THE OUTCOME OF VICTIMAZATION.

How many times have you been victimized or witnessed it happening to someone else? No matter what the particular situation, someone is the victim while the other is the victimizer. This can develop into a mind-set called "victim consciousness" that can become a pervasive trap that is difficult to escape. It can result in a life filled with fear, anxiety and pain devoid of authentic love.

Each person has a unique experience of where and when victim conscious first began. Whether it was from lack of parental support, "down grading" from a teacher, or an abusive companion the result is still the same: poor self-image, fear, and insecurity.

Victim consciousness can make a person say, be and do everything to please others, without regard for their own needs. Living with the sole purpose to give to others leaves a person without their own needs being met. Even though the person thinks they are doing the right thing by serving others, they have abandoned themselves. This abandonment can then lead to an inner desire to lash out and hurt others in both covert and overt ways. It is at this precise point that the victim can switch roles and become the victimizer.

Acts of aggression are not just the normally thought of physical or verbal lashing out, but also include non-physical or non-verbal acts. These non-physical and non-verbal acts are examples of "energetic aggression". Energetic aggression can actually be as bad as, if not worse than, overt physical or verbal acts of aggression. Energetic aggression can be felt, but can't be seen. It is when someone hits another person without uttering a word. It is simply done through feelings, feelings of aggression toward another individual. Even though people normally think others can't feel these energetic acts of aggression, they are mistaken. People can feel it and they do know what another individual is feeling about them, even if it is not being openly said. They know it because they can feel it and on a subtle and sometimes not so subtle level.

Victimization has become a way too common scenario in life. A typical example may include the following:

• A wife does everything her husband demands regardless of her own desires and then wonders why she is depressed and feels worthless.

• A mother is manipulated by her nasty, condescending daughter to do things she doesn't really believe in and then finds herself feeling guilty about wanting to seek revenge.

• An employee cowers inside as she interacts with her boss as if everything is wonderful, even though she is filled with fear that he will disapprove of her. But, at the same time she viciously gossips about him to fellow employees at every chance she gets.

• A friend or co-worker is outspoken and aggressive and you close down every time they confront you on an issue instead of opening up your mouth and saying what you feel. You then develop feelings of hate toward them.

Both parties in victim/victimizer relationships suffer from poor self-image, feelings of unworthiness and undeserving of better. Both parties end up filling each other's gaps and it seems to work even though it is destructive. That's what makes it such a veritable trap for so many.

There is a way to get out of this victim trap. Although once you are out of a victim predicament you must always be on guard for future abusive situations.

One of the keys to recovery is to speak your truth and do things you really want to do. In other words, learning to say no when you really feel no. Stop going through life saying and doing everything to please someone else, and in addition, stop caring whether they like it or not. I call this newly empowered self "victim in recovery."

Another remedy for this situation is for each person to really begin to connect and communicate on a deep level so that they are really there for themselves. When this happens they are no longer abandoning themselves and they can truly come forward in life as compassionate and loving individuals without a trace of aggression. Change toward wholeness and positive feelings flourish when both victim and victimizer begin to realize how precious they are as individuals and that they deserve to receive what they need. More importantly, is the realization that this will only happen when they begin standing up for themselves and asking for that which they need. It is essential that we learn to love ourselves and share love with others, being not only good to ourselves but to each other.

The following steps are useful in your quest for victim recovery. Each person realizes and manifests change within their unique time frame. Please take gentle steps one at a time. Maintaining a victim-free life is a daily challenge even after it is achieved.

• Realize & accept that you are a victim and/or victimizer
• Replace fear with love, peace, and understanding for yourself
• Surround yourself with people you feel safe being around
• Speak your truth to yourself and to others
• Be kind and be there for yourself
• If you find yourself angry or depressed look inside and see what you are giving yourself
• Stop doing things to please others at your own expense
• Figure out what pleases you and just do it
• Say yes when you mean yes, and no when you mean no
• Create healthy boundaries around you
• Take back your power and don't give it away anymore
• Acknowledge yourself for the true gift that you are
• Laugh at yourself for being so silly for so long Living a life filled with self-acceptance, self-worth, and love for yourself creates peace and healing not only within yourself, but others.

From a global perspective, when each person takes care of themselves in these ways it releases aggressive behavior and thus creates healing and peace for our planet. Letting go of your victim and standing up for yourself in life is an excellent step toward this goal.

 by:Bideberi Innocent

 

 

ENLIGHTENMENT.

Many people may wonder why life seems so miserable; it’s not because of the outer world, rather than the inner world. The inner world or consciousness is either blocked or dead due to environment that dictates the individual. We need internal enlightenment for life realization, to know how life may change from the innermost core, read the foregoing lines and hence make life easy for you as it has been for others, it starts with you.

Consciousness is the next continent of exploration. Many people have had unusual or mysterious experiences of consciousness and wondered about what they mean or why they occurred. I too have had such an experience that, although it lasted only two hours, has been the most profound experience of my life.
For 12 years I had been taking a college course or two in psychology while I raised my family of four children. One day I discovered I had enough units to obtain my Master’s Degree. The deadline was May 4, I remember, when I laid my thesis on the library office desk.

I was driving home on the freeway full of relief and happiness. Suddenly my consciousness shifted into another state of consciousness that I had never before experienced. My awareness expanded to include everyone and everything in the whole world, including the drivers in the other cars. My body extended to the horizons of the earth, as if I identified with every pain and joy of the world. My body was also flooded with ecstasy, not specifically sexual, but exponentially more pleasurable than any experience I had ever had, flowing through every cell of my body. I was in love with the whole world. I knew I was experiencing something extraordinary, and although I felt in perfect control of my car, I drove up the next off-ramp in order to stop and fully experience this moment. I parked on a little tree-lined street in a miscellaneous neighborhood. I threw my head back in the driver’s seat and laughed and laughed and laughed. “So, Jesus” I said out loud; “You said there was aKingdomofHeaven, and THIS IS IT!” I could hardly believe the beauty and fulfillment of my Presence. I just sat there in it for a while appreciating the magnificence of the moment. Finally, reluctantly, I started the car and headed for the freeway home.

No one was home for me to share with, so I walked down and sat on the sea wall by the bay. The late afternoon lighted the water with pink and gold. As I viewed the lovely homes across the bay that I had often eyed with envy, now I felt that I knew the people in each house, that I understood them and was glad for them. I lingered there until my family arrived. I told them about my experience, but they did not seem to understand the significance of it. Gradually it dissipated. Not until the next day did I realize it was May 5, my 50th Birthday.

This experience has been a touchstone experience for the rest of my life. I KNOW that I experienced Enlightenment. Now all the spiritual seeking and the religious experiences of others make perfect sense to me. I feel so grateful that I have been blessed with the Knowledge of this experience. For decades I have kept it to myself, feeling no need to try to repeat it because it was so complete in itself and because it seemed self-serving to do so.
Now that I am 80 years young and our world is writhing with the pains of the birth of a new way of living, of a New Age, I want to contribute this experience to it, to communicate that such a state of consciousness is a possibility for all of humanity, to identify the elements of which it consists, to consider the potential causes that unknowingly preceded this experience, and to recognize the healing potential that awakening a higher level of Cosmic Consciousness in humanity could be to our planet.

Elements of My Enlightenment

First, what IS Enlightenment? There has been a wonderful magazine on the market for ten years entitled “What is Enlightenment?” which evidences the depth and breadth of humanity’s interest in the potentials of the development of their own consciousness. Later I will discuss some of the current Western and Eastern thinkers on this subject. What were the elements of Enlightenment that distinguish this experience from a state of ordinary consciousness for me?

1. ONENESS : Enlightenment was an integration of all the parts of myself that I am, inclusive of all things, a falling together of all that is and has ever been true in my life. It included all the negative and all the positive parts of myself, organized into a new whole and yet in its wholeness was more than its parts. After all, I had just written a thesis into which I had put my whole heart and truth. Like putting in a last piece of a puzzle, it suddenly organized the whole personality into an unseen grand picture I had never seen before.

I am not separate from the whole Force of life, but I am one with it.

I belong to It, I came from It, I am one with it, and I am inside It.

The puzzle is the mystery of life, which recognizes that the energy of God lives within us, or we live within God, or both.

I am It. Now I understand the meaning of the Hindu phrase, “I am That; you are That, and all this is That.”

The energy and intelligence behind the whole of creation lives within us, which we observe outside of us as the whole living universe, and which we experience as the inner being or Self.

Our consciousness expands not just to include all things but to identify with all things. We feel ourselves one with each human being, with humanity.

The outside and the inside become one.

The objective and subjective experience becomes one.

The macrocosm and the microcosm becomes one.

We are not separate; we are connected to all people and all things.

There are no boundaries; we identify with all people and happenings on the earth.

We are all related to the whole of humanity and the whole of the physical world.

Therefore whatever one person does or experiences effects the whole world. Enlightenment is an identification with God.

The Rig Veda expresses this oneness so beautifully:

There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe.
The horizontal threads are in space.
The vertical threads are in time.
At every crossing of the threads, there is an individual.
And every individual is a crystal bead.
And every crystal bead reflects not only the light
from every other crystal in the net,
but also every other reflection throughout the entire universe.

2. ECSTASY: Ecstasy is more than peace, more than joy, more than bliss, but it includes all these. It is ecstasy. It is beyond all measure. It is an exponential explosion of sexual energy but not specific to any part of the body. It is the supreme pleasure of bodymind wholeness. Although it is ineffable, when I experienced it, I knew it. I was fulfilled. There is nothing I desired more than being myself just as I was at this moment. This isParadise. I laughed and laughed and laughed that God made the world such a delightful place for humanity to live.

3. LOVE: Enlightenment is an embodiment of unconditional love. I felt loving of all human beings, as if I were they, from the inside out. I understood why they feel and think and act as they do, so there is no judgment about them, just compassion. It is unselfish, because my sense of self expanded to include all selves. There is no need for forgiveness, because all feelings are understood. Perhaps Enlightenment is loving and being loved coming together as one whole. Joseph Campbell suggests to “follow your bliss.” Wayne Dyer says to “follow your passion.”

4. PEACEFUL: Enlightenment is perfectly CONSISTENT with itself. It is the realization of which there could be no other. It is oneness, not twoness. It subsumes all opposites. It includes all variety and uniqueness of things. It is whole. Each part is known as having its place, its reason, its season. It is a Unity. In it is no conflict. It is like living on an endless piece of flat planet where you take in everything from horizon to horizon. There are not partial pieces of it to be against or conflicting with other pieces. Seamlessly the pieces are quilted together in one big spread. There was both complete peace because I knew that the whole Divine plan is good and great and just as it should be, and because I felt a lack of any anxiety. “God is in his heaven and all is right with the world.” (Browning, R.)

