on groceries this month, and in fact, have exceeded my budget for food. I then see that my stocks have gone way down and when I watch or listen to the news, it looks like there is no end in sight. I hear talk of depression, Wall Street crashing!

WOW, no wonder I start to feel fear, I may even panic a bit. As I continue to go about my day, I turn on the radio to find out how much my stocks are really going down, and I ask if I should sell everything too, or try and get a little cash out in case I can’t buy food tomorrow.

Do you see where this is going? My heart rate speeds up, I can’t fall asleep at night, I wake up in the middle of the night worrying.

What am I doing? I’m resisting. I’m taking the reality of what’s happening and I’m fighting it. I keep listening to the news, I ponder and worry about selling my stocks, I get paralyzed with so much worry that I feel sick to my stomach and my sleep is interrupted, etc.

So, what do I do instead? I stop resisting. I acknowledge that our country is in trouble. I limit myself as to how much news I’m going to watch (the same news gets repeated over and over again–I won’t miss anything is I limit it to 5-10 minutes per day). I take stock of my resources, like who are my support people, what do I actually have available for myself and my family, what are my strengths.

I then call my financial advisors and ask their advise knowing that there is no crystal ball here. The reality is that there is no sure fire way to protect all your assets because we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. So, I stop resisting and accept the fact that I’m doing the best I can do with whatever knowledge I have.

I then imagine the very worst, because isn’t that what we are trying to really NOT think about (resisting)? When I allow myself to really take my own situation to its worst case, I realize that I can survive and so can my family.

Even if we lose EVERYTHING, we can still breath, we can pool resources with neighbors, friends, family, we can all live together in one house, we can make a garden, plant food, share.

We all have INTERNAL resources. This is the 2nd step after you stop resisting, you go inside. All of this financial crisis is happening externally. Do you really have any control of other people, places, or things? NO, you don’t.

What control do you have? You only have control of what you do, say, or think.

I can’t control what my own husband does, how can I control what the financial market is going to do? But, what I can do is control what goes on inside of me, because what goes on inside of me is how I’m going to be able to react to what goes on outside of me, and here is where the allowing comes in, which allows us to remain calm.

This is what it looks like for me:

I listen to the news, it sounds bad. I immediately get scared. I allow myself to feel the fear. I feel the fear by first of all acknowledging it’s there. I then consciously relax my body to get into the mode of allowing, rather than resisting. I turn the news off. I make myself a cup of tea, or coffee and go sit in a quiet place where I can either see or feel nature around me (for me it’s trees). I sip on my warm drink, allowing it to sooth me. I then very gently and quietly ask myself to think about something that makes me feel better. For me, it’s usually that I think about my kids or my dogs. I imagine my kids as children, happy and carefree and it makes me smile. I imagine my doggies playing and imagine their funny little faces, and it makes me laugh. I slowly and gradually start to feel better. Once I start feeling better, I start to think better thoughts and my emotions start becoming less negative and I eventually am in a place where I can go about my day, calm, connected to that peace that is in all of us, if we go looking for it.

I don’t suggest that this is easy, but it is very simple. Once we get started on the thinking that causes us a lot of fear, more fear comes and more and more negative emotions come until we are a wreck.

The reason why the spiritual leaders tell us to pray and to meditate is that it shifts our focus away from our negative thoughts. Once we’ve shifted our focus away from the fearful, we feel better.

Many of you, and myself included at times still, have a lot of resistances to refocusing. Often times, we just forget that we are in control of our internal workings. We may get into blaming and worrying by talking with others who are also blaming and worrying. We think this brings us comfort, but it’s really making us continue to feel bad. Many of us are in a habit of projecting out onto the world reasons for us feeling bad.

One of the most difficult things for us humans is to believe and know that we are in total control of how we think and therefore how we feel. We keep thinking it’s something “out there” that is causing us our pain, when in fact, it’s really our own reactions to what happens out there that is causing us the suffering.

This has taken me years of struggle and seeking to finally come to this knowledge of being able to deliberately create how I feel. I used to say, “I wouldn’t care if I had to live in a tent in the desert if I could only have peace of mind.”

Does it mean that I never feel anguish? Of course not. But, what it does mean is that I can catch myself earlier and earlier and then stop the resistence, allow what is, and then intentionally change how I feel.

This is a process and many of you already do this. Some of you do it immediately, some of you do it for some things, but have pockets of areas where you truly believe that it really is the external that is causing you the pain.

What’s important here is that we all be gentle with ourselves, not judge where we are, and allow ourselves to be where we are. Why? Because where we are is where we are. When we fully embrace what is at the moment is when we can move forward, get clarity, and come to peace.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete tag with it: Grief and Loss Recovery Coach, Cindy Kludt (CindyKludt@thesilentloss.com), publishes “The Silent Loss” weekly ezine. If you are tired of struggling and just ‘coping’ with emotional pain (no matter what your loss), and are seeking relief from the sadness, anger, and despair, get your FREE report now at http://www.TheSilentLoss.com

Article Source: How to Stay Calm in the Midst of External Overwhelm