You see, you're giving others too much power as you even acknowledge how they make you feel. What you've got to decide is how I'm going to feel. We would go to a Virtual Reality and we would practice feeling good. Manifestations come on the heels of what you've conjured in thought

--- Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in North Los Angeles, CA on Saturday, March 2nd, 2002 #265

Are you looking for the secret to success?   Here is an excerpt of an article on www.psychologytoday.com.   It is a very simple model for success in coping with any challenging situation.

"With goal setting the recruits were taught to set goals in extremely short chunks. For instance, one former Navy Seal discussed how he set goals such as making it to lunch, then dinner. With mental rehearsal they were taught to visualize themselves succeeding in their activities and going through the motions. As far as self talk is concerned, the experts in The Brain documentary made the claim that we say 300 to 1000 words to ourselves a minute. By instructing the recruits to speak positively to themselves they could learn how to "override fears" resulting from the amygdala, a primal part of the brain that helps us deal with anxiety. And finally, with arousal control the recruits were taught how to breathe to help mitigate the crippling emotions and fears that some of their tasks encouraged." (How Navy Seals Increased Passing Rates, Bakari, Akil, II, PhD, Nov. 9, 2009, Psychology Today.)

By using this simple process, the Navy Seals increased their passing rates from 25% to 33%! Add the dynamics of life recovery coaching - encouragement, validation, acknowledgment, accountability, & energy processes and you're sure to succeed!
 
The other day a young woman called complaining of feeling stressed-out.  After she explained the situations she thought were stressing her, we explored which of those situations really effected her. (They were obviously effecting her mental and emotional states.)  It turned out there was only one change to which she had to respond. 

When asked what she wanted, she said she just wanted to feel calmer, not so anxious.  We started to look at what was next (setting small achievable goals).  The next thing to do was drive home.  I asked if that was achievable.  The answer was “yes”.  What was next?  Eat a snack.  What will you eat?  An apple.  Can you see yourself going to the refrigerator, reaching in for an apple, and eating it?  Yes.  Is that achievable?  Yes.  Within moments the young woman was feeling calmer by setting simple goals that were easily achievable.

• How have you felt overwhelmed by looking to far into the future?
• How can you set achievable goals?
• What’s next?
• Is it achievable?

Photo by LarryZou@ on Flickr.com.

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Last night I had an interesting conversation with a woman in Seattle.  When she learned what I do and that I live in Ohio, she said, "I wish you weren't so far away!"

"It is done by phone,"  I replied.

"How can that work?!" 


The human voice is a powerful tool. We can cut someone to shreds emotionally or we can soothe and heal with our tone of voice.  I've been blessed with a voice that has been called hypnotic.  You wouldn't believe how many women I have talked out of hysteria into a calmer, more peaceful place.  


Intuition and empathy are not constrained by time and space. I can "feel" a client's energy through the phone, in person, and sometimes from a photo, it's almost as if there is an instant download to me of what's going on with that person.  From there, very little of what is said or what happens in the session has to do with me.  Sometimes words come out of my mouth and I thought, "where did that come from?"  

Logistically you will have a scheduled appointment once a week for phone call just like you would if we were meeting in person.  The call ranges from 50 - 60 minutes.  That may sound like a long time to be on the telephone but you would be surprised how quickly the time goes.  You're also welcome to call at other times when you urgently need support and encouragement.  You'll receive a secure personal web page with videos, quotes, music, tools or other resources to help you toward your goals.

Still don't believe coaching by phone is effective?  Email me at pixie@enigmawellness.com or call 614-920-4909 to experience it yourself.

Photo by Darwin Bell on Flickr.com.

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A happy life is just a string of happy moments. But most people don't allow the happy moment, because they're so busy trying to get a happy life.

--- Abraham

When I was small, one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books was, Are You My Mother?  It's the tale of a baby bird who falls out of a tree.   In his adventure in trying to find his mother, he runs into a variety of characters, asking each character, "Are you my mother?"

Very often adopted children feel the same way that little bird did.  They long for a sense of connection that comes with biology.  There's something comforting about seeing a face similar to yours.  We all search for a sense of belonging.

I was adopted when I was nine months old and flown from south Korea to America to be raised by Caucasian parents who were old enough to be my grandparents.  I grew up surrounded by fair skinned, round eyed people who looked nothing like me; a fact that my classmates made painfully apparent to me when I went to school.

As an adult, I would sit in airports and watch families greet each other.  I would search the faces of other Asians looking for some connection, some familial feature that was similar to mine.  Who was my mother?  What did she look like?  Where was she now?  Those questions couldn't be answered.  There were no birth records in post-war South Korea.  I was literally abandoned as an infant on the steps of a municipal building in Seoul.

Then one day I walked into the middle of a conversation between two women in the break room of the law firm where I worked. 