5. KNOWLEDGE: Knowledge is not information. I KNEW that I knew. I knew this embodiment or incarnation was the ultimate experience of being human, and I was It—or It was me. I knew that I was experiencing a oneness with God, an unshakable knowledge, not a belief, of the Presence of God within me. I recognized that the one Mind is in all people, the same mind expressing itself through me. It was a shift from being dependent upon other’s ideas to trusting my own Knowing. Because of this Knowing, I resonate with mystical writing of any religion, faith, or time. Because of this, when intuition beacons on the edges of my rational mind, I trust it, knowing that It knows my highest good and the highest good of the whole.

6. EXPANSION: I was not only on my Centre, as I call it, but this Centre was expanded to include the whole world. I had a sense of identifying with the world to the edges of the curved horizons on either side, and understanding the feelings of everyone within it. Ordinarily it appears to me that I am looking “out there”, but suddenly there was a realization, a simple recognition, that I was looking at myself, and myself was the entire world. Enlightenment is like the unifying of the microcosm (me) and the macrocosm (the world). It is a profound recognition of something that is already present.

7. EMPOWERMENT: Enlightenment is a movement from a limited, uncertain sense of self to an expanded, positive sense of Self. It is a sense of self-acceptance of all the positive and negative aspects of oneself. It is the acceptance of self-responsibility for ALL that we are. It is not self-conscious, but speaks with clarity and authority. In writing my thesis, I was accepting my shadow side and using it in the service of the good of humankind. What an explosion of positive energy was released in my life by doing so, confirming the mental healthiness of my direction.

8. SILENCE: Silence or stillness seem to be the container in which Enlightenment is created, “the creative womb of consciousness.” Enlightenment is a cessation of thinking, not doing words in the mind, a disidentification from the mind. Identification is more with the energy of the whole body. I was driving down the freeway in joyful silence. I was in the bodymind flow of being. Thomas Hora, MD, a New York Psychiatrist, expresses it as the truth “obtaining” in your consciousness. (Hora, T., 1977)

9. NOW: Enlightenment only happens in the Now. It is not something you can make happen in the future because it descends by GRACE. It happens in the Eternal now, the present. It is not in a time-bound experience, but is timeless or outside of time. This kind of time is called Kairos time. Chronos time is intervals of time, or outer time that are linear, and evaluated by some chronological mechanism like a clock. Kairos time is the Eternal now, inner time, which relies on inner knowing; it is a time when we are relaxed and flowing, we are doing something we love, we are intensely focused on the present; an hour may seem to go by in moments. It is a time when another kind of reality has access to enter between the gaps of our thoughts. We identify with the timeless order of life that was, is, and will be, that have now all become one. And time never runs out, for we have all the time in the world because we are part of the ever-changing continuum of Eternity. As James Twyman says,
“Enlightenment happens NOW or it does not happen at all. It is not an historical occurrence. It happens through your desire to SEE as God sees now.” (Twyman, J., 2003)

In Reality time does not exist. Time is a man-made imposition upon the being of Nature. We create time by the movement of our own thoughts. Time is an invention of the human mind and is relative to human existence. Even beginnings and endings are illusions of Eternity; they come about from not seeing the total picture.

10. PRESENCE: There is a natural state of felt oneness with being. “Being is the eternal, ever-present one-life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death.” (Tolle, E., 1999, p. 10) I felt totally, completely on my Centred being. Because it happens in the present, it is recognized in others as a Presence. In this Presence, action and interaction occurs but without self-seeking. The Self does not need the future for its fulfillment; it does not cling to past identities; rather it surrenders to whatever is in the now. A now-being-presence.

11. EVOLUTION: Enlightenment is the realization of a higher stage of evolution. Our sense of self begins with the oceanic stage of being physically one with our mother, complete in loving harmony. Then gradually a sense of separate self emerges during the pre-operational stage of mental development, like one egg gradually differentiating into two eggs. The feeling attachment is strong to the mother while the physical body begins to walk and talk and be toilet trained. As the physical development and the emotional development continue, during latency or elementary-school age, the child learns to think in a concrete way. Next the adolescent body develops and the emotional body of sexuality blooms, and we think more abstractly. Each of these levels is a stage of evolutionary development of all human beings. When we reach adulthood with both a loving heart and a rational mind, we may unite with another human being at the evolutionary state of marriage, and perhaps become the next stage of a family. As the family grows up and leaves home, our having experienced the love of our parents and the loving of our children, our consciousness now embraces the family of humankind.

Enlightenment, I think, is the next and perhaps highest evolutionary stage of human development, which has progressed from physical to emotional to mental to spiritual, each growing in each stage and each stage building upon each other. We start from a one-celled Force or Spirit as babies with an explosion of sexual joy. Enlightenment seems to me the human being come full circle, embodying the joy and richness and fulfillment and wholeness of the Spiritual Energy from which we came.

REALIZATION: Enlightenment takes place in consciousness, and yet we are NOT conscious of our conscious mind. Consciousness is like an empty container that holds our experience. Enlightenment is a conscious Realization; it is a REAL experience. It takes place in the body; the body becomes a Bodymind. It is not a dream experience or a visionary escape from the body. As my psychic friend says, “We need a body to experience Enlightenment in this life.”

SHIFT IN PERCEPTION and CONCEPTION: Enlightenment is a shift in perception and conception of reality, of the world, in what our senses receive from the outside of us, and what our thoughts conclude from the inside of us. Like the classic psychological experiment that shows a white vase on a black background, we can suddenly see instead two black faces facing each other. The change of focus from background to foreground changes the content of what we see. In the case of Enlightenment our focus shifts from the part to the whole of Reality.

SCIENCE: Physical creation begins as one, divides into two, and divides and divides into “1000 things”, as the Hindus say. Science names them (nominal), compares them (ordinal), measures them (creates a 0 baseline), gathers them into groups (holons) and recognizes that the smallest and the largest trail off into infinity. Science thinks in straight lines, in cause and effect. When two opposites unite, a new thing is created which is unpredictable from and more than the sum of its parts, more complex, more conscious, with more freedom. (Wilbur, K. 2002) This is growth.

Nature, however, thinks in graceful curves. The basis of curves is a circle. The circle can be so large that a part of it looks like a straight line. Life can be conceived as a series of circles, each whole (holon) including the previous one but adding information and experience of its own. For instance, our bodies can be seen as a whole, or as an integration of a number of systems like the digestive system or the blood system or the nervous system, and each system can be seen as made up of different functions of cells, and each cell can be seen as made up of different atoms, and each atom made up of different particles, and each particle can exist as physical matter or a wave of energy, our body composed of smaller and smaller holons until it becomes energy. Or our one body holon can be seen as part of a family, a family as part of a community, a community as part of a state, a state as part of a nation, a nation as part of the world, and the world as part of the holon of the infinite universe. The very smallest and the very largest holons that we can conceive are infinite, the seen being surrounded by the unseen. The change in focus from oneholonto anotherholonadds information and understanding not available to the smallerholon. Enlightenment seems to me like the jumping in perception and conception from ordinary reality to a whole new world, which in no way diminishes the former holons, but which includes them and adds truth to reality. This is evolution. Jean Houston calls this shift in perception and conception “Jump Time” (Houston, J., 2000).

SURRENDER: It is said that we must surrender all of who we are to God. Yes, I surrendered all to God. I surrendered to who I am, willing for private or public to know my true story, in faith that my suffering could help another helpless soul not to suffer, and in my belief that I belong IN God, I am a part of God, I am not separate from God just as I am. I trusted that all of myself is lovable to God. I accepted all parts of myself. I knew this might subject me to academic or professional rejection. I was willing to give my life or take any negative consequences in order to give the gift of my healing experience to the world.

CRISIS: Some kind of struggle or profound conflict occurs within the person, and the inner Enlightenment experience follows the resolution or action that resolves this conflict. The anguish of conflict thereby becomes a motivation toward evolving to a higher level of consciousness. My thesis demonstrated the healing of a psychological problem through psychotherapy. Taking the action of turning in my writing to the library resolved this conflict.

The experience of Enlightenment seems to be similar to the Near Death Experience (NDE) and to have a similar effect on one’s life. Like the many reports and books about the Near Death Experience (i.e. Moody, 1975), they report bliss, an all- knowing and all loving experience, and an unshakable trust in the goodness of God, a loss of the fear of death, and often the presence of Light. Maybe the difference is that Enlightenment is the death of the ego, and NDE meets the boundary of the death of the body.

FULFILLMENT: In ordinary consciousness I experience a “call”, a passionate pull toward true ideas and spiritual interests. In Enlightenment there was a sense of utter, inner and outer fulfillment. I needed nothing. This is why Enlightened beings relate to others without being self-serving, because they are already fulfilled. In fact, I have heard that some Enlightened beings do not even need to eat, and some Yogi’s can be buried for long periods and live without needing to breathe.

ACTION: What we do is who we are. We are Being expressed in doing . Transcending the world does not mean to withdraw from the world and no longer take action, or to stop interacting with people. The key is to act and interact without self-seeking. Words are a vehicle of action, to say, to share, as if God were speaking through us, as us. In my case it was a thesis to give to the public realm the knowledge of the therapeutic process and the healing I had experienced. This was not “dictation”, or words coming from a separate entity of Higher Consciousness. I was simply communicating the truth of my experience in ordinary consciousness. Perhaps the element was TRUTH, my speaking my truth, that opened me to receiving this Enlightenment experience.

To separate is good to find Enlightenment and Unity Consciousness. To return to the world is good and live out from that Enlightenment/Unity consciousness Center, seeing through the forms of ignorance your life contacts in order to remain centered in the Good. (Cohen, A., 2003)

ALPHA: Enlightenment is hidden outside of time in the Absolute realm. It is an inner call from the Absolute Reality, formerly a sense of unfulfillment, a goal yet in potential. This is why Andrew Cohen says, in his book by the same name, “Enlightenment is a Secret” (1995). Although I did not know how this experience fit in to the reality of my life when it occurred, now I recognize that this was the beginning of the AWAKENING to being on a spiritual growth path, or an evolutionary direction toward higher consciousness. Jesus said that “the Kingdom of Heaven is nearer than hands and feet”, available to each of us, perhaps when we are ready to receive it, perhaps by our faith that there is such a higher power, our belief in God. We are seekers (of the secret). Maybe FAITH is the Alpha, the belief that there is a whole beyond our experience that is our potential to manifest.

0MEGA: We are not only spiritual seekers, we are also spiritual finders. In Enlightenment one has a conscious knowing that one has come to the end of becoming, which is the end of all true seeking, the final goal of living. To be able to live from that state of consciousness, to perceive as God sees, to live in that Christ Consciousness, becomes the holy purpose of the rest of one’s life. Enlightenment is the fulfillment of transcending all other levels of our development. Enlightenment is the oneness that takes in twoness, all opposites. All conflicts are included under this one peaceful Higher Level of Consciousness. Omega is the Greek letter for “O”, a full circle. Enlightenment is the Omega of life.

Therefore Enlightenment is both the Alpha and the Omega of life, both the beginning and the completion of life.

GRACE: The experience of Enlightenment is given to us; it is not something we can make happen. It takes place in our consciousness, and yet we are not conscious of our conscious mind. We are not consciously trying to make anything happen. We are not self-conscious. We are not thinking. We are humble. We are silent. We are simply in the bodymind flow of being. For me that quiet mind was obtained by the hypnotic sameness of driving on the freeway, but there are many methods, both psychological and religious, to open ourselves to altered states of consciousness.
In writing about the Elements of Enlightenment, I find it difficult to abstract just one element without explaining it by including some other elements, which is of course because I am trying to put into words something that is already ONE, and something that is ineffable, or difficult to find words to express, because the experience is beyond words.

Other Religions Regarding Enlightenment

There is more to Enlightenment that the elements I experienced. For instance, some people experience inner light, and this light may become perceptive to others who experience their Presence, or symbolic of their divine mental connection with Higher Consciousness. This is the meaning of the halo painted in old and young Christian art. Other people experience what the Hindu’s term Siddis or Riddis. Siddis are internal paranormal abilities, and Riddis are abilities to change external manifestations.

Each religion also has its own term for the Enlightened state of being, this awakening to a Higher State of Consciousness or Superconsciousness. For instance, to Christians it is the Kingdom of Heaven or Christ Consciousness. The Hindus call it Moksha, meaning the individual soul and the universal Soul become one. Buddhists call it Nirvana, Heaven, or Liberation, the freedom from the endless cycle of birth and death by becoming one with God. Zen Buddhists call it Satori. Muslims call it Marfat. The American Transcendentalists called it the Oversoul or Cosmic Consciousness. Science calls it the Absolute realm, as opposed to the Relative world. Psychologist Carl Jung, MD, called it the Self, vs. the self, transcending the boundaries of the ego-self. Today’s foremost psychologist, Ken Wilbur, calls it Transformation, a vertical shift into a higher state of consciousness which transcends the ego versus a horizontal translation to create meaning by new ways of naming, thinking about or understanding the world. (Wilbur, 2002)

Each religion also has a branch the goal of which is to realize this state of Oneness with God in this lifetime. The Jews have the Kabbalah. The Christians have their Christian mystics and their monasteries . The Muslims have their Sufi’s, which include the whirling dervishes. The Hindus have their gurus and their ashrams and the Buddhists their bodhisattvas and their monasteries. There are a myriad of names throughout the cultures and the history of the world for this Higher State of Consciousness. Just the simple fact that all religions have a name for and a history of revered persons who have experienced this state of consciousness is evidence of its existence in nature. Enlightenment is also the meaning of the Pearl of Great Price in the West, and the Jewel in the Lotus (Om mani padme hum) in the East.

Current Thinkers Regarding Enlightenment

In the same year that the German physician, Sigmund Freud MD introduced modern psychology with his book, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), another physician, Richard Burke MD, completed his inquiry into Cosmic Consciousness: A Study of the Evolution of the Human Mind (1901). Although born inEngland, Burke was raised and educated inCanada and traveled inAmerica. At the age of 35, after an evening of poetry reading with friends, he had an illumination experience in the quiet and calm of the hansom cab as he returned to his lodging inLondon:

All at once without warning of any kind, he found himself wrapped around as it were by a flame-colored cloud. For an instant he thought of fire, some sudden conflagration of the great city; the next, he knew that the light was within himself. Directly afterwards came upon him a sense of exaltation of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination quite impossible to describe. Into his brain streamed one momentary lightening flash of the Brahmic Splendor which has ever since lighted his life. Upon his heart fell one drop of Brahmic Bliss, leaving thence-forward an aftertaste of heaven. Among other things he had not come to believe, he saw and knew that the cosmos is not dead matter but a living Presence, that the soul of man is immortal, that the universe is so built and ordered that without any peradventure, all things work together for the good of each and all, that the foundation principle of the world is what we call love, and that the happiness of everyone is in the long run absolutely certain. He claims that he learned more within the few seconds that the illumination lasted than in previous months or even years of study. (1901, pp. 9-10)

In his book he listed the common factors among the many recent and historical illumination experiences he studied:

1. The person had reached full maturity (30-40 years),
2. was of earnest and honest character, open to truth and knowledge, and was quiet. Formal education was not necessary but helpful.
3. He/she was physically healthy, and from highly-evolved parents. They evidenced a balance of male-female capacities.
4. The experience was accompanied by bliss,
5. and understanding of a higher order of ideas.
6. The experience was difficult to express in words,
7. and included the knowledge of one’s own immortality.

Furthermore, Dr. Burcke believed that Cosmic Consciousness was the evolutionary destiny of the human race, and therefore more and more individuals would experience It in each succeeding generation.

In my profession as a Psychotherapist, the conceptualization that has been the most meaningful to me has been that of the esteemed American psychologist, Ken Wilbur. He has differentiated mythological understanding from mystical experience. In his circular transpersonal view of human development, consciousness develops after birth from subconscious to conscious to superconscious. Both magic and mythology are to be found at the transition from subconsciousness to consciousness. Psychic and mystical experiences are to be found at the transition from consciousness to superconsciousness where subtle and eventually causal energies emerge, leading full circle to the birth of Enlightenment (Wilbur, l980).

Enlightenment therefore is to Ken Wilbur and to me the transcendence of all the known evolutionary states of human development. It is the growing-tip of human possibilities, and we in our time are the growing-tip of humanity.

Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut, had an epiphany experience as he returned from walking on the moon 35 years ago, watching the blue earth floating in space from his space capsule:

It wasn’t until…we were hurtling earthward at several hundred miles per second that I had time to relax in weightlessness and contemplate that blue, jewel-like home planet suspended in the velvety blackness from which we can come. What I saw out the window was all I had ever known,…all that I once thought had ever been and would ever be. It was all there suspended in the cosmos on that fragile little sphere. I experienced a grand epiphany accompanied by exhilaration…From that moment on my life was irrevocably altered.

What I experienced during that 3-day trip home was nothing short of an overwhelming sense of universal connectedness. I actually felt what has been described as an ecstasy of unity…and there was the sense that our presence as space travelers, and the existence of the universe itself, was not accidental but that there was an intelligent process at work. I perceived the universe in some way conscious. The thought was so large it seemed at the time inexpressible, and to a large degree it still is. (Mitchell, l980, pp. 3-4)

Nothing in his extensive education had prepared him for this experience, and so he started a society to investigate spiritual experiences, the Instituteof Noetic Sciences. His current belief is that physical reality, which we perceive with our physical senses, is complemented by a quantum, holographic, subtle energy that pervades all things and all space, which we can know because it pervades us too. (Mitchell, 2003). This subtle energy is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and eternal.

Andrew Cohen, the spiritual teacher and creator of the important magazine, “What is Enlightenment?” tells of his Enlightenment experience:

When I was 16 years old…late one night as I was talking to my Mother…my consciousness began to expand in all directions simultaneously, and I experienced what could only be called Revelation. Tears profusely poured out of my eyes, and my throat began to open and close for no reason. I was completely overhelmed and intoxicated by love and was struck by a sense of awe and wonder that is impossible to describe. I suddenly knew without any doubt that there was no such thing as death, and that life itself had no beginning and no end. I saw that all of life was intimately connected and inseparable. It became clear that there was no such thing as individuality separate from that one Self that was all of life. The glory and majesty in the cosmic unity that was revealing itself to me was completely overwhelming. I could hardly speak.

My Mother told me years later that I had said to her at the time…that this used to happen to me often when I was a child.

He currently writes that there are “Five Fundamental Tenets of Enlightenment”:

1. Clarity of Intension: You want to be free now, to become a human being who is truly trustworthy, strong, undivided and whole.

2. Law of Volitionality: You take responsibility for your negative feelings; you take radical responsibility for your own feelings and thoughts, not to see yourself as a victim, not to act out ignorance or selfishness that causes harm to other people.

3. Face Everything and Avoid Nothing: You bring awareness to your own psyche, instead of acting unconsciously; you pay close attention to the dark corners of your own psyche so that you make right choices instead of wrong choices.

4. The Truth of Impersonality: You are part of the universal whole. For instance, there is only one experience of fear, or the feeling experience of sexuality is the same for each of us. “Your own personal, human experience is an impersonal expression of something that is Universal.” (Cohen, 2003)

5. For the Sake of the Whole: You care about life, for the transformation of the whole world, for the Enlightenment of the whole universe, for the evolution of consciousness itself. You have a natural sense of dignity as a human being for a cause greater than yourself, which displaces ego.

Eckhart Tolle is the author of a profound book, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. To him, Enlightenment is a state of connectedness with the Source, with God. It is entering the Unmanifest energy consciously. “You become a bridge between the Unmanifested and the manifested, between God and the world.” (Tolle, E., 1999, p. 109) He lists the following portals through which Enlightenment can come from the Unmanifest into awareness:

1. Now: Access it by contacting your inner body.
Focus on the present without past or future awarenss.
Dissolve time by intense focus in the present, which is the eternal now.

2. Cessation of thinking, which is the purpose of meditation.
Disidentify with the mind; identify with the body.
Allow the Unmanifest to enter through the gaps between words.

3. Surrender to the resistance of what is.
Accept all positives and negatives, forgiving all things.

4. Silence is the creative womb of consciousness.
Pay more attention to the silence than the sounds, for all sound manifests from the silence.

5. Space: The essence of all things is emptiness.
The Unmanifest pervades the entire physical universe as space-- from within and without.
The world is needed for the Unmanifest to be realized.
It is through the world and us that the Unmanifest knows itself.

6. Death of the body is also a portal to experience Enlightenment.
“The luminous splendor of the colorless light of emptiness.” (Tibetan Book of the Dead)
To die to the ego is a conscious death.

Barbara Marx Hubbard, the feminine futurist, has experienced a gradual awakening to Higher Consciousness:

After asking Eisenhower, as a young woman, she asked God, “What is the meaning of our power?”, and the intuitive answer came: “The meaning of our power is to connect the whole world into one living, interacting organism of far greater capacity than the sum of its parts. When she prayed, “Thank you”, she heard “Thank you, Barbara” which seemed to flow from the heart of the cosmos.

In 1966, at age 36, she asked God , “What is OUR story that is comparable to the Christ story? And heard:
Our story is our birth. It is the birth of humandkind as one body. What Christ and all great beings came to reveal is true. We are one body born into this universe. GO TELL THE STORY OF OUR BIRTH, BARBARA.”