"The older I get the more I look like my mother,"  one woman said.

"Tell me about it! The other woman replied. "I look at my hands and they look just like my mother's hands!" 

I smiled at them not relating to anything they were saying, dumped my coffee into the sink, and continued on to the bathroom.  As I was leaving the bathroom, I paused to check my face and hair in the mirror.  The face in the mirror looked back at me.  It was the face of my mother.

 

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There's a certain smell to the Pacific Northwest that's totally different than Ohio.  It's the scent of pine, rotting leaves, ferns, and wet forest floor. 

This morning I struck out on my own to explore a nearby hiking path.  I started up the path with iPhone earbuds in my ears listening to Viktor Frankl's, Man Search for Meaning, until I realized what I was doing.

I was walking through one of the most beautiful forests in Washington State with my mind somewhere else!

The earbuds came out of my ears.  The iPhone was zipped safely in my pocket.  For a moment I stood in the forest listening, being present to the smell, the feel, and the sight of where my feet were; the beauty of the moment.

The rest of the hike was spent in silence in walking meditation.  If thoughts threatened to invade my mind, relentless worms, I focused on the next foot step or my breathing or counting.  There was no fleeting happiness; only a deep unshakeable peace.

How could you find peace today?  Where and when could you turn off the noise around you and within you?

Have you ever had your heart set on something and at the last minute it didn't manifest?  Usually when that happens all the feelings of hopelessness and disappointment flood into our being.  We feel let down.  It's only natural.  It's how long we stay in those feelings that determine whether the experience will be the gravity that brings us down or the springboard for new spiritual growth.  How can we ensure the experience will kick us up and not down?

By changing our perspective.

When we become connected to the larger good in the Universe and live our lives by Universal Law, we develop faith.  Disappointment loses its power over us because we can trust that whatever is happening is for our best and highest good.  We cannot reach this level of faith and trust; however, by judging and criticizing others involved.  That only brings us down further.  It's is totally letting go of our expectations and falling into the open arms of the Universe that we can turn disappointment into growth.

Recently, I thought I was going to another city to do a group coaching session.  The person who was coordinating the event called a week before the date to cancel it.  The disappointment I felt was unbelievable.  After hanging up the telephone, it took me a few hours to turn around my perspective.  It took a lot of self talk about how it wasn't meant to be.  I was being saved from something and that something in my better interest would come along.  And maybe it wasn't even about me. Maybe I was supposed to go somewhere else, do something else, and be with someone else.  All that self-talk didn't immediately change my feelings but it was a step in the right direction.

I chose not to go to that city at all which disappointed someone else.  Instead I flew to Seattle to visit friends.

Yesterday I boarded a plane to Seattle.  The first flight of the journey from Columbus to Dallas was delayed by storms for over an hour.  While sitting in the waiting area, a woman and man began discussing the delayed flight.  The woman turned to me inviting me to commiserate with them. 

I denied the invitation and said, " I would rather be delayed and have a safe flight." 

The man continued to talk about the storm system and that "they" could fly around it; that it was moving north so the flight wouldn't be through the storms.  He had been watching the radar.

"I trust they are the experts and know more about the weather than I do,"  I said.  He didn't talk to me anymore.

The woman mentioned she couldn't decide whether to wait at the airport or stay another night in Columbus.  I suggested she think about it and do whatever felt best.  Within moments that woman and I were in a conversation that lasted over an hour. 

Silently I thought, "Maybe it's not even about my disappointment, the canceled workshop, or my Chicago friend's disappointment.  Maybe everything changed so I could be right here, right now for this woman."

Later while on board the plane, I learned a new phrase - bumpy clouds - a kind term for turbulence.  Sitting next to me was a young woman and her mother.  The young woman clutched her mother's hand in fear during the bumpy ride.  After the flight smoothed out the young woman asked the flight attendant if she had experienced a lot of turbulence during flights.

The flight attendant responded, "I look it as an amusement park ride.  Amusement park rides are ten times more bumpy than what we just experienced."  Then gently the fight attendant said gently, "It's not our time; not our day."

For whatever reason I did not go to that other city, I did not conduct a workshop, I was disappointed, and I disappointed someone else.  Yet because of all those "disappointments", I was in the right place at the right time to help someone in the airport waiting area and I witnessed the simple miracle of profound kindness.  More will be revealed.

How can you change your mind about a disappointing experience to use it for your personal growth?  How can you keep your eyes open to the lessons and miracles that will come as a result of your not getting what you want?

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Make the best of it. When you make the best of whatever you're focused upon, your future will be better than your now. If each moment you're making the best of what-is, no matter what it is, you make the best of it; make the best of it; make the best of it—your future just gets better and better and better, and better.

--- Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in Boulder, CO on Saturday, June 7th, 2003 #236

Are you a victim of obsessive thinking after the break-up of a relationship?  Recovery is on its way because the first step is the desire to be free!

Obsessive thinking is repeatedly falling into a pattern of thought that creates feelings of anxiety, depression and despair.  It would be great if the obsessive thoughts were positive and life affirming but usually they're not, particularly after the break-up of a relationship.  What causes it?  What can you do about it?

Science suggests a couple of reasons for obsessive thinking:  1)  seratonin levels as a possible cause for obsessive compulsive disorder; and 2) the Hebbian theory - neurons that fire together wire together.  Neuronets of thought form in the brain and thoughts will take the path of list resistance - the rut of obsessive thinking. 

I think also that we can become dependent on stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine that are released with negative thoughts.  It's like being addicted to our bodies' own internal drug store.  

The best way to describe obsessive thinking is like an addiction.  You have a thought, the thought takes a thought, and before you know it you're emotionally intoxicated.  Some times the slightest reminder of the relationship can trigger the phenomenon of craving for the other person much like an alcoholic's craving for alcohol.  As much as you want to feel better, the craving wins and you start obsessively thinking again.  You feel powerless to stop them.


The first three method below are adapted from 12 Step recovery programs.

• Admit your powerlessness over the other person, the relationship, obsessive thinking and that your obsession is hurting your life.
• Ask to be restore to sanity.  It doesn't matter if you believe in God, g.o.d - good orderly direction, Source Energy, or the Higgs Boson.  It's the connection that comes with asking that's important.
• Turn over your will for your life, the other person, and the relationship to that same Higher Power.*
• Find a support person or group who has the solution.
• Cognitive therapy exercises to get your mind in the present moment. i.e., "There's a blue car in front of me.  A road sign that says 35 mph.  A green tree . . . ."
• EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique, an energy psychology method that releases negative emotion that's stored in the body's energy system.

I like to laugh now and say, "If it's not worth obsessing about, it's not worth thinking about!"  That's years after practicing all of the solutions outlined above and finally finding some relief from my own obsessive thinking.

The break-up of a seven year relationship caused me to be in the deepest pain that I had ever felt.  Every day was filled with wasted hours of reliving past events with my partner, fearing future events, having conversations with him in my mind - I was miserable!  After practicing the first five methods* outlined above a break came.

It was summer time.  I had just parked my car and was walking down the sidewalk.  I was wearing a black and white sheath dress from The Limited.  The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and my mind was clear, free from obsession.  At that moment I thought, "Is this all I get?  He gets to have a new girlfriend, a . . . . "  That thought took a thought and my thinking was once again obsessed with him.  The emotional pain returned immediately.  That brief moment of freedom was serenity but it was so foreign to me that once again I defaulted to pain.  Who would think that peace of mind could feel so boring?

Through the years I've created a number of relationships or situations about which to obsess; however, I now have the tools to return cope and restore my peace of mind.


You can’t not think.  See, Don't Think About the Problem.  What you can do is turn your thoughts to something that feels better.  That simple action begins breaking the neuronet of obsessive thinking about the relationship and can build new networks of thought.  Where can you turn you attention that feels better?  A funny movie?  Happy music?  Gardening? Taking a walk in the sunshine?  Dinner with friends?  Exercise?  Taking a class?  What other methods do you use to break the cycle of obsessive thinking?

What other methods do you use to break the cycle of obsessive thinking?

* EFT was added to my repertoire of tools two or three years ago.

More Resources

Photo by lorda on flickr.com
 

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THIS WORKSHOP HAS BEEN CANCELED.

I'm so excited to be introducing a new workshop for women called Money, Men & Madness, How to Recover Your Personal Power during Times of Change or Crisis! at Panera Bread, 1211 Half Day Rd., Brannockburn, Illinois on Oct. 29, 2009, 7:00-9:00 p.m.

Register online.  The first 5 people to sign-up, you'll receive a beautiful Enigma Wellness, Life Recovery Journal.  All registrants will be entered in a drawing for a Gift Basket valued at over $100.00.

In a 2 hour intensive, group coaching session, we're going to talk about what's keeping you up at night and what to do about it.  You'll discover where you give your power away to other people, places & things and how to stop it.  Find out how to tap into the hidden resources that we all have within us to use those moments when you've been laid out by life as a springboard for your personal growth.  Stop those racing thoughts in your head, conversations with people not with you, and start focusing your energy toward your goals, dreams, and desires.

Who should attend?

• Women who want to change.
• Women who are awakening.
• Women who are overwhelmed.
• Women who want more out of life.
• Women who are HUNGRY FOR GROWTH.

Is that you or someone you know?  Bring a girlfriend and receive a discount.  Seating is limited so register online now.
 

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