At age 49, as a Christian retreat on Mt. Calvery in Santa Barbara, she experienced a marriage of herself with God, a second coming, a virgin birth, giving birth to ourselves as fully human beings, co-creating with God. She felt an electrifying presence of light, and the voice even higher:

This wedding takes place between me—Christ--and all humans who are willing it with their whole being. Through this marriage you experience the ecstasy of union with me. The union ceremony, wherein you place your dense body in my light body, transforms your mind-body systems to resonate at higher frequencies, rendering you capable of seeing face to face that which you now see through a glass darkly.” (Hubbard, 1999, p. 286)

At age 69, she described in her recent book, Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence, her spiritual journey from seeing God as a force outside of herself to seeking God within herself. She carried on a Divine correspondence with the God in herself: “I felt as though I were falling in love with myself, an inner love affair” (Hubbard, 2001). This experience culminated in her writing the profound internet program, “Gateway to Conscious Evolution”, to teach the co-creation of Higher Consciousness to the world.

Deepak Chopra,MD’s understanding of Vedanta, the early, pure teachings of Hinduism inIndia, is that there are only two symptoms of Enlightenment, or indications that transformation is taking place within you.

The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don’t bother you anymore. You become lighthearted and full of joy.

The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities – and this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous. (Chopra, 2003)

I am writing this story exactly 30 years after my Enlightenment experience occurred. I have been through many and profound emotional ups and downs since then, and only now am I beginning to stop worrying so much and be a little more lighthearted. I am feeling joy and peace more often and letting them be my guiding compass. In writing, I am following my passion. I have learned to be more open to intuition and to recognize synchronicities as they occur in my life, and again to use them as my guiding light. Actually I am still very far from being an Enlightened being, but I am blessed to know not only that this is my purpose for living, but that this is the evolutionary goal for all humankind.

CONCLUSIONS:
So what is Enlightenment? Enlightenment is the shift in perception of one’s identity from being a separate ego to being identified with God.

My GRATITUDE is great. I am so profoundly grateful to have experienced the glory of the presence of God in me. It was surely an experience about which to sing Alleluia and Gloria in excelcius Deo (Glory to God in the highest) and I would add (Peace on earth, good will to men). There IS an unseen power we call God that can guide us and sustain us if we are open to allow it and trust it to do so. To me, this is the purpose of Spiritual gatherings of all religions, to open people’s hearts and minds to the presence of God, and to encourage us on the spiritual path toward experiencing God in our own bodily experience.

I believe that God can be experienced both personally in this life at the individual level AND impersonally at the world level. The same spiritual laws apply at the micro and at the macro levels. “As above, so below.” I not only touched the impersonal experience of Enlightenment; I also experienced the personalness of my Christian beliefs from my upbringing. Perhaps It can be either personal or impersonal, but mine was both.

In the same way that learning can occur through one-trial learning or incremental learning, I believe that the awakening to Enlightenment can happen suddenly by Grace without warning, or it can happen gradually as we develop and continue to evolve toward Higher Consciousness. Perhaps it also happens by a combination of both processes.

I now understand that the Mystical Marriage to Christ is the same experience as the Enlightenment experience. My body and the World Body of God were one, accompanied by a profound experience of ecstasy.

I also believe that Enlightenment is an evolutionary potential of every human being in this life, and that Enlightenment is also to be experienced at death.

I think that the ideas and practices of religions are efforts to teach the elements of the Enlightenment experience to people in their ordinary conscious state in order to encourage the occurrence of this evolutionary state of awareness, but just doing them is not a necessary or sufficient condition. Religious services are also an effort to induce a meditative or alpha-brain-wave state of awareness or even a hypnogogic state in which the information and affirmations presented are accepted uncritically.

In my experience, the quantum jump to a higher level of consciousness occurs by GRACE, as if an outside force were reaching down to us. It occurs I believe when the qualities within our consciousness are reaching up or ready to hold the higher vibrations of Higher Consciousness. I do believe the Universe is responsive to our thoughts and requests. We cannot force it, but we can intend it. Each of us is on a spiritual journey to seek and speak our truth from the Centre within us that is synonymous with God.

I also believe that God does not choose people or have a “chosen” people. Rather, we are the people who choose to seek God, choose to seek the good, who choose to follow the spiritual principles of creation, the natural laws of life as we come to understand them, and when we do, we are rewarded. All people are part of God, and no one is excluded, Jew or Christian or Arab, Hindu or Buddhist, atheist or believer, convict or hero, poor or rich, sinner or saint. It is we, the highest truth within us, who choose to live from the truth of God. It is we who choose to see with the eyes of God.

Easter has suddenly taken on a new meaning for me. Easter is the time of the spring equinox, when the day grows longer than the night, more light than darkness, more joy than suffering, more peace than fear. Surely Easter is the celebration of Enlightenment. After 40 days of Lent, internal examination and personal forgiveness, thoughts or behaviors that are not of God consciousness are given up or surrendered. The dark night of the soul is followed by the Easter Sunrise. Historically, the intellectual Enlightenment took place during the l7th and l8th Centuries. Spiritually our next stage of individual evolution is to live from an Enlightened consciousness. Whereas Christmas, the time of the winter solstice, the darkest time of the year, is symbolic of the rebirth of longer light and the birth of love, Easter is the celebration of Spring, the season of growth, the birth of a new stage of life for the individual and a New Age for the planet. Easter is the ritual to celebrate the sun rising again and spreading its light over the world. Easter is the symbol for ENLIGHTENMENT. For this reason,GLOBAL FAMILY ENLIGHTENMENT ORGANIZATION (GLOFEO) celebrates its birthday on

"EASTER MONDAY" each year.

 Thanks for changing your life.

                                                 by: Bideberi Innocent.

 

*** Article: 5 Bad Family Habits To Get Rid Of - By Ivana Pejakovic ***
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You may or may not have noticed but your family as a unit has its habits. And your family's habits are a mix of your individual habits. This is why your family's habits are different from another family's habits.

Family habits are one reason some families are more successful and get along better than other families.

While habits are extremely important and help you function from day to day, they are only good, if they enhance your life. Likewise, your family habits are only good if they promote family health.

To keep the family functioning well, you need to recognize which habits are holding you back from functioning successfully and in a pleasant way. Once you identify them it becomes easier to change them. The best part is that all it requires is for one person to change his/her behavior and the rest will be affected by that person.

Here are 5 family habits you may want to consider eliminating.

1. Complaining
Many people complain, for no other reason than to complain. They never actually take any steps to change what is bothering them, but they do complain. Complaining is a contagious habit that wastes time. It can also ruin relationships when directed at other people. Instead of complaining, be proactive and change what isn't working in the family. Don't complain to your partner and to your kids about their actions. Be aware of how your own actions affect their behavior and change your actions so you bring out the best in your family.

2. Over-scheduling
Both parents and kids tend to have too much on their plates. The workload leaves everyone running around and having little time for each other. If this sounds like your family, I encourage you to have each family member drop an activity per week. Prioritize and decide where your family falls on the scale of importance. In the years to come, your kids will remember and appreciate your family time more than any other activity.

3. Chaos in the home
Because people are constantly on the go, it leaves very little time for cleaning. Since housekeeping services can be expensive it leaves many homes in somewhat of a mess. The more disorder there is in the home the less safe and comforting it'll feel for you and the kids. Reduce unnecessary clutter and make a conscious choice to clean the house once a week. The trick is to get everyone to participate (the boys too!). The more they do for their home the more they'll appreciate what they have. The first cleaning will be the hardest and longest. After that, it'll only be upkeep....easy breezy!

4. Yelling
Saying it louder doesn't make it more right or clearer, it doesn't get it to sound better, and it'll not improve your kids' listening skills. Yelling is a sign of disrespect, powerlessness, and poor communication. Unfortunately, it's also contagious; as soon as one voice escalates so does another. Instead of yelling, practice sharing your feelings, and speaking in a respectful way. If the kids are still not listening to you, try listening to them. This way you can get an idea of what they are telling you and it'll allow you to meet their needs. When they feel listened to, they'll be more likely to listen.

5. Going off to do your own thing
Some families are not as busy, but unfortunately, they don't use some of their free time to spend together. Instead, each family member goes into a different room to do his or her own thing. Although having personal time is healthy, it's also important to have family time. Spending about 1.5 hours (length of a movie) on 1 to 3 different occasions per week with your family will benefit everyone. Go for dessert, play family games and sports, go on a picnic, walk the dog together, just sit together and talk without electronics around, etc. The physical proximity will build an emotional closeness.

Best wishes to you and your family on your path to breaking your bad habits!

Article: Successful Leaders Top 10 Skills - By Jim Allen ***
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Struggling to achieve success? Maybe you need to hone some skills.

What skills exactly?

Well, after some intensive reading and study of successful leaders in business, industry, government, and personal development, I've found that there are 10 core skills that the most successful leaders all share.

While these leaders may not be masters of every particular skill, they have, at least, a basic knowledge of them.

Anyone looking to achieve higher levels of as a leader, in business, volunteering, or even just at home, would be well served by strengthening their abilities in each of these skill sets.

1. Critical Thinking
Successful leaders all have powerful critical thinking skills. The ability to quickly survey and analyze a situation then identify the core issues that need to be dealt with is key to business success. As is, the ability to understand new issues and factors that impact one's goals and designs.

2. Creative Thinking
These leaders also have varying abilities to think, well, differently. They have the ability to step out of rigid mindsets so that they can explore potential new ideas that others may consider risky, crazy, or silly.

3. Listening
Great leaders are great listeners. Experienced at focusing their energy to the task, this includes listening, so that when they listen, they are very focused on hearing everything that's being said so that they can make well-informed decisions.

4. Reading
The ability to read is vital to lifelong personal and professional success. Leaders in any industry or area all tend to be good readers who are exposed to large amounts of information through reports, newspapers, white papers, books, etc. While they may not be speed readers, they are excellent at grasping the main ideas and context of the material they do read.

5. Writing
They may not write often. And they may not write a lot. But when they do, successful leaders are clear, concise, and to the point.

6. Speaking
Perhaps the most important language skill, the best leaders are also good speakers. They are able to present their ideas verbally to audiences of all types and sizes, as well as easily change their presentation style so that they meet an audience's needs. While it may not be a skill that a leader is ever completely comfortable with, she understands that if she can't speak about the issues her business faces, nobody can.

7. Motivating
Skilled leaders are superb motivators. They understand that each of us is propelled by our own, personal, motivations. These leaders are able to apply all of their language skills (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) to create powerful group goals and visions that spur people to give 110%.

8. Networking
Successful people have successful networks. They have contacts, associates, and friends in a wide array of fields who they can call on for ideas, input, and assistance. These leaders actively cultivate and grow their networks all the time.

9. Delegating
To some, this may not seem like a leadership skill, but it is. Leaders who excel are leaders who don't try to take everything on themselves. Indeed, they understand that they can't do everything. They easily delegate all but the most important of tasks to their employees, assistants, and networks. They create systems so that they are available to focus on the most important issues at any moment.

10. Evolving
In evaluating successful leaders, I think this is the most powerful, yet most difficult skill to master. Evolving is the ability to adapt, quickly, to the newest technologies, styles, and modes of thinking that create success. It is a skill requiring a supreme sense of self-confidence coupled with extreme humility. For leaders, it is a skill applied not just for personal success, but also for the success of their business, their workers, and their families. It provides those who can master it, the opportunity to achieve life-long success in all areas of life.

Which of these skills do you already excel at and which do you need to work on? Evaluate yourself and hone your abilities in order to be a truly great leader.

7 Tips to Finding Love Again - By Dr. Charles D. Schmitz and Dr. Elizabeth A. Schmitz ***
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Starting over is really difficult when it comes to love and marriage. Getting a divorce, breaking up, or losing the one you love due to their death can be overwhelmingly painful.

The simple truth is this -- you entered into your loving relationship with another person expecting it to last forever. But all acts of love are, we are afraid to say, not everlasting.

As the old song goes, "Breaking up is hard to do" -- whether that breakup is due to death or falling out of love -- the pain is still not minimized. It is hard to start over. It is downright challenging to find true love again.

For nearly three decades, we have studied successful love and relationships. We know what makes love and relationships work. But the truth is, sometimes relationships -- started with the best of intentions -- don't work. And sometimes, and regrettably so, the one you love dies.

If you are faced with finding new love, we have discovered some simple truths that will help you make the appropriate transition to new love. If you pay close and particular attention to the following seven secrets for finding love again, you will be well on your way in your pursuit of new love.

1. Get healthy -- mentally and physically.
Take time to heal and stabilize. You can't make appropriate decisions "off-balance" or in an unhealthy state. Get well first! You will be much better served. The best decisions in life come when you are healthy. Believe us when we say this!

2. Understand, rebound love is rarely successful.
Heading right into a relationship on the rebound can only lead to disaster and disillusionment if you are not ready. You think you are in love with your rebound love, but rebound love is usually not a lasting love. Allowing yourself to recuperate from your loss or break-up will give you a better perspective before beginning your next relationship.

3. Look for love in the right places.
Recognize that your next love will come along when you find someone who shares your interests. You need to develop your interests -- be it kayaking, camping out, social events at your place of worship, dancing, or whatever strikes your fancy. You need to find your comfort zone -- a place where you can find happiness. You are much more likely to attract a potential mate if you go to places where the likelihood exists that there are others there who share your interests.

4. Count your blessings and enjoy what you have!
If you have beautiful children, good health, and friends and family who love you unconditionally, you already have more than most people have in this world. Take stock of the things in your life that really matter and then focus on your blessings.

5. Be ready to give love unconditionally.
Knowing that love is a gift, you need to be able to feel good about giving love away with no expectation of getting anything in return. To do this takes real confidence and trust in yourself.

6. The best things in life come your way when you least expect them -- when you are content to let nature take its course.
The "butterfly of life" has this simple lesson -- if you find yourself in a meadow and there are butterflies all around, always remember, if you grab at the butterfly, it will fly away. If you just sit under a tall Oak Tree and enjoy all the love the butterfly brings, it will gently land on your shoulder. Don't try so hard to find love. Be patient and it will come your way.

7. Always judge people you are interested in by their actions and not by their words.
Words don't matter -- only actions! You can learn a lot about a person by observing them. The simple truth is, most people are what they are -- and you can't change them -- you can't fix them. Pervasive characteristics -- those recurring patterns of thought and behavior that guide actions -- do matter. The litmus test of love is always about actions and behaviors -- not words! These are among the most important lessons of life.

We hope that you find your new love and that you find him or her soon. Having companionship is one of the most cherished gifts of life and love. Never forget these simple lessons for finding love

The 5 W's and an H of Life

When I was in grade 3, I learned a technique of journalistic writing using the 5W's + H. Asking "WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHY, WHEN and HOW" was a formula we used to map out all of the details to get a complete story. By asking each of those questions we were able to reveal the whole story without leaving a rock unturned. Little did I know at that time how effective this mind mapping tool would be in uncovering the whole truth of a person's life. By asking each of these questions, you could better create a clear vision for personal growth, goal setting and timed framed achievements. Let's take a look at how these questions can be applied to your life.

WHO?
At some point, I think everyone has asked themselves "WHO AM I?" How do you define an identity? What are the true elements that make a person genuinely unique? Although the factors could change from person to person, there are some things that apply to everyone like having values and/or morals. Below are a few questions you could ask yourself to help define your identity:

What values do you hold highest?
What would you like your legacy to be?
How do you want others to view you?
What do you feel is your life's purpose?

By looking internally and taking the time to come up with honest responses, you could better form your identity and start living your true authentic self, while being aligned with your life's purpose.

WHAT?
By having a solid understanding of what you want, you are able to set goals and take steps to create your IDEAL LIFE. When I was training to become a coach at the World Coach Institute, one of my instructors shared with the class one of the most profound questions that can be used to uncover any goal or personal destination you may have.

What is your ultimate goal?

By asking this question, you can dig deep and remove all of the superficial layers and get to the root of what is going to make you successful: THE DRIVE AND MOTIVATION OF ACHIEVING YOUR ULTIMATE GOAL!!! Sounds pretty good doesn't it? The first step of achievement would be assessing your daily, weekly, monthly tasks and ensure they are stepping stones to the ultimate goal. If you start to feel lost, ask yourself if what you are doing fits in with this wonderful ultimate goal. If it doesn't, you need to get back on track by whatever means necessary.

WHERE?
Have you ever sat and day dreamed about where you'd like to be 5, 10 15 or 20 years from now. What sort of life are you living? Who is with you? What is your living environment look like? Have you achieved all of your goals? Having the drive to dream about where we would like to be is certainly a strong force in achieving your ultimate goal.

When asking yourself where you'd like to be whether literally or figuratively, you need to focus on the positive and less on where you don't want to be. If you think about as though it has already happened, you are far more likely to attract those goals. If you focus on the positive, you will attract the positive but the same works with the negative. If you continually focus on where you don't want to be, you're far more likely to attract exactly what you don't want. One thing that is very important to establishing some direction in your life is by knowing when you have reached your destination.

WHY?
Why is it so important to achieve your goals? This may seem a bit obvious but honestly if you can't name a few reasons off the top of your head, your goals may not be powerful enough. The first step could be asking yourself why these goals are important to you. You need to give your goals conviction. If you don't, you are far less likely to achieve them. Setting goals gives you a long term vision and short term motivation. There is also a sense of pride when you have completed your goals. Here are some great questions you can ask to pave your way through goal setting.

What will I gain by achieving my goals?
What will I gain by not achieving my goals?
How will my life be better by achieving my goals?
How will I feel knowing what I've accomplished?
Does this help shape my legacy?

Remember that only you can answer these questions, but you may gain some clarity and a sense of urgency in accomplishing your goals when you fully understand why you are trying to achieve them.

WHEN?
There is a great tool that many coaches and other professionals use for goal setting. It is the acronym:

S pecific
M easureable
A ttainable
R ealistic
T ime Framed

I love this tool as a coach because it makes the process of setting goals much easier. For the purpose of this segment we will just focus on the Time Framed portion of SMART. Set a time limit on when you would like to achieve your goal. Without a time limit, there is no sense of urgency in achieving your goal. Having a time frame also allows you to measure your progress.

HOW?

So I guess this is the million dollar question. You have established yourself as a truly unique individual, have an understanding of what your ultimate goal(s) is, you know what you want your life to look like and where you'd like to be, you are clear why your goals are important to you and you've given yourself a time frame for completion. Now what? You need to create an action plan for making all of these things happen. Start living the way you want your life to be, embody your goals, stay true to your vision and write down the steps you are going to take in order to live your IDEAL LIFE daily. Ensure that every life decision you make is a significant piece of your life goal puzzle and that all of the pieces fit together. Have fun, embrace your passion and stay true to "WHO" you really are. Being honest with yourself will be your compass in whatever direction you want your life to lead.

Handling Loss - Five Steps to Help Yourself & Others - By Sharon L. Mikrut ***
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People often tell me that they don't know what to say when someone experiences a loss. I explain that often times the person experiencing the loss simply needs to talk. You don't need to say anything; just be there to listen and support the individual. However, most people are still uncomfortable with helping family members, friends, and colleagues cope with loss. This article provides information on understanding loss and tips to be in a better position to help yourself and others work through their own loss.

1. Recognize that we all experience loss and grief at some point in our lives.
You might have lost a child, parent, significant other, or pet; went through a divorce; suffered a serious illness, acquired a disability, or became an addict; been burglarized, assaulted, or raped; or suffered some other type of loss. Remember how that loss made you feel and how you wanted people to treat or respond to you as you worked through your loss. The memory of your experience, and what worked or didn't work for you, can aid you in helping others to work through their own loss.

2. Try not to compare your loss to another person's loss, as you don't know how it feels to be in their shoes.
Even though their loss may not seem as significant as the loss you have experienced, that doesn't make their loss any less in their eyes. They need to process their personal loss in a way that works best for them. It may not be the same process that you used or are using, so be careful to avoid comparisons and, hence, judgment.

3. Understand the different stages of loss or grief.
Helen Kubler Ross wrote a book titled "On Death and Dying." This book outlines five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. An individual who is dying or has experienced a significant loss is most likely to experience most, if not all, of these stages. Also, there is no set order in which people experience the different stages of grief. The important thing is to understand the emotions and behaviors associated with each stage, which are as follows:

a. Denial - this is when the person denies or rejects the actual loss. To provide an example of this stage and the following four stages, we will use an individual who has been diagnosed with a terminal cancer. In this stage, the individual may deny the seriousness of the situation. They might make statements, such as "It can't be that serious... I feel fine" or "I'm sure they made a mistake in the diagnosis." If someone is in denial, acknowledge that this is one of the stages of grief/loss. Allow the individual to work through that stage, unless they get stuck and intervention is needed.

b. Anger - this is when the person moves beyond denial and becomes angry with or at the loss. For example, the individual with terminal cancer may make statements, such as "Why is this happening to me?" or "This isn't fair!" Being angry at something in which you feel you have no control is common among people. People often need to vent to get it out of their system. Allow the individual sufficient time and space to vent and work through their anger.

c. Bargaining - this is when the person experiences a surge of hope and begins to make bargains. For example, the individual with cancer may make statements, such as "I will do anything to live a few more years" or "I will eat healthy meals and exercise daily, anything to stay alive!" We have all heard people make bargains when faced with a life-threatening situation; it is perfectly normal.

d. Depression - this is when the person is no longer in denial, has worked through their anger, and realizes the futility of bargaining. They sink into a depressed state, not wanting to be around family members or friends. This may be difficult for the individual's loved ones, but it is a stage that people need to go through.

e. Acceptance - this is when the person understands the seriousness of their situation and is prepared to accept it as best as they can. They may make statements, such as "Don't worry, it will be okay" or "I'm going to die so let me get my papers in order." There is not much you can say at this point. It is best to simply support the individual in whatever manner they need.

4. Even if you have not experienced the exact loss that someone is going through, you can still be there to listen to and support them.
They are not looking for advice; they are looking for a friend. As they speak, acknowledge their words and emotions by nodding your head and/or making an occasional comment, such as "I can't understand what you're going through, but it must be tough... " or "It's okay to get it all out; I'm here for you." People need to feel that they are being heard; it is the most important gift you can give them.

5. If an individual seems to be stuck in the grief cycle, you might suggest that they seek counseling or join a support group, where they can be with others who have experienced a similar loss.
You could also share literature or additional resources that might be helpful. Although they may not accept any of your suggestions, at least you have planted the seed for them to know where to go and who to talk to should they need additional support in the future. That may be the best you can do at that time.

Dealing with grief and loss can be tough but if you use your personal experience, avoid making comparisons as to when and how to deal with loss, understand and recognize the five stages of grief/loss, are able to support an individual without giving advice, and share resources with individuals who might need additional support, you will be in a better position to help yourself and others who are experiencing loss.

 

How to Find Time to Create Your Ideal Day - By Paula Eder ***
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Finding time doesn't need to be difficult. So, what does your ideal day look like? Would you recognize it if you stumbled upon it?

Sometimes we get so caught up in the busy-ness of our lives that we lose sight of what we most value and enjoy.

Productivity is important, but if we live too long without replenishing ourselves, we become less and less productive. Our energy flags and our creativity dries up. We are depleted and out of touch with the wellspring of our inspiration and vitality ... ourselves!

Your time management efforts don't always need to be about efficiency and productivity, per se. In fact, you get more bang for your buck when you focus some of your energy on simply connecting with yourself in a relaxing and rejuvenating way.

Got 15-minutes to spare? There are some excellent exercises that improve the quality of your life, and many are short and easy. Settle back, then. This is one of my favorites -- the "Finding Time for Your Ideal Day" visualization exercise.

Finding Time for Your Ideal Day

1. For a month, set aside 15-minutes a day. Select a time when you will be uninterrupted. If you can't find 15-minutes, you can divide this exercise into three 5-minute segments.

2. Settle down in a comfortable, quiet spot and just relax for the first 5-minutes. As you slow your breathing and focus inward, begin to imagine this time for yourself. Picture yourself waking up, stretching, and beginning your ideal day. Where are you? What are you doing? How are you feeling? The more vivid your images, the better. What sounds, tastes, smells, and sights come your way as your day unfolds before you. Most important, experience the pleasure of it all!

3. In the next 5-minutes, pick out portions of this ideal day when you are alone or perhaps enjoying time with your animal companion. Let these images flow and expand. What are you doing? Breathe into it. How do you feel? You are selecting this set of images because they are completely within your power to bring about. No one else needs to participate.

4. Identify a 5-minute slice of your ideal day that you can duplicate in real time ... today. Choose something that expands your repertoire of pleasure. It can be something that you've never done, or maybe something that you usually don't allow yourself to fully enjoy.

5. Now take the third 5-minute segment and fully experience the slice of your ideal day that you've chosen. Choose a time of day when it will be easiest for you to savor the experience.
Allow yourself to absorb the fullness of this activity (or lack of activity). Let yourself be totally in the moment.

Does this sound simple? It is ... AND it provides you with 5 profound benefits that you can carry with you, moment-to-moment, throughout your life:

1. You develop your power of visualization. Once you have it, you can call on this skill to reduce stress, enhance creativity and even promote healing in tiny slices of time.

2. You clarify your values about how you want to use your time. As you learn about what time choices fulfill you, you become an expert on your happiness.

3. You create a pattern that's easy to maintain. A month of practicing just 15-minutes a day establishes a new life pattern. What an easy way to add daily pleasure to your life!

4. You reinforce your proactive power to improve your life through your time choices. Nothing helps foster self-reference like experiencing simple pleasures you can provide to yourself.

5. You cultivate the gift of being in the moment. This focus stretches time and multiplies your capacity for enjoyment ... something you'll experience firsthand.

One last thought: Don't just read this exercise and set it aside. It's called an exercise for a reason: It works if you work it. Give it a try and begin to reap the benefits that your ideal day can give you ... in practically no time!

Learn more about the gifts of energy, time and meaning that Paula's unique, Heart-Based Time Management System offers. To begin your transformational journey sign up for her Finding Time Success Kit. Discover how you can find time for what matters most.

 

How to Overcome Regrets, Disappointments & Mistakes - By Liisa Kyle ***
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Are you being tormented by a regret, a missed opportunity, a perceived mistake, a disappointment, or past hurts? Maybe something awful was done to you or perhaps you did something horrible to someone else. By focusing on bad events in the past, you're only hurting yourself more. Feel that tightness in your neck and shoulders? Hear that nagging, negative voice in your head? Imagine the relief if that was gone. Imagine how much better you'd feel if you'd get over what happened and move on with your life. Here's how:

1. Name it.
What is it that's pulling you down? If there's more than one thing, make a list as fast as you can. Over what regrets, disappointments and perceived mistakes are you beating yourself up?

2. Dispute it.
Take some time to give a reality check to each item named in step #1. For example: "I blew my chance to sell my screenplay and now I never will. How could I have made such a stupid mistake!" might be more realistically stated as "I missed a great chance to sell my script but that wasn't the only possible opportunity to do so. If I took some specific actions now, I could create new, possibly better opportunities to sell by script. A well-written screenplay is always a hot commodity. It could be that I wasn't really ready before but now I'm much more confident and therefore in a much stronger position to sell my script. Besides, I've since revised the screenplay a few more times so I know it's considerably better than what I had to offer earlier."

3. Let go.
If you've been stuck on a past mistake, regret or disappointment: Discard it. Rip it up. Burn it. Forget it. If you find yourself thinking about it, stop. Reach for a better, kinder thought -- shift your attention elsewhere. If you have a little voice in your head that delights in scolding you, you may even have to say "stop it!" out loud. Stubborn negative thoughts may require you to wear an elastic around your wrist to snap whenever you return to dwell your ‘favorite mistake'. (It sounds stupid, I know, but it works).

More importantly: forgive yourself and anyone else involved. Where appropriate, make amends.
Even more importantly: make a plan of action that will give you peace. This might mean abandoning an earlier plan and trying something completely different...or you may devise a new path to accomplish the same end. Maybe you'll decide to pack it in as a screenwriter and try your hand at photography instead. Perhaps you'll launch a new effort to sell that script. The key is to take action to make you feel better. Keeping things the way they are, stewing over something you can't change, is not a healthy choice.

4. Act As If. (also known as Fake it Til You Make It)
Pretend as if this burden in your past never existed. Go on. Imagine if you never made that mistake, if that horrible thing had never happened, if you weren't feeling overwhelmed by this thing looming in your past. For a moment, close your eyes and pretend it never happened, it won't happen in the future and ALL IS WELL. Breathe. Declare this ‘Fresh Slate Day' -- pretend you are free.

Repeat Step #4 tomorrow and every other day until it becomes a new habit. It's normal to find yourself slipping back into ‘if only' thoughts occasionally. Now you can say "oh -- there's that unhelpful thought again", push it aside and resume taking actions that give you peace.

Activity: Select a regret, disappointment or mistake that's been bothering you. Name it. Dispute its importance. Let it go. Forgive yourself and others. Try acting as if it never happened.

*How to Be Bold *is a step-by-step guide that will teach you how to:

Turn fear into excitement
Go beyond your excuses, procrastination, and worries
Eliminate “I can’t, I won’t, or what if.”
Inspire you to be inventive and positive about your future

1. Fear is the worst kind of grave, because it buries one alive. ~ Beth Fantaskey

2. Fear can force obedience, but it can never transform a heart. ~ Stacey Jay

3. What you fear will not go away; it will take you into yourself and bless you and keep you. That’s the world, and we all live there. ~ William Stafford

4. Fear kills everything. Your mind, your heart, your imagination. ~ Cornelia Funke

5. Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so ‘safe,’ and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure. ~ Malcolm X

6. It’s better to die laughing than to live each moment in fear. ~Unknown

7. One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

8. Don’t be afraid of your fears. They’re not there to scare you. They’re there to let you know that something is worth it. ~ C. JoyBell C.

9.  Imagine not being frightened by any feeling. Imagine knowing that nothing will destroy you. That you are beyond any feeling, and state. Bigger than. Vaster than. That there is no reason to use drugs because anything a drug could do would pale in comparison to knowing who you are. ~ Geneen Roth

10. Find what you are afraid of, face it, and then you won’t be afraid of it anymore. ~ Marilyn Manson

 

11. I tend to scare myself. ~ Stephen King

12. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. ~ Soren Keiregaard

13. People are supposed to fear the unknown, but ignorance is bliss when knowledge is so damn frightening. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

14. I saw a little girl touch a big bug and shout, “I conquered my fear! YES!” and calmly walk away. I was inspired. ~ Nathan Fillion

15. All that ever holds somebody back, I think, is fear. For a minute I had fear. [Then] I went into the [dressing] room and shot my fear in the face… ~ Lady Gaga

16. There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life. ~ John Lennon

17. I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. ~ Frank Herbert

18. Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free. ~ Jim Morrison

19. Ones fear of rejection is ones fear of love. ~ Alexandria Honey

20. I’m intimidated by the fear of being average. ~ Taylor Swift

 

21. We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. ~ Plato

22. “What do you fear, lady?” [Aragorn] asked. “A cage,” [Éowyn] said. “To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

23. Love is like jumping out of an airplane with no parachute. But there’s no need to be frightened, because that plane is still on the ground. ~ Jarod Kintz

24. There are two kinds of fears: rational and irrational – or in simpler terms, fears that make sense and fears that don’t. ~ Lemony Snicket

25. Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire. ~ Dan Brown

26. A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

27. Without fear there cannot be courage. ~ Christopher Paolini

28. I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always … so you must fight hard to express it.

You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you. ~ Yann Martel

29. The light of a new day always chases the shadows of the night away, and shows us that the shape of our fear is only the ghost of our own minds. ~ Terry Goodkind

30. People are supposed to fear the unknown, but ignorance is bliss when knowledge is so damn frightening. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

 

31. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. ~ Frederick Buechner

32. Fear doesn’t shut you down; it wakes you up. ~ Veronica Roth

33. Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

34. Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter. ~ Francis Chan

35. Fear’s useless. Either something bad happens or it doesn’t: If it doesn’t, you’ve wasted time being afraid, and if it does, you’ve wasted time that you could have spent sharpening your weapons. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

36. Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. ~ Bertrand Russell

37. Fear isn’t so difficult to understand. After all, weren’t we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. ~ Alfred Hitchcock

38. The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. ~ Joseph Campbell

39. Fear is a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life. ~ Donald Miller

40. It’s all right to be afraid. You just don’t let it stop you from doing your job. ~ Jim Butcher

 

42. It frightens me, the awful truth, of how sweet life can be. ~ Bob Dylan

43. Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

44. Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power. ~ John Steinbec

45. A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more. ~ John Steinbeck

46. When we think we have been hurt by someone in the past, we build up defenses to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. So the fearful past causes a fearful future and the past and future become one. ~ Alfred Hitchcock

47. The baby bat
Screamed out in fright,
‘Turn on the dark,
I’m afraid of the light. ~ Shel Silverstein

48. I love you, I thought. But I didn’t say it. It was not that I feared she would laugh in my face. She was far too kind for that. My fear was a greater one – that she won’t say it back. ~ Alex Flinn

49. Your fear is 100% dependent on you for its survival. ~ Steve Maraboli

50. Deep in my heart I’m concealing things that I’m longing to say. Scared to confess what I’m feeling – frightened you’ll slip away. ~ Madonna

 

51. Only those who have never known fear are allowed to think less of others for being afraid. Frankly, I think anyone who has never been afraid of anything in their entire life is either a liar or lacks imagination. ~ Laurel K. Hamilton

52. When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears. ~ Anthony Robbins

53. There is no beauty in sadness. No honor in suffering. No growth in fear. No relief in hate. It’s just a waste of perfectly good happiness. ~ Katerina Stoykova Klemer

54. Courage is knowing what not to fear. ~ Plato

55. A further sign of health is that we don’t become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it’s time to stop struggling and look directly at what’s threatening us.~ Pema Chodron

56. We cannot love when we feel fear…When we release the fearful past and forgive everyone, we will experience total love and oneness with all. ~ Gerald Jampolsky

57. Life can take so many twists and turns. You can’t ever count yourself out. Even if you’re really afraid at some point, you can’t think that there’s no room for you to grow and do something good with your life. ~ Portia de Rossi

58. Never worry alone. When anxiety grabs my mind, it is self-perpetuating. Worrisome thoughts reproduce faster than rabbits, so one of the most powerful ways to stop the spiral of worry is simply to disclose my worry to a friend…The simple act of reassurance from another human being [becomes] a tool of the Spirit to cast out fear — because peace and fear are both contagious. ~ John Ortberg

59. I’m terrified of getting involved with someone who disappoints me or leaves me empty and alone. I’m terrified of rejection, so I set my expectations so high that they can never be met, and I dig around with a magnifying glass looking for flaws in very person I date. There’s always a flaw to exploit, and I’ll find it so I never have to get too close. ~ Rachel Machacek

60. If a fear cannot be articulated, it can’t be conquered. ~ Stephen King

 

61. The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

62. Laughter is poison to fear. ~ George R.R. Martin

63. Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. ~ Warren Buffet

64. Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted. ~ Jacqueline Carey

65. I don’t run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run towards it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your foot. ~ Nadia Comaneci

66. Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears. ~ Rudyard Kipling

67. Mastering others is strength. Mastering oneself makes you fearless. ~ Lao Tzu

68. When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. ~ Henry David Thoreau

69. When you teach them-teach them not to fear. Fear is good in small amounts, but when it is a constant, pounding companion, it cuts away at who you are and makes it hard to do what you know is right. ~ Christopher Paolini

70. We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate. ~ Erica Jong

 

71. Fear sucks. Because you never know when it will attack. Sometimes it sneaks up behind you, giggling like your best girlfriend from seventh grade. Then it whacks you on the back of the head, takes you straight to your knees before you realize what hit you. Other times you can see it coming, just a dot on the horizon, but you’re like a canary in a cage. ~ Unknown

72. All you can do is hang in there and hope you don’t get motion sickness and puke all over the newspapers. ~ Jennifer Rardin

73. My life was going to flash before my eyes, but it decided to hide behind my eyes and quake with terror instead. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

74. The fear of an unknown never resolves, because the unknown expands infinitely outward, leaving you to cling pitifully to any small shelter of the known: a cracker has twelve calories; the skin, when cut, bleeds. ~ Caroline Kettlewell

75. We fear what we most desire. ~ Harley King

76. You shouldn’t feel so bad about being afraid of so many things.” “Why not?” “Because if you weren’t afraid never ever, then you couldn’t be brave never ever.” ~ C. JoyBell C.

77. If you have no faith in yourself, then have faith in the things you call truth. You know what must be done. You may not have courage or trust or understanding or the will to do it, but you know what must be done. You can’t turn back. There is no answer behind you. You fear what you cannot name. So look at it and find a name for it. Turn your face forward and learn. Do what must be done. ~ Patricia A. McKillip

78. When you do what you fear most, then you can do anything. ~ Stephen Richards

79. The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream.The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg;and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs.Dreams are the seedlings of realities. ~ James Allen

80. Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

81. But fear doesn’t need doors and windows. It works from the inside. ~ Andrew Clements

83. I believe there are three tenants to live by in this apartment called Life: Love is empowering, Fear is motivating, and Passion is fruit. ~ Jarod Kintz

83. Courage is fear that has said its prayers. ~ Dorothy Bernard

84. Fear is the thief of dreams. ~ Brian Krans

85. Your fear remains strong. You are not ready to face your story, preferring instead to surround yourself with knots. Someday, they will strangle you. ~ Maria V. Snyde

86. It is a true saying, that what you fear you find. ~ Jeanette Winterson

87. If you are facing a new challenge or being asked to do something that you have never done before don’t be afraid to step out. You have more capability than you think you do but you will never see it unless you place a demand on yourself for more. ~ Joyce Meyer

88. It’s okay to be crazy and scared and brave at the same time! ~ Kelly Epperson

89. But fear is confusing. It tears you in two. Half of you wants to run far, far away, but the other half is paralyzed, frozen, immovable. And the hard part is that you never know which half is going to win. ~ Melody Carlson

 

90. Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it. ~ Neil Gaiman

91. As Grams treaded water, she tapped my forehead. ‘What’s in here, Poppy, is scarier than anything you’ll encounter in the depths of the ocean. An imagination is a powerful thing. ~ Shelley Coriell

92. What is fear after all? It is indecision. You seek some way to resist, escape. There is none. ~ Anne Rice

93. I am convinced that the deepest desire within each of us is to be liberated from the controlling influences of our own psychic madness or patterns of fear. All other things-the disdain of ordinary life, the need to control others rather than be controlled, the craving for material goods as a means of security and protection against the winds of chaos-are external props that serve as substitutes for the real battle, which is the one waged within the individual soul. ~ Caroline Myss

94. If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living. ~ Seneca

95. So now I know. I fear the unknown so deeply that I’d rather repeat the same heart-breaking pattern than face something or someone I can’t predict. ~ Valerie Frankel

96. But that inadequacy, or feeling of inadequacy, never really goes away. You just have to trudge ahead in the rain, regardless. ~ Lorrie Moore

97. Devour your fear. ~ Simon Holt

98. What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It’s just a different wolf. This fright complex is rooted in every individual. ~ Alfred Hitchcock

99. Our tongues can’t compete with the rapid thinking of our brains, our words come out slow and slurred. The pen is our haven. There is a lot of fear buried into that little pen. It holds all of our agony, our torment, our blood and our heaven. ~ Coco J. Ginger

100. Most of us try to do too much because we are secretly afraid we will not be able to do anything at all. ~ Rick Aster

101. Of all the questions I have asked my readers this is the most important: What would you do if you weren’t afraid? When you finally give wings to that answer then you have found your life’s purpose. ~ Shannon L. Alder

Have you ever felt like fear was preventing you from reaching your full potential in life? If so, you are certainly not alone because fear is one of the biggest obstacles that many people face when trying to create better life circumstances.

Below are some of the most common ways that fear can hold you back:

Fear can prevent you from making positive changes.

Sometimes fear can make even the smallest changes seem extremely uncomfortable. For example, you may be deeply dissatisfied with your job, but feel nervous or uncertain about finding and applying for a better one. Or you may have always dreamed of buying your own home but worry that the responsibility would be too much to handle.

Fear can prevent you from breaking destructive habits.

We all know that smoking, poor dietary choices, excessive alcohol and a sedentary lifestyle are a recipe for health problems, but we often gravitate toward these habits because they help numb our anxious or fearful feelings. If you have ever tried to break a bad habit like this, you know how stressful it can be because suddenly you are filled with anxiety and you don’t know how to handle it except to run back to your “pacifiers” – the very habits you are trying to break.

Fear can prevent you from taking risks.

Many of us shy away from risk because we fear negative consequences. For example, you may hesitate to invest your money because you fear losing it, or avoid starting a new relationship because you were so hurt by the last one. What most of us fail to realize is that risk can also bring great rewards. Avoiding risk may help us avoid negative possibilities but we also miss the excitement and joy that come from positive outcomes.

Fear can prevent you from pursuing your goals.

Have you ever dreamed of doing something great but were never able to push yourself to do it? Perhaps you dreamed of being a stand-up comedian but dreaded the thought of public speaking, or you desperately wanted to be a bestselling author but were too afraid to pen that novel lurking inside of you.

Fear can prevent you from expanding your life.

Social anxiety is another common way that fear can limit your potential. It may prevent you from attending networking functions so your career or business can’t grow properly, or you may avoid taking that much needed vacation to relax and explore other cultures because you fear flying or being on a cruise ship.

How to Stop Fear from Limiting Your Potential

It’s important to note that all of these fears are most often groundless. They are merely a perception that things “could” go wrong – but that doesn’t mean they will.

Rather than trying to force your way through the fear, you may find it easier to explore the many ways that fear can be effectively released from your mind, emotions, and body.

 

How To SUCCEED and SMASH Through Your Goals . . .

Simon here with some more awesome content for you, I really hope this helps you focus and smash through your goals and live a exciting, INCREDIBLE lifestyle!

How to Create Effective Goals

We all have things we want to accomplish in life and, for the most part, we do our best to achieve those goals. Sometimes, however, we manage to set goals that aren't effective or achievable and this can cause us a great deal of strife.

How do you know if your goals are effective and achievable?

The first thing to do is jot down the resources you'll need to attain your goal, both physical resources and mental ones. If there's something you need to complete before you can make your goal a reality, prioritize the steps you must take to complete that task first.

Once your resources are in place, you've opened up the highway for achievement. Let's see how to enter the on-ramp so you can be on your way!

Here are some strategies you can use to create effective goals you can achieve:

1. Make sure your goal is specific. Set a measurable goal so you can reach it and succeed. Determine exact numbers and dates of whatever it is you want to accomplish.

* Saying your goal is to be a faster runner or a better cook doesn't work since there is no specific end target. You won't be able to judge if you've ever reached that goal because, no matter what, there's always room to be better at something.

* On the other hand, saying your goal is to "increase your running speed by shaving 10 seconds off the time it takes you to run your course" is specific and you can tell when you've reached it.

2. Your goal must also be attainable and realistic. You wouldn't set your goal to lose 30 pounds in the next 5 days, because it's just not realistic. Setting a goal to lose 30 pounds over the next
10-12 weeks is a real and attainable goal.

* Unattainable goals are counterproductive. Not only can you never complete an unattainable goal, but it can also prevent you from even trying. By setting a goal you cannot possibly meet, you're setting yourself up for failure.

3. Give yourself a time limit for your goal. Setting a deadline makes the goal a priority, keeps it in your mind, and makes it easier to achieve. If you know you only have a specific time in which to achieve something, you tend to focus more time and energy on that task.

* If you have a big goal, then divide it into smaller goals, or steps. Smaller goals keep you focused on attaining the bigger goal as long as they're related to each other.

* For example, if your goal is to be promoted in six months, then establishing six one-month goals designed to improve your work performance will contribute to the overall goal.

4. Write down your goals. Most people have more than one goal at a time. You can set goals in many different areas: family, work, health, education, hobbies, or any part of your life in which you'd like to make changes.

The question is how to handle all these goals at the same time. Writing down each goal can help you organize them and better motivate you to work toward achieving them.

* Once you have them written down, you may see ways they connect to each other and can devise ways to work on them at the same time.

* For example, let's say one goal you have is to get a job making more money and another is to continue your education. Once you complete your education you should be able to land a better job. See how one goal feeds another?

* Perhaps one goal is to spend more time with your family and another one is to workout. Well, if you exercised as a family once or twice a week, you'd accomplish both goals at the same time.

Using these goal-setting tips will make your goals more effective and achievable. Once you've created your objectives, make a plan of action steps and stick with it. In time, you'll achieve these goals and you will have a system in place for any endeavor!

 

How to Handle Anger - By Annette Colby ***
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Anger is an emotion that can be difficult to deal with. Sometimes it's experienced as a fleeting annoyance while other times it consumes our bodies with a burning rage. Anger is a natural human emotion, and it happens to everybody, whether we openly express it or not. The problem is not that we have anger. How we process anger determines whether it becomes a tool for self healing or a weapon of destruction.

Anger is a wave of energy. It is not who we are (as in "I am an angry person"). Instead it is an emotion that is visiting for a short while -- unless we decide to hold onto it. If anger is acknowledged and released in healthy ways, it can lead to deeper feelings of love. If anger is welcomed as it occurs and seen for what it really is, it will pass. However, not dealing directly with anger can lead to subtle forms of anger that can last for days or even years. These subtle forms of anger may include resentment, impatience, chronic irritability, withdrawal, isolation, etc. Consistent prolonged levels of anger can affect health producing migraines, arthritis, and head, neck and shoulder problems. As with any suppressed emotion, unresolved anger can lead to self-soothing with comfort eating or other addictions.

One of the reasons anger can be so enigmatic is that many of us were not given permission to express this emotion while growing up. We were often told to go to our room or calm down. Some of us were taught to "stuff" emotions, especially anger. Children often learn that the negative feelings aren't real or shouldn't be displayed. We are conditioned to pretend to be happy, nothing is wrong, smile pleasantly, be nice, and keep emotions hidden. Or we witnessed unacceptable, harmful expressions of anger and decided for ourselves that this is not how we would live our lives. The result is we grow up without knowledge or experience of how to cope with anger in healthy ways.

Not So Healthy Things to Do with Your Anger:
____ over eat / binge / bulimia / anorexia
____ compulsive exercise or pushing your body to fatigue
____ drinking and drugging
____ cutting or self-mutilation
____ sexual escape
____ withdrawal into silence or silent treatment
____ calm on the outside, steaming inside
____ ignore or deny the problem
____ avoid confrontation
____ abusive shouting/lashing out at others with angry or hateful words
____ physical aggression, throwing things at another person
____ internalize anger and frustration
____ dwell on intrusive negative thoughts
____ hypercritical self-thoughts
____seek revenge of punishment on another
____ dwell on how bad you have it

Personalize Anger:
One method to deal with anger is to personalize it into a separate being. This allows you to see the energy of anger as separate from who you are. The following is a guideline for working with anger. The steps work best if done out loud because this brings out the internal dialogue of the mind so you can become conscious of what is really going on for you beneath the anger.

1. Breathe deeply, from your diaphragm; breathing from your chest won't allow connection with your feeling, and won't allow movement to occur. Acknowledge that you have anger and take some time to feel it within your body. Decide not to run away from it. Thank the anger for being present. Allow for the ideas that even if you don't understand your anger completely, somehow you felt threatened. Your anger is attempting to fight for you. Gratitude will melt resistance you have towards your own anger.

2. Give anger your unconditional acceptance. Commit to yourself that you will not judge, ignore, shame, reject, criticize, or punish yourself for having anger. It is allowable for you to have anger. Your experience is meaningful.

3. Share your desire to get to know your anger, why it is here, and what it wants for you. Anger is not your enemy. Anger indicates you are in pain, hurt, or fear. It's very presence allows an opportunity to heal or open the doorway to greater love. Express your desire to know what experiences might be connected with this anger. Communicate with your anger in a way that you allow yourself to be its friend, and that your desire is to have it express itself to you.

4. Allow your anger, words, or memories to have a safe space to come out. As you listen to your anger, go beyond the surface and ask what you are feeling threatened by. Ask what you would need from yourself to feel even a little better. Notice the energy in your body, breathe into that energy, and allow it to expand until you feel a physical shift. Continue to remember anger is an experience, not who you are.

5. Recognize that beneath your anger, you felt threatened in some manner. Listen and be willing to understand what lives inside of you. Offer love to your anger and the tender place beneath your anger. This is the process of transformation. You don't need to solve anything, rather you need to bring a loving presence to the hurt that lives beneath anger. Your job is to realize exactly what caused you to feel threatened, and now allow for new assertive, loving, and adult ways of dealing with that threat.

I hope these tips help you to better handle your anger so that it does not control you, but you control it instead.

Top 10 Keys to Self Help Success - By Joey Poltor ***
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So I said to myself, I want to create something with such paramount value that people love me, my wife and my company. Here it is:

How many people in the world do you think are just 'content' in their lives? Most people, for lack of statistics, are NOT happy in their lives. They take pills for anxiety, depression, they overeat, they buy SELF HELP books and don't even open them because they are that far gone!!! Can you believe that? Better question, did I just describe you?

Anyway, I wanted to compile a list of competencies, attributes, qualities, whatever you want to call them that provide results. I can imagine that you are reading this post because you want information on the keys to self help success, right?

The information that I am going to give you is EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO MAKE THIS LASTING CHANGE NOW!

1. Self Awareness
So many people do things daily that sabotage not only their relationships but also their bodies, the mental capacity, their lives in general. They are also wasting their time which is an asset that we all share the same amount of. It does not matter if you sleep live in a tent or a penthouse in Manhattan, we all share the same amount of time. So PLEASE stop wasting it!

2. Focus
This piggybacks self awareness and goes much further down the rabbit hole. What have you focused on today? Have YOU been positive all day? It has been proven that negative thoughts attract negative patterns and through quantum mechanics, we know that thoughts have actual weight and existence. You realize that EVERYTHING is made of ENERGY right? So if EVERYTHING is made of ENERGY and quantum theory posits the like molecules attract the like then YOUR NEGATIVE THOUGHTS ARE KEEPING YOU DOWN! Let's look at it from a different perspective though. At home, we have a Vision Wall which is where our goals are, where are desires, our outcomes, our plans are so that we can keep them in mind all the time. If I am constantly thinking about something, then every opportunity that arises to get me closer to that something, I am able to capitalize on, right?

3. Support System
I hope you are still with me! GET RID OF ANYONE OR ANYTHING THAT IS UNSUPPORTIVE OF YOUR DREAMS. Period. that's it! Life is too short and the world is TOO BIG to be held down any longer! When YOU get your SPOUSE on board, YOU will have the GREATEST MASTERMIND EVER CREATED! You are unstoppable with the support of the one you love! Sit down, have a real conversation and get your spouse on board; you will be so powerful with this tool!

4. Confidence
You don't have to be confident in the how just yet, you have to be confident in yourself! You WILL face TEMPORARY defeat in pursuit of SUCCESS! I guarantee it! You have to be confident in your own ability to complete, to succeed, to win. With This unwavering confidence you will stand taller and make the right decisions faster.

5. Decision Making
The greatest entrepreneurs of all time have all had the ability to look at the facts, consider their resources and make a prompt decision on a situation. Napoleon Hill states that the wealthiest of men make decisions promptly and change them slowly while the poor are indecisive if ever coming to a conclusion. By making prompt decisions, you become the leader of the pack while Mr. Indecisive is always coming up the rear.

6. Imagination
There would be no lights, no cars, no department stores, no Mickey D's (maybe a good thing, lol) or anything else without the great imaginations of the pasts GREATEST entrepreneurs! You should be taking time every day to imagine your success, make it real in your mind, and it will become real in the world. Your imagination is one of your greatest gifts and is completely unique to you! Use it, OFTEN!

7. Try
This should be highlighted. How many times have you said you wanted to do something and didn't? Go ahead, answer, I will wait. Do something right now toward achieving the success you want. Right this second. If you say later, you will always say later, do something right now. Another thing about trying. The TIMING IS NEVER RIGHT. Also, just TRY, instead of figuring out REASONS WHY NOT TO TRY! Write something right now! Do something! Do something amazing! BE PROUD FOR ONCE, come on!

8. Fortitude
The last three I call The F.I.T. Acronym and have been using them for years. Take a look at our online library for scholarly articles I have written on the F.I.T Acronym! Do You know what FORTITUDE is? Fortitude is not just persistence, fortitude is persistence on steroids mixed in with imagination, love, and a couple other motivators. The mother that saves the baby by lifting a car has fortitude! Edison who fails 10,000 times before getting the light bulb right has fortitude. When you believe in yourself against the odds, and keep moving forward, YOU have fortitude.

9. Integrity
Ripping people off will only get you very short term success. If you are trying to get ahead by taking advantage of people, please quit reading and leave this page. We believe firmly in abundance over scarcity. There is too much money in the world to fight over a small bit. The people who cheat and dig their hands in the little pot and hold on for dear life will starve when the pot is empty. The rest of us will be eating from the buffet in the other room. Have integrity, work from the mentality of their being plenty for all that want it. An old adage goes, don't trip over a dollar to pick up a penny.

10. Temperance
Use your emotions appropriately. Anger does not make you more productive. Transmute that energy into productivity. If you are going to get mad, get mad at yourself for getting into the situation that you are angry about. Learn from it. Do not lose control of your emotions.

Well, that's it! The top 10 keys to success in self help! How did you like it? I can guarantee that information will help the few individuals that will implement it. Are you one of the implementers? Have you TRIED something yet